Dong-Hyun went by the name “Don”. He had been studying to get his 100-ton Captain’s License after working on different vessels used to service the drilling rigs off the Louisiana coast. After paying cash for his taxi, Don entered the boat yard next to the marina at 2:00 a.m. Central time. He had been instructed to meet his accomplice in the boatyard adjacent to the marina wearing a red and blue neckerchief for identification and to look for the same worn by his soon-to-be first mate.

 

Day workers commonly congregated just outside the boatyard in a small bus stop style lean-to made of roughhewn used dock wood. Typically, they would use the structure for protection from the elements while waiting for either a ride home or work for the day. It was a hot humid night with not even a puff of wind or sea breeze. He was right where he had been instructed to meet.

 

A man wearing the matching neckerchief approached, looks were exchanged and a simple nod established the relationship. Both men tucked away the neckerchiefs and made their way to the marina. Upon arrival at the sixty-foot tug, Don knocked on the hull fully prepared to present himself as an engineer with Seagate Marine Services, International.

 

A scruffy round face with dark brown eyes, a two-day beard, and a receding red hairline, popped over the side gunnel and signaled for the two to board with a jerk of his head. The man was short and stocky with an armed forces haircut, and he was covered in blood. The entire wheelhouse wreaked of the heavy copper odor of blood. It was apparent he had just finished the cleanup operation. “I took care of the issues,” was all he said as he stripped off what used to be a white Seagate Marine Services jumpsuit, revealing what used to be a white T-shirt now also spotted with blood. His back, arms, and shoulders were covered in aging tattoos and scars, possibly reflecting previous special forces involvement.

 

He wrapped up the jumpsuit in used rags and stuffed the blood covered shirt in one of two heavy canvas toolboxes on the deck. Donning a fresh T-shirt and a spare jumpsuit, he made his way off the tug, toolboxes in tow. It took Don nearly an hour to cast off and get underway. Now sitting at the helm of the ocean fairing tug Miss Trial, he was carefully pushing four barges full of diesel fuel out the mouth of the Mississippi River. Rigid with focus and concentration, he was relieved to be exiting the Western Rivers Regulations area and the mouth of the Mississippi as he entered the less busy and much less complicated traffic pattern for the Gulf of Mexico. Dong-Hyun was both frightened and excited to fulfill his end of the deal, and better yet, he had been prepaid. Their money was in two backpacks which the engineer showed him and his new first mate.

 

They didn’t take the time to count it, but Chuck and Don rummaged through the numerous bundles of $100 dollar bills and made sure they were solid $100s all the way through, not just fake bundles of perfectly cut paper. It was past 3:00 a.m. Central time, and even in the middle of the night the massive amount of boat traffic coming and going around New Orleans required vigilant attentive navigation. Miss Trial had been staging for the trip to the Bahamas in Poor Boy’s Marina on the Atchafalaya River when he boarded her with his First Mate Chin-Hae, who went by the name Chuck. They had never met before that night and were never to see each other again once the job was completed.

 

The original captain and first mate had been silently dispatched as they were readying the tug for the 1500-mile journey to New Providence Bahamas. Both bodies were in the cargo hold with their throats slit from ear to ear. Don’s loving mother raised him on her own doing laundry for the Americans in San Antonio. Apparently, his father had been an American serviceman who was no longer interested once his young Korean girlfriend became pregnant.

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The slow simmering of hate began for Don once he understood the pain and frustration that a good-looking Asian lady must constantly endure from the comments, rude remarks, lude gestures and sometimes worse. Don’s mother had a hard time controlling her young son when men stared, gestured and sometimes even approached and attempted to grope the beautiful young mother.

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Once, at eight years of age, Dong-Hyun had his nose broken and two teeth knocked out before losing consciousness after trying to defend his mother’s dignity. They had been carrying a heavy load of clean laundry one Friday night hoping to get paid so they could eat dinner. His mother had been carrying on about noodles with real chicken and some kind of sauce she had been dreaming about for weeks now, when two drunken white guys wouldn't leave her alone.

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Dong-Hyun dropped the clean laundry and lurched at the two guys to pull them off his mother. That’s all he remembered until waking up the next day with a pounding headache and his mother’s beautiful face puffed up and bloodied. Blood also covered different pieces of the laundry which now probably had to be replaced. Of course, there was no dinner.

