Chapter 4

Saturday, July 19, 1997 – Los Angeles

It was Saturday evening, and Kyung-soon had left the diner where she'd had a third...she did not know what to call it...date?...or just dinner at the same table...with Enos Strate. The man was quickly becoming a riddle she needed to solve. Or rather, a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, stuffed inside a six-foot two-inch enigma that both fascinated and perplexed her.

She arrived at her apartment in an upscale complex in Downtown Los Angeles, plopped herself down on the sofa, and began to think of herself as Soonie. He had told her that her given name was like something from a poem, but he was afraid he would always be botching it. He said Kay didn't fit her and asked if he could call her Soonie. She had agreed – of course, she had agreed. Her father would be appalled.

The apartment, subsidized by her firm and owned by her stepmother's brother-in-law, had amenities she could not have afforded on her base salary. However, her uncle had insisted when he sponsored her initial visa and eventual permanent resident status.

Her uncle's insistence, not wholly altruistic, was fortified by the fact that good auditors were not easy to come by. She was tri-lingual. She was family, therefore, would not merely jump ship for another company. Her lack of husband or children meant she was free, at any time, to travel.

Her acceptance she justified by her unrepentant need to be free of traditional family ties that had: coerced her into a loveless, childless marriage when she was twenty-three, then admonished her when, after the death of her stepmother three years later, she filed for divorce. The only mother she had ever known, her stepmother, had been the glue holding the family together. When she was gone, so went the only reason to maintain the pretense that she could accept life as it had been dictated for her.

Having already worked at the Seoul-based firm for a year, she petitioned her uncle for a position at his company's branch in San Francisco and left South Korea within two weeks of the final divorce decree. A year ago, she transferred to the Los Angeles office.

All in all, she had been in the United States for nine years and had become a citizen ten months previous. She was part of a generation of South Koreans who were trending toward divergence from archaic patriarchal traditions and gender-based restrictions. Only having returned to South Korea once since then, for her half-brother's marriage ceremony five years earlier, Kyung-soon had no plans to go back in the near, or far-flung, future.

Over a shared Reuben on rye, she had told Enos that since her last class at the center was the upcoming Saturday, she would be traveling to New York on Monday for a month, possibly more, for work.

The result was that next Sunday, although he had stumbled over the words, she had a date with the enigma to spend the day driving the Pacific Coast Highway.

Saturday, July 26, 1997 – Hazzard

Jesse Duke, dressed in his white overalls and red cap, sat on the front porch next to a bowl of rhubarb greens. Because they are poisonous, the leaves would be disposed of in the compost pile where the oxalic acid would be broken down. But the stems were destined for a more satisfying end. Before it reached the end of the lane leading to the farm, he heard the Harley but continued his work shaving the brown spots from the edible stalks.

Jumping off the bike, Daisy sprinted up the stairs to the porch and had her arms around Jesse's neck by the time he'd put the red celery-like stems aside and stood up. He was too old and tired to move that fast anymore.

"Uncle Jesse," she whispered.

"Good to see you too, sweet girl. You didn't tell me you were coming home this weekend. Or did I forget?"

She hugged him tight again before letting go. "I got Danny to cover for me at work at the last minute. You fixin' to make some rhubarb pie, Uncle Jesse?"

"I was, but now I'm thinkin' maybe you'd like to take over that job, Daisy. I got plenty of strawberries in the freezer, and everybody loves your strawberry rhubarb pie."

"Sounds like fun," she said.

It warmed Jesse's heart to see her really smile again.

"Well, you better make a few of um, 'cause your cousins'll be here later."

"Bo and Luke are comin' in? When did that happen? I thought Luke was still helping to wrap up a fire in Montana?"

"He was, but he said they're past the point where they need smokejumpers, so he's comin' home for a bit to wind down. Guess it got pretty bad there for a while."

"What about Bo?"

"Said somethin' about gettin' tired of chasin' the pro circuit and thought he'd come home and decide what he wants to do. Says he's gonna' stay awhile."

"Uncle Jesse, that's wonderful. We'll all be together again."

After making four pies and putting them in the refrigerator to keep until she was ready to bake them, Daisy peeked into the parlor where Uncle Jesse had dozed off in his favorite armchair. He looked so tired. She made a mental note to talk to the boys about staying for more than a while, or at least coming to visit on a more regular basis.

She turned and started upstairs quietly so she wouldn't wake Uncle Jesse. Leaving her saddlebag at the bottom of the stairs for unpacking later, she took only a small case up to her old bedroom.

Surveying the room nostalgically, she exhaled the air she had been keeping in. The room looked just as she had left it two weeks ago, but it seemed different today. Maybe it was the sunlight streaming through the lace curtains, or perhaps it was that her mood was more willing to appreciate the sunlight today than it had been two weeks ago.

