"Mr Park?" The receptionist directed me along a narrow corridor. "Doctor Molina will see you now."
This was gonna be awful. I could just leave. This wasn't urgent. I could do this when I got back to Korea.
Just get it over with, Zeph.
Doctor Molina was a tall thin guy, not much older than Will. His attempt to look professional with a pin-striped shirt up top was admirable, but he totally fucked it up by wearing hiking shorts and tough walking shoes down below. It all made sense when I saw the office walls, where framed photos of mountain landscapes vied for attention with his medical certificates. There was even a photo perched on the edge of his desk of him hiking somewhere remote and beautiful. The dude seemed unashamedly rugged.
"Please, make yourself comfortable...Jun-su?" Doctor Molina had a quiet and calm voice, like what I expected relaxation audio recordings to sound like. He squinted at my medical notes while I sat on the chair, all sweaty palms and beating heart. The sudden urge to take a piss appeared out of nowhere. "How can I help you today?"
How was I supposed to even broach the subject? In Sigma the doctor from Central would just silently do his medic shit while we sat there chatting among ourselves.
"Um. My friends call me Zephyr, or just Zeph." I croaked, like my dried-out tongue would choke me at any moment.
"No problem, Zeph. Cool name. I'll add that to your notes." Doctor Molina scribbled onto the paper. "You new to Santa Elena?"
"Yeah, I came from María."
"Great city. You must be missing the pace of life."
"Not really. I mean, I love María, but Santa Elena is perfect for me at the moment."
"I was the same," he replied, looking a little wistful. "I worked in María for years, but I moved here for a more...tranquil life." He looked up at a photo on his wall of an aerial view of a lake. "How can I help?"
Courage, Zeph.
"Um. I need an S.T.I. test."
"No problem at all, Zeph. We can do that for you right away," he said with that quiet-calm voice.
"Thank you," I sighed, so incredibly relieved that I almost laughed into his face. The anticipation of having a fucking test was so much more terrifying than the reality.
"Before we do the tests, Zeph, is it OK for me to ask you some questions about your sex life?"
I should have guessed that it couldn't possibly be this easy. "Um..."
Doctor Molina edged his chair closer to mine, but his quietly confident smile remained. "Zeph, I know that it's a little embarrassing. But I'm used to doing tests like this, and I don't judge any of my patients." He was so kind, I almost felt guilty for being such a fucking baby about this.
I took a breath. "Sure."
Doctor Molina patted my shoulder. "When did you last have sex?"
"Saturday, March twenty-second."
"OK, so today's April first, so we're..." Doctor Molina muttered away to himself. "That's great, Zeph. And, did you have unprotected sex?"
"No."
"Are you worried that the condom was damaged or otherwise compromised during sex?"
"No. It was fine."
"Did you have unprotected sex on a previous occasion?"
"No. I've...never had unprotected sex."
Doctor Molina looked at me curiously. "Do you think that you have any symptoms of STIs, like an infection?"
"No. Just that I thought that I should get a test..." My shakes came back, and I couldn't stop tears from welling up.
Don't cry, idiot. Not here.
Doctor Molina put down his notes. "Did you have a difficult experience the last time you had sex?"
"No. It was fine."
Doctor Molina sat back for a moment with a perplexed expression, before suddenly leaning close to me and laying a gentle hand on my arm. "How often did you have S.T.I. tests, before this one?"
"Every six months."
"And when is the next one due?"
"In two weeks."
"So, we're well on time. That's great." Doctor Molina scribbled more onto his notes. Probably writing down what I was. "You know what's involved, Zeph. I'm going to take a urine sample, and a blood sample from you. It'll take a week to get the blood results by email, and if you test positive for an S.T.I., I'll ask you to come back, so we can talk about your results and the treatment you'll need. Is that OK, Zeph?"
I nodded. This had been so much easier in Sigma with my guys sitting right there with me, and a bribed doctor quietly arriving, collecting our samples, and getting the fuck outta Seven without asking any questions.
Doctor Molina cheerfully got on with the the ritual of dipping various test strips into a sample bottle filled with my piss, occasionally saying "that's great," as he scribbled on my notes. "It sounds like the results will be negative, but if you do have an S.T.I., I take it that partner notification isn't possible in this case?"
"No, " I said, watching the slow trickle of my blood into a bottle. "I'm done, by the way. That's why I left María."
"Are you safe?" he asked, still with that quiet-calm tone, but I could see the worry in his eyes. "This is all totally confidential, but I have to report further if you're in any danger."
