Short story: Old Kio
Old Kio
As the day grew dim one could see the shadow of a hunched little old man reaching into the public trash bin, picking through garbage. PE plastic bottles were still worth 1 NT per bottle, very profitable when added up, and he also tied heavy loads of cardboard boxes and large bundles of newspapers and sold them to the recycling center, which paid cash according to weight.
Old Kio, now in his late seventies, had been picking through garbage ever since he was forced to retire at the maximum retirement age of sixty-five as a Taipei City Street Cleaner. People who saw him almost every day nicknamed him Old Kio because kio meant “picking up” in Taiwanese. He walked along the streets in the Sinyi neighborhood searching in garbage cans for recyclable items every day. Ever since he turned in his bright orange Taipei City Street Cleaner’s uniform jacket over ten years ago, this had been his job.
Smelling of sour refuse, dragging a cartload of recyclables, Old Kio unlocked his gate, left his cart in the patio, and unlocked the front door of his one story house. His wife was frying salmon in a pan; he could smell it half a block away. He heard voices in the kitchen. Kitty, his daughter, must have come for a visit.
“Dad, you’re home?” Kitty emerged from the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron. She had short, permed hair that matched her mother’s and a loud voice, also like her mother.
“Yes. Where is Ronnie?” he asked.
Kitty never brought Ronnie here, because she didn’t want her son to see that his grandfather was a trash collector. Old Kio had seen him as a baby and toddler a few times, but after a particularly bad fight several years ago, Kitty swore she’d never let him see his grandson again.
“Ronnie’s with his dad. They went to McDonald’s because he did well in the second grade monthly exam.”
“Very good, very good,” Old Kio said. “He will do well in life because he is clever. He can be like his father and have a high paying management job in a bank.”
“Talk, talk, talk,” Old Kio’s wife muttered. “Come help me move these dishes to the table and we can eat dinner.”
“Right away, Mom.” Kitty was in a hurry to walk away from her father, who reeked of rank, unidentifiable odors.
During the meal, Kitty continued to wrinkle her nose in her father’s direction.
“Dad, I’ve told you so many times, stop picking through the garbage! It’s so embarrassing to us children because people think that we do not give you money, and that you are poor. We got you this whole house and can afford to keep you in a comfortable lifestyle. Why do you have to do this to your family and yourself?”
“I am not old and useless, I can still work to earn my keep.”
“Ronnie was crying the other day because his classmates laughed at him because his grandfather kio bun so, picks trash off the streets! I had to tell him that they made it up, that his grandfather is a very respectable man and does not do that.”
“What is so shameful about gathering recycling? Were you embarrassed of me when I swept the streets? I brought all of you up, my work fed you. And now you think you are all so much better?”
The discussions were always the same, without conclusion or compromise. Old Kio continued to pick through the trash bins in the Sinyi neighborhood, and Kitty went home in a bad mood. She knew what the neighbors whispered; they said she was an ungrateful and mean daughter to make her father support himself. In reality, she had given him plenty of money over the years, but it all went into his savings account. He never spent the money she gave him, using only the few bills and change he earned collecting recycle items. If only other people knew how stubborn her father was.
In another part of Taipei, Ronnie had been planning for some time to take the bus to see the old man who picked up trash. After his classmates made fun of him yet again this morning, he slipped out of the school gates during naptime and waited at a nearby bus stop for a bus that went to Sinyi Developments. He wore his blue and white school uniform, with a red backpack strapped to his shoulders.
“Can you tell me when we are at Sinyi Developments?” Ronnie asked the bus driver.
“Okay, boy. Sit behind me and I’ll call you when it’s your stop. Aren’t you supposed to be in school right now, though?”
“The … the teacher said I ould go,” Ronnie lied, afraid that the bus driver would drive him back to Jian An Elementary School. “I have to do something very important,” he added, trying to look believable.
“Very well,” said the bus driver, stepping on the gas pedal.
The driver spat into a white plastic cup beside his steering wheel as he made a sharp right turn that nearly threw Ronnie off his feet. The boy grabbed the metal pole behind the driver and slipped into a seat in the first row. He gripped the sides of his seat as the bus bumped and halted through the city.
