You-jeong Jeong - The Good Son

‘Let go!’ Mother began writhing. She pushed me and butted me on the chin with her head. ‘Let go, you piece of shit!’ Her head bobbed and danced in a dark blur under my chin. She roared, ‘How dare you… how dare you take your father’s…’

I had to raise my chin so that she wouldn’t get me, but that meant I couldn’t see what she was doing. Still holding onto both of her hands, I was whipped back and forth and dragged all over the landing. Mother, who had at first been trying to give me the razor, was now fighting to keep it. She began to swipe at my throat with it. I moved to slam her right hand into the wall, hoping she would let go of it.

Just before her hand made contact, Mother’s face burrowed under my arm. I screamed. She was biting me as hard as she could in my armpit. ‘Mum!’ Pain ripped through my flesh, my muscles, and into my head. It snapped something inside me, the thing that had dragged me home in the first place, that had held me back from responding to Mother’s attacks, that I’d thought was stronger than a steel cable. Control. Consciousness. It leaked out of me. ‘Please… Stop.’ My voice grew faint. Everything became muffled. Darkness pushed in from behind and took over my peripheral vision. I let go of Mother’s left hand. I grabbed her by the hair and pulled backwards. Growling, she bit harder, deeper, working into my flesh. Her teeth released only when her head was yanked all the way back. All I could see was her thin, branch-like neck, its bones bulging under her pale skin. Blue veins were pulsing like angry snakes. I pulled her right hand, which still held the razor, up to her neck.

Everything slowed. The chill freezing my head, the heat scrambling my innards, the shiver of each nerve ending, the sound of my thumping heart, the blade that glided from under the left side of her jaw to the right. Hot blood spurted and covered everything; my face, the wall, the floor. I closed my eyes and shoved her away from me. She thudded to the ground. Her crumpled body tumbled down the stairs. It became quiet.

I wiped away the blood from my face with my hands. I looked downstairs. Everything was blurry. I could see Mother’s body, slumped at the bottom of the stairs like an empty sack. Her eyes glistened. With those eyes as coordinates, I found my way downstairs. I stood dully next to her. I heard the clock chime. Once, twice, three times.

You’re about to have an episode; it’s coming soon , a voice whispered. I dragged Mother by the armpits and laid her down in the hall, with her feet towards the stairs and her head towards the kitchen. I raked her hair over her eyes so that she couldn’t see me go up to my room. I folded her hands on her chest. I stood up. ‘Goodnight,’ I said automatically.

Morning had arrived. The fog was still thick, but it was bright outside and the rain seemed to have stopped. I could hear the cars whizzing along the road in the distance. If I hadn’t gone out last night, it would be like any other day; I would be running along that road right now, passing occasional joggers or cyclists or pedestrians. I would run past a pretty girl and wonder where she was going, who she was meeting, what she would be doing later.

All kinds of people lived together in this world, each doing their own thing. Among them, some people became murderers, either by accident, or from a fit of anger, or for the fun of it. I’d never imagined that I could be one of them. Or that Mother would be my victim. I’d only imagined my future, when I could do whatever I wanted. I’d anticipated what I would do when my real life started, after Mother was dead and no longer meddling with my choices. But I’d never wanted her to die this way, though I couldn’t say I hadn’t fantasised about killing her.

My throat tightened when I looked down at her now. I glanced at my hand, still holding the razor I’d found beside my bed. My bones felt as though they were contracting. I raised my head. It’s you. You’re the murderer. It’s you.

My pulse quickened. Despair burned in the pit of my stomach and surged up my oesophagus. Grunts burst out of my mouth. Soon they turned into laughter that echoed throughout the blood-soaked flat. Something trickled down my cheek and dripped off my chin. Sweat? Blood? Tears? I was a murderer. I’d killed my own mother. After all that panic and anxiety and effort, this was the fucking truth I’d unearthed.

Wait. Wait. Look down , my mind said. I saw myself from above, a madman kneeling over his mother’s body, rocking back and forth in laughter. I turned my head to the side. My dead mother greeted me with troubled, glistening eyes, asking, What’s so funny? just the way she did ten years ago in the Dongsung-dong cinema.

‘How dare you… how dare you take your father’s…’

I looked down at the razor in my hand. Father’s initials bothered me. I remembered how her black pupils had widened in an instant, how her eyes had bulged, how the anger had radiated from her. All because of that? Just because I had dared to take my father’s razor?

‘You… You, Yu-jin… You don’t deserve to live.’

How did taking Father’s razor merit death? Why would that make her decide I should kill myself? Was that really why she had held the razor to my throat? In the end, it was her life that had been cut short. But now my life was effectively ruined too, and all because of a dead man’s razor? I shook my head. That would be akin to finding a rat in the house and killing it with an intercontinental ballistic missile. If I had hidden the razor before Mother yanked it out of my pocket, if I had been able to tuck it into my palm or my sleeve, could this have been avoided?

I shook my head again. It was too late now. I couldn’t turn back time and change life’s trajectory. The only thing I could do was consider what had happened from a different angle. What could explain all of this? I shook my head a third time. I couldn’t begin to guess. The whole thing was so surreal. I glared into Mother’s eyes, my fingers twitching on the razor. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Explain yourself, instead of just lying there! How does it feel? Controlling your son’s life for twenty-five years before finally destroying it completely?

The clock began to chime. I counted to eight. The gears in my head shifted and reality slid into focus. Bottomless fear returned. My gaze circled the house clockwise, like an electron in a magnetic field. The kitchen, the stairs, the door to Hae-jin’s room, the key cabinet in the corner, the clock… The clock. It had chimed last night. Once, twice, three times.

I stopped breathing. I’d left the sea wall at midnight, but I’d gone up to my room at 3 a.m.

It couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes from when Mother caught me in the stairwell outside to when I headed up to my room. That meant I’d arrived home around 2.30 a.m. How did it take me two and a half hours to get home? The hair on my arms stood on end. Now I understood something. That was why Mother was able to call Hae-jin and Auntie around 1.30 a.m. But what was I doing from midnight to 2.30? Where had I been?

‘Mum, tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything in the morning.’ My voice leapt out from my memory.

‘Tell me what?’

What was I going to tell her in the morning? Now that it was morning, I had nothing to say. But what had happened? I was feeling great until midnight, when I started smelling blood. Did I have a seizure in the street, or by a construction site? That would explain why my trainers were muddy. But why was Mother awake when I came home? Why did she search my pockets as soon as I stepped into the flat? And why didn’t I rebuff her over-the-top interrogation? Questions brought on more questions until I arrived back at the fundamental mystery. Why was Mother acting so crazy last night? Was it really all because of the razor?