She wasn't, like Carmen said, 'crying in her soup' anymore. Since the end of May, she had slept reasonably well without having to curl up around the Times. Even though no longer ignored, it wasn't needed for comfort either. It no longer held power to point an accusing finger at her every time she passed a newsstand that sold it, and she had actually read one or two editions over the past weeks from cover to cover. No wonder Enos had stayed in L.A…there were probably lots of dragons to slay there. Somehow, that made it feel less like her fault.

And there he was. The reason she had come home for the weekend.

She had finally summoned up the wherewithal to open the heartache in the closet in her Durham apartment. From her bag, she drew a small ring box and one baggie of brown and desiccated apple peel. The rest of what she had left of him was around her neck or lay within the chifforobe, in a brown paper shopping bag with L.A.P.D. printed on the side.

The turn of the century knockdown wardrobe cabinet was made of oak and varnished with a light stain to match the bed frame. The two pieces of furniture had been in Aunt Lavinia's family for several generations, and the only two pieces of furniture she had brought with her when she and Uncle Jesse were married. The hiding place in the bottom of the chifforobe had been hers and Aunt Lavinia's secret. Now, it was hers alone.

Enos had brought her letters he'd never mailed, written over ten or so years. She hadn't been able to get herself to read them, not a single one. Since she'd put them there in April, she couldn't even open the doors to the cabinet, let alone read those letters. But now, It was time. She owed him that. She owed it to herself.

Placing the ring box and the bag with the apple peel on the edge of the bed, Daisy reached into the chifforobe and pulled out the shopping bag.

It was late in the afternoon before Daisy came down to put the pies in the oven. She had almost forgotten them. In her hand was one of Enos's letters. While waiting for the oven to pre-heat, she took four pies out of the fridge, then sat down at the kitchen table to read.

Enos had neatly organized and bundled the letters by dates, so it had been easy for her to locate the first batch and read them in chronological order. While reading, she alternately smiled and laughed softly at this one.

"It's good to hear you laugh like that, Daisy. I was afraid I might never hear it again." Uncle Jesse had appeared from nowhere in the kitchen.

"It's one of Enos's letters, back from when he took his Academy training." She looked at the date on the letter again. "This one's from about a month before he graduated. He says…said, 'The torture is almost over so the next torture can begin.'"

She laughed again and got up from the table to pop the pies in the oven. As soon as that task was completed, she sat back down and retrieved the letter.

"That don't sound very funny," Jesse said.

"Oh, Uncle Jesse, he means that when he graduates, graduated, he would be a probationary officer for a year. From the way he describes it, it's pretty intense. He gets…got a training officer who apparently dogs your every move and keeps score."

"Kinda like the drill instructors we had in Dubbya Dubbya Two."

"He says some of them are pretty tough, but he's looking forward to getting back out on the street again." She read the next few lines and softened her tone until it was barely audible. "I missed being out in the thick of things more than I ever realized when I was back in Hazzard."

Jesse watched her lightness of earlier become something more like brooding.

"How many letters did he bring you again?" he asked.

"He said there were 476. I haven't counted, but it looks like that many when you size up all the bundles."

"You plannin' on readin' all of um?"

She looked at her Uncle Jesse with the kind of determined resolve that would have answered the question on its own. "If it takes me from now 'til doomsday."

Jesse put his hands in his lap and rubbed his thumbs together, the way he did when he was trying to broach a delicate subject.

"You okay, Uncle Jesse?"

"I was wonderin' about what you said the last time you were here. About punishin' Enos for leavin.' Didn't seem like a good time to ask then, and maybe I didn't understand what you were sayin'…'cause that don't sound like you at all."

"You didn't misunderstand me, Uncle Jesse. I was thinking out loud when I said it, but the more I've thought about it, the more sense it makes. You know what they say, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem?"

"You still ain't talked to Enos?"

"…no."

"I know you been strugglin' with what happened between you and him. I never thought it would hit you this hard or for this long. I wish I could help you, darlin.' I surely do."

"It's okay Uncle Jesse," she said, putting her hand over his and squeezing gently. "Just bein' able to talk to you helps. So, if you have somethin' to say, don't hold back. I think that's what got me and Enos in this tangled up mess in the first place."

Even though Uncle Jesse had more to say, he was interrupted by the sound of a truck pulling up in front of the house and Bo and Luke's voices thanking Alvin Dobbins for the ride. Uncle Jesse pointed at the diamond ring dangling on the end of the chain around Daisy's neck and said, "You might want to put that out of sight unless you wanna' answer a bunch of fool questions from your cousins."

Jesse already had a bad feeling about her wearing Enos's engagement ring around her neck. Having to deal with Bo and Luke's badgering her with a barrage of questions about it would just make Daisy dig in her heels.

