K'REANS

K'reans

     We were playing war in the housing project yard, Darrell and I and a few other kids whose families lived in the parallel, five-apartment wooden structures. It was 1950 or ’51. 

     We were choosing up sides: You guys be Japs, we'll be 'Mericans. Wait, somebody said. Aren't we fightin' somebody else now? Krauts, right? You be Krauts. No, somebody else. I forget.

     I'll ask Mom, I said. I ran for the kitchen door of our apartment, the middle one in row 32. I hit the screen door on the run. I still remember the combined smells of dust and rust as my face rushed toward the screen. It had one of those long black coil springs to keep it closed; it slammed shut behind me. 

     Mom was in the kitchen. She was pissed. "Son, how many times have I told you not to slam that screen door?"

     I had more important things on my mind. "Mom! Who're we fightin' now? Is it Japs 'r Germans?"

     "Neither one, son. We're fighting Koreans now." Our older brother Lance was in high school at the time, soon to graduate. That had to have been on her mind, as Vietnam would be on her mind ten years later when Darrell and I came of military age. 

     But none of that was on my mind. "Thanks, Mom!" I yelped, and again hit the screen door on the run. It slammed shut behind me, and I heard her scolding "Ronald Dean!" follow me across the yard as I returned, courier bearing important information, to my huddled playmates. 

     "K'reans," I said between gulps of breath. "Mom says we're fightin' K'reans now."

     Puzzled looks. Some faint glimmers in boys' faces who had heard the word begin to replace Japs and Krauts and Germans in their parents' conversations.

     "Don't matter. That's who we're fightin'." 

     "You guys be K'reans. We'll be 'Mericans."