He and his parents ambled off the plane. It was a little tense form the outset, but it didn’t stop him from wanting a hot dog.
When he said as much his parents looked at him like he was crazy. They were both a little shell-shocked, being in America for the first time, tired from the 14 hour flight. They didn’t answer and so he went ahead and took that as a yes.
The seating in the hot dog place was hard; yellow, orange and red plastic. He ran his left hand over the surface as he cocked his head and ate the hot dog out of his right. His parents sat there with doughy eyes, trying to take it all in.
There was a steamy hot dog smell. He wondered if it was a fake smell they pumped out to attract more customers. He once saw a news program that talked about that sort of thing. He hadn’t eaten a good American hot dog since he’d studied in America about five years before. He bit into the casing. It snapped.
His parents had, despite all their money, never been outside of Korea. His father had flown to Seoul a few times, but his mother had never been on a plane. Now, here they were, having flown half way around the world to meet their son’s soon-to-be wife for the first time. It was a little surreal for all of them, but his parents in particular.
He pushed the end of the hot dog in his mouth. Not bad. Not as good as the ones in New York. Papaya King. He stared at his mustard dotted fingers. Thinking of Papaya King made him want to order another hot dog right then. He licked the mustard off his fingers with loud smacks.
“I thought you told us to not make noises when we ate,” his father said in Korean.
He ignored the comment.
They gathered their luggage and made for the exit. The car service would be waiting there.
“You know the name of the person who’s picking us up?” his father asked. He sounded stern, like he expected that his son hadn’t thought about it.
He looked at his father and tired to not grimace. Of course he knew. He had to get used to this. He would be fielding similar questions during the entire trip. He spoke English, his parents didn’t. They weren’t all that happy to be in America in the first place. He would have act as the guide, translator, doctor, arbiter, and probably as some kind of food tester.
But of course he was a little nervous too, even though he’d been to the U.S. before.
He stood and waited with his back to the large automatic doors that led into America. He had mixed feelings in returning to the United States. He watched his parents awkwardly gesture their way through customs. The air behind him changed each time the doors opened and closed.
His reasons for coming to America for the second time were so different than the first he may as well have been going to another country altogether. The first time he was so in awe of America. Even scared. America-and every bit the story of someone who goes there for the first time. Scary, exhilarating, mesmerizing.
But this time he was more inclined to go about his business and get back to Korea. It wasn’t that he didn’t like America. He just liked Korea better.

He’d left America a few months after Sept. 11. The Sept. 11. He’d been studying English for over a year at Hostos Community College in the Bronx. It had been kind of a joke, really. He wanted to live in New York City because he liked the New York Yankees. His grades weren’t bad but not good enough to go to the University of New York or Colombia. Not even Fordham. So he found the program at Hostos. His parents had a lot of money so away he went.
He lived in Brooklyn and commuted to the Bronx every morning. He loved the New York subway. The subway in Busan was nicer. Newer. Cleaner. But people didn’t exist on Korean subways. Even when the subway was crowded it was quiet. But the New York subway was alive. It was part of his dream. The way it roared and shook through tunnels. The way it smelled like heat and sweat. They way everyone sat on it like they’d been beaten over the head by life. All together at once.
On Sept. 11 he had been on the A train, just 15 minutes or so beyond the World Trade Center subway station. Like every other day he’d change from the A to the D train, get off at Yankee Stadium and backtrack a half mile to the college. He didn’t want to miss a single chance to savor the stadium so he didn’t mind the extra walk.
By the time he got to school the first plane had hit. It was strange, but not totally out of context. He was in the cafeteria getting his usual bagel. There wasn’t a TV, just a radio. The cooks were chatting about what had happened and compared it to the day before when a Frenchman was hung suspended on the torch of the Statue of Liberty due to an errant parachute stunt. They were snickering about it, but then a woman ran into the cafeteria screaming “another plane hit the trade center!” Then it all became like a dream.
When he got back to Brooklyn late that afternoon his apartment was covered in ash. He’d left the window open. His mother had called 15 times. She demanded he come back to Korea immediately.
He had already been on borrowed time. His parents agreed he could go for a year, but he’d made up some story about having to finish work on a thesis and having to stay six extra months. Neither of his parents had much idea of education beyond high school, so they believed him. But Sept. 11 pushed his mom over the edge.
He had a girlfriend in New York. His first girlfriend. Until that point he’d only slept with two women, both prostitutes, both mandated and paid for by the military. One before he started basic training. The other at the end.
His girlfriend was American. A black girl from Washington Heights named Kali. Her personality was much stronger than what he’d been used to back home. She never held back her opinions or steered away from confrontation. For better and for worse. But he liked it. She’d had a tough upbringing. Poor. Her father hadn’t been around her whole life and her mom worked as a janitor at an elementary school to make ends meet.
