“You’re still young,” Dong Hyun said.
“Well, she lives in Boston now,” Sam said. “So…”
“You could visit her.”
“I don’t think she wants me to visit her.”
“It doesn’t take long to get to Boston anymore,” Dong Hyun said.
“It takes about six hours by plane. Same amount of time as it’s always taken.”
“Faster than getting from Venice to Echo Park in traffic,” Dong Hyun said.
“That’s not true.”
“I’m making a classic L.A. traffic joke.”
“Oh, right.”
“It was a good joke,” Dong Hyun insisted.
“Nothing seems that funny to me lately.”
“Are you kidding?” Dong Hyun laughed and that turned into another fit of coughing. “Everything is funny now.” Dong Hyun closed his eyes. “When you talk to Sadie, tell her there’s pizza for her. Friends of Sam’s eat free.”
“I’ll tell her,” Sam said. The pizza parlor had been renamed two years ago and had entirely new owners.
“Love you, Sammy,” Dong Hyun said.
“I love you, too, Grandpa.” For most of his life, Sam had found it difficult to say I love you. It was superior, he believed, to show love to those one loved. But now, it seemed like one of the easiest things in the world Sam could do. Why wouldn’t you tell someone you loved them? Once you loved someone, you repeated it until they were tired of hearing it. You said it until it ceased to have meaning. Why not? Of course, you goddamn did.
* * *
—
The memorial was held at the Korean Cultural Center, and in addition to Dong Hyun’s family and friends, many of his fellow shopkeepers and restaurateurs were in attendance. Sam and his grandmother spent hours being thanked and consoled.
As the afternoon went on, Sam softened his vision, allowing himself to be there and not there. It was a trick he’d had from the long convalescences of his youth. He could be in his body and not in his body. He looked at people, and he muttered thanks for coming ad nauseam, and without appearing to be, he gazed into the distance, as if the back wall of the KCC were a Magic Eye poster, in a train station.
At once, his eyes fixed on something. In a world of planar surfaces, someone became 3D. It was Sadie.
He had not seen her for almost five years, and the sight of her, in the flesh, seemed like an illusion.
She had called him two or three days ago, but he hadn’t thought she would come.
She waved at him.
He waved at her.
She said something, but he was too far away to hear it.
He nodded as if he’d understood.
She left.
* * *
—
Two weeks later, Dong Hyun’s will was read. As was to be expected, most everything passed to Bong Cha. There was one notable exception: “My Donkey Kong machine, which was in my pizza parlor for many years, I leave to Sadie Green. With much affection and gratitude for the years of friendship between my grandson and herself.”
Sam had not called her number for many years. He did not get her immediately, but in the evening, she returned his call. He thanked her for coming to the funeral. “But that’s not why I’m calling. Dong Hyun left you something in his will.”
“Really? What is it?”
“It’s the Donkey Kong machine.”
“What?” Sadie’s voice could not help but exude childish enthusiasm. “I love Donkey Kong! I was so jealous of you when you told me you could play as much as you want. Why would he do that do you think?”
“Well,” Sam said. “You know, he was proud of us. Proud of our games. He always kept the posters in Dong and Bong’s.
“And you were—well, just about my only friend for a significant portion of my childhood, as I’m sure you were aware…so…I think he probably thought I would have, like, given up without you, or something. Maybe I would have, I don’t know. He was grateful to you.”
Sadie considered this. “No, I can’t accept this. You should have the machine.”
“Why would I want it? You’re the one who loves Donkey Kong. Just tell me what you want me to do with it. We can leave it in my grandmother’s house, if you don’t want it. I think it probably weighs a ton, literally.”
“I’ll get it shipped,” Sadie said. “I definitely want it. It’s a classic. Give me a couple of days to figure it out. I’m probably going to put it in my office at MIT.”
“Dong Hyun would have loved his machine ending up at one of the best schools in the country.”
“How are you?” Sadie said.
“I’ve been better. I’ve decided…I prefer video game death, all things considered.”
“Short, sweet, with the possibility of imminent resurrection,” Sadie said.
“Video game characters never die.”
“They die all the time, actually. It doesn’t mean the same thing.”
“What are you working on?” Sam asked.
“Raising a kid, teaching my class. That’s about it.”
“Are you harassing your students like Dov?”
“No,” Sadie said. “I honestly can’t imagine wanting to sleep with anyone in their twenties, forget about their teens. I always feel like I should add, Dov was a great teacher. I don’t know what my impulse to defend him is.”
“Do you like teaching?”
“I do,” she said. “A kid wore a Mapletown jersey the first day.”
“How’d that make you feel?”
“You mean, because Mapleworld was the phoenix that rose from the ashes of my failure?”
“Something like that,” Sam said.
“The kid didn’t know. It was a compliment. They think Mapleworld is my game.”
“It was your game, wasn’t it?”
“More yours,” Sadie said. “I think that’s been established. Considering my many concerns about credit, it turns out that no one remembers who’s responsible for anything.”
“Someone on the internet probably knows the truth,” Sam said.
“Wow, that is amazingly naive,” Sadie said. “The belief that someone on the internet knows the truth about anything.”
“I’ve been blue, lately,” Sam admitted. “And I wondered, how do you get over that sort of thing?”
“Work helps,” Sadie said. “Games help. But sometimes, when I’m really low, I keep a particular image in my mind.”
“What is it?”
“I imagine people playing. Sometimes, it’s one of our games, but sometimes, it’s any game. The thing I find profoundly hopeful when I’m feeling despair is to imagine people playing, to believe that no matter how bad the world gets, there will always be players.”
As Sadie spoke, Sam was reminded of a winter afternoon, many years ago, and of commuters clogging up the train station, blocking his path. At the time, they’d seemed like impediments to him, but maybe he’d been thinking of them the wrong way. What makes a person want to shiver in a train station for nothing more than the promise of a secret image? But then, what makes a person drive down an unmarked road in the middle of the night? Maybe it was the willingness to play that hinted at a tender, eternally newborn part in all humans. Maybe it was the willingness to play that kept one from despair.