A Cab Called Reliable by Patti Kim

Author:Patti Kim
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466885936
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

9

My teacher usually loved anything I wrote that was about Korea. But my submission for the Young Writers Contest disappointed her. She told me that the writing in my story about aunt Han-il was technically just fine, nearly professional. However, the story itself was difficult to believe. “One is required to suspend an unreasonable amount of one’s disbelief,” she said with a friendly frown.

Within three pages, I had written my aunt’s life story. She was abused and driven to insanity by her father, stepmother, and brothers. Her father sold her into a marriage in order to have his debts canceled. Her husband tormented her emotionally, physically, and mentally. My aunt then ran away from her home to live in a Buddhist temple, where she cooked meals for the monks. Haunted by past memories, she returned to the family with poisoned rice cakes. Her father, stepmother, and brothers gladly ate them and died instantly. Aunt Han-il burned down the house, emigrated to America, worked as a secretary in a doctor’s office, married a Ph.D., had two daughters, and lived happily ever after.

My teacher said that I had enough material for an entire novel, and I could not possibly do justice to my aunt’s life in three pages. The ending was artificial and contrived. Returning my story to me, she asked, “Ahn Joo, do you ever hear voices?” Without giving me a chance to respond, she told me to listen to them.

When I laid down in the center of my room with my palms pressed on the floor and my eyes closed, I heard the voice of my mother. She told me to do this and do that, don’t do this and don’t do that, you’re good enough for this, but not good enough for that. I memorized the way she sounded, so that when I woke up, I could go to my notebook and record it.

* * *

Third place went to a Japanese girl, who wrote a diary comparing and contrasting her life in Kyoto with her life in Arlington; second place went to a boy, who wrote about his blind father reading him and his little brother bedtime stories in the dark; runner-up was awarded to an essay called “How to Save the World Through Arts and Crafts,” written by my classmate, Jennifer Beechum, whose father was a well-known painter of some sort; and I was awarded first place for my piece, “The Voice of My Mother.”

My teacher returned it to me with a gold star on the top right corner of the first page. She said that it was a mature, honest, powerful, poignant, and sophisticated piece of writing, and I should give serious thought to becoming a writer some day. Jennifer Beechum and I were to read our writings during our graduation ceremony.

My father could not attend my graduation ceremony, which was held on a Wednesday in the middle of the afternoon, because he was working in Washington, D.C. When I showed him my report card for the

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