41. Without Makeup Or Masks

"As in true theater, without makeup or masks, refuse and corpses show me what I permanently thrust aside in order to live." —Julia Kristeva

“It’s okay, no need to explain,” said Master Park. “I knew you were going to leave. You’ve had that look lately, ever since your friend with the baby left. Maybe ever since Brittany left. Shane,” he corrected himself, before Jen had a chance to.

Standing in front of the desk, Jen towered over her teacher, who was still sitting, shuffling some papers around. Still, she had the feeling he was staring down his nose at her.

“What look?” Jen asked.

“That look like you’re not really here,” he said. “You’ve looked bored, maybe, or dissatisfied. It’s all right,” he added, as she opened her mouth to contradict him. “I guess I should have known that you wouldn’t want to stay here forever. North Middleton is a pretty boring town, especially if you’re used to L.A.”

“No, that’s not it at all,” Jen said. “I don’t even like L.A.”

She wasn’t sure herself what had spurred her decision to return to Los Angeles. Something in Paula’s journal had steered her so firmly in that direction that it did not feel like a decision at all, but like the self-evident future had simple presented itself to her. But she felt that she owed Master Park an explanation, as much as he claimed not to require one. Or perhaps it simply frustrated her not to be able to answer such a simple question about her own life.

As she searched her mind for the words that would match her feelings, an image appeared instead: a piece of computer paper designed to look like a blueprint, with rows of detailed instructions printed in tiny letters running accross the blue walls and support beams. It was something she had seen on Becky’s desk once, years ago.

“Do you know what Groundbreakers is?” she asked. Immediately, she realized that of course he did; he was friends, or at least chess partners, with Vanto Hatch. He didn’t say anything, though, just nodded his head in quiet affirmation.

“In Los Angeles, all my friends were in Groundbreakers,” Jen said. “It made me feel like everyone was in a cult.”

She took a breath, pausing until she could figure out what her point was.

“But then I was here studying taekwondo and chess every day and doing exercises and reading all those books by Thomas Fo. It started to feel like its own cult in a way.”

“Well, that makes sense,” said Master Park. He didn’t sound like he was offering empty agreement, but rather like he was pleased to hear her confirm what he had been thinking all along.

“It does?” Jen asked. She felt bad for implying that his school was a cult. She hoped he would understand what she had meant, that it was a cult for her, because she was treating it like one.

“About the Thomas Fo books,” said Master Park. “It’s not surprising that they remind you of Groundbreakers.”

“Oh,” said Jen. “Why not?”

“Because they were written by Vanto Hatch,” Master Park said. He looked up at her, shuffling the papers on the desk absentmindedly while he waited for her to comprehend his statement.

“Vanto Hatch,” Jen repeated blankly.

“Thomas Fo is a pen name,” said Master Park.

“But why wouldn’t he just use his real name?” Jen asked. “He’d probably sell more books that way. People buy millions of those Groundbreakers books.” She thought of the parenting book that Becky had found so offensive; Becky had at least ten other books with the same cover design on her shelf, each one a national bestseller.

“I’ve asked him the same thing,” Master Park said, with the same offended snort he had used to dismiss the excessive security at the Snail Plant. “Believe me.”

“What’s his answer?” Jen asked.

“He says he wants to try out these different styles without everyone thinking the books are a part of Groundbreakers. That’s what he says.”

“You don’t believe him?” Jen asked.

“The thing about Vanto,” said Master Park, “is that he’s obsessed with self-help.” He had collected all the papers on the desk into a stack between his hands. He whacked the long side and then the short side of the stack against the desk to neaten it.

“He’s one of those guys, always looking for the next great path to enlightenment,” he said. “One day it’s Zen, the next day Christianity or Scientology or some Indian thing. Sometimes it’s martial arts or chess. Whatever it is, he wants to write a book about it, but it would confuse his little fan club: Vanto Hatch wants us to fight! Vanto Hatch wants us to play chess! They’d only put up with it for so long, and then he’d lose them. So he writes the books, but he makes up all these fake names: Thomas Fo, Fred Fawls.”

“Fred Fawls?” Jen could hear the hint of hysteria in her voice. She couldn’t take this all in. The idea that a single author could have written Zen For Times of Crisis and The New Aggressive Male was more shocking than the fact that this author was Vanto Hatch.

“Right,” said Master Park, smiling sardonically. “That’s his ‘fighter’ personality.” Jen thought she could hear the scare quotes in his voice.

Thomas Fo doesn’t exist, she said to herself. There is no Thomas Fo. She had devoted herself to the words of somebody who was not even a real person, but a persona. She reminded herself that her disappointment was irrational, since a book is never more than a collection of words and ideas, and that those matter more than who wrote it. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from feeling that the purpose of the universe had collapsed in on itself.

