House of Mei Pt. 02

"You, in your room," Mei Ul Lon said to their daughter. "And you, on couch."

"Oh, but Bergeron Jimmy will be too afraid to sleep on couch," Mei Ul Jon said.

"Then I will stay here with him," Mei Tin Dae said. "You, to your room."

Jimmy didn't argue; he was exhausted. After relieving his coffee-saturated bladder and brushing his teeth, he stretched out on the lumpy couch and fell asleep quickly.

He woke up at nine forty five, Mei Ul Jon's face millimeters away from his.

"I prayed every night," she whispered. "I prayed every night you come back to me."

"Well, I believe in prayers," he whispered back.

"Come, come, we eat," Mei Ul Lon ordered from the doorway.

Jimmy was glad when Mei Ul Jon turned and followed her mother into the kitchen. He had a morning erection and did not want Mei Ul Jon to see his morning wood tenting the front of his jeans.

"You wash hands?" Mei Ul Lon asked when he joined them at the table.

"Before or after I picked my nose?" he asked and Mei Ul Jon screeched with disgust.

While the Mei family were enjoying their breakfast, Mei Lon Soo wondered why Ronnie, the new chapter president of their sorority had called her to come in.

Becky had warned Mei Lon Soo that Veronica Hedges was blatantly homophobic, but Mei Lon Soo had shrugged. As long as Mei Lon Soo followed the rules of the sorority, Ronnie had no cause to suspend her membership.

"And how silly is homophobic?" she thought to herself. "Is the girl afraid I will force her to kiss me?"

Ronnie hemmed and hawed, but did finally get around to informing Mei Lon Soo that they had not received her dues.

Mei Lon Soo quickly texted her sister, asking Mei Ul Jon to ask their father why he had not sent in the dues.

"I do not have daughter; why would I send in dues?" Mei Tin Dae glared, face tight with anger.

Mei Ul Jon stared hard at her father for a long moment, then pursed her lips and sent that reply to her sister.

Ronnie smirked in triumph as Mei Lon Soo got to her feet and left the office.

Mei Lon Soo had a sinking feeling in her stomach as she walked rapidly to the Bursar's office.

Mrs. Ogletree, who had been at the University fifty nine years, and remembered every student's name, smiled as Mei Lon Soo entered the office.

"Please, am I registered, has my tuition been received?" she asked the old woman.

"Well, let's see, Mei Lon..." the woman said as she typed rapidly.

The woman's smile faded slightly, then she pasted the smile back onto her wrinkled face.

"Well, no, it hasn't come in yet, but there's still four days," the woman said. "I'm sure we'll get it."

Mei Ul Jon relayed the latest text message to Mei Tin Dae and received the same answer.

"That is not right," Mei Lon Soo yelled into the telephone when Mei Ul Jon answered. "I worked there for seven years! No pay! So that I would have my tuition paid."

"Why would I pay for someone I do not know?" Mei Tin Dae spat. "Now, go to your station; we have much work here."

Molly, Andrea's cousin had no problem letting a friend sleep on her couch for a week or two. But beyond that, Mei Lon Soo would have to start chipping in financially.

"I mean, yeah, love that you keep this place all nice and clean, shit, it ain't never looked this good before," Molly said. "But, shit girl, place is costing me seven fifty a month, know what I'm saying?"

"I will find something," Mei Lon Soo promised, not really sure what she'd be able to do.

"We always looking for dancers," Molly suggested.

"At the chicken place?" Mei Lon Soo asked.

"The Rooster Pull," Molly laughed. "Yeah, and you'd be the only Chinese girl there."

"I am Korean!" Mei Lon Soo declared, insulted that Molly would think she was Chinese.

"Uh huh, like anyone cares?" Molly asked, slowly swaying and swiveling to a song on her stereo.

She abruptly stopped and left the room.

"Anyway, I ain't a total bitch," Molly said, coming back into the room with a small cloth bag over her shoulder. "You got 'til Friday, okay?"

"Thank you," Mei Lon Soo quietly said.

"But I'm serious, bet Chuck's just cream himself over you," Molly said, checked the contents of her bag again, then left the apartment.

Mei Lon Soo cleaned their lunch dishes, then idly turned on Molly's old television.

"This is not right," she declared out loud.

"Ben Upjohn got me a hundred and seventy thousand dollars!" an African-American woman declared, smiling widely into the television camera.

"Now, I can't promise you I'll get you that much money," a handsome young man smiled into the camera. "But I can promise you, no one will fight harder to get you what you deserve..."

She pulled her cell phone out; thankfully, her father had not thought to cancel her telephone. Then Mei Lon Soo called the number for Ben Upjohn.

The girl on the telephone sounded very nice, very concerned with Mei Lon Soo's plight and made an appointment for that Friday.

"But I only have until Friday," Mei Lon Soo said. "Is there nothing you can do?"

