Free Waylaid by Ed Lin Page B

pronounce the letter “t.” My mother had enough trouble with people who spoke correct English. Frank had about three different plaid shirts and he never washed them. There was no laundry room at the hotel, but you could smell the hotel-bar soap on the clothes of the other old men.
    Creases in Frank’s filthy jeans were deepest at the knees, and it looked like broken chopsticks in his pant legs were supporting the fabric. He couldn’t hold his right leg still, so he would stand at the counter and lean over sideways on his left elbow. Frank’s right knee shook back and forth like a frog’s leg hooked to a battery.
    My mother sat on the stool behind the counter, legs crossed and hands thrust into her pockets. She hated being trapped in the office with Frank, but she wouldn’t leave him alone there. The last time she walked out on one of these old men, he’d pissed on the office floor, then fallen asleep on the couch.
    When I came in the office after school, she would get up, say good-bye to Frank, and gesture for me to sit on the stool. Over a number of excruciating afternoons, he told me a lot about his life. I never told him shit about mine.
    The first time Frank saw me, he said, “You’re preddy!”
    It had obviously been a long time since he’d seen someone as young and as Asian as me. The last time had been when he was wandering the streets of Seoul, looking for hookers.
    The fragments of Frank’s story fit together as well as random pieces of peanut brittle.
    When he was really young, he collected soda bottles in the streets of Chicago, drinking what was left in them before returning them to drug stores for a penny each. He was nicknamed “Pepsi” by the other kids.
    He served in Europe in World War II, where he was shot in the leg before he ever had a chance to fire his gun. He was sent home, but later took an Army office job in South Korea, where he would meet two “ladies” every night.
    Frank got married when he came back to the U.S., and an old Army buddy set him up in a lower management job with an oil company in Texas. He sat around all day, sharpening pencils with a pocket knife and passing cigars around for his newborn son.
    Then he had a heart attack.
    The company paid for his hospital bill, but wouldn’t hire him again. The heart attack had left his speech slurred, and he lost partial control of the right side of his body. Even though he could still do his job, they told him that having him there was making everyone else in the office feel lousy.
    His wife went to work cleaning houses while Frank stayed at home and drank. She took the kid with her to work when she realized that Frank fed him too much and never changed the diapers.
    Frank started drinking heavily. His wife had to drive farther and farther to find houses to clean. He drank more and more. He couldn’t stop. He never felt hungry. One day, his wife never came back. He didn’t know where she or his son were. He could pass them in the street now and he wouldn’t know who they were.
    The government wanted to move Frank into a facility, but he refused to go. He applied for disability instead, using the checks for drinks. Then they cut him off. Years later, the Army found him again and gave him a lump-sum payment for veterans’ benefits.
    Now here he was, 30 years after Korea, still giving money to Koreans for cheap rooms.
    â€œI’m not Korean, I’m an American,” I said. That set him off.
    â€œYou haven’d erned da righd do call yourself an American undil you fighd for diss coundry! None of you people ever did shid for America! You only come here do dake our money! And led me dell you, we have courdesy in diss coundry. Yes we do. You see dad couch over dere?” He pointed to the office couch. “I never sad down dere and you people never invided me do sid. You see an old man like me wid my leg like diss,