"I'm safe. María P.D. is involved," I said. It all sounded so fucking sordid, even without the details. "I was in a...difficult relationship. But I got out."
"Great to hear that, Zeph. And it's great that you moved to Santa Elena."
"Actually, I'm going back to Korea in a few days. There's a little complication with my passport, but my neighbor, Gloria, is helping me to get it fixed."
"Is that Gloria Rodriguez?"
"Yeah! Gloria and Clive are my neighbors. They're so nice." Nice didn't do them justice.
"They're great," said Doctor Molina, his eyes crinkling in a warm smile. "I'm friends with Clive from hiking club." The fact that he knew Clive was totally unsurprising. I guessed that a man like Clive would know everyone in Santa Elena, and would gladly call them all his friends. "And...have you met Jules?" Doctor Molina's demeanor changed as he mentioned her name. His quiet confidence disappeared momentarily, and he gave me a nervous glance.
Looks like someone's got a little crushy-crush.
"I met her Sunday. She's really nice. And her yoga book is awesome." I couldn't help testing the waters. "And she's really pretty."
"I guess," said Doctor Molina, shuffling his papers and turning back to his desk. "I've met her a few times, and she's..." he trailed off, smiling to himself a little.
"Great?" I offered.
He chuckled at that. "I do use that word too often."
"I was being serious. Jules is great."
I didn't hold out much hope for Doctor Molina getting a date with Jules. Jules seemed ambitious and driven, and Doctor Molina was more into tranquility and technical fabrics. But things like that didn't mean shit if two people were in love.
"Hey, next time you're near Seapoint Avenue, just drop by. We're the last house on the street before the forest starts."
"I know it, Will's house. He's great. I'll give him a call if I'm in the neighborhood. My name's Julián[1], by the way." He offered me an enthusiastic handshake.
"It's been so good to meet you, Julián. Thanks for everything."
I left the medical practice feeling that the Santa Elena Faultline was leaking some kinda magic volcanic gas that made the residents super-kind when they breathed it in. Julián was such a cool guy, and he seemed to love his work. Being a general practitioner sounded pretty zen from where I was sitting.
I half-imagined a blurry future of making it through medical school and hiding myself away in some idyllic Korean village, taking care of creaky seniors and flu-ridden children, spending my free time up mountains or down valleys, and adorning my office walls with photos of favorite hikes. Could I brave medical school for a chill future like that?
"Can you hear it?" Stood precariously on a porch chair, I held Gloria's phone above my head to capture the sounds of the beach.
"Can't hear shit," Teresa replied, bemused and impatient.
I stretched my arm higher. "How about now?"
"I definitely heard some pigeons," she said finally.
"They're not pigeons, Teresa, they're seagulls," I sighed.
Teresa's cackle blared out of the speaker. "Whatever they are, they sound nasty."
"I wish you could hear the ocean here. It sounds better than in María. The waves are bigger."
"Not all of us got a guarantor with a beach house," she teased. "Shit, we gotta start this interview."
"I thought Sofi was gonna interview me," I said, secretly happy that I'd gotten Teresa instead. Sofi Borbón was cute, but she put me on edge somehow, like my piano teacher used to when I hadn't practiced enough.
"She's real busy sweetie, and this is not so..."
"Important?"
I understood. I really did. My friends were in danger, but with no information on where they were, Sofi couldn't really do anything. After years of slowly chipping away at María's gangs, it's not like I was expecting the police to abandon their strategy and just charge into Jones's office to get my guys back.
"OK, sweetie. Mic's on. What do you wanna say about your buddies?"
"Aren't you gonna do all that 'interview with Jun-su Park started at four thirty-two p.m.' shit first? And do your classy police voice?"
Teresa howled down the phone, forcing me to hold it away from my ears before they started ringing. I guessed that only Teresa, or maybe someone from Sofi's team, would ever listen to this interview. Fine by me. I didn't have to worry about any accidental fucks, shits and assholes falling out of my mouth while I talked.
"OK, sweetie. So, these guys," I heard the rustle of paper and the sound of a plastic toy falling off a shelf, "Raheem Ali, Miles Plancy and Luka Konstantin, were they kidnapped like you?"
"Only I was kidnapped. Luke and Miles are normal rental assets, same as the women in Sigma. They get paid, really fucking badly, and they don't have to live at Seven. But Luke and Miles stay because they'd be homeless otherwise."
"You and Raheem aren't paid?"