He marveled how different Kali was from Korean women. It was like he’d come upon an entirely different species of the human race. He began to think Korean women were too meek. Submissive. Kali ordered him around in the way he ordered her around. It was an even match. They were harmonious.
One time, lying on the bed in Kali’s apartment he told her Korean women liked to be treated like princesses.
“I want to be your princess,” she said.
So she became his “African Princess.” And he her “Asian Prince.”
Leaving New York itself was hard, but after 9/11 the city had turned into a one big red, white and blue paraphernalia sale. Every street corner. That wore on him. And once the country invaded Afghanistan and was staring down Iraq, he’d had enough of that aspect of America. He’d been sympathetic at first, but soon, he wasn’t. American itself became easy to leave.
But leaving Kali was a different story. It wasn’t a pretty sight, the two of them-tears streaming down their faces at JFK. Slowly backing away from each other. The taste of his last Papaya King still in his mouth.
They kept in touch for a while, but it was difficult. He was not only still in love with Kali, but he started to realize the idea of finding a Korean woman that had an ounce of Kali’s strength and will would be next to impossible.
In the end Kali sent him an email begging him to never contact her again. After that it was hard for him to know what love was or wasn’t. He wasn’t sure he could ever completely get over Kali.

The sign said “The Kims” in big blue letters.
“Even I can read that,” his father said testily, raising his hand to signal the driver.
He glanced over at his father. “You said you couldn’t speak English,” he said. His father snarled, “Well it’s not like I haven’t been dealing with Americans 25 years.”
He snickered at the irony of what his father had said. Not being able to speak English was a point of pride for his father. Especially the more money he had accumulated. His father had always bragged about that.
His father had started a ship cleaning business during the 1970s. Most of his customers were American shipping companies. He spoke no English, but the Americans thought he was cute. He bowed a lot, worked 12 hours a day/7 days a week. As his father was fond of saying, “those were the days of the `Made in Korea’ sticker.” The point being it was after the days of the “Made in Japan” stickers, and prior to the “Made in China” era.
The driver put their bags in the trunk and slammed it shut. Even though they’d hired a driver he had printed out directions before they’d left Korea. He wanted to know the route. Just in case. They started in the direction of the San Mateo Bridge.
“Are we going over the famous bridge?” his father asked.
“No, not the Golden Gate Bridge?”
“I don’t mean the Golden Bridge,” his father snapped. “The other one. The one that goes to Oakland.”
He gave his father a surprised stare out of the corner of his eye. “How do you know about that bridge?”
“Oakland is a big port city…a lot of the boats I’ve dealt with go directly to Oakland. Aren’t we going near Oakland?”
“I think it’s a little close to Oakland.”
“Well then where are we going?” He said impatiently.
“Livermore.”
His father squinted his eyes. “Where is that? I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s near Oakland,” he said, not really wanting to discuss it further. Partly because he didn’t really know anything about Livermore, besides the name.
They drove onto the San Mateo Bridge.
“This is the bridge we’re going to,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
He watched his father’s reaction in the mirror, precisely hoping there’d be no reaction.
“This is a bridge?” his father said. “This is a freeway. They call this a bridge?”
Even though his father had at last agreed to his marrying an American, he knew he’d have to endure plenty of his sarcastic and petty comments during the trip.
He couldn’t say his father disliked America. But as it is for many Koreans, including his father, America is the benchmark. The standard of opulence. But in his father’s case, he’d won. Not only had he made a lot of money from America, he’d done it on his terms. On his soil to boot. His father didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Why would his son want to study in America? They’d already agreed he’d take over his father’s business when the time came. He obviously didn’t need to speak English for that. What could come from going to America, other than getting shot or bombed by crazy religious people?
They finished crossing the bridge. There was a sign for Livermore. For the first time since they got off the plane he felt a twinge of nervousness. In his worry and concern about his parents, specifically his father’s bad attitude, he’d temporarily forgotten why they’d come to America in the first place.

He’d hoped that in returning to Korea, such a different world, that he’d be able to forget Kali. He was prepared follow the path. Return home, start working at his father’s company, get married to a Korean, and start a family. As the only child, the only son, there wasn’t much wiggle room in that idea. By going to New York, basically for kicks, basically so he could lurk around Yankee Stadium, he’d rocked the boat as it was.
But there was no erasing Kali from his mind, no matter how much he tried. Even though he’d managed to finish his military service without a smoking habit, he’d started when he returned to Korea. He was trying to reduce his emotion. Most nights he stayed up into the morning hours, either chatting with Kali or writing emails once they’d finished chatting. He was drinking a lot. He’d wake up in the early afternoon with his head on his computer desk; three empty bottles of soju at his right, an empty cigarette pack on his left.
