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MINA
I grew up poor.
Poorer than typical poor.
My parents weren’t struggling between jobs.
We didn’t live in trailer parks or the back of cars.
No. Poor in Chinatown was a completely different type of poor.
My father committed suicide when I was nine, leaving my mother, who would have traded her hands for a bottle of Soju, to take care of four kids by herself. Safe to say, she failed. My sister froze to death one winter night as we slept under the bridge. My mother told me to take her jacket and when I didn’t, she took it for herself. My brother…he ran away, but not before stealing $1.89 worth of change I had collected. It was just my mother and me until my mother sold me into a prostitution ring. I didn’t even fight. They told me I would be fed and warm. Food. Not rats. Not leftover garbage, but actual food. The first time I remember eating sticky rice, I stood no more than ten feet from a man fucking someone up the ass. I was ten and I sat there eating rice and just listening. Yes, for a brief moment I wondered if that would be me, but it was a very brief moment because I had rice and I was warm.
I was there for two days before someone bought me. He was a relatively young man, in his mid to late twenties. He never touched me, just wanted to me undress, dance, and then dress again. He paid so much that no one else would touch me. When I was twelve, he brought me home to be the playmate of his own daughter. I noticed that we looked alike, his daughter and I. He even had me call him Father. He made sure I went to school with his daughter, made sure I dressed well; to everyone on the outside it must have looked like I was fortunate like I had been adopted by a kind and generous family. I never spoke a word of the things that went on in his home. He waited until I was fifteen before he touched me. When I was seventeen, they brought home another young girl. His wife quietly sent me away with hush money…it was then that I realized it wasn’t that she didn’t know, it was that she pretended not to.
I knew what that girl’s life would be like.
I told her before leaving and all she asked me was if there was any rice.
It was funny in a sick, twisted, horrible way. I understood her, and looking back I wasn’t sure what else would have happened to me. Would I have frozen to death? Would I have been raped on the street? Would I have starved before being raped? Frozen before starving?
It didn’t matter because I was free. I had money and I was free.
It was scary how normal my life after that was. I got a job at a chicken shop and lived in the basement. I went to one of the best colleges in the country by getting loans. I fell in love once, had a daughter, and realized he—like everyone else—didn’t give a shit. He disappeared, but not before labeling me a slut.
It was funny…and when I say funny, I mean cruel…the way women are treated all over the world.
If they are silent, they are walked all over.
If they speak, they are attacked from every direction.
It was only when I had a daughter that I realized I wanted to speak—not just for me, but for her—because at least I could fight back. I had never fought before; I’d never had the power to. Once I did, I realized I had scars on top of scars from the life I’d lived.
I wasn’t a good person.
I was quiet but never good.
Screw being good.
“Mina?”
I faced Mel as she spun back in her chair to look me over.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Our newly appointed deputy commissioner is going to be here momentarily. I’m going to need you a little bit more focused.”
“Of course.” I nodded and there was a knock at the door before they let him in.
“Governor Callahan.” He grinned as he walked in, dressed in his navy blue uniform with his hat under his arm. His eyes shot to me for a quick second before focusing back on her. She clasped her hands.
“Commissioner Cheung, thank you for taking the time to meet me.” Mel motioned for him to sit. He pulled his leg up and rested in on the back of the chair. He had jet-black hair and a small cut above his lip.
“I could think of no greater honor,” he said, his eyes glancing toward me again for the briefest of seconds.
I didn’t pay attention their conversation. I tried—truly I did—but I just stood there. It wasn’t out of fear—I didn’t think I had ever truly felt afraid. I was silent for the time being, but I would speak soon, and when I did, he would never forget what I had to say.
The meeting felt too long.