“Sinyi Developments,” the driver finally called.
Ronnie scrambled to his feet and hurried down the big steps. The bus pulled away as soon as he hopped off. A motorcycle nearly ran him over as it rushed between the just-closing bus doors and the sidewalk.
“Be careful!” hollered the motorcyclist as Ronnie ran off, his heart thumping.
Ronnie spotted the old trash man immediately. He does not look like my mother, Ronnie thought, maybe my classmates made it all up, like Mama said. Ronnie watched the old man for a long time. Old Kio saw him and smiled.
“Why aren’t you in school, little boy?” he asked.
Ignoring the question, the boy asked in a squeaky voice, “Are you really my grandpa?”
All the features in Old Kio’s wrinkled face widened. “Ronnie? Are you Ronnie? Kitty’s boy?”
Ronnie nodded.
“Oh my heavens, the last time I saw you you were just a toddler!” Old Kio exclaimed. “Look at you, such a big boy now!”
“Why do you pick up trash, Grandpa? My friends say that our family is so poor that you have to pick other people’s trash and take it home.”
“Well, if they talk like that they are not your friends. There is nothing wrong with collecting recyclables, tell your little classmates that. In fact, would you like to work with me today? It’s a lot of fun.”
Ronnie’s face brightened at the word “fun”.
“So, are we ready?” the old man asked, holding up a pair of tongs and snapping them like a crab’s claws.
“Sure, Grandpa!”
The old man and the little boy walked along Sinyi street side by side, the boy holding a metal tong and the old man using his bare hands. They collected twelve 500 c.c. plastic bottles, a large stack of paper and cardboard, and half a plastic bin of metal cans, which Old Kio taught Ronnie to flatten by jumping up and down on them.
At four o’clock, Old Kio brought Ronnie to another bus stop nearby where he could take the 235 bus home.
“Your building is Guting Station, remember to get off there,” the old man said.
“Why can’t I stay and see you change that into money?” Ronnie asked, pointing at the plastic bottles, metal cans, and paper he had helped his grandfather collect.
“You have to go home or your mother will worry that you didn’t come home from school,” Old Kio explained. “It's late. It's time.”
Ronnie pouted but followed his grandfather to the bus stop.
“Can I come again?” the boy asked.
“I am always here for you,” said his grandfather. “So, are we ready? There goes the 235 bus, run along now.”
“Bye, Grandpa!”
At home, a distraught Kitty opened the door for Ronnie.
“What happened, Mama?” Ronnie was sure that his mother had found out that he cut class that afternoon, but he decided to act innocent, just in case.
“It’s your grandfather.”
“Grandfather?” Ronnie blinked.
“The one that picks up trash! He died in a dumpster, collapsed and fell into a disgusting pile of other people’s garbage!” Kitty cried.
“What are you talking about, Mama, I just saw him today and he was fine.”
“Don’t lie, Ronnie, you did not see your grandfather. You don’t even remember what he looks like. You were in school when he died.”
“I saw him, I saw him,” Ronnie said, his voice breaking with exasperation. “He is not dead. Next week I will go collect recycles with him again, he said so, he wouldn’t lie to me.”
Kitty knelt before her son and tilted his chin so they were looking into each other’s faces.
“Tell Mama the truth. Why are you saying that you saw your grandfather?”
“My ... teacher let me take the bus to see him. It was very important.”
“What?”
“I had to see if it was true that my grandfather picks up trash.”
“You ... my poor child.” Kitty sobbed.
“Don’t cry, Mom, it was fun. Grandfather is great. There’s nothing wrong with collecting recycling, it’s good for the environment, and you make money. I want to be just like grandfather one day!”
“You stupid, stupid child. Your grandfather is dead. You are not going to pick up trash. Your grandfather is dead...” Kitty put her arms around her son and drew him close.
“He is not, he is not!” yelled Ronnie, breaking away. “Grandpa is alive, he is just working late. I’ll show you, I’ll take the bus to find him and bring him home to show you. You just don’t like him, that’s why you say he died. He said he missed me and wanted to see me more often. I like Grandpa more, I want to go live with him. I’ll run away from home!”