He didn’t dare mention Kali to his parents. There would be no sympathy for his heartache. An American woman? Someone in America? His parent’s marriage had been arranged. For them love could become a byproduct of marriage. Mostly though, it was a business arrangement between two families. The only thing his father had ever said on the subject was: “You ought to marry an elementary school teacher. Elementary school teachers have a lot of patience with children.”
In any event, love certainly wasn’t something you flew over oceans to get. Especially when there was a family business he needed to learn how to run.
But try as he did Kali remained in his thoughts at all times. Even though he was back in Korea he kept his watch set to New York time. He spent more time thinking about what Kali was doing at whatever moment than what he himself did during the day.
Kali was also still in love with him. For a time she’d entertained the idea of moving to Asia to teach English (his idea). But she needed a bachelor’s degree and she’d only done a two year program at Hostos. He begged her to come anyway, that his family had enough money that she wouldn’t even have to think about working. For a couple days Kali had even considered the offer. She knew nothing about Asia, but love was love. She wanted to follow her heart.
But in the end there was her mother. Still a single woman, still working as a janitor to care for Kali and her two brothers. When she thought about it that way; leaving her mother for a man, she couldn’t do it. Once she’d asked herself this question she knew it was finally over. Kali finally sent him an email:

For the both of us, please do not contact me any more. We both know this cannot work. Please do not ever send me no emails any more. I wish you the best of luck in life. You will make some one very happy some day. But we need to end this finaly.

Kali

While he had some inclination to fly to New York, show up at Kali’s apartment door, and beg her to come to Korea, he knew she was right. Kali had finally sent the email that needed to be sent. He had to let her go.
He drew himself a schedule. A life plan. He’d endure the heartbreak for a few weeks, then start asking friends to introduce him to single Korean women. He’d date around for a while, find an adequate mother for his children, become more familiar with his father’s business, and in three or four years he’d be ready to take both the business and a wife. He’d get married, move into a new apartment with is parents, and the rest would be history.

He stared out the window. They’d arrived in Livermore. It made him reminisce a little about when he’d arrived in New York for the first time. The way he pressed his face to the window in the airplane, just like people did in the movies. The foreigner, coming to America for the first time; all the hope and promise that arrives along with them.
But his purpose this time was completely different, so there was little to get excited about. It wasn’t that America itself had lost its allure. It was that his purpose had totally changed. He had already laid out his life plan and his new American wife was a smaller part of that than the experience he’d desired the first time he’d come. In a way it was a hindrance. Not his future wife, but the process. It slowed his progress. He was eager to get it over with and go back to Korea. He had other responsibilities, most of them related to his father’s company.
Besides that it was clear that Livermore was an entirely different place from New York. It was quiet. A little like the countryside in Korea, which he was never all that fond of. He’d expected Livermore to be like to San Francisco, which he had presumed was similar to New York City. That said he didn’t make any effort to actually see San Francisco. But he’d seen pictures. Steep hills with pretty colorful houses. Cable cars. It looked ok.
But Livermore was seemingly not ok. It was quiet. As the car drove through town there were few signs of life. A handful of cars, usually driving in or out of a fast food restaurant or an all-purpose store parking lot. The cars in Livermore were like nothing he’d ever seen. They looked like tanks with tinted windows. They drove with little to no sound, like ghosts. There were no colorful houses like he’d imagined. Mostly 2 and 3 story apartment buildings that looked like they’d been built in the 80s.
“Will we meet your wife tonight?” his father asked from the back seat.
“No, tomorrow morning.”
The feeling of arriving in a new country had disoriented his parents. But the tone of his father’s voice at that moment was just another unpleasant reminder of what he’d been enduring for weeks.
At first his father had steadfastly refused the idea. His one and only son was not about to marry a non-Korean. Why? Because he was Korean. Because Koreans marry other Koreans. Why? Because Koreans understand Koreans in a way that other races don’t. How? Because the Koreans are a special race. Because they have been one way for nearly 5,000 years. Because they’ve maintained a special sense of community in ways that other countries can’t imagine.
The arguments had gone on and on. Initially his father gave him an unlimited supply of money. New suits, flowers, gifts, a car. Whatever it might take to woo the right Korean woman. Whatever his son, it was his. When that hadn’t worked his father instructed his mother to take him to the most expensive fortune tellers, the highest level matchmakers. Again, no expense was spared.
But once he finally did get over Kali, he was left with the desire to be with someone like Kali. But in doing this he, in a sense, gave on his idea of true love. Love became something that was more an object and less a feeling. He could have it if he wanted it. It was only a matter of what form it would take when he seized it. Eventually he realized the form should be a black American woman, like Kali.
He didn’t question his logic. He ended the conversation there. He was so convinced in his logic he was able to combat his father using it. In the end, his father had to yield. The problem wasn’t going away. He couldn’t physically force his son to marry a Korean, though he’d practically tried. He threatened him with exile from the family. Said he’d prevent him from taking over the company. Even challenging him to a fist fight. None of it worked.