"No. But Cal authorized Ollie Schmidt to give us cash to spend on whatever we wanted. The first couple of months I bought pointless shit, like Nike clothes. Then I got bored and asked for a digital piano. And then just spent money on ganja, MDMA and food. Sigma security guards chaperoned us if we wanted to go to the mall, or play football[2] or go sit in the park. They'd watch us from a few meters away in case we tried to run."
"Why were you and Raheem treated differently?" Teresa had lost her classy interview voice, and sounded genuinely fascinated by the everyday cruelty of Sigma.
"Raheem was abandoned by Stella Maris as part of a compensation deal with Sigma. He was made into a rental asset as punishment, and as a message to both Sigma and Stella Maris employees to abide by rules. Sigma still considers Raheem as loyal to his original gang, even though Stella Maris totally fucked him over."
"What about you?"
"I was kept under security because I was on the international missing persons' register, I guess. Cal said there was a lot of media attention when I went missing."
I heard the faint clicks of Teresa's mouse. "Says here that your Mom came to María for two weeks when you were first registered missing."
Tears suddenly pricked at my eyes. It was news to me that Eomma had come to find me. Where had I been when she'd been in María looking for me? Having my biometric data stolen from me by the print workers in Seven? In Chul's suite in El Grande Inglés, weeping through my first client booking? Eomma and I could have been in the same part of the city, meters away from each other.
"There's a ton of your Mom's phone interview records in Sofi's case file, going on for about a year. And then you were removed from the missing persons' register." That matched how Sigma had treated me; watching me like a hawk while the missing person case was active, and then loosening security after a year, when the chances of a ransom were truly dead in the water. "If you were such a security risk, why did Sigma keep you after you couldn't be ransomed?"
"I'd seen the entire counterfeiting operation by then. Their options were to keep me prisoner, or end me. For the first three months I was too useful to Sigma to kill. I was the rental asset for one of Sigma's smuggling partners, a Korean shipping magnate. When he was assassinated in a gang dispute in Seoul, I thought that Chavez would finally kill me. But there was a coup against Chavez, and Jones took over. He told Cal and the other asset managers that all projects with low profit margins needed to go."
"The sex work part of the organization had low profit margins?"
"Yeah. Chavez had come from a smaller gang that ran street-level prostitution. It was what he knew best. But when Jones became CEO, he didn't like the shitty profit margins, nor how much competition there is from Stella Maris, who do it way better. So these days Sigma has a portfolio of higher-reward shit like counterfeiting, weapons dealing and contraband. I guess Jones will remove all rental assets from Sigma real soon."
Teresa whistled. "Portfolios and profit margins, man. You make it sound like a company on the Fortune Five Hundred list, not some fucking gang."
"Yeah, well. Jones loves to think that he's a global business exec, not just some criminal shibal-seki in a suit."
I was so used to Sigma's obscure corporate jargon that anyone might think we were discussing operations in a legit company, not trafficked workers. Cars, cellphones, pharmaceuticals, human lives: they were all the same to Sigma.
The jargon wasn't just to hide activities from the police. It made Sigma employees numb to what they were doing, reducing everything to a zero-sum game. If me and my guys hadn't been looking out for each other, maybe we'd have all succumbed years ago. We'd have become like the other long-time employees, worn down by the everyday evil of Sigma until they were numb, dead inside.
"Maybe the fire at Seven has made Michael Jones want to drop the high-risk projects like sex work and drugs and slavery," Teresa said hopefully. "Maybe Sigma will become a less dangerous gang now."
"Jones tries to make Sigma look cleaner than the other gangs, but he still runs passport counterfeiting projects, Teresa. Those passports get sold to gangs to traffick people anywhere around the world. He's still a part of slavery even if he isn't doing it directly like Chavez did."
It was obvious that Sigma wouldn't ever change. New ventures and changes in portfolio only made Sigma need to negotiate with other gangs whose turf they were encroaching on. Sigma would always be big players in Maria's gang landscape, no matter how victimless their main projects seemed on the surface.
What would have been my fate if I'd stayed in Sigma beyond my useful years as an asset? Thrown onto the street with threats to keep quiet, or promotion to Sigma manager? Would I have become dead inside, talking portfolios and profit margins at La Rosa with Cal and Ollie? And Noah? I shivered on the metal chair on Gloria's back porch.
"Jones thinks that your three bros are profitable enough that he won't hurt them for now, right?"
"I don't know. Cal will be watching them closely because I ran away. And Miles is too sick to take clients."
"What kind of illness?"