"I really am sorry; that's the earliest we have," the girl apologized. "I mean, we get a cancellation, I'll call you, but..."

Mei Lon Soo called Andrea, got Molly's cell phone number, and sent Molly a text message.

"I will dance," she said.

Her father would be scandalized; her mother would be horrified at the shame of a daughter of theirs dancing naked in front of men.

"Too damned bad; I am no daughter," Mei Lon Soo said, mouth drawn tight.

Molly sent Mei Lon Soo a text that Chuck was dying to meet her.

While the lunch crowd was beginning to thin out at the House Of Mei, while Mei Lon Soo was blushing furiously and speaking with Chuck Meyers, owner and manager of Rooster Pull lounge, Aaron Putnam was stripping an air conditioning unit of copper materials.

He'd walked past DeGarde's Cash For Gold Pawn Shop and had felt his heart plummet. His 1962 Precision Bass guitar was hanging in the window.

The man behind the glass cage had been unsympathetic that Aaron was doing everything he could to scrape the money together to get his guitar out of hock.

"Been ninety days," the man said through the grill. "Told you when you brought it in, ninety days or it goes out."

The need for heroin was overwhelming, the anguish at losing his prized guitar, and realizing he had nothing left to hock, Aaron resorted to theft.

He also found a home under construction and stripped all the copper wiring out of the walls.

All that hard work barely netted him enough for the heroin. It did not net Aaron enough to buy his guitar back.

Another man that Aaron had seen around also fixed a rig and Aaron watched as the man's face slowly turned blue.

When Aaron came to, stomach cramping horribly, he looked over at his neighbor and noticed the man's eyes were open, staring at nothing.

Aaron remembered enough from High School Health Class to check for a pulse. There was no pulse.

He performed CPR for about a moment, then lost the strength and told the man he was sorry.

Then Aaron felt through the man's pockets and took the man's money, the man's watch, not noticing that the watch was broken, and the man's tennis shoes.

Inside the left tennis shoes, he found a wadded up fifty dollar bill.

And, underneath the man, Aaron found a six inch blade.

After vomiting the food he'd eaten from the dumpster, Aaron went to buy his heroin.

It was a busy evening at the Pak-N-Sak. Donna liked it when it was busy. When it was slow, she had too much time to think.

She'd called and made an appointment with Dr. Sylvia Hooperstein. The woman had a program on Channel 12 and Donna had watched it one morning when she just couldn't sleep.

It was as if God Himself had wanted Donna awake that morning, Dr. Hooperstein was talking about sexual abuse, specifically father-daughter incestuous abuse.

The appointment was for next Tuesday; thankfully her insurance would pay up to eighty percent. Dr. Hooperstein was not cheap.

Aaron Putnam walked into the convenience store and Donna's hackles went up. The man looked unkempt, unwashed. Where it had been extremely busy a moment earlier, there were no others in the store now.

Aaron looked around, saw that he and the barrel shaped cashier were the only people in the store. Then he grabbed several candy bars and brought them to the counter.

Before Donna could greet him, Aaron jumped the counter.

Earl Bergeron had smelled bad like Aaron, especially after a shift at the landfill.

Aaron grabbed Donna from behind. His six inch blade went against her throat.

His other hand went around, landing on Donna's breast.

Earl would delight in walking up behind Donna and grabbing her breasts. Or her backside, or her crotch.

"No!" Donna screamed, feeling Earl's disgusting hands on her body again.

"Look, bitch, just open your fucking register," Aaron hissed.

"Look, bitch, just open your fucking legs, huh?" Earl would hiss.

Donna thrashed, for once fighting back against her father.

The sharp blade sliced through Donna's throat and her blood sprayed in a geyser.

Aaron released the screaming, squirming woman, too weak to hold on to her. He tried to force the register open as she fell to the floor, still screaming in a gurgle of blood.

Unable to open the register, Aaron screamed and kicked the woman, hard, then fled the store.

"No!" Donna gurgled one last time and died.

Two Colfax, Missouri police officers somberly walked into House Of Mei and asked the petite hostess if they could speak with James Bergeron.

"Um, privately?" one police officer said as the Mei family crowded around in the tiny office.

"No," Mei Tin Dae said.

"We are his family," Mei Ul Jon explained. "And he is our family."

For a long moment, Jimmy did not react. He just stared blankly.

Then what the two officers had said finally seeped into his consciousness and he wailed out loud.

"What? What has happened?" Mei Ul Lon asked as Mei Ul Jon wrapped her arms around the sobbing Jimmy.

"His sister, his only relative is dead," Mei Tin Dae translated.

Mei Ul Lon burst into wails as well. She mourned for the passing of a good woman that had raised Bergeron Jimmy. She mourned for the sister she would never meet, a friend she had never known.

"We will go to the funeral," she ordered.