“Ronnie!” Kitty called.
He ran out the front door. They lived on the sixteenth floor, however, so after he left the apartment he had to wait for the elevator. When Ronnie saw his mother approaching, he struggled to open the door of the fire exit staircase. The door was too heavy for him and Kitty grabbed him by both his arms, under the armpits.
Ronnie kicked and screamed. “Get away from me! You are a liar, you told me I did not have a grandpa, and now that I saw him you say he is dead! You are a bad person! I’m running away from home, stay away from me!”
Kitty, with tears of shame burning her face, tried to pull Ronnie back into the apartment. She had always cared a great deal what other people thought of her, what they said behind her back. She did not want the neighbors to hear her son screaming such things, making a scene.
“Shhhh. Shhh,” she said. “It’s okay, let’s go home. We will go see Grandfather together,” she said softly.
“You’re lying,” Ronnie said, glaring at his mother through his tears. He broke free from her grasp.
“No, I’m telling you the truth,” Kitty said. “I won’t lie to you again. Your grandfather did pick trash. And that’s perfectly okay. Come back home, we’ll clean you up, and then we can go see grandfather together, okay?”
Just as Kitty said this the elevator arrived with a ding.
Ronnie bit his lips, looking at the opening elevator doors, then back at his mother. For a few seconds everything stopped—the elevator, Ronnie, his mother with her arms outstretched. Then the elevator doors closed, Ronnie wiped his face with the back of his hand, and Kitty led him by the other hand back home.
As the little boy sat in the bathtub melting a piece of soap between his palms, he felt excited. Grandpa was his favorite adult in the whole world. Now that he had found Grandpa, everything would be different. He wouldn’t care anymore if the kids at school made fun of him.
Kitty sat in the master bedroom fixing her makeup. At the morgue she just called, funeral home workers had already embalmed her father and were probably rubbing powder onto her his face. Kitty did not know if it was the right thing to do, to bring the boy to see his grandfather’s corpse. But somehow it felt right. People always said closure was good. If a dead body wasn’t closure, what was?
Kitty had difficulty zipping up her black dress in the back; she wished her husband were here. But he was in Malaysia right now for business and she did not want to bother him. She always suspected he was just as ashamed of her father as she was, though he never said so. She ran mousse through her curly hair and evened out the lipstick on her lips with her ring finger.
“Are you done washing yourself, Ronnie?” she called in the direction of the bathroom.
“Yes, Mommy!”
She picked up a large, white towel which was sitting next to her son’s little, formal suit on the bed.
“What did your Grandfather say to you?” Kitty asked, humoring her son by going along with his fantasy of having met the old man.
“He said there is nothing wrong with his job,” Ronnie said, “and he told me not to neglect my studies.”
Kitty frowned. These, and the other statements he had made didn’t seem like phrases that Ronnie could make up by himself—somebody must have said these things to him.
“Next week I will help him with the recycling again.” Ronnie beamed.
“Really?”
Kitty found that she had no words for her son. She had questions, but not questions she could ask him right now. Did he skip school? Was he going to skip school next week? She didn’t want to antagonize him—he was such a sensitive boy. Was he lying? Had he seen a ghost?
As Kitty helped her son button his shirt, pull on the stiff tuxedo jacket and suit pants, and smooth out his hair, she felt an involuntary shudder taking hold of her body. Ronnie was looking into the mirror, at himself, and at her reflection. She saw an expression in her son’s face that she used to see on her father’s face. A kind of smirk, lips curled in a way she thought only her father could curl them. Her son had either inherited or learned the expression, all of a sudden. Kitty felt herself turn cold. She moved away from her child.
“So, are we ready?” Ronnie asked.
These were the exact words that Kitty’s father used to say to Kitty when she was younger, when they were about to go out—on a picnic, to school, to a seafood restaurant as a special treat, into a taxi, onto a Taipei City Bus.
“Yes, my dear,” Kitty replied, trying hard to control her voice so that it didn’t quiver.