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Dong-Hyun dropped the clean laundry and lurched at the two guys to pull them off his mother. That’s all he remembered until waking up the next day with a pounding headache and his mother’s beautiful face puffed up and bloodied. Blood also covered different pieces of the laundry which now probably had to be replaced. Of course, there was no dinner.

​

He would quickly offer up “Don”. Usually however, one of the tougher boys would yell out, “Dong, his name is Dong,” followed by a classroom of raucous laughter from most of his classmates while others looked on in confusion. By the fourth grade Dong-Hyun had been transferred twice to different elementary schools and was being threatened to be sent to a third or possibly to a reformatory school on the other side of town.

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The teachers constantly referred him to the principal for fighting. His mother didn't know what to do, she didn't have a car and couldn't get a bus to come all the way across town to pick up one student, a troublemaker at that. Somehow, he made it through to high school but by then he had learned to take the fight off school property.

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Don wasn’t big, five foot ten, one hundred sixty pounds, but he was in good physical condition. His mom had enrolled him in Taekwondo when he was ten years old after she realized she could not keep him from fighting. If her son was going to fight, he might as well learn how to handle himself. He had also learned how to use his fast reflexes and superb balance to put an end to an issue before his adversary knew what was coming.

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By his sophomore year the word had gotten out not to mess with Don and most of the troublemakers steered clear.

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​Due to his excellent balance and nimble fingers, he was a natural deckhand. Don worked on some of the different vessels which transported food, supplies and crew to the oil rigs off the Louisiana coast.

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He could tie knots faster than you could spell them and lasso a cleat from 30 feet. The hard physical work on board as well as his workouts at home kept him in excellent condition. He had no social life. He didn’t trust anyone. Work was his social life and even then, he stayed to himself as much as possible. People learn things about you, then they can take advantage of you, he always reminded himself.

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On occasion he had a girlfriend, but they took too much of his time and were always asking prying questions, and they expected things. Don didn’t trust anyone but his mother. She was the one thing he lived for. He missed her loving eyes, soft touch and the tone of her loving voice. She had suffered long and hard to keep food on the table and to keep Don out of trouble.

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He was never able to tell her how grateful he was for taking care of him while he was growing up. He was going to tell her one day soon, maybe on her next birthday. He always took a long weekend around her birthday to spend some time with her. He really needed to let her know how much he appreciated her dedication. One evening on the return trip from delivering a new crew to one of the off-shore drill rigs the captain of the shuttle-tender he was working on pulled him aside.

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​“Don, I got some bad news.”

 

It turned out that his mother had been run over by a hit and run driver in the same area of town that the two white guys had accosted him and his mother years earlier. She had been toting another load of laundry and ended up in intensive care in the hospital. The captain said he was free to go, but he may not have a job when he came back.

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Don made it the five-hundred-some-odd miles by bus to San Antonio, then walked the three miles to the hospital only to find his mother was not there. After diligent searching and numerous interviews and having to spell his mother’s name over and over to three different hospital staff members in the admitting department, they kept telling him she wasn’t there and maybe she had been checked out.

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Finally, a nurse by the name of Mary seemed to be more understanding and finally figured out what the problem was. She looked up from her computer screen at Don, “I am very sorry to have to tell you this, but your mother died from her injuries. There was nothing we could do. That’s why we couldn’t find her. She was transported to the county undertaker yesterday morning.

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Oh, my, she is listed here as homeless. She must not have had her driver’s license in her belongings. She may have already been incinerated. I am so sorry, but that’s what the coroner does with the homeless. They are closed today. They will be open tomorrow morning at nine. We didn’t know she had any living relatives. I’ll give you a few moments alone. Oh, my.”

​

Don was lost in his emotions. She was dead! The next thing Don knew, a guy wearing an employee badge walked in pushing a computer on a wheeled stand and looked at him up and down with some kind of expression Don didn't understand. Don was trying to figure out what exactly the look was on his face. His badge said his name was Joey and said he worked in the finance department. Joey sighed with feigned empathy.

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​“Hello, sir, my name is Joey. May I see your driver's license or other government I.D., please?”

