Tim Parrish: "Complicity" Analysis

“He knocked the lone shotgun softly against his leg and ran his fingers beneath his nose. ‘Nobody fucks with my family and gets away with it,’ he said. I nodded, not sure what to say. He kept his eyes hard on me. Finally, he sniffed and walked out” (49).

This quote was thought-provoking to me, knowing what I knew as a reader and also knowing that Jeb knew the exact same information. At this point, it is pretty apparent to the reader, as it also is to Jeb, that Mr. Park beat up his own wife, for whatever reason. It is not out of bounds to assume that he has an aggression problem, which he most likely takes out on his family since he has to keep a professional façade at his job. Ironically, he works to protect his community from people exactly like himself. It seems as though he has been successful at hiding his true persona from his community.
While Mr. Park can hide that he beat his wife from his community by placing the blame on an imagined black man, he cannot hide the truth from himself. I found it interesting that he chooses to go so far as to sit outside his house with a shotgun, because he has no one to convince of the truth but himself. His neighbors seem to believe for the most part that a stranger broke into his home and beat up Mrs. Park when he wasn’t home; the only person who knows the truth (that he is aware of, anyway) is himself. He has turned into the type of enemy that he works so hard to fight against every day.
While Mr. Park hid the truth well for the most part, it wouldn’t have been possible for him to hide it from Jeb, who heard what happened in the Park household when Mrs. Park was assaulted by her husband. It is clear to the reader that Jeb realizes what happened but doesn’t want to admit it. In this quote, it also seems apparent that Mr. Park has his suspicions about Jeb- he seems to realize that he could have very well heard what happened and that he has the potential to cause quite a bit of trouble for Mr. Park. I think that while Mr. Park is justifying his actions to Jeb by making it seem as though he is protecting his family from that intruder again, he is warning Jeb at the same time. If Jeb was to tell anyone what he knew about Mrs. Park’s assault, it was destroy Mr. Park’s reputation and most likely cost him his job and possibly his family as well. Mr. Park seems to be warning Jeb that if he says anything about what he knows, there will be a severe price for him to pay.