What You Don't Know

The children had never set one foot in the Phoenix suburb that their mother now based herself out of. In fact the longest time either child had ever spent in the United States since their respective births was eight months, and that was because the courts in Florida took that long to recognize the proper well established marital residence and allowed their father to take his elder child back to his true home. Whether in Korea, the steppes of Central Asia with all of its “stan’ former republics, or one of the largest cities in Russia’s expansive Far East, or the far flung regions of China, the children had been born and dwelled almost exclusively in Asia. Until their mother thought it was a great idea to run off to her own homeland with the son as collateral leaving behind a daughter and exasperated husband who was beyond fed up with her antics. But the people in this desert town had no idea what lengths her former spouse had gone through in order to locate and extract, legally of course, the easily coerced and eternally Mommy-loyal fifth grader from her clutches. 

 She had someone make her a cheap website and cried on the local news, to win over the hearts of Arizona suckers. “He kicked me out with nothing. I was serving my country in Korea when I first met him. He made me give up my career, didn’t want a wife in the military after our daughter was born and in 1996 I went with him to Russia where he was born. He wanted to go to college there, but he ended up playing 6 years of professional basketball. I, a woman of color, felt like I had nobody and had to stay especially after we brought our babies to Russia in 2000……..my former mother-in-law took them back to China, she’s Korean but Chinese too, in 1995 and kinda hid them all over.” Endless tears trailed her cocoa cheeks as cameras rolled.

It sounded like a complete mess. Forced to give up serving her country, dependent and isolated in her husband’s birth country, her children stolen as babies by an evil conniving mother-in-law and whisked away to another country where the law was not on her side, managed to escape but was forced to leave them behind.

That’s how Halit and Sagar Tschenko, although if you knew them in real life you sure as hell wouldn’t call them those birth certificate names, became known to the 10,000 strong hamlet of Small Forks, Arizona. Malakhai and Janoah Huang had no idea that they were missing people, supposedly abducted from their Phoenix, Arizona home, as they grew and lived ordinary albeit could say quite privileged lives a world away wondering less and less as each year went by why мама never answered their calls. 

2010

“Знаю ты Американец.” 

Malakhai jerked his head up and regarded his classmate, the ruddy Yasha called Jake in English and the son of a wealthy firm owner, in confusion. 

“Вот как?” He queried.

There, on the laptop screen of his classmate, was a distinctive picture. And he knew exactly where it came from, snapped by his uncle on the occasion of his 12th birthday, the one he had celebrated a few months after returning home, although that date was more than 5 years prior. The struggle to get through the throng at the airport, his arms obediently wrapped around his father’s waist and face buried in his back so that cameras could not take pictures as the local team’s small forward triumphantly brought his boy back from America after locating the crazy, run away, soon to be ex wife in a suburb of Miami where her father and stepmother had lived for the better part of the last quarter decade.

Malakhai remembered Pompano Beach and his frowning but caring step-grandmother watching him like a hawk as he walked from their home to the beach less than a block away. But he had never in his life heard of Small Forks, Arizona until he read Yasha’s computer screen. There was a picture of the facade of a house, a townhouse rather, attached on both sides to other units. The red adobe threw him for a loop, yet below in bright yellow text were the words “Khai-Khai and No-No’s home.” 

His younger sister studied in the grade year below him, but the classes were on the same floor of the school building. He knew she would be in physics class right then so nearly on auto-pilot he took from Yasha the school issued laptop, departed from his own Graphic Arts’ classroom, and turned into an adjoining corridor. “A minute with Noah Huang, please.” He requested when he rapped on the classroom door.” 

“Am I crazy?” He asked the moment that his bewildered and obviously miffed sibling exited the classroom and the door had been shut.

Name: Halit Xavior Malakhai Tschenkov

Alias: Malakhai Huang

Date of birth: December 01, 1992

Missing from: Small Forks, Arizona

Date missing: October 17, 2004

Race: Multiracial (Asian/Black/White)

Hair color: dark brown 

Hair type: short and wavy with bangs

Eye color: green/hazel

Height: not known currently

Weight: not known currently

Place of birth: Osan Air Force Base, Osan,Gyeonggi, Replic of Korea

Distinguishing characteristics: Wears glasses, scar on back of head that is visible when his hair is freshly cut, surgical scar on left thigh. 