She flashed him an appreciative smile and tucked the engagement ring inside her sundress, letting it fall down into her cleavage.

Sunday, July 27, 1997 – Los Angeles

Enos woke on Sunday morning, actually looking forward to the day. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he felt like jumping out of bed and meeting the day head-on. It felt good. Even the threat of wet weather couldn't dampen his mood.

After dressing in his jeans and a short-sleeved pullover shirt, he called Soonie at 6:00 am sharp to check if she was ready to go, reminding her at the same time that the PCH can get cold further up the coast, even in the summer. He'd found that out the hard way once when he had to pick up a prisoner from San Luis Obispo.

He picked Soonie up at her apartment in his '92 Silver F150, which he had bought used but in mint condition in 1995, and they headed for Santa Monica and CA-1. Despite the weather report, the clouds said no rain, at least within the vantage point of the next fifty miles or so.

He headed north with the rocky beach on the left. Scrub-covered mountains slipped under the roadway and dropped into the ocean on the right. The weather could not have been more perfect, and they drove with the windows down all the way through to Ventura Beach.

The wind caught Soonie's hair and softly blew it around the cab of the truck so that she was forced to pull it back with a scrunchy and tame it into a ponytail. Although he appreciated the logic, he missed the long, soft strands of hair flying around the cab.

He and Soonie didn't talk much during the first part of the trip. Each of them seemed to be comfortable enough that small talk wasn't necessary. In Enos's case, the comfort level seemed to be enhanced by not saying anything at all. In fact, he thought, he had never been this comfortable with another soul, not even Daisy, or at least not for a long time. He preferred, even if only for today, to simply enjoy how being with Soonie felt. Most of his discomfort over the last few times he had been in her company had come from the feeling, though he knew it was absurd, that he was cheating on Daisy. So, he consciously pushed all thoughts of Daisy into the background, even though he also knew he wasn't ready to completely let go of her.

It was only 10:00 am by the time they made it to Santa Barbara, and the weather was still holding. Another two hours and they would be near San Luis Obispo in time for lunch. Since their previous meals together had been in restrictive surroundings, like the coffee shop and the diner, Soonie asked if they could get something at a food truck to take out onto the Avila Beach terraces.

Enos learned that she loved all kinds of food truck fare. Much to her disappointment, there were no food trucks scheduled until later in the afternoon. However, one of the small pubs did take-out specifically for eating on the beach. So Enos bought them two fish n' chip baskets, mineral water for him and a cold beer for Soonie – she insisted that the proper enjoyment of fish n' chips had to include a cold bottle, not can, of beer.

Surrounded by shoes, socks, and sandals, they ate their pub food. Soonie had had the forethought to wear capris, but Enos had to roll up his jeans to walk out onto the beach. The view was spectacular, even with the clouds moving in – wispy, angel hair clouds that looked as if someone had swished them into being.

"You do not drink at all?" she asked, clinking her beer against his mineral water.

"It dulls the edge I like to keep…and my Daddy was a moonshiner and a ridge-runner."

She looked at him with a mock surprised 'I never would have guessed that' smile on her pretty face, more animated than he'd seen it before.

Enos smiled back at her. "He never wanted me to take up the habit, so when I was about eleven, he gave me a shot glass of 190 proof moonshine, that's about eighty-five to ninety percent alcohol by volume, and told me to drink it down in one gulp." He almost giggled at the memory. "I got so sick that I never wanted to touch alcohol of any kind again. Still don't to this day."

"He sounds like he was a wise man."

"He was. Besides, my new partner is testin' me, and I don't want to fail. I need to keep that edge."

"I do not believe you have ever failed at anything."

"I have. Several times." He didn't want to count his relationship, or lack thereof, with Daisy. "I failed the first time I tried to be part of the LAPD."

"I do not understand."

"I came out to Los Angeles once before, back in 1980. They put me in uniform, 'cause I'd already been to the Police Academy in Atlanta, and partnered me with another cop named Turk Adams."

"You have mentioned him before."

"He's still my best friend…more like a brother. He was a better Police Officer than I was. Almost anybody would have been." He gave a wry, half-laugh at himself. No one but Turk and Inez knew the real reason he went back to Hazzard in '81 after only eight months. Turk knew, because he was there. He knew what happened.

Six years later, Inez knew because he had run out of things to talk about the night their patrol car was sideswiped. It flipped twice and ended up sideways with Inez's door crushed against her, cantilevered over a cliff with half the patrol car stuck precariously over a sheer, two hundred foot drop straight down off a winding, deserted road in the hills of North Los Angeles. While he only had broken ribs and a bruised spleen, she had severe internal injuries. He'd had to keep her warm, strapped in the seat so that she wouldn't sustain any additional trauma or go into shock, and alert, so she wouldn't go into a coma.