The car turned into the hotel parking lot. It was called The Riviera, and had large orange arches and a fountain in the middle of the roundabout. They stepped out of the car. While the first thing they heard was the cool sounds of the fountain splashing, they were soon overtaken by the brutality of the heat. It was like they’d stepped into an oven. His mother started coughing and gasping for air. She grabbed a hold of her husband’s arm. In a panic he looked for the path to the hotel lobby. He knew he had to get his poor mother inside where there was air-conditioning. He looked over in her direction, it was then he saw his father’s piercing stare.

During the 1980s Korea changed its exporting from manufactured goods to heavy industry; materials, chemicals, things of that nature. The Korean economy started to explode. For the first time ordinary citizens were became “Lightning Rich.”
His father was one of these people. At the time he was still an elementary school child, so it was hard for him to comprehend what the increased wealth meant for him and his life. All he knew is that his father started bringing home rolls of unused “made in Korea” stickers.
These stickers were his favorite toy. He put them on everything in their apartment. His shirts, oranges, the floor, the toilet seat. The joke never got old. One day he put a whole roll on his own body. He stripped off his shirt and covered his arms and face. His mother helped him cover his back. Then he hid behind the door and waited for his father to come home. When his father came home from work he jumped out from behind front door screaming “I was made in Korea!”
He’d saved some of the rolls of stickers and every few years he’d bring one out when people least expected it. He’d brought one to Livermore. He wasn’t sure if the mood was right, but as they unpacked their things at the Riviera he tossed a roll onto the bed. At first his parents just stared at it. The mood had been pretty tense since they’d left Korea, but slowly their faces changed. His father burst into laughter. His mother started to get teary eyed.
He and his father started some horseplay, putting the stickers on one another. They chased each other around the room. At first they were just trying to put a sticker on the other’s body, but eventually it got more aggressive, and they were trying to slap them on each other’s foreheads.
“Hey!” his father yelled, stamping his foot on the ground. “Get over here!”
He pretended to relent. Calmly walking over to his father, as if to allow him a free chance. But just as his father started to make a move he dodged his hands and planted a sticker square on his forehead.
“Woooo!” he called out.
His father was nearly 60, but very healthy and strong. His father had never eaten a single food product made of any kind of bread. Only rice. He’d never even eaten a piece of pizza, which had always been unfortunate since he and his mom both liked pizza.
They ran around the hotel room some more. Finally his father grabbed a hold of his arm and smacked a sticker right on to his left cheek. It made a loud slapping noise. His mother gasped.
It hurt like hell. But he had the foresight to see the situation could go one of two ways. He could take it personally and get angry at his father, or he could let it slide.
He smiled at his father and said, “good one,” and nodded his head laughing a little.
They both flopped down on the couch, trying to catch their wind. After a minute or two the only sounds in the room were their slowing breaths and the hum of the air-conditioner.
His father looked over at him.
“You ready for all this?” His father threw his hand in the air in a way that made it clear he was talking about the marriage, not the sticker game.
He looked over at his father. He could still feel the sticker still on his throbbing cheek.
“I think so.”
His father nodded.
“So what do you need to do? Call her? Just show up at her home tomorrow?”
He nodded. “We’ll go there tomorrow,” he swallowed. “I have the address. We can take a taxi.”
His father smiled and nodded.
“You brought the gifts, right?” The gifts had been a point of contention. That’s why he asked his father about them now since the mood appeared to be getting lighter.
His father leaned on the arm of the chair and turned around, “Honey, you packed the gifts, right?”
His mother nodded from across the room.
“I guess you’ll be translating for all of us tomorrow, huh Mr. English speaker?”
He nodded his head.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve even seen your wife’s photo. Do you think you could show me?”
He looked at his father and smiled. It felt like a big moment. Like a couple of bears that had been fighting, had finally tired themselves out and had sat down to share a freshly caught salmon. He wanted to jump into his father’s arms like a little boy and hug him with all his strength. His father had accepted his choice. There wasn’t much more in life he could have asked for right then.
“There’re a bunch of pictures online,” he said grinning. He couldn’t help it. “I saw a computer downstairs. Why don’t we go take a look?”

In the hotel lobby there was a computer with a sign that said “Internet” in big, black, block letters that had been colored by hand. It looked like someone had spent a long time on it.
His father sat down while he retrieved a second chair.
“I bet she’s very beautiful,” his father said, starting to glow.
He shook his head. He was trying to be humble, but was really enjoying the moment. He tried to not smile, but he wanted to burst into giddy laughter.
He punched the address and the page came up.
“American Brides,” his father read out loud in English.
“You should translate tomorrow,” he said playfully.
