Chapter 39

39: Mina went downstairs where the people were already nervously sitting to breakfast.  She sat at a table with Bill and his son, her co-worker, Jeffrey.  "Did either of you manage to get any sleep?"
  "Not much.  I've been thinking about my wife, Sandy.  I think she's still alive where the Defectors are staying. If Chadwick makes it back here and is able to tell us where Rend's headquarters are, I would you, Jeffrey, to lead a rescue party to go find your mother.  I would like you to take the black truck.  It is large and powerful enough to handle the Revenant."
  Jeffrey was stunned by this.  His father had never let him drive the black truck, and wasn't sure if he could.  "Dad, I can't drive the black truck.  You've always driven it."
  "I have not always driven it.  It's your turn now.  Your mother is out there.  She needs you.  You can help her. I believe in you.  I know you can bring her back to us safely."  Jeffrey started to tear up.
  "Dad, you've always made me feel like I'm a little kid.  Now you want me to go out there and find mom?  What if I can't do it?"
  "Jeffrey, did I ever tell you about your grandfather?"
  "What do you mean?  What about him?"
  "I'm talking about why I hold him in such high regard.  Why you always know I'm serious when I swear on his grave.  There's a reason for that."  Bill took a sip of water before continuing.  "When your grandfather finished high school, he worked at a bank in Tangjin.  Back then in Korea, your parents were your matchmakers.  They arranged who you would marry.  He was matched with your grandmother and he thought she was beautiful.  The problem was that they lived 100 kilometers apart from each other.  Taxis were rare back then, but with the money he got from working at the bank, he paid for one every week to visit her.  He'd often bring a guitar, harmonica or flute so that he could serenade her.  Soon, they got married."
  Jeffrey looked like he was about to say something.  "Wait, Jeffrey.  Don't worry, I'm getting to the main part of the story.  That was just the set up.  So then, not too long after they got married, Japan invaded Korea.  Your grandfather drafted to fight for the Korean army.  He went to fight in Japan and was captured.  He was a prisoner of the Japanese.  He gathered a few men who wanted to escape and they hid in an abandoned building for a day or so while they tried to come up with a plan.  They built a fire during the night because the building had no electricity.  They had found an old empty can and an onion.  They had a little water so they boiled the onion in the can over the fire.  It tasted terrible without salt, but it kept them going.
  "The next day, there was an earthquake.  He and his two companions watched out the window of the building at the effects of the natural disaster.  Outside, a Japanese man was struck by a large chunk of fallen concrete.  The blood splattered onto the window my father was looking out of.  This frightened them so they waited until nightfall, left the building and made their way to the coast.
    "My father had a string of gold rings sewn into the seam of his pants, hidden from the Japanese.  He used a gold ring to pay someone for a boat.  The ocean was very dangerous with bad, high winds.  The three of them were almost killed, but they made it to the shore of Korea.
  "When he got to Tangjin, his family thought they were seeing a ghost because they were sure he was dead.  So many soldiers died in the Korean War.  When he got home, his travels had left him with a high fever which almost killed him.  The doctors in Tangjin nursed him back to health and saved his life.  He could have stayed in relative safety in Tangjin, but the love of his life was in another city.
  "Now at this time, North Korea had invaded Seoul.  Your grandmother had gone there to be with her family when my father had been sent off to war.  Nobody was allowed to leave the city.  The bridge over the Han River, connecting Seoul to the mainland had been destroyed.  Your grandmother was sick at that time.  She was hiding in the basement of the building her parents lived in.  Neighbors brought her food and other necessities.  One night, she had a dream that her husband would come to save her.  When she told her neighbors about the dream, they told her not to get her hopes up because no one could get into Seoul.
  "One day, someone who looked like a beggar approached the building.  No one recognized him, but from her hiding place in the basement, my mother could see that it was her husband.  The trip from Tangjin to Seoul had taken him over two weeks, but he had made it.  She ran to him.  He was all bloody and ragged.  She cleaned him up and her neighbors helped to bandage his wounds.  They had to get out of the city.
  "That night they made their way to the Han River.  There were many bodies floating in the water.  A lot of them had died trying to swim across the river.  Many had also frozen to death, since it was wintertime.  Still, they needed to cross to get away from that deathtrap.  Many other families were also trying to get across.  Many families were separated at that time.  Most of them never found each other again.  Recently, in Korea, there was a campaign to reunite people who had been separated from their families at that time.  Anyway, with the gold rings your grandfather had, they were able to get someone to help them cross.  It took them longer to get to Tangjin than he had taken to get to Seoul.  They finally made it to his family's house in Tangjin.
  "In the house, there was a loose floorboard that they were able to hide under whenever the North Koreans came around.  They were never sure when the house would be inspected by North Korean soldiers so they had to be constantly vigilant.  The time for Chusok came while they were in that house and your grandmother made some rice wine in order to honor their ancestors in the traditional ceremony.  Unfortunately, some soldiers came around, so the two of them had to get down to hide underneath the floorboards.  They had the alcohol with them under there.  The smell of it almost gave them away because the soldiers could smell it.  Fortunately, they weren't found.  The war soon ended and they survived."  Bill sat back and folded his hands into his lap.
  "Wow, I never knew that.  I mean, shit.  He really loved her," said Jeffrey.
  "You see, extreme heroism and bravery are in your blood.  You can have your band with you while you look for your mother.  Together you can face the odds."
  Jeffrey seemed to take some measure of comfort from this.  "I'll do it.  As soon as we find out where she is, we'll go and get her.  We're not just a band.  We've been friends through lots of shit.  You have no idea."
  "You know, I don't say this often enough, but I love you, son."
  For the first time in his life, Jeffrey actually believed his father.  "I love you too, dad."  They ate together in a warm and comfortable silence with many smiles and a few tears after that.