"I don't know. He can't get out of bed sometimes. And is really like, spaced-out, and cries often. I guess it's...severe depression from being a rental asset. Cal threatens Raheem that he'll..." Courage, Zeph. "...he'll kill Miles once he stops making a profit."
Teresa drew in a breath. "Is that the normal procedure in Sigma when someone...isn't useful anymore?"
"No. I think that Cal just threatens Miles and Raheem to keep them in check. Cal's real cautious. Despite his reputation, he doesn't just kill people for the hell of it, and Miles has never been any trouble to him apart from being ill. He might throw Miles on the street with threats to keep quiet. But because Raheem and Miles are a couple, and there's no way that Cal will ever let Raheem go, then I don't want Miles to be thrown out alone. They need each other."
"What about the other one, Luke?"
"He wasn't a threat to Sigma until his rich client came along and started the fire. Maybe Luke is in way more danger than the rest of us, because he's stupid enough to protect his client from Cal." Fucking idiot baby bro. I hoped that Raheem and Miles were taking care of him, and hopefully talking him out of doing anything stupid for the sake of The One.
"And do you think that Sigma would kill you if you weren't under witness protection?"
"Yeah, sure. I've seen too much." Ollie's finance people must have seen me eavesdropping or snooping around where I shouldn't. I was sure that they'd soon realize that I hadn't died in the fire, and start looking for me. Perhaps I only had a matter of days to get out of the States.
"Do you think that they'd try to get you back as an asset?"
"I wasn't profitable enough to bother getting back," I said. "I didn't get as many jobs as the others, two clients per week at most."
"Why not?"
"Not sure if you noticed Teresa, but I'm Korean."
"I don't get it. So what if you're Korean?"
Poor innocent naïve Teresa.
"Sorry to offend your sensibilities Teresa, but prostitution is racist."
Teresa hooted down the phone at that, making my ears throb. "Are you telling me that perverts only want men in the same ethnic group?"
"Precisely. Most white sixty-year-old closeted gay dudes aren't as cosmopolitan as you or me, sister. They'd book Miles or Luke. Raheem and me were only assets because they couldn't let us go, so they decided to make profit outta us. The clients who booked me or Raheem were regulars who, you know, were into Asians or Africans."
"Into Asians as in...did the clients want you to speak Korean and stuff?" Teresa asked, sounding like she was lost in a landscape with grotesque landmarks that she didn't recognize.
"They wanted me to act like a stereotype. To be quiet and meek and polite and...Asian."
The conversation was starting to make me feel sick. In Sigma, my guys and me rarely discussed the peculiarities of our clients with each other. Mostly because we wanted to wipe any thoughts of clients from our minds, and fill our time off with wholesome and normal things. Like piano and ganja. But I guessed that Raheem's clients expected the same from him as mine did from me: to be more exotic than he really was, to speak the few words of Yoruba that he remembered from his childhood to maintain the fantasy. To act like someone he wasn't. It was all part of the unspoken deal that we made at every booking. My stomach started to churn.
"Damn, you are not quiet or meek, Zeph. I'd say you're polite though," Teresa mused.
"Too fucking polite for my own good, sister." Teresa burst into laughter, and we chuckled on for a while, more out of relief than anything, as if opening me up slowly, interview by interview, to expose Sigma's rotten core was tormenting the both of us. And there were a lot more interviews to go.
"Can we turn the mic off now, Teresa?" My guts felt like a knotted roiling mass. "I don't feel so good."
"Sure, sweetie." Teresa's voice quietened to a private murmur. "You know what I said before? About talking to someone?"
"Yeah. I'm gonna ask my Mom about it when I get home. If she doesn't have the money to pay for therapy for me, maybe I can save money once I get a job."
"Are you gonna be OK getting a job, now that you've been away from Korea for so long?"
"Yeah, sure. I didn't totally waste my time in Sigma. I've gotten a lot of skills." I searched the shelves in my brain for the remotest hint of a transferable skill that I'd acquired over the last two years. "I had to do accounting sometimes when Ollie's team were pulling all-nighters, and I learned how to align the lasers on the print heads before big counterfeiting jobs. And I've watched so much porn that I pretty-much count myself as an interior design expert by now. So, if you're redecorating your house then just give me a shout."
Teresa's throaty cackle burst out of the speaker, followed by a crash down the phoneline. The realization that Teresa was laughing so much that she'd fallen off her swivel chair had me in stitches, gripping Gloria's porch chair to save me from falling too.
Haven't you forgotten the only skill you have, Zeph?