His father shook his head and stared at the screen.
He logged into his account explaining things as he did it. “This is my login. See…” he started, “there are a lot of women on here that are looking for husbands in other countries.”
His father leaned forward and listened intently.
“So, this is my account. And what I did is signed up with this company, and then I can email all the women that have signed up with the same company.”
“Do you know anything about the company?”
“Well, it seems pretty good. It’s the biggest. They had the best looking Web site.”
His father nodded.
“First they narrow the women down to what you want. So you see here I put in an age range, height, weight…”
“You didn’t pick a woman taller than you did you?” his father said a little nervously.
“No Dad, she’s a little shorter than me.”
They both laughed.
“The girl I picked was one of the women they originally said I matched really well with. So once you narrow it down you just start emailing each other. The rest is history, really. You email, talk on the phone, and if it goes well….well, here we are.”
His father looked like he was deep in thought. “What is she like?” he said, “The woman you’re going to marry?”
“Well, she’s not actually from Livermore. She’s originally from the south of the United States. Do you remember the big typhoon in the United States a couple years ago? The one in the south where a lot of people died?”
“The Tsunami.”
“No, it wasn’t a Tsunami, that was further south, near Indonesia. This was in America… they knew about it, but a lot of people didn’t leave. And there were all kinds of problems. People blamed the government…”
“Oh, yeah. I remember that. She was in that?”
“Right. Her family lost their house in…I forget where exactly. What’s that city…New something..”
“New York?”
“No, not New York. That’s where I lived before, that’s far north.”
“Son, I don’t know places in America. I’ve heard of New York and Oakland but that’s about it.”
He was a little nervous when he did it, but he finally he clicked on Shaunika’s profile. The page opened up. Her picture was right there, front and center.
“That’s her father. This is the woman I’m going to marry and bring home to Korea.”
His father leaned forward as much as he could, then he craned his neck to get himself even a little closer. His eyes zeroed in on the picture and seemed to take it all in.
It was quiet for about 10 seconds. But then, just as he started to get more nervous, a smile started to across his father’s face.
As his father smiled he could feel a warmness making its way through his body.
His father sat up and put his arm around his son.
“Good job son.”

6,107 words.
It wasn’t like they wanted to work there. They needed a job. They were new to town and they needed a job.
But going there directly from the bus station, before even finding a place to live, was plain stupid. They both had big bags, and a bus isn’t a taxi. It doesn’t just take you wherever you want to go. It has stops. It lets you off and there you are. As it happened, the city bus stop wasn’t all that close to the store. They had to walk about 25 minutes with their big bags. The kind of oversized suitcases people use when they’re moving.
The bags had rollers, but they were cheaply made. Like the bags themselves. They chipped and dented as they rolled. Ironically, they’d bought them at same store they were heading toward. Albeit in a completely different part of the country. They hadn’t thought very carefully when they bought them. They went to the store because it was there. They bought them on the spot because they needed to get out of town quick.
They could see the store way off in the distance, but the road, besides being pretty busy, didn’t have sidewalks or even a bike lane. To get there they had to walk all the way across a big empty lot. It looked like the empty lot was being turned into a parking lot for another store of a similar type. But it was still an empty lot. Knowing it would probably be a parking lot in a month or two made them all the more frustrated as they plodded across the rocky landscape with their oversized suitcases.
The lot was dusty and covered their shoes in fine yellow powder. Their suitcases were also covered in the stuff. If they weren’t applying for jobs it wouldn’t have mattered. But since they were trying to look presentable, and hence, employable, it became just one more thing to stress about.
“I told you we should find a place to live before we got jobs,” she snapped.
He didn’t say anything. It was his idea.
“This is why,” she added. She was baiting him. Don’t take the bait, he thought. Don’t take it.
He kept his mouth shut. He could say something. He wanted to. But he was trying to turn over a new leaf. That was the whole idea in doing what they did. Getting out of town and everything. But it was hard for him. He was the kind of person that spoke his mind. Always. Said what he felt. Some people didn’t like it, but that was him. If they didn’t like it they could go their own way. He was his own person and he wasn’t about to change for anyone.
A few minutes before the interview they took turns in the bathroom washing the dust off their shoes while the other stood guard with the bags next to an ATM. When the manager realized they’d come directly from the bus, that they hadn’t even found an apartment yet, he looked them over like they were a little weird. He was a little suspicious. But he let them into the back of the store anyway. He told them they could keep the bags in the break room. That the interview was in the break room anyway.
For the couple that was a good sign. By letting them into the back of the store, into the area where customers weren’t allowed, it seemed the manager was showing then he was at least open to the idea of hiring them.
But the truth was he didn’t want customers to see them standing there with their giant dust covered bags. That said, the manager sort of liked the fact that they’d come directly from the bus stop. It was weird, but it showed they really needed jobs. That they might be serious about working there. He really needed some new people. He was in a spot.