Nine hours he talked, trying to keep her alive, waiting for dawn's light so the rescue crew could move in safely without sending the car over the edge. With Inez unable to speak much, they worked out a system so she could teach him to sign the alphabet. (Her grandmother had been deaf, so she'd learned ASL at an early age.) Eventually, she was able to teach him some words using the alphabet, including George Carlin's seven dirty words, telling him later that she only did that to see him blush in the moonlight. He even blushed at the memory.

"I keep putting my foot in my mouth. You do not have to talk about it. I can see that you are uncomfortable."

"No. It's...I just...I haven't talked about it for a long time." He kicked at the sand a little and nudged it around. "It's kind of important to me for you to know...someday. Just still hard, and I'd like you to get to know me a little better."

"I do not need details, Enos. Tell me when you are ready."

He felt a slight quiver when she said his name, and he couldn't remember, even though he had asked her to if she had ever actually said his given name. The quiver became a heart flutter when she reached over and wrapped her hand around his, entwining their fingers. He did not pull back. Instead, he tightened his fingers around hers.

They sat that way, holding hands and looking out over the ocean for another twenty minutes or so. He couldn't remember feeling that content, not in years and years…and years. The breeze picked up and sent their empty baskets flying while they scrambled to catch them. Once recaptured and Enos had gathered their footwear, it was time to start the four or five-hour trek back to Los Angeles.

He had wanted to make the trip home through the Los Padres National Forest. However, with the wildfire earlier that month in the San Fernando Valley and El Niño not quite making it that far north as yet, he didn't want to chance a drive through the forest with precious cargo aboard. So he played it safe and took the 101 back through Camarillo and Calabasas, where he could drop down through Topanga State Park and ease back into the city from there.

They arrived at Soonie's apartment a little after 7:00 pm. When he stopped the truck in front of the building's entry door, they sat in awkward silence for what seemed to Enos a lifetime.

Soonie was arguing with herself the pros and cons of inviting him up for coffee...or something. Frustrated that he had not made a move of any kind, she asked, "Would you like to come up for a while? You have not had anything to eat since lunch. I could make some kimchi salad."

Enos swallowed hard. He wanted to say yes but was still dealing with many issues that he had not been able to resolve about Daisy and how Soonie fit into his life. Weeks later, he realized he'd not accepted because he didn't trust himself being that kind of alone with her. He'd had plenty of lustful thoughts about Daisy, even for Inez on occasion. Then there was that female revenue agent back in Hazzard...but what he was feeling right now was more like hunger and thirst, and it discombobulated him.

"I don't think I'd better. You have a flight to catch in the mornin', and I have to be at work early...but would it be okay if I call you while you're away?"

"Of course, it will be okay. I look forward to that. I will call you first to give you the number at the company apartment."

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, fearing anything more forward would spook him, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Monday, July 28, 1997 – Los Angeles

"Good morning, E. You look chipper this morning. Good day at the gym yesterday?" Inez asked as Enos walked into the break room. As usual, they were the first to arrive.

"I didn't go to the gym."

"But it was Sunday. You always go to the gym on Sunday. First, you go to church, then you go to the gym. Now, I'm not sure how the Universe will survive."

"Hardy har. I took a drive up the coast instead."

"What possessed you to do that?"

"I had a date."

Inez, stunned into paralysis for a full three seconds, followed after him.

"You had…a what?"

"A date."

"A real date?"

"Yes, Ma'am. An honest to Pete real date."

"Not one of those things where the vice mayor gets you over to her house on the pretext of teaching her to cook, or some fresh-faced female police officer who goes all fangirl over you right in the middle of an arrest, or some slinky madam slash loan shark who pouts because you won't return her calls, or...?"4

"I don't know what you're talkin' about." He gave her his incensed look.

She punched him in the shoulder.

"Ouch, that's my shootin' arm."

"I'll shoot you if you don't spill it."

He flashed her a genuine smile and said, "Her name is Gyeongsun." Although proud he'd pronounced it correctly, he still didn't trust himself to do her name justice on a continuous basis. He preferred to call her Soonie but wasn't ready to share that with anyone else just yet, not even Inez.

Inez went silent. After half a second, the light bulb brightened. "Wait, you don't mean...that violinist…the one you charmed into working at the community center…?"

He grinned from ear to ear.

Inez, eyes wide, muttered quietly to herself, "Possum on a gum bush."

References:

(4) This is a direct reference to DOH: Hazzard in Hollywood. A female officer did go fangirl in the middle of an arrest, telling Cooter and Daisy that Enos was a 'stud-muffin', the Vice-Mayor was not a bit subtle and was all over him, and the beautiful Asian loanshark pouted because Enos hadn't returned her calls (even while he was arresting her). Good stuff...Even though I have ignored the movie as canon (for many reasons), it did provide some L.A. characters for this story.