Almond(21)

“Shut up, son of a bitch. I don’t have a father.”

“You can’t change the fact that he’s your father.”

“You want more trouble? I said, shut the fuck up.” Gon snatched the pepper shaker. He gripped it so tightly that his fingertips turned white.

“Why, you want to go another round?” I asked.

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

“No, I just wanted to ask. Let me know so I can prepare.”

Gon seemed to give in, pulling his glass of Coke closer to him. He blew more bubbles into his Coke. I copied him, blowing bubbles into mine. Gon took a bite of pizza, chewed it four times, and swallowed. Then he let out a short, raspy cough. I copied that, too. Chewing on pizza four times, and a cough.

Gon glared at me. He finally noticed me copying him.

“Asshole,” he muttered.

“Asshole,” I followed.

Gon twitched his lips left and right and saw me do the same. He made a weird face and spat out words like “pizza,” “poop,” “toilet,” “go to hell.” I followed him exactly like a clown or parrot. I even matched the number of breaths he took.

As our weird mirror play went on, Gon seemed to be worn out. He stopped laughing, and it took longer for him to come up with difficult expressions or motions. I didn’t care and kept copying him, down to the pfpfpf sound he made and his subtle eyebrow twitches. My steadfast mimicking seemed to get in the way of his “creative” ideas.

“That’s enough.”

But I didn’t stop. I repeated after him, “That’s enough.”

“I said, quit it, you asshole.”

“I said, quit it, you asshole.”

“You think this is funny, bitch?”

“You think this is funny, bitch?”

Gon stopped and started drumming his fingers on the table. When I followed suit, he stopped immediately. Silence, followed by a scowl. Ten. Twenty seconds. A minute. Then he straightened up, and I did too.

“You know what . . .”

“You know what . . .”

“Would you still copy me if I flipped the table and threw all the plates?”

“Would you still copy me if I flipped the table and threw all the plates?”

“I said, would you still copy me if I took a broken plate and stabbed everyone here to death, you motherfucker.”

“I said, would you still copy me if I took a broken plate and stabbed everyone here to death, you motherfucker.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s get this straight. You started this.”

“Let’s get this straight. You started this.”

“If you stop midway, you’re a piece of shit, you hear me?”

“If you stop midway, you’re a piece of—” But before I could finish the sentence, he swept all the food off the table. He yelled at the crowd, pounding on the table.

“What are you lookin’ at, you crazy bitches. Enjoying the meal, are you? Stuff your faces, dipshits!”

He hurled the pizza and all the sauce bottles he could get his hands on in every direction. The pizza landed on the shoe of the woman sitting across our table; sauce splashed over a child’s head.

“Why aren’t you following me now, you piece of shit! Why you not followin’ me!” he yelled at me, fuming. “You started it, what’s stopping you now, huh!”

A waiter rushed to stop him, but it was no use. Gon raised his arm as if to hit the waiter. Some customers began taking pictures with their cell phones while another waiter urgently made a call somewhere.

“I said, follow me, you son of a bitch,” Gon yelled again, but I was already heading out of the restaurant. I called Professor Yun just like I’d promised. He appeared before the phone rang. He must’ve been standing by on the nearby street corner in case of any emergency. Professor Yun headed straight in. I watched the mess in the restaurant through the window. Professor Yun’s trembling shoulders from the back, his big hand slapping Gon’s cheek, over and over and over. His hands gripping Gon’s head, shaking it hard. I turned to leave. It wasn’t that interesting to keep watching.

*

I was hungry, hardly having eaten the pizza. I stopped by a small snack bar near a subway station and had a bowl of udon. Then I headed over to see Mom. She was asleep as always. Her urine tube was dangling out of the bottle from below her bed. Yellow drops of urine were dripping down one by one. I called a nurse to handle it. Mom’s face was oily. She would’ve been shocked to see herself in the mirror. I cleaned her face with a cotton pad soaked with toner and dabbed it with moisturizer.

I walked home. It was a quiet evening. I took out a book with a typical story of a high school dropout returning home. He says he wants to be a catcher and protect children in a rye field. The story ends with him looking at his younger sister, Phoebe, in a blue coat, ride a merry-go-round. I kind of liked the ending that was out of the blue. It was what got me to read it over and over.

Gon’s face would sometimes overlap the pages I was reading. His expression when his father grabbed his head. But I couldn’t make out what that expression meant.

Just before I fell asleep, I got a call from Professor Yun. He kept pausing, giving way to deep sighs and silence. His point was that he would cover all my medical bills from the incident and that he would make sure Gon would never come near me again.