With a corner of her sleeve she wiped her eyes. Kitty regretted everything. The harsh words to her father, how she avoided him for all these years, acted ashamed, hid Ronnie from him—she saw now that she had been a terrible daughter all along. Even more so since her father had been a good father. She clasped Ronnie close to her and squeezed him until he resisted and squirmed out of her arms.
“Don’t, Mama. I haven’t forgiven you yet.” He pouted.
Kitty withdrew her hands and covered her face with them. There had been a rift between herself and her father, too, early on, just like this. One day, without specific cause, her heart simply set, grew hardened against her father, until now. She hoped that Ronnie had not reached that point, and never would.
“Dad, you’re home?” Kitty emerged from the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron. She had short, permed hair that matched her mother’s and a loud voice, also like her mother.
“Yes. Where is Ronnie?” he asked.
Kitty never brought Ronnie here, because she didn’t want her son to see that his grandfather was a trash collector. Old Kio had seen him as a baby and toddler a few times, but after a particularly bad fight several years ago, Kitty swore she’d never let him see his grandson again.
“Ronnie’s with his dad. They went to McDonald’s because he did well in the second grade monthly exam.”
“Very good, very good,” Old Kio said. “He will do well in life because he is clever. He can be like his father and have a high paying management job in a bank.”
“Talk, talk, talk,” Old Kio’s wife muttered. “Come help me move these dishes to the table and we can eat dinner.”
“Right away, Mom.” Kitty was in a hurry to walk away from her father, who reeked of rank, unidentifiable odors.
During the meal, Kitty continued to wrinkle her nose in her father’s direction.
“Dad, I’ve told you so many times, stop picking through the garbage! It’s so embarrassing to us children because people think that we do not give you money, and that you are poor. We got you this whole house and can afford to keep you in a comfortable lifestyle. Why do you have to do this to your family and yourself?”
“I am not old and useless, I can still work to earn my keep.”
“Ronnie was crying the other day because his classmates laughed at him because his grandfather kio bun so, picks trash off the streets! I had to tell him that they made it up, that his grandfather is a very respectable man and does not do that.”
“What is so shameful about gathering recycling? Were you embarrassed of me when I swept the streets? I brought all of you up, my work fed you. And now you think you are all so much better?”
The discussions were always the same, without conclusion or compromise. Old Kio continued to pick through the trash bins in the Sinyi neighborhood, and Kitty went home in a bad mood. She knew what the neighbors whispered; they said she was an ungrateful and mean daughter to make her father support himself. In reality, she had given him plenty of money over the years, but it all went into his savings account. He never spent the money she gave him, using only the few bills and change he earned collecting recycle items. If only other people knew how stubborn her father was.
In another part of Taipei, Ronnie had been planning for some time to take the bus to see the old man who picked up trash. After his classmates made fun of him yet again this morning, he slipped out of the school gates during naptime and waited at a nearby bus stop for a bus that went to Sinyi Developments. He wore his blue and white school uniform, with a red backpack strapped to his shoulders.
“Can you tell me when we are at Sinyi Developments?” Ronnie asked the bus driver.
“Okay, boy. Sit behind me and I’ll call you when it’s your stop. Aren’t you supposed to be in school right now, though?”
“The … the teacher said I ould go,” Ronnie lied, afraid that the bus driver would drive him back to Jian An Elementary School. “I have to do something very important,” he added, trying to look believable.
“Very well,” said the bus driver, stepping on the gas pedal.
The driver spat into a white plastic cup beside his steering wheel as he made a sharp right turn that nearly threw Ronnie off his feet. The boy grabbed the metal pole behind the driver and slipped into a seat in the first row. He gripped the sides of his seat as the bus bumped and halted through the city.
“Sinyi Developments,” the driver finally called.
Ronnie scrambled to his feet and hurried down the big steps. The bus pulled away as soon as he hopped off. A motorcycle nearly ran him over as it rushed between the just-closing bus doors and the sidewalk.
“Be careful!” hollered the motorcyclist as Ronnie ran off, his heart thumping.
Ronnie spotted the old trash man immediately. He does not look like my mother, Ronnie thought, maybe my classmates made it all up, like Mama said. Ronnie watched the old man for a long time. Old Kio saw him and smiled.