"Oh yeah, Teresa!" I managed to spit out between guffaws, "I can play piano!"
"Zeph." A deep voice rumbled behind me.
"Shit, bye Teresa!" I swiped the call away, dropping Gloria's phone with a clatter onto the table. "How long have you been standing there?" I cried, panicking at how much Will might have overheard. Aside from that, Teresa and I maybe shouldn't have been having so much fun in a police interview.
"I'm not eavesdropping on your police interviews," he said, picking up the phone. His expression was inscrutable, for a change, and I fell into step behind him as we padded through Gloria's living room.
"I don't mind if you overheard. Just that...it's not nice for you to hear about all my Sigma shit."
Will stopped walking, and spun around to face me. "Zeph. You're worried that it's hard for me to hear about what they did to you? You're the one who went through it. How other people feel about it...isn't worth you worrying about right now."
Perhaps I didn't wanna protect him from hearing about Sigma. Perhaps it was just shame, pure and simple. Shame at what Sigma had done to me. Shame at what cruelty I'd come to accept as normal. Shame at still being able to laugh and joke with Teresa, even after everything that had happened.
Gloria beckoned us into the kitchen, Will tripping to the stove and eagerly lifting pot lids to check out the contents. He tore a fat strip off a tortilla, dangling it into his mouth as he ate, like he owned Gloria's kitchen. As shy as he was with everything else, the dude was certainly not shy about food.
"Niños[3], will you stay for dinner? There's soup and frijoles and rice."
Will's eyebrows raised in excitement, but all I wanted was to be alone in my room, free to examine all of my predicaments more closely. The interview had made me realize that I needed to organize my shame into neat piles on shelves in my brain, ready for the therapist in Busan to sort through when I got home. Either that or bake up and forget about shame until next week, next month, next year.
"Thanks, Gloria. But I'm really tired after my police interview."
Gloria's expression dimmed a little. Will looked at me with huge sad eyes.
"Maybe we can take some with us?" I offered, and was relieved to see Gloria's face brighten as Will set about packaging up food for us to take home. "Hey, Gloria. I met Julián Molina today. He is such a nice guy!"
"Did he say that we're great?" Gloria giggled, nudging Will in the ribs. Will chuckled along with her, shaking his head as he ladled frijoles into a box.
"Hey, you noticed that too!" I wasn't sure if I was stirring, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt. "He said that Jules was great too."
Gloria pressed her hand to her chest, telenovela-style. "Nuestra Señora, does he still like her? They went on a couple of dates at Christmas, but Julia wasn't interested."
"But Julián is awesome!" I said, more because he had been so kind during my near-meltdown in his office, than because I considered him to be good boyfriend material for Jules. "Maybe she hasn't seen his amazing photography skills yet. He took this incredible photo of El Capitán in the snow!"
Will chuckled at my dumb optimism, a sub-bass rumble that rolled out of him more like a cat's purr than laughter. I guessed that beautiful landscapes and calm-quiet dudes weren't Jules's thing.
"Could you talk to Julia, niños? Julián is such a nice man. They'd be a lovely couple, don't you think?" Gloria looked tense, like she knew inside that Jules wouldn't be swayed.
We promised to sing Julián's praises to Jules when we next saw her, and headed back to Will's place laden with food.
My stomach was still in knots from the interview, and I tried to nonchalantly creep onto the back porch to bake up while Will was in the kitchen. But he quickly found me on the sandy boards of the porch.
"You're not gonna eat?"
"No, but it was really nice of Gloria."
Will turned to me with sad eyes again. "Looks like you ate a handful of trailmix today."
"I'm just not able to eat right now. I'm really sorry."
"It's OK." Will dragged a hand down his beard, his eyebrows squirming. "I just don't want you to get sick before your flight home. Try to eat later, OK?" I nodded, knowing in my heart that I wasn't gonna eat anything. "How did it go...with Julián?"
"All clear," I whispered. "HIV results are gonna arrive in a week."
"You OK?"
"Yeah. I just got...really upset...right before getting tested. Getting an STI test every six months used to be normal."
"Getting upset about it is normal, Zeph," Will murmured. "You're just remembering what normal is."
Will raced to the living room for his daily call to Mozhgan while I slunk away to the sand beyond the porch to get baked. As long as I had ganja, my shame could wait until next week. Or next month. Or next year.
Author's Notes:
[1] Julián: Spanish pronunciation (i.e. "hool-YAN")
[2] Football: Association Football a.k.a. soccer, extremely popular in Korea
[3] Niños: Spanish, boys