Shame

Ming's father dragged him into the corner store. He slouched and tried to hide his face, his ears a whisker’s distance from his shoulders. Guirui walked straight up to the counter, his boy in tow, while the soles of his old sneakers slapped the linoleum; all of the softness had been worn out of them, but he refused to buy a new pair. 

In his right hand he held his boy’s arm. In the left, the skin mag. 

“Hey Gary,” Anh said, with a concerned face that matched his customer's. “What’s up?” 

Guirui looked at his son, and then back at the cornerstore owner. Anh was a man like himself, trying to feed his kids and keep them clothed when the business just wouldn’t come. He placed the dirty magazine face down on the countertop, which hid the blonde lady in the pink from sight, but exposed the brunette in black. 

“He got this from here,” he said, pointing at Ming’s downcast face, “I know you didn’t sell it to him, and I know he didn’t pay for it.” 

It lay there, quiet as a scream. Ming tried to avert his eyes, but he couldn’t. Every curve on her chestnut skin, every stitch in her lace underwear was too much for him to ignore. Even the paint on her fingernails – crescent moons of eggshell white - her hands might as well have reached off the page and dragged his gaze along every inch of her exposed body

“What do you mean?” Anh asked. “Ming, is your dad saying you swiped this? From the store?” 

He couldn’t answer. If he had the resolve to tilt up his chin and meet the man eye to eye, he’d still have his tears blocking his view, heavy with salt and regret. Instead, his gaze darted from place to place, catching an exposed thigh here, and maybe a breast there. 

“He stole it, Anh.” 

Anh was a family friend. Not a very close one – he wasn’t family - but he didn’t need to be to command his father’s respect. Ming half-expected that if it were a gwai lo store he might have gotten away with it. Or at least that his dad wouldn’t have marched him out of the door at eight AM on a Saturday morning in the cold early days of March. 

Anh looked back at his father. “Look, I think we can figure this out between us old men, huh?” Then, back at Ming. “Give the kid a break, Gary.” 

“He stole it. I can’t let that be.” 

His father fished around in his pockets and came up with a wad of crumpled ones and some change, the stingy tips of diners who didn’t like his accent or his gruff demeanor.

That money – that was a whole hour of work at the restaurant. A hot meal on a hard day. Three bus fares anywhere in the city. Enough chewing gum to make his jaws click, popping his ears until they hummed. All that, for a stupid magazine he was too embarrassed to put back on the rack, and too mesmerized by to leave alone. 

“Oh, come on, Gary, I can’t take that,” Anh said, his hands up. “He’s just a kid, it’s fine.” 

“It’s fine now, I paid you. Have a good day, Anh,” Guirui said. He yanked Ming’s arm. “Say sorry, boy!” 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Nguyen.”

Anh nodded. 

They left the store. When Ming wiped his eyes and looked up at his father, he saw a face that he hated to see. The face his father wore when he looked at the only picture he had of grandma and grandpa, who were long gone an ocean away. The same face he had when money was tight – the end of every month with the bills due on the first of the next, really – and there would be only rice and beans, and leftover pastries from the restaurant to eat, hard as bricks, until they could figure something out. The same face he had when he argued with ma about whether her schooling would pan out, and how they would pay back the loansharks, because next time it wouldn't just be their window. Or any of the endless shouting matches that made Ming wonder why they bothered to have a family in the first place. 

He stared at his father’s, and hated himself for putting the wrinkles in his cheeks.