A Georgian on My Mind
🦋🦋🦋
“Hey, man, come right in.”
Hyung, fully sprawled out on his plain, frameless king-sized bed and still clad in his plaid flannel pajamas, welcomed me with his characteristic warm smile. His dark chestnut eyes, as usual, shone with a lively glow. My brother was a gentle, artless soul, and his down-to-earth demeanor and speaking style always put me at ease. He put down the book he was reading—Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther—and eagerly patted the spot next to him on the mattress, inviting me to sit there.
“Hyung, you got in pretty late last night, huh?”
“Man, you know it. After the restaurant closed, we all had to roll up our sleeves for the monthly deep clean. I had to scrub the entire kitchen. Ceiling, walls, floor, you name it. I swear, I can still smell the grease on my hands.”
Despite being only 17, my brother was already a seasoned laborer, having spent the past three years working at a Southern country-style barbecue restaurant. When he started, his hours were kept in check by a Georgia child labor law, which prudently capped the working hours of 14- to 15-year-olds at a maximum of 24 per week. But the moment he blew out the candles on his 16th birthday, Hyung dove headfirst into full-time work.
He didn’t take the job on a whim. Our family was pretty tight on cash back then, having only immigrated to the United States a few years prior. Feeling the weight of responsibility as the eldest child, my brother decided to pitch in, without even giving Mom and Dad a heads up. Sure, my folks weren’t too thrilled when they found out, but Hyung had always shown a maturity and independence that belied his years, even from a very young age, so they trusted him to handle his business. The extra income wasn’t too shabby, either.
When the school bell rang at 3 on the dot, Hyung hopped onto his bicycle—an unstylish but sturdy old steed he’d purchased at a flea market for a song—and set off for work via Buford Highway. While not an actual highway, this mammoth seven-lane thoroughfare with high speed limits nonetheless posed significant dangers to cyclists. Still, he navigated through the treacherous route with the deftness of a Tour de France champion sprinting down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. His determined ride lasted almost an hour, finally ending at his workplace in northeastern Atlanta.
The restaurant shut its doors at 10 p.m., but Hyung remained behind, toiling tirelessly to scrub and scour every pot, pan, and large kitchen utensils until they shone like new. Once that task was completed, he hoisted the chairs upside down onto the tables, swept and mopped the floor clean, and then heaved the hefty garbage bags into the dumpster at the far corner of the parking lot.
When he remounted his bicycle for his journey back home, it was around 11. The Buford Highway had now yielded to darkness, making it even more hazardous. Cars, seizing the opportunity to speed on the nearly empty lanes, whizzed past him with reckless abandon, their drivers seemingly unaware of the peril they presented to a lone teenage cyclist. But my brother remained unfazed, his gaze firmly locked on the dimly lit road ahead.
When he finally made it home around midnight, a silent house awaited him, everyone already sound asleep. Only a cool breeze dancing gently through the starlit pines welcomed his weary body. He showered quickly before collapsing into bed. By 6 in the morning, Hyung was up, his mind already sharpened for the day ahead. He devoted the next two hours to intense study, then headed off for school at 8. Except for his days off, he maintained this routine until he graduated from high school—with honors—and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps to serve his country, just like our Air Force officer uncle, and to fund his college studies. I wanted to join him by attending the United States Military Academy for college, but I knew full well that, unlike my brother, I did not possess the discipline necessary at that age to succeed at a place like West Point.
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I reckon there wasn’t a harder-working teenager in the entire great state of Georgia than my brother. He started as a dishwasher before moving up to the role of a busboy. His duties were mostly mundane and repetitive, involving a constant cycle of clearing and resetting tables, greeting customers, and aiding servers. The monotonous routine was broken only when he had to quickly and efficiently deal with all sorts of unexpected messes—whether it be spilled drinks, broken plates, or shards of glass scattered on the floor.
One evening, when a line cook quit without prior notice, he was summoned into the kitchen. The boss, who had always thought highly of Hyung’s hard-working, no-nonsense, and mild-mannered demeanor, quickly recognized the teen’s promising culinary talents. Taking my brother under his wing, he personally trained the budding chef to prepare every side dish and entrée on the menu. A few months after turning 17, he earned the title of head cook for his designated shift.
A perk of having an older brother working in a restaurant kitchen? Occasionally, he’d bring home doggy bags packed with tasty treats. French fries, pecan pies, corn on the cob, sweet potato salad, you name it. But with his rise to the role of kitchen commandership, the frequency, quantity, and quality of the gastronomic delights he brought home skyrocketed.
On some Friday nights, with no school looming the next morning, my sisters and I would stay up late, eagerly awaiting Hyung’s return. Maknae—a term of endearment in Korean reserved for the youngest child in a family—unable to fend off the relentless siren call of sleep, would eventually nod off on the living room couch. Meanwhile, my other sister and I, huddled on the floor with our backs leaning against the couch’s front rail, would exchange hushed whispers filled with speculation: what tantalizing surprises might he have tucked away in the rectangular food containers in his backpack?
Merely entertaining the thought was enough to make our mouths water and our culinary imaginations run wild. The wait was anything but tedious. In fact, we found the time leading up to his arrival to be a stimulating buildup to our feast.
As the hands of the sunburst wall clock hanging above the television inched toward a quarter to midnight, I’d turn on the porch lights. This was to light up the entrance walkway for Hyung, certainly, but also to signal to him that we were still awake, lest he head straight to the side garage.
After rousing Maknae from her catnap, we’d all gather at the large living room window, hands pressed against the cold glass panes, eyes riveted on the illuminated pathway beyond. Our eagerness, you could say, was akin to that of hungry nestlings, beaks agape, impatiently waiting for their mother to return with food.
Before long, the distant, rhythmic whirr of bicycle chains would puncture the late-night stillness, growing steadily louder. Then, as Hyung’s elongated shadow began to stretch across the entrance walkway, we’d rush out together to meet him. Regrettably, in our youthful excitement to finally find out what treats lay hidden within the food containers, we’d always forget to greet or thank him.
With hindsight, had I been more mindful, I might have noticed the fatigue etched on his face, evidence of sweat pooling and evaporating repeatedly over the course of a grueling evening. It wasn’t until I spent my sixteenth summer working as a dishwasher in the same restaurant that I fully comprehended what a hot, chaotic hellhole a barbecue restaurant kitchen could be, with food being fried, boiled, baked, and roasted all at once in an uncomfortably cramped space.
But I do remember catching a fleeting glimpse of my brother’s faint smile as he watched his younger siblings’ eyes light up at the sight of the goodies he’d brought. I also recall watching him as he wearily wheeled his bike toward the side garage, the darkness swallowing his fatigued frame before he even rounded the corner.