“Why aren’t you in school, little boy?” he asked.
Ignoring the question, the boy asked in a squeaky voice, “Are you really my grandpa?”
All the features in Old Kio’s wrinkled face widened. “Ronnie? Are you Ronnie? Kitty’s boy?”
Ronnie nodded.
“Oh my heavens, the last time I saw you you were just a toddler!” Old Kio exclaimed. “Look at you, such a big boy now!”
“Why do you pick up trash, Grandpa? My friends say that our family is so poor that you have to pick other people’s trash and take it home.”
“Well, if they talk like that they are not your friends. There is nothing wrong with collecting recyclables, tell your little classmates that. In fact, would you like to work with me today? It’s a lot of fun.”
Ronnie’s face brightened at the word “fun”.
“So, are we ready?” the old man asked, holding up a pair of tongs and snapping them like a crab’s claws.
“Sure, Grandpa!”
The old man and the little boy walked along Sinyi street side by side, the boy holding a metal tong and the old man using his bare hands. They collected twelve 500 c.c. plastic bottles, a large stack of paper and cardboard, and half a plastic bin of metal cans, which Old Kio taught Ronnie to flatten by jumping up and down on them.
At four o’clock, Old Kio brought Ronnie to another bus stop nearby where he could take the 235 bus home.
“Your building is Guting Station, remember to get off there,” the old man said.
“Why can’t I stay and see you change that into money?” Ronnie asked, pointing at the plastic bottles, metal cans, and paper he had helped his grandfather collect.
“You have to go home or your mother will worry that you didn’t come home from school,” Old Kio explained. “It's late. It's time.”
Ronnie pouted but followed his grandfather to the bus stop.
“Can I come again?” the boy asked.
“I am always here for you,” said his grandfather. “So, are we ready? There goes the 235 bus, run along now.”
“Bye, Grandpa!”
At home, a distraught Kitty opened the door for Ronnie.
“What happened, Mama?” Ronnie was sure that his mother had found out that he cut class that afternoon, but he decided to act innocent, just in case.
“It’s your grandfather.”
“Grandfather?” Ronnie blinked.
“The one that picks up trash! He died in a dumpster, collapsed and fell into a disgusting pile of other people’s garbage!” Kitty cried.
“What are you talking about, Mama, I just saw him today and he was fine.”
“Don’t lie, Ronnie, you did not see your grandfather. You don’t even remember what he looks like. You were in school when he died.”
“I saw him, I saw him,” Ronnie said, his voice breaking with exasperation. “He is not dead. Next week I will go collect recycles with him again, he said so, he wouldn’t lie to me.”
Kitty knelt before her son and tilted his chin so they were looking into each other’s faces.
“Tell Mama the truth. Why are you saying that you saw your grandfather?”
“My ... teacher let me take the bus to see him. It was very important.”
“What?”
“I had to see if it was true that my grandfather picks up trash.”
“You ... my poor child.” Kitty sobbed.
“Don’t cry, Mom, it was fun. Grandfather is great. There’s nothing wrong with collecting recycling, it’s good for the environment, and you make money. I want to be just like grandfather one day!”
“You stupid, stupid child. Your grandfather is dead. You are not going to pick up trash. Your grandfather is dead...” Kitty put her arms around her son and drew him close.
“He is not, he is not!” yelled Ronnie, breaking away. “Grandpa is alive, he is just working late. I’ll show you, I’ll take the bus to find him and bring him home to show you. You just don’t like him, that’s why you say he died. He said he missed me and wanted to see me more often. I like Grandpa more, I want to go live with him. I’ll run away from home!”
“Ronnie!” Kitty called.
He ran out the front door. They lived on the sixteenth floor, however, so after he left the apartment he had to wait for the elevator. When Ronnie saw his mother approaching, he struggled to open the door of the fire exit staircase. The door was too heavy for him and Kitty grabbed him by both his arms, under the armpits.
Ronnie kicked and screamed. “Get away from me! You are a liar, you told me I did not have a grandpa, and now that I saw him you say he is dead! You are a bad person! I’m running away from home, stay away from me!”