 

Don stared at him for a long three seconds, gave a confused look and muttered, “Naneun yeong-eoleul moshaeyo,” which meant, “I don't speak English” in Korean. 

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​“Sir, I need to see your I.D. so we can release her personal belongings and records to your custody… Sir?”​

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Don continued staring at Joey and finally shook his head.

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“Sir, we cannot turn over her records or personal belongings unless you show me some form of I.D. Sir, our doctors and nurses spent hundreds of hours and a lot of hospital materials and expenses were devoted to saving your mother’s life.”

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Don continued looking at Joey and repeated, “Naneun yeong-eoleul moshaeyo.”

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​“Ok, I think we have some Chinese interpreters on staff today. I will be right back.” Joey said with a distrusting look in his eyes as he rushed out pushing the weird looking computer stand thingy in front of him.

​

Don immediately rushed out of the hospital, trying to make it look like he wasn't in a big hurry. He was afraid they might call the police to detain him if he didn't set up some kind of financing or payment program. For all Don knew the hospital may have put his mother in some unknown corner and let her die of her wounds. Don was crushed. His mother was the only other person in his life.

​

He had walled himself off any relationships and stayed to himself most of the time. He understood that most people were mean liars and would turn on you at the first opportunity if it could benefit them in any way. Most of his paycheck went immediately to help his mother with rent and food after he took care of his own expenses. Now, he was all alone, and he never even got to say goodbye.

​

His eyes filled with tears as he remembered his mother’s soft touch and loving eyes, her gentle words of encouragement and all the ways she suffered and sacrificed so much of her life to keep him in school, clothes on his back, food in his belly, a relatively safe place to live, and how to fight to protect himself. She sacrificed her life to make sure he was taken care of.

 

She was the only person in the world he trusted and loved and now she was gone. An overwhelming feeling of loneliness collapsed in on him and enveloped him. Don found a vacant lot two blocks behind the hospital, sat next to a tree to let out his pain and sorrow. But all he could feel was that slow burn in his belly with which he had become very familiar.​

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But now it was more intense. It surrounded his soul and took what was left of him away. His eyes were crying but he didn’t know it. After some time, Don slowly made it toward his old home. The dirty trash ridden streets of his neighborhood still looked the same as it had when he left. The only good thing about this neighborhood was his mother.

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This was not going to be an easy night alone in his mother’s old apartment filled with memories and his mother’s personal items and pictures of him and her. At least he would be alone to let out his pain and mourn in private. Maybe he would be able to feel his mother’s presence and apologize to her for not being a better son. Images were whirling around in his head of past birthdays when his mom had gone out of her way to decorate the apartment, take him out to the zoo, anything to make him feel special.

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Once she even figured out how to swing the extravagant cost of going horseback riding on his 10th birthday. As he walked into his old neighborhood, he passed the corner where he had been knocked out trying to protect her. His thoughts turned to whoever it was that hit her and left her to die alone. He could still see the faces of the two drunks who had attacked his mother. His pain slowly turned to anger again as he trudged on. He had tears streaming down his face, but he didn’t know it. All he could feel was anger, hot lava burning hot in his belly.

​

When the county undertaker opened at nine a.m. Don was waiting silently to claim his mother’s remains. He was seated on an uncomfortable wooden chair probably made 50 years earlier, in the small dingy waiting room with some certificates on the walls in cheap plastic frames covered in dust.

 

The creaky wooden entrance door opened, spilling bright sunlight into the poorly lit room. ​

 

An older Asian looking well-dressed gentleman stepped in and took off a gray hat that looked like ones worn in the 1950s. He wore a brown suit with a matching tie and nice polished tan leather dress shoes.

 

He looked around and saw Don, who was still dressed in his maritime work jumpsuit and work boots which he had been wearing for three days now. He nodded and smiled kindly. Don just nodded back. The gentleman walked up to the desk and inquired about Don’s mother.

 

The desk clerk said surprisedly, “Well that gentleman is here for her as well.” Don stood. “I don’t know who this guy is, and why is he asking about my mother? Maybe he’s from the hospital and wants money.”

 

The older gentleman slowly turned around and looked Don up and down, bowed his head slightly and said in a quiet reserved tone, “You must be Dong-Hyun.”