Mei Ul Jon used their home computer and printed up the sign that announced in English and in Korean that they were closed due to a death in the family.

"Who has died?" Mei Lon Soo screamed into her cell phone when Mei Ul Jon answered.

"Bergeron Jimmy's sister," Mei Ul Jon said, somewhat crossly.

She was sleepy, being rocked by the gentle motion of Bergeron Jimmy's truck. It was stuffy in the truck, and she was tired from hours traveling.

She told her sister what she knew and assured her sister that their parents were fine; they were right behind Bergeron Jimmy's truck, in the van.

At Donna's house, there were two bedrooms. Mei Tin Dae and Mei Ul Lon took what would have been Jimmy's bed; they were exhausted from so many hours of driving.

"Mei Ul Jon, here, in this bedroom," Jimmy said tiredly.

"But you not sleeping in bed," Mei Tin Dae barked.

"No, I will be on couch," Jimmy agreed.

Even though the sun beat down, unhampered by Donna's frilly curtains, Jimmy, Mei Ul Lon and Mei Tin Dae slept soundly.

In Mei Ul Jon's room, Donna's room faced away from the sun so the room was relatively dark. But she could not sleep, tired though she was.

Finally, she crawled out of the bed, dragging her own pillow, the one she always brought whenever she would not be in her own bed, and walked quietly to the living room.

She lay her pillow down on the couch, then crawled under the blanket and lay against Jimmy's back.

"I love you, Bergeron Jimmy," she said and fell asleep.

Mei Ul Lon was the first to awaken and wanted to scream when she discovered her daughter and Bergeron Jimmy sleeping on the couch.

Mei Tin Dae pursed his lips, even as he noted the odd sleeping arrangement.

Then he shook his head at his wife.

Donna kept her fridge and pantry well stocked; she got a discount on items from the Pak-N-Sak.

The smell of bacon and eggs and far too strong coffee woke Jimmy.

He needed to pee. But something was pressed against his back and he couldn't roll over. Something had him pinned, facing the couch's back.

Then he felt the small arm draped over his chest.

"Mei Ul Jon, if your parents catch us..." he hissed.

"It is too late," Mei Tin Dae loudly announced.

Mei Ul Jon shrieked, leapt from the couch and scurried toward Donna's bedroom.

Jimmy rolled over but Mei Tin Dae was no longer in the living room.

Jimmy went to the hall bathroom and relieved his aching bladder, then prayed silently.

After washing his hands, he walked into the kitchen. Mei Tin Dae was at the table, sipping a cup of coffee. Mei Ul Lon was standing on a chair at the stove.

"Well, what shall we do about this?" Mei Tin Dae asked, face hard.

"Our family, you have brought dishonor to our family," Mei Ul Lon said, face also hard.

"We welcome you, we greet you with open arms, you are son to us," Mei Tin Dae said as Mei Ul Lon jumped down from her chair to stand next to her husband.

"I am deeply..." Jimmy tried to say.

"Father, Mother, please, it was I," Mei Ul Jon interrupted, coming into the kitchen. "Bergeron Jimmy is good man. He has brought no dishonor..."

"Ha!" Mei Tin Dae and Mei Ul Lon both burst into peals of laughter.

"Now, you remember that next time, eh?" Mei Tin Dae ordered his daughter. "You are to sleep in your bed, he is to sleep on couch. When you married? Well, then you sleep with husband. But not before."

While Jimmy made the preparations for Donna's funeral, Mei Lon Soo nervously waited her turn to go onto the small stage.

She had told Chuck Meyers she did not really know how to dance. The man had laughed and pointed to the stage.

On stage, a young African-American girl was pantomiming spanking herself on her butt. Then she gave her buttocks one last wild shake before scampering off the stage.

"Honey, ain't none of them do any dancing," Chuck assured her.

Now, even though Molly assured her there was no way to screw up, Mei Lon Soo was still nervous.

"What's your name, Baby Cakes?" Arnie, the DJ asked her.

"Mei Lon Soo," Mei Lon Soo answered.

"Um, no," the man said, pinched features becoming even more pinched. "That might be your real name, but that sucks."

"Rooster Pull, put your hands together for Lotus!" Arnie said into the microphone. "This Asian delight wants to open her flower just for you tonight!"

Chuck and Molly watched as the obviously nervous girl clumsily walked and wiggled through 'Smooth Criminal' by Alien Ant Farm.

"She ain't the worst I ever seen," Chuck shrugged and got back to work.

The End of 'House Of Mei Pt 2'

*****

*Author's Note: I write these stories for my pleasure; I post them here for your enjoyment. I do thank you sincerely for reading my stories.

I also thank you for taking the time to leave your comments, and for taking the time to rate my stories. I however do not read emails. The few that I had taken the time to read were just so hateful and vindictive that I simply delete them now without reading any of them.

Have a super swell day.