Kitty, with tears of shame burning her face, tried to pull Ronnie back into the apartment. She had always cared a great deal what other people thought of her, what they said behind her back. She did not want the neighbors to hear her son screaming such things, making a scene.
“Shhhh. Shhh,” she said. “It’s okay, let’s go home. We will go see Grandfather together,” she said softly.
“You’re lying,” Ronnie said, glaring at his mother through his tears. He broke free from her grasp.
“No, I’m telling you the truth,” Kitty said. “I won’t lie to you again. Your grandfather did pick trash. And that’s perfectly okay. Come back home, we’ll clean you up, and then we can go see grandfather together, okay?”
Just as Kitty said this the elevator arrived with a ding.
Ronnie bit his lips, looking at the opening elevator doors, then back at his mother. For a few seconds everything stopped—the elevator, Ronnie, his mother with her arms outstretched. Then the elevator doors closed, Ronnie wiped his face with the back of his hand, and Kitty led him by the other hand back home.
As the little boy sat in the bathtub melting a piece of soap between his palms, he felt excited. Grandpa was his favorite adult in the whole world. Now that he had found Grandpa, everything would be different. He wouldn’t care anymore if the kids at school made fun of him.
Kitty sat in the master bedroom fixing her makeup. At the morgue she just called, funeral home workers had already embalmed her father and were probably rubbing powder onto her his face. Kitty did not know if it was the right thing to do, to bring the boy to see his grandfather’s corpse. But somehow it felt right. People always said closure was good. If a dead body wasn’t closure, what was?
Kitty had difficulty zipping up her black dress in the back; she wished her husband were here. But he was in Malaysia right now for business and she did not want to bother him. She always suspected he was just as ashamed of her father as she was, though he never said so. She ran mousse through her curly hair and evened out the lipstick on her lips with her ring finger.
“Are you done washing yourself, Ronnie?” she called in the direction of the bathroom.
“Yes, Mommy!”
She picked up a large, white towel which was sitting next to her son’s little, formal suit on the bed.
“What did your Grandfather say to you?” Kitty asked, humoring her son by going along with his fantasy of having met the old man.
“He said there is nothing wrong with his job,” Ronnie said, “and he told me not to neglect my studies.”
Kitty frowned. These, and the other statements he had made didn’t seem like phrases that Ronnie could make up by himself—somebody must have said these things to him.
“Next week I will help him with the recycling again.” Ronnie beamed.
“Really?”
Kitty found that she had no words for her son. She had questions, but not questions she could ask him right now. Did he skip school? Was he going to skip school next week? She didn’t want to antagonize him—he was such a sensitive boy. Was he lying? Had he seen a ghost?
As Kitty helped her son button his shirt, pull on the stiff tuxedo jacket and suit pants, and smooth out his hair, she felt an involuntary shudder taking hold of her body. Ronnie was looking into the mirror, at himself, and at her reflection. She saw an expression in her son’s face that she used to see on her father’s face. A kind of smirk, lips curled in a way she thought only her father could curl them. Her son had either inherited or learned the expression, all of a sudden. Kitty felt herself turn cold. She moved away from her child.
“So, are we ready?” Ronnie asked.
These were the exact words that Kitty’s father used to say to Kitty when she was younger, when they were about to go out—on a picnic, to school, to a seafood restaurant as a special treat, into a taxi, onto a Taipei City Bus.
“Yes, my dear,” Kitty replied, trying hard to control her voice so that it didn’t quiver.
With a corner of her sleeve she wiped her eyes. Kitty regretted everything. The harsh words to her father, how she avoided him for all these years, acted ashamed, hid Ronnie from him—she saw now that she had been a terrible daughter all along. Even more so since her father had been a good father. She clasped Ronnie close to her and squeezed him until he resisted and squirmed out of her arms.
“Don’t, Mama. I haven’t forgiven you yet.” He pouted.
Kitty withdrew her hands and covered her face with them. There had been a rift between herself and her father, too, early on, just like this. One day, without specific cause, her heart simply set, grew hardened against her father, until now. She hoped that Ronnie had not reached that point, and never would.
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