“It doesn’t sound like you like him very much,” she said.

“He’s one of my closest friends,” said Master Park. “Which doesn't mean much, since I only have a few friends and they are not that close." Jen searched his face for some sign of whether this was a joke, and whether she should laugh, but his expression was neutral, neither laughing nor sad.

"I tease him about changing his identity so often. But then, who here hasn’t benefited from a good identity change?”

Jen looked around the empty academy to see who else was there, but she knew already; there was no one in the school but the two of them.

“Come in back, have some tea,” said Master Park, rising and turning towards the back room. “There are a lot of things you should probably know about. Before you leave.” Jen watched his back as he walked across the padded workout floor without turning to see if she was following him.

They walked past the screen and into the small living room. Jen remembered how fascinated she had been by the screen when she first came to the school, how mysterious it had seemed each time Master Park had emerged from it followed by Rob and Shane. Now she played chess daily in this room; it was as familiar and worn as the kicking pads she held for Olivia each night.

Jen sat on the couch as Master Park poured two cups of tea from the electric kettle he kept on the bookshelf.

“Are you comfortable?” Master Park asked, placing one of the steaming cups of tea on the coffee table in front of her and the other on the taller dining-room table in front of his favorite straight-backed chair.

Jen nodded and tried to pick up her tea, but the cup was too hot to hold comfortably.

Master Park sat up very tall in his chair, looking at Jen through the steam rising from his own cup of tea. “Have you ever done something really, really bad?” he asked.

“Sure,” said Jen, without really thinking about it.

Master Park scowled. “What was it?” he asked.

Nothing came to mind immediately, but she was sure there was something. Stealing Becky’s boyfriend in middle school had been pretty bad, even though it was an accident. And sleeping with Skipper had been really stupid, but she wouldn’t call it bad, exactly.

“Nothing specific,” said Jen, not wanting to share these particular stories with her teacher. “I’ve done things that have hurt my friends’ feelings, or caused them a lot of problems.”

“No, I mean something bad,” said Master Park. “Something so bad it ruins your life, and other people’s lives, forever.”

“I guess I haven’t,” said Jen. “You have?”

Master Park didn’t say anything. She took a sip of her tea—ginseng, she realized, trying not to grimace as the bitter taste hit her tongue—and waited.

Master Park took a sip of his tea as well. He was sitting very straight, his taekwondo uniform as crisp and well-laundered as ever, with both feet planted straight on the floor. He held the tea in his mouth for a minute, his eyes thoughtful, before exhaling forcefully from his nose.

“Where do you think I’m from?” he asked finally.

“From?” Jen asked, wondering if this were a trick. “Do you mean Korea?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not from Korea.” Jen opened her mouth to apologize for her assumption, her face flushing with embarrassment. He held up his hand to stop her.

“It’s a logical assumption,” he said. “It would be fair to say that I’ve been hoping people would assume that.”

Why had she assumed it? He definitely spoke with some kind of accent, though it was very faint. She searched her memory for clues to Master Park’s heritage. She remembered Rob mentioning something about Master Park’s time “back in Korea,” and anyway that was where taekwondo was from. And “Park” was a Korean name, wasn’t it? Maybe it was his parents who were from Korea, and his accent was the sort acquired by the children of immigrants, especially those who had grown up hardly ever hearing English spoken in their own neighborhoods.

“In fact, I am from your city,” he said.

“Cone?” Jen asked. She had long suspected that he lived there, though it was difficult to imagine an enclave of Korean immigrants living there, or even just one family of them.

“No,” he said, drawing the word out. He looked at her suspiciously over the tops of his glasses. “I meant Los Angeles,” he said. “That’s where I was born and where I grew up.”

“Oh,” said Jen. That made sense. A lot more sense than him growing up in Cone, anyway.

“So your parents are from Korea,” she said.

“No,” said Master Park. “I’m not Korean. I’m Filipino.”

“Filipino?” Jen repeated back to him. From what she could remember, that was one of those nationalities had long, winding last names with consonants in orders that it seemed consonants should not be able to go in. Or were Filipinos the ones with the Spanish last names? Anyway, “Park” was neither long and windy nor Spanish, nor, she was fairly certain, anything else but Korean, or maybe something like Chinese.

“This is how the story begins,” said Master Park. “I was born in Los Angeles. My parents were both born in Los Angeles, too. Their parents came from the Philippines, in something like 1920.

“I grew up down the street from a taekwondo studio. I studied taekwondo from the time I was seven.

“I was in a lot of plays in grade school. And I studied acting in college. I wanted to be a martial-arts movie star. But it turns out they don’t really make that many martial-arts movies in Los Angeles, and when they do, the lead characters are white.