He also liked the fact that they were a couple and planning to get married. The manager had been married eight years. He didn’t like being married, but he had a kid, so he wasn’t going anywhere. He figured they were all in the same boat, or would be soon enough. Once you get married it gets harder to cut and run. People do it of course, but it slows them down for sure. Makes them think twice.
The job interview wasn’t so much an interview as it was a conversation. A one-sided conversation. The couple didn’t actually end up talking much at all. Mostly they sat and listened to the manager go on about the store. At first they were happy to sit down and be quiet. They’d had a long bus ride and didn’t have a whole lot to say anyway. The manager handed them each a can of Sprite. They just sat there and enjoyed their cool drinks. And listened.
It was clear to them from the beginning that the manager liked to talk. He started by telling his own history at the store. That led into the history of the assistant manager, which led into the story of the head cashier. The couple noticed one thing right off the bat. The manager’s stories had beginnings and middles, but they didn’t really end. The end of a story ran straight into the beginning of the next story.
The woman had seen this sort of thing before. She was a good judge of character. She usually had people pegged within a few minutes of meeting them. She’d seen the manager’s type for sure. Mostly in men. From the get go the manger was trying to show something. Prove something. She’d seen it mostly in bars. Often, when the guy wanted sex. She didn’t think the manager was after sex. At least not yet. In a bar, when a guy started talking like that, she knew what he wanted. So she’d walk away or tell him to screw off or something. But she figured she’d better just sit and listen. At least for a while. She needed a job.
After he talked about head cashier he got into the “regular people,” as he put it. The first employee he brought up was a black lady. He emphasized the fact that she was black in a somewhat grave tone.
“She came out here from where they had that Hurricane Katrina.” He paused and looked at the couple. “Boy it was tough.” He stared at them. They weren’t sure exactly what was tough. If it was the hurricane or the decision to hire her or what. The manager had conveyed a little of both. But they nodded and so the manager nodded too.
“She came in here and I couldn’t say no. She didn’t interview all that great. You know people here in Livermore can have a hard time even understanding people from out there. Especially when they’re so…”
The manager trailed off, paused and looked at the couple. A little skeptically. He wasn’t sure where they were from. So he stopped himself and just ended the sentence. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. The couple nodded. First the woman and then the man. The water cooler made a gulping sound and the manager slowly looked over at it and grimaced. For all three of them the quiet was a little strange. It called attention to the fact that it hadn’t been quiet since they’d all walked into the back of the store.
“But the point is she’s a good worker,” the manager started again. “She comes in on time, she punches her card, she doesn’t steal, she does her job, and she goes home,” the manager threw his hands in the air, to convey how simple doing a good job at the store was. “She’s still here. You’ll meet her. Though she put in her notice 10 days ago. She’s getting married and moving out of the country. Too bad she’s leaving. I bet you guys would have really gotten along.”
The couple nodded a little. They’d only been a couple for five months. So they weren’t communicating without talking like couples sometimes do after they’ve been together for a long time. Still, at that moment they were both thinking the same things about the manager. That he talked too much. That they didn’t really like him. That he wasn’t the sort of person they’d like to be friends with. But, also, that they needed to get jobs.
“Another guy who worked here,” the manager started and then stopped, thinking hard of the right word to say. It seemed like he was trying to look emotional. Respectfully emotional. Like if he had a hat he’d have taken it off his head and put it across his heart, “di…passed away last week.” He looked up at the couple, closed his eyes and nodded.
The woman managed to look a little solemn, but the man couldn’t do it. Of course anyone dying is sad, but it wasn’t like he knew the guy. The guy might have been a complete jerk. That’s what the man was thinking. But he wanted the job, so he tried to look a little sad. But he couldn’t pull it off. He ended up looking like a surprised guy trying to look sad.
“He started here six years ago. Way back when this place first opened.”
The manger breathed deliberately out his out of nose. “He’s actually going to be very hard to replace. Or, rather, he’s been hard to replace. Already. You see, he was the guy…” His voice trailed off. He looked out beyond the couple, like was looking out into some great expanse. “He was the guy that did most of the ordering for the store. Most of the store.”
He shot a quick look at the couple. To see if they were paying attention. He wanted to see if the couple could comprehend how serious such a loss could be a store like the one he was running.
The man read it perfectly, and raised his eye brows and nodded enthusiastically. Almost too enthusiastically given that he still hadn’t conveyed any sense of reverence for the fact that someone had died. So he tried to take his reaction down a notch. He lowered his eyebrows and slowed his nodding. He pursed his lips as if to appear deep in thought. He hated jumping through hoops like that. He wasn’t used to it. He thought of himself as the kind of guy who did what he had to do and let the chips fall where they may. A take me or leave me kind of guy.
