“You’re not going to kill anyone.”
Connie opens the door and lets him out into the hallway. Kyung bolts toward the elevator, only to be pushed aside as Connie jumps in front of him with his arms out, blocking his path. When he turns around, Tim is standing the same way, blocking the door to the stairs. He’s not sure which of the two he has a better chance with, so he takes a running start at Connie, who sends him stumbling backward with barely a shove.
“I know you’re angry right now.”
“You don’t know what I am.”
“I do. I understand, Kyung. I’d feel exactly the same way if it were me. But let us handle Jin from now on. You’re not the one who has to deal with this.”
But he is, he thinks. He always has been, and he failed at it, miserably. And just as the full force of this thought is about to crush him, another bears down with all of its weight.
“The apartment,” he says, leaning against the wall. “That goddamn apartment.”
“What apartment?”
“She was going to leave him.”
“How do you know?”
“She had a place to live, a job lined up. She was finally going to leave and he wouldn’t let her.”
Connie shakes his head. “Don’t assume things like that, Kyung. You can’t see what goes on behind closed doors.”
What he wants to say, but doesn’t, is that he does see. He sees everything so clearly now. Mae turned on his father for a reason. She exiled him from the guest room, refused to touch him or speak to him for a reason. It was always his father. It all started with him.
*
They drive Kyung to a convenience store for food and a gas station for beer. They circle the park and the school and the campus. They go all the way to the town’s northernmost border and all the way back south. Up, down, left, right, over and over again, sometimes retracing the same routes they were on only minutes before. The clock on the dashboard says it’s twenty after midnight, but they continue driving with no particular destination—Connie and Kyung in the Suburban, Tim following close behind in the rental. Kyung knows why they’re doing this; he doesn’t even need to ask. The beer and the drive have a sedative effect. Occasionally, a long, smooth stretch of road almost puts him to sleep, but when he closes his eyes, the images begin to appear on the blacks of his lids. He sees Mae tearing out of her house, so frightened and desperate that she begs the Perrys to help her, and just like that, he’s awake again, unwilling to watch the things that happen next.
Connie hasn’t spoken to him since the gas station. He sits with his arm out the open window, a can of nuclear-green energy drink in his hand. Every few minutes, he takes a sip and glances in the rearview mirror to check if Tim is still behind them. He seems worried and tired, almost as tired as Kyung is, but Connie will do this all night if he has to. Kyung alternates between studying the lock on his door and the speedometer on the dash, which hovers near thirty-five. At this point, his best chance of ditching his in-laws is to jump out of the car, but the risk of hurting himself is too high. He needs to be able-bodied when he sees his father, capable of doing harm. He chucks his empty beer can into the backseat, frustrated by how much time they’ve wasted.
“I have to piss.”
Connie turns onto a state road, a large artery that will eventually leave Marlboro and connect with the highway.
“Did you hear what I said? I have to piss.”
“I’ll stop at the next gas station.”
They follow the road toward the old airstrip, an area that’s been under development for years. The two-mile stretch is now home to several new bars and restaurants, all vying for business with wattage. Huge neon signs flash and flicker, blinding passersby with their offerings. LADIES’ NIGHT. HALF-PRICED PITCHERS. ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT SHRIMP.
“Why can’t we just stop at one of these places?”
“I’m a cop, Kyung. Not an idiot.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I know you’re planning to bolt if we go somewhere crowded, and I don’t really feel like chasing you right now.”
Kyung’s bladder is swimming with cheap lawn-mower beer. He actually does need to piss, but it never occurred to him that he could turn a basic human need into a chance to run. Connie is too many steps ahead, too practiced in the ways of desperate men. Kyung worries that he’s never going to get rid of him.
“I’m exhausted,” he says. When this fails to elicit a response, he says it even louder. “I’m exhausted.”
“Then go to sleep already.”
“I can’t, not in a car. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’ve never been able to sleep in a car.”
“So what do you want me to do about it? Sleeping and pissing are your only options right now.”
“But couldn’t we just go to your house for a while?” Kyung looks out his window. They’re driving farther and farther away from town. “We’re still close, and maybe if I get some rest, it’ll help me clear my head.”