Chapter 28

28: Bill and the band ate brunch together and were still conversing about the band.  "How did you all meet?"  Bill really was quite intrigued by all of this.
  "Well, actually, that's quite an interesting story.  I mean, of course I've known Lowe since we were three.  When we we went to Marble Cliffs College, we rented a small apartment together and Alexander answered our Roommate Wanted ad in the college newsletter.  It made the rent cheaper to divide it up three ways and we liked him because he was a musician like us.  So anyway, one night, I was exhausted because my Astronomy class had both a test and a practical in the same day, which is detestably impractical.  Getting back to the apartment was no relief because the three of us got to fighting about some stupid thing I don't remember," admitted Jeffrey with a thoughtful look on his face.
  "The dishes.  Alex was being a jerk like 'Oh, those aren't my dishes,' even though we all knew they were," Lowe interjected.  Alex's eyebrows furrowed.
  "No, you ho!  They weren't mine, asswipe," said Alexander with a punch to Lowe's shoulder.
  "Well, so we each went to our rooms after the argument.  In my room I picked up my old guitar in order to blow off some steam, but I was too frazzled to play anything.  In a moment of inspiration, I put down my good guitar and went to my closet to pull out my other guitar.  This one didn't play for shit, but it looked cool with his mahogany finish and blackened edges like it was burned or something.  I decided I was going to destroy it so I dug my hatchet out of a box.
  "My first swing was kinda lame.  I barely nicked the guitar because I had no idea how dense the wood was underneath the paint.  It felt really good just to swing the hatchet so I swung it again.  This time I managed to chip a tiny fleck of paint off, revealing the grains of wood hidden below.  That was quite satisfying so I kept hacking away at it.  I didn't realize the noise this was creating, but Lowe did.  He came in saying, 'Sounds like a train wreck in here, Jeffrey.  What ya up to?'
  "I told him I was destroying my guitar.  He asked if he could give it a shot and I said, 'Sure, go ahead.'  Being more physically muscular than I, Lowe did some major damage to that old thing.  We took turns swinging the hatchet and laughing the whole time.  Alex eventually came to see what was up.
  "We offered for him to give it a shot.  He swung and I swear the guitar bounced up a foot into the air and flipped onto it's face.  Alex's eyes lit up and he swung again.  The hatchet had been a birthday gift from my cousin on my twentieth birthday and the guitar I had just found in a dumpster.  It had no strings when I found it. I restrung it, but it just smelled like burning plastic when I plugged it into my amp so it just sat in my closet, gathering dust.  As we took turns swinging, the plastic pick guard came off chip by chip revealing the internal wiring.  Alex managed to dislodge the volume knob which had all kinds of colorful wires hanging from it.  The carpet was full of wood chips, paint flecks and plastic chips.  For days afterward, I found guitar detritus in the most unlikely places all over my room.
  "When Lowe took a swing, it severed one of the strings which rapidly curled up and cut Alex's hand in the process.  Alex was all whining like a baby about the cut, but Lowe wasn't too impressed.  'Aw that's nothing,' he said.  'You should see the one I got when I fell out of a tree.'  He pulled up his sleeve to show Alex and me a massive scar that went all the way from his wrist to his elbow.
  "At this point I lifted my pant leg and showed them the burn scar on my leg.  'I spilled chicken soup on myself because the bowl was hot.'"
  Bill looked at Jeffrey's leg.  "Oh, I remember that.  When we took you to the hospital, the police came and asked your mother and me if we had deliberately burned you like we were punishing you or something.  They thought we might be abusing you."
  Jeffrey looked sadly at his father.  "I didn't know that.  I do remember that all I was worried about was that you and mom would be mad that I broke the soup bowl."
  Bill was mortified.  "My God, I am so sorry that you would think that of us.  Our only concern was for your health.  I cried when the doctor was mercilessly scrubbing away the dead flesh from your wound.  They had to cut your pants off you and we could see that some of your skin had stuck to the inside of your pants when they were pulled off your body."
  "I appreciate knowing about your concern for me.  I never knew how much that affected you.  But anyway, that night with the guitar, we ended up with a hunk of useless wood, a bunch of metal, wood and plastic debris and a lifelong friendship with each other."
  "And Carrie was my girlfriend at the time.  I met her when she waited on me at a Chinese restaurant one night.  She went to school during the day studying Linguistics and served Chinese food at night.  We hit it off because we were both musicians," said Alexander.
  "Alex was really sweet.  Once he took me to a soccer game between a Japanese team and a Brazilian team.  He was all decorated with face paint."  She had to suppress her laughter.  "He had painted the Japanese flag on his face. He meant well, but he looked like Bozo the clown."  Everyone burst out laughing.
  "Yeah, they were funny together.  And it was cool when we found out that she was a DJ.  We started to jam together and that was the birth of the Maine Eleven Compa..." then Lowe let out a loud, muffin fueled belch.
  Carrie crinkled her nose and said, "Nice aspirated glottal trill."
  "Good to see your Linguistics degree is useful for something, even if it's just to describe my burps," said Lowe.