“You’d probably think that at a store like this, a big chain like this, with stores all over the world, that some number cruncher sitting in some fancy office way out in New York City or Denver, or…wherever…would be doing all the ordering. Right?”
The manager looked the couple. It was a test. A trap. The man sensed it again. He knew how interviews went. He sat up a little in his chair and stared straight at the manager. Expressionless. His jaw rigid.
“That’s right,” the manager said, lifting his hand and gesturing in the man’s direction. “We do a lot of specialized ordering here.” He started to shake his head. “What people want to buy in Livermore isn’t the same as what they want to buy in….Alabama, or Denver, or…China.” He threw his arm up when he said “China.” The manager paused and shook his head.
The woman had missed the manager’s test. She was still caught up in pegging him. She knew his personality type. He had started to remind her of someone she’d known before. A few years back. She couldn’t place just who it was. But she started to get the feeling it wasn’t a good memory.
“So he’s…passed, and since he’s been gone, the store has been in chaos. And I don’t mean to underestimate what I mean by that word.”
Nobody said anything for about 15 seconds, to the point of where it felt awkward again. Both the man and woman felt the pause again and were soon worried that if someone didn’t say something soon that the tide of the interview could turn. That they might not get hired.
“What kind of chaos?” the man finally said.
The manager started nodding. He paused before he spoke. “Chaos.” He looked directly at the couple. “Strange phenomenon.” He said “phenomenon” like he was spelling it out, although he’d just broken it into four syllables.
The woman squinted her eyes in thought. She looked over at her boyfriend who had also started to squint. She hoped he knew how to handle someone like the manager. She sure as heck didn’t. The only thing she knew is that the manager gave her a bad feeling. But then, she didn’t trust too many people when she really thought about it. Especially men. Yet, here she was. Trusting another one. Not the manager, but her boyfriend. Did she trust her boyfriend? Maybe a little, but not totally. She’d gone along with what they’d done because she was bored. Not because she trusted him per se. He was an okay guy, but he definitely wasn’t the be all and end all. Sometimes he was. Sometimes he really wasn’t.
The manager leaned forward. He didn’t say anything, but he looked like he’d just said something important. The manager looked at the woman. She started to worry she’d missed something. What had the manager said? She really didn’t want to blow it. They needed jobs.
The manager looked from one corner of the room to the other. “I don’t want you to tell the other employees this,” he said, pausing, then adding: “if I hire you,” parenthetically, in a different tone. “There’s been some stuff…some of its just bad luck, but some of its…” he paused for a second, “I don’t know…bad timing? Bad faith?” He cocked his head to the side in answer to his own rhetorical questions. “Mostly, just bad.”
The woman had to avoid the manger’s eyes. She simply couldn’t keep up the charade. She kept losing focus, then trying to catch up. One second she was acting scared, the next interested. It was hard. She looked at the lockers. They were a yellow/greenish color. That color, with the florescent light made her want to vomit. She took her eyes off the lockers and noticed six Dominos pizza boxes in the trash. She wondered if the store ever paid for employee pizza parties or anything like that.
“Of course, right off the bat, the ordering all went to…heck,” the manager continued, “No one, and I mean no one, has ever done that job at this store. Except that guy. So everyone, including myself, has had to chip in. But we can’t do it. The guy did the ordering 99.9% from memory. The kind of memory you only have when you work at a store since the day it started. That sort of data is anti-replaceable.”
The couple’s eyes darted back to the manager when he said the word “data.” For them, “data” was a word they’d tried to avoid all their lives. At all costs. From there perspective it was why they worked in places like the store they were interviewing in at that moment. To avoid data. They didn’t understand data. Data was big. Data was important.
The manager had sensed this would be the case. Which was why he said the word in the first place. With the couple stunned, the manager knew he was free to continue at his own pace.
“So we’ve had this coming in. That coming in. Everything coming at once. All wrong. TVs, stereo speakers, potato chips…wrong. All wrong. We’ve got stuff in there that wouldn’t sell in a million years, I’m telling you. It’s all wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.” He spoke like he was delivering a rant that even he was hardly interested in. Like he was too busy to deal with such problems. He finished what he was saying and just shook his head in disgust.
Then he paused and leaned forward with his hands on the edge of the table. Like he was about to say something revealing. “We ordered yard equipment that the main office told me is specific to people who live where it snows SIX MONTHS OF THE YEAR.” The manager tapped on the table as he said each word. He sat back in his chair, “The data... it’s important. And it’s gone,” he threw his right hand in the air.
He gave the couple a small smile. They slowly mimicked his smile and nodded a little.
Sensing another silence might take hold the man added “Does it even show here?” He knew full well it didn’t. He’d never lived in Livermore, but he’d lived in nearby Tracy for a few months a few years ago. He knew there wasn’t a chance in hell it could ever snow in Livermore.
