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clutched my stomach in laughter and fell off my chair.
    â€œStop it,” Sookie growled.
    â€œI’m trying,” I panted, but when I rolled onto my back and peeked a look at my friend, I realized she had been talking to her mother. I pulled myself back into my seat. “What’s your problem, Sookie? Your mother is just teasing us.”
    â€œIt’s no joke,” Sookie said, staring at her mother.
    Duk Hee’s lips stretched open in what should have been a smile, but wasn’t. She gazed at her daughter with red-rimmed eyes and said, her voice so soft I almost didn’t hear: “No, it isn’t, is it?”
    The hot dog lay on the table between Sookie and me. I poked it and it rolled unevenly toward Sookie. “Uh, anyone want this?” I asked.
    Startled, Sookie looked down at the table, then pushed the penis dog back to me. She shuddered and reached for a sliver of apple.
    â€œI’ll have it then,” I said, grasping the uncovered tip of meat.
    I rolled the thin plastic back up the soldier’s body, and when he was naked, bit the head off.
    I almost spit it out, the taste and smell of new rubber coating my mouth.
    â€œDon’t eat it!” Sookie shouted.
    Meat smashed in my teeth, I smiled, then swallowed and took another bite, in part because Sookie told me not to, in part because it was American and I didn’t want it to go to waste.
    Â 
    Weeks later, exploring the apartment when Duk Hee was at the clubs, we found a drawerful of those protection packets. She hadn’t seemed to have used any. Sookie and I both took one. I figured we could use all the protection we could get from Lobetto and his gang.
    Thinking the kondoms were like the talismans the shaman mudangs gave out to protect the wearer from bad luck and evil ghosts, I punched a needle through one corner of mine, widening the hole with a pencil until string could struggle through, and wore it around my neck, under my school uniform. During tests, I would touch my chest and feel the packet crinkle against my skin.
    I don’t know what Sookie did with hers.
    Â 
    I started walking Sookie home every day, not just every Thursday. Sometimes, in the place where sheets hung to dry, a row of lacy underclothes waved to each other and to passersby. When we saw this, we knew we would be welcome inside. Sookie’s mother would not wash clothes if a boyfriend was home with her.
    I liked when wash days stretched into weeks, even if that meant Sookie’s mother could only offer rice and sour kimchee stew for lunch. Duk Hee always sat the table with us, drinking and urging us to eat, and talking like we were her girlfriends at the clubs. Even though this irritated Sookie, she tolerated her mother’s advice because I loved it.
    â€œIf you ever catch an American man to marry,” Duk Hee would say, “you need to learn their secrets. The more you know about them, the more power you will have. Remember, it is war.” Then I’d laugh, picturing the jajie dog soldier marching across the table.
    She’d drink a little, thinking of something bizarre about American Joes she could tell us, something that would test our credulity. “When hair stops growing on top their heads, it will find a new path, sprouting out of their ears and on their knuckles,” Sookie’s mother offered.
    Even Sookie laughed at that, but she shook her head and said: “Strange, yes, but Frog-Face Ota from Okinawa has no hair on his head and still has hairy arms.”
    â€œAnd ears,” I added.
    â€œAnd nose.” Both Sookie and I squealed.
    â€œOkay, how about this.” Sookie’s mother tapped the table for attention and tried again. “The miguk GIs grow so tall, that their heads hit the ceiling on buses and they have to walk like apes to get in the door of people’s houses.”
    I pretended to consider this, not wanting her to know we had seen one of her darkie boyfriends draped