“I played some villains in a few action movies. Then I went to Hong Kong for a few years and played villains there, usually the evil Korean guy because of my Taekwondo, but sometimes the evil Japanese guy or the evil Mongolian guy. I didn’t really need to speak much Chinese to do those roles, since they were mostly fighting. It was fun for a while, but I wouldn’t have been able to advance my career without studying Chinese pretty seriously.

“Plus I missed Los Angeles. I had a girlfriend back there, a model. So I moved back and became a stunt man, and we got married.

“I liked the stunt work. It was regular and paid better than the small acting roles, and my wife could stop working while we had kids.”

“You have kids?” Jen asked. She had never imagined him having any sort of family; even thinking of his parents and grandparents had been startling.

“Two,” said Master Park. “A daughter and a son.” His face softened for a moment, and Jen almost expected him to pronounce his undying love for them. But after a moment his features regained their usual evenness, and he continued his story.

“I started working for this one police show long term, and there was this guy Charlie I became pretty good friends with. He did the stunts for the white cop, and I was doing them mostly for the Latino criminals.”

He looked straight at Jen, making sure she had caught the bitterness in his voice. She nodded.

“He was the typical L.A. bachelor. Barely spent any time in his apartment, couldn’t cook, always had some new girlfriend making food and doing his laundry. He started coming over for dinner a lot. My wife was a really good cook, and he seemed to like playing with the kids after dinner. They would get all excited when he came. They’d start yelling, ‘Uncle Charlie’s coming over!’ It used to make me mad, because I didn’t know many good ways to play with them, and they were never that excited to see me.

“So one night, I was at home trying to play with my son, Gabriel. We were playing guns, and he kept telling me I wasn’t shooting my gun right. Which was ridiculous because I knew how to really shoot a gun.”

He looked up at Jen, who hadn’t said anything. “We used to play guns back then,” he said with a shrug.

“And Gabe said, ‘Uncle Charlie taught me you need to hold your breath. Like this.’” Master Park took in a deep breath through his lips and puffed up his cheeks like a trumpet player.

“I said, ‘When did Uncle Charlie tell you that?’ And Gabe said, ‘Last night, when you were at work.’

“My wife was folding laundry with our daughter on the other side of the room, and she jumped to her feet, ran across the room, and slapped Gabe right across the face.”

Jen gasped. “That’s terrible!” she exclaimed.

Master Park furrowed his eyebrows at her. “Well, hitting your kids wasn’t such a big deal back then.”

“No, I meant…” Jen sputtered, confused now about what part of the scene was most troubling.

“Oh, right,” said Master Park, nodding. “Yes, it was terrible. Gabe was screaming and crying, and my wife locked herself in the bedroom and wouldn’t come out, and I was screaming at her through the door, and the kids hid in their rooms. I had to sleep on the couch, even though I wasn’t the one who had done anything wrong.

“She and I didn’t talk at all for the next two days. Every day I left before she woke up, drove around until it was time for work, picked up some fast food at night, went to the bar. I’d come home after midnight and sleep for a few hours on the couch. I think I only saw her a couple of times, when she came out of the bedroom at night to get something from the kitchen. And when she saw I was on the couch, she looked at me so scared, like I was going to kill her, and she turned and ran back into the room, and I could hear her lock the door.

“I could have gotten through that lock anyway. It was one of those little push-button locks. You can open it with a safety pin.” He pantomimed the procedure, his hands deftly turning the invisible doorknob.

“On the third day, I had to do a scene with Charlie. And he must have known something was wrong, because he was looking at me all nervous. I didn’t know if he had talked to my wife, or just guessed what had happened. He was sweating, pouring sweat, that’s all I know.

“I was supposed to throw a punch at him and kind of leave it out so he could grab my arm, and he was going to grab my arm and do a kind of judo throw so I’d fly through the air and land on my back. Because he was the good guy, so he always won.

“I punched, and I saw him lunge in towards my wrist. And his hand was coming reaching down, and I turned, and I threw a side-kick as hard as I could, right at the side of his head.”

Jen gasped. “What happened?” she asked.

“It looked like your fight,” said Master Park. Jen cringed in embarrassment but didn’t say anything. “His eyes rolled up in his head, and he just fell sideways to the floor like chopping down a tree. But he didn’t get up. And they called an ambulance, but by the time he got to the hospital…”

“He was dead?” Jen asked.

“No, not dead!” said Master Park, sounding indignant at the suggestion that he might have killed somebody. “But his neck was broken. It turned funny when I kicked him and then he made it worse when he fell.”

“Oh no,” said Jen, putting her hands over her face to shut out the image.

“They saved his movement in his upper body, but below the waist, he was paralyzed.”

She tried to imagine what would happen after one stunt man paralyzed another, and whether such an act was considered a crime or merely an occupational hazard. “Did you get arrested?” she asked.