Name: Sagar Janoah Faith Tshenkova

Alias: Janoah Huang

Date of birth: August 31, 1994

Missing from: Small Forks, Arizona

Date missing: October 17, 2004

Race: Multiracial (Asian/Black/White)

Hair color: Black

Hair type: long curly with bangs 

Eye color: Gray

Height: not known currently

Weight: not known

Place of birth: Seoul, Republic of Korea

Distinguishing characteristics: may wear glasses now, has pierced ears. 

Name: Valentin Grigorivich Tschenko aka Zixin Valentin Huang

Date of birth: March 17, 1971

Place of birth: Khabarovsk, Soviet Union

Race: Biracial (Asian/White)

Hair color: Dark brown to Black

Hair type: likes to shave his head but has wavy hair if he lets it grow

Eye color: Green

Height: 6’6” 

Weight: 180 pounds

Languages spoken: Russian, English, Chinese, Korean, and Kazakhstan

Known to frequent: owns three homes, two in Russia (Moscow and Khabarovsk) and one in China ( he grew up in Heilongjiang area and goes back to China at least twice a year).

Distinguishing characteristics: has very poor eyesight and wears thick bifocal style glasses, has very fair complexion and prefers colder climates, tattoo of a bear and a fire breathing dragon that take up most of his back and the dragon's head covers his left shoulder and upper chest.

Circumstances: The children may be in Russia, China, Kazakhstan, or South Korea in company of their father, paternal grandmother, and other relatives. Both children were born in South Korea, but are dual citizens of the United States and Russia of African-American, Korean, and Russian descent. They can speak English, Chinese, and Russian. Their father filed for divorce from their mother in a Russian court in February 2004 after 11 years of marriage, while they were on a family trip to the United States, and she has not seen them since October 2004 or spoken to them on the phone since July 2005. In this conversation, Malakhai indicated that they were going to Kazakhstan or Korea with their grandmother and uncle and they would call again, but neither Malakhai nor Janoah have ever been heard from again. 

“We’re crazy,right?” Malakhai prompted his sister again as her eyes read rapidly yet no sound came from her mouth. 

It was the biggest scandal to ever come to the dusty town of Small Forks, Arizona.

The news headliner was as follows

Veteran and left behind mother slammed as a liar and scammer 

A redacted court document issued in October 2004 by a Broward County, Florida court, which ordered the seizure of then 11 year old Halit Tschenko from the possession of his mother, Selenda Crittendon. 

This court has been effectively convinced that this woman is a manipulator suffering from unaddressed mental health issues who weaponizes her children and places her own interests above all else. Her request for access to the minor child, Sagar Tschenkova (DOB 08/31/ 1994) who is currently in the Broward County area in company of her father for the purpose of visiting with her brother, the minor child Halit Tschenkov (DOB 12/01/1992), is summarily denied. Halit Tschenkov is to be seized, by force if necessary, from Mrs. Crittendon and turned over to his biological and legal father, Mr. Valentin G. Tschenko for transport back to his legal abode. Mr. Tschenko is hereby granted unrestricted exclusive possession and international travel with Halit and Sagar Tschenko……

“A judge in Florida sent the police to take our son away from Mrs. Crittendon who is an American citizen and veteran. The American police raided her parents’ home before dawn in order to remove our boy from her custody. My children and I went straight to the airport.” Valentin Tschenko reported calmly from his home, a five bedroom penthouse high above the streets of Moscow’s bustling financial district. "Our son wanted to call Мама as soon as we landed safely though and I never prevented it."

As his now ex-wife had perfectly described, the now retired former basketballer, was long and lean with a head recently shaved, showing the downy fuzz of dark hair and unsettling sea green eyes hidden behind trendy circular bifocals. His children, sat on either side of him, clad in urbanized name brands, Phat Farm and Fila, safe and sound although clearly exhausted from the 18-hour-long study day between international school and the jam packed extra schedule typical of the children born to East Asian raised parents. Despite remaining fluent in English, the now 17 and 15 year olds had just one message for their mother.