“I thought I would,” said Master Park. “I was ready to turn myself in. I wasn’t allowed to go to work while they were investigating. But when Charlie was able to talk to the police finally, he said it was an accident. He didn’t want to press charges.

“So I was a free man. I had taken some money from our savings and rented a little apartment, but I didn’t have any income. I couldn’t work anymore in stunts.

“I went to see my old taekwondo teacher—I hadn’t been back to the school since I started college—and I told him what happened. I asked him, ‘Could I teach here?’ I knew it wouldn’t make much money, but maybe it would cover some of my rent and give me something to do besides stare at the wall in my apartment all day.

“‘You can’t teach here,’ he told me. ‘Not after what happened.’ And he was right, I realized. How would people feel safe with me as their teacher if they found out what I had done? And the school taught lots of little kids from the neighborhood. How could parents leave their children with me?

“‘There is something,’ my teacher told me. ‘Master Park, the teacher at one of our sister schools, has just died. His students are a bunch of white kids, and they don’t want to run the school themselves; they asked if I know of an authentic taekwondo teacher.’

“‘It sounds like they want a Korean,’ I said.

“’Yes, but they did not say that,’ said my teacher. ‘But perhaps we should pretend you are Korean, just in case. I will tell them you are their old teacher’s second cousin.’

“‘But they’ll never believe that,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to make up all these lies, and they’ll see that I look Filipino.’

“‘You’re an actor,’ he said to me. ‘Act Korean.’

“‘I don’t know if I’m a good enough actor to do that,’ I said.

“‘They’ll never know the difference,’ he said. ‘They live in Michigan.’

“And then I finally realized what he was signing me up for: to move far away, to somewhere I had never been, where I didn’t know anybody for miles and miles. Where I would have a fake name, and a fake history.

“The thought of moving so far away from my children made me so sad. I couldn’t sleep or eat for days. But finally I decided it would be better for them if I weren’t around, easier not to have to deal with a divorce, with two feuding parents and a father who had made such a horrible, horrible mistake.”

He lifted his tea cup with both hands, and Jen thought she could see a shudder travel across his shoulders. She thought he might be crying, and she looked down at her cup so she wouldn’t see his eyes.

“Since then, I have sent all my money to my wife, if you can call her that. She is still my wife, legally, and everything I make I send for my children. That’s why I have to live back here.”

“Back where?” Jen asked.

“Here,” he said, waving his right hand through the air. “In the back of the school.”

Jen looked around the tiny room. “You live here?” she asked. She still couldn’t understand, exactly.

“I thought you knew,” he said.

“Where do you sleep?” she asked, frightened that it might be on the very couch where she was sitting.

“I have a bedroom,” he said, pointing to the wall behind Jen’s head. “Next door down the hall. And there’s a bathroom, and a little area with a sink and a hot plate. It’s all made from little offices, so the rooms are very small. The rooms come with the rental for the school, so I keep my living expenses very low. And I just teach and study and play chess and live like a monk here, all in penance for destroying my family.”

“I thought you lived in Cone,” she said.

“Rob lives in Cone,” he said. “With his girlfriend and the kid. I go to their house for dinner a lot, and sometimes I sleep there in their fold-out couch. It’s more comfortable than my little futon here, I’m sad to say.

“He’s a nice boy, Rob,” Master Park said, looking Jen straight in the eye as though he expected her to argue. “He’s been like my son here.”

The admission seemed to make him uncomfortable, and Jen almost thought she could see him squirm in his seat for a moment.

“Do you need more tea?” he asked her, rattling his empty cup around by its handle. She shook her head.

“Okay,” said Master Park. “Here’s the reason I’m telling you this story. Two weeks ago my son turned eighteen. That means both my children are adults now.”

“So you won’t need to send them money anymore,” said Jen.

“I think it is time to go back,” Master Park said. “To make things right in my life.”

“But what about your life here?” Jen asked, imagining the void that his absence would leave in the town.

“Rob could run the school,” said Master Park. “He would love to. And he won’t have to pretend he’s Korean. He won’t have to pretend he’s anything, since he’s from here, and everyone has known him his whole life.”

He looked at Jen. “Pretending is very, very tiring,” he said. “It is so ugly to me that sometimes I don’t want to teach, and I don’t want to run the school, and I just want to stay back here and play chess. I don’t feel like I am pretending to be anything when I play chess. All that pretending is bad for your soul, I think. Better if you can just be what you are. That’s what I want to do.

“And you,” he asked Jen. “What do you want to do? What will you do in L.A.?”

“Oh,” said Jen, feeling a little stunned as she searched her mind for an answer. “I’m not sure. Help Becky raise the baby. Maybe find a taekwondo school to study at.”

“Have you ever thought of opening your own school?” said Master Park. “You’ve got money and connections. And I know a guy who’s pretty good at teaching taekwondo, for a Filipino.”

Chapter 42