“Stop lying already. It was you who never picked up the phone.” 

Never picked up the phone while the local Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion chapters held endless fundraisers trying to help her pay the bills since her depression over her missing children made her unable to work. She lived off the good will of others and nobody liked being fooled. And knowing the gravy train will end often in the unthinkable.

Selenda was no different.

2023

“Slow down before you kill us!” Janoah snapped at her brother for the dozenth time. “Your own boy is in this vehicle,remember?”

21 month old Nakhum Uriel Zenith for his part barely looked away from the tablet clutched in chubby hands while a Pinkfong video played meant to entertain him as the trio sped through the dusty desert roads. They had all flown into LAX and opted to drive the rest of the way to Phoenix in a rented SUV with a likewise rented car seat for the child. He looked somewhat like his father, but as the third generation of ethnic mixture the paternity had naturally been called into question. The same had happened when his father was born and had delayed the then anticipated marriage of his paternal grandparents by some four months after the birth.

"Sit back, let go of the arm rest, and shut up, Mei-Mei(Little Sister in Chinese)!" was the curt reply. "The faster we get there, the faster we can get it all over with and get back where we belong. Besides….."

"Что?" Janoah replied automatically in Russian.

"If we had actually been living in this place then I would've been driving you around since 2008 and you'd be so used to it that you'd chill the hell out already!" Malakhai grunted tensely. 

Janoah rolled her eyes upwards, careful not to let GeGe(Big Brother in Chinese)see her. She turned her attention to her toddler nephew, his head recently shorn for the first time of loose,floppy, dark loops and murky eyes astutely following Baby Shark. 

They arrived in Small Forks, Arizona shortly before 5 p.m. and stopped some stranger in the Fry's Food and Drug parking lot to ask how to get to the local American Legion branch. 

Either the final nail in the coffin of their long estranged and dead mother awaited them there or perhaps her posthumous vindication. The Instagram DM sent to Janoah had been cryptic to say the very least.

The answers you seek can only be found in the A.L. in Small Forks where we've kept your mother's most personal belongings since 2010. V/r, Cpt. Starkes 

He was nothing short of stunned when the burgundy Honda CR-V rolled into the parking lot and the doors opened. From the front driver's side unfolded a painfully thin young man standing every bit of 6'2" with yellow skin and piercing slightly slanted green eyes beneath a fitted cap. He opened the rear door to retrieve something as a young woman, shorter by no no more than a few inches, walked around from the passenger's side. Her long black hair hung in tumbling spirals far down her back tied back and was tied pack tightly. From the oversized t-shirt and baggy sweatpants she wore you could tell she had been a lifelong tomboy. Just as their mother had described them….

Malakhai turned his back and hunched once he had unscripted his son. The scene made no sense to the grizzled 50 something former jarhead ogling them, until the baby instantly started to clammer on to his back. Once Nakhum had latched on with his little arms wrapped around his daddy's neck, Malakhai stood erect again.

"The pandemic's over here!" Cpt. Starkes called out noticing that the little boy had a decorated disposable face mask looped over his ears and attached to a colorful plastic chain. His aunt wore a plain gray mask attached to a simple black jeweled chain. His father wore a blue disposable mask reminiscent of a surgical mask sans any chain.

"So what? We can't breathe in this dusty polluted place anyway!" Sagar retorted. "Probably going to get lung cancer faster than we would if we took the masks off in Beijing!"

Cpt. Starkes slapped his knee while laughing. "You two bring that baby in here and quit thinking up horror stories about what you don't know nothing about! Whose is he?" 

The siblings looked at each other warily. 

Just then the wind picked up and the sky overhead looked much darker and foreboding. 

"Get that baby in here now! Can't you tell that the dust storm is coming?" Cpt. Starkes yelled at the hesitant siblings holding the door to the implosion of their cushy reality wide open.