The manager was more than pleased to have a chance to flesh his story out. “It does not snow here,” he said with a chuckle. “I mean, you might not know that it doesn’t snow here. You just got here. But let me tell you, I’ve been living in Livermore my whole life and I can tell you, it does not snow here. But I can also tell you, we’ve got 20 snow shovels sitting in the back of the store if you want one. I don’t even know if we can return them.”
He could tell the manager had been pleased with his question. He listened to the answer seriously and pursed his lips in thought again. Just keep up with him a little more, he thought to himself. He folded his arms and regarded the boss with a studious squint. While the word data had definitely startled him, he was getting comfortable again. He’d clearly shown the manager that he was attentive and a thoughtful. And the manager had certainly appreciated it. He didn’t mind jumping through a few hoops to get what he needed. Then once he was in, he’d go right back to being the fiercely independent individual he’d been the previous 30 years of his life. Nobody was truly his boss. It was just the way he was. Leave it or love it.
A phone started to vibrate inside one of the lockers. The manager turned and looked in the direction of the sound. “No phones on the floor,” he said, pointing in the direction of the sound, “Got to keep them in the lockers. Except during breaks.”
The couple nodded. The command was a little jarring, but the fact that he’d told them a rule at all was a good sign. Rules meant a job. A job meant pay. The man tried not to smile when he put that together. He didn’t want to appear cocky. But in his mind he was patting himself on the back for outwitting the manager. He was winning. He’d buy himself a beer once the interview was finished. Whether they got the jobs or not. He deserved it.
The manager stared at the couple. At first they assumed he was thinking about them. Maybe trying to figure out if he would hire them or not. But after a few seconds it was clear he’d either forgotten or didn’t have anything left to say.
“Ah, I know…” he finally said, then pausing. “Japanese soap.” He grinned and looked the couple quizzically. He loved to drop in odd little phrases like that. It was part of his shtick. Something he’d developed since becoming the manager.
“You guys use Japanese soap?” he kept grinning, continuing the pause. The couple stared blankly. “I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I think whatever soap they’re using over there in Japan is probably about the same as the soap that we have over here in America.” He laughed out loud and then stopped himself. “I mean, SOAP is SOAP, don’t you think?”
The couple nodded.
“Well, if you need some fancy Japanese soap, we’ve got a whole case of it. But I should warn you, it sells for about three times the price of normal soap.” The manager shook his head, laughing. “There was a Japanese guy in here yesterday…” The manager rolled his eyes, pursed his lips and smiled a dainty smile, “I’m pretty sure he was…you know” He raised his eye-brows and tried to shimmy his head, “Anyway, the guy comes in and he’s acting a little weird. We get a few weirdoes in here every once in a while. So the guy’s shopping for about 20 minutes, and the next thing we know, he’s on floor crying, holding this soap from Japan. Like, you know, like it’s his blankie or something.”
The manager started laughing, but the couple didn’t. So he slowed to a chuckle, “You know what I mean? Blankie? Like it was his baby blanket or something. It was the weirdest thing. This little Asian guy, just wailing on the floor. No one could figure that one out.”
The woman smiled first. She didn’t really get the joke, but followed the manager’s lead. When she smiled it wasn’t really a laughing-at-something funny kind of smile. It was more of a comely smile. She wasn’t into the manager or anything. He still creeped her out, but she needed to come up with something. She was pretty sure she was blowing the interview.
The manager looked at the woman. He knew the woman’s smile had been a little out of context. But he tried to ignore it.
“I don’t mean to scare you off. But this place gets a little weird. I mean, everyone here is a little crazy anyway. A little wacky. Me included. I’m as crazy as they come. But in a fun way. But, since the gentleman I spoke of earlier, the one who did all the ordering…since he passed away, this place hasn’t been the same.”
The man was getting tired of trying to keep up with the manager. He was getting tired of trying to smile in the right places. In this, he slowly started to wonder if he could work for him. He’d had a lot of jobs, some worse than others. But a lot of that had to do with the boss. If your boss wasn’t a good guy, the kind of guy you’d be willing to spend a few hours with, it could make the job harder than it actually was. He didn’t want to feel that way. Eventually that would stifle him if he worked there long. He needed his space. Room to roam. He wasn’t sure if the manger was the kind that would give him is some space.
“Oh! And that same day. A another one happened. A woman…maybe Mexican, people were saying, came in here. She’s acting a little weird too, and the next thing you know, SHE’S on the ground crying. Holding some weird candy that had also been ordered by mistake.”
For some time the manager shook his head in disbelief. “I’m telling you, this place is going to….heck.” He shook his head some more. “And it all comes down on me. I’m the manager. It’s my responsibility.”
“That’s why I need some good people to come in here. The next few people I hire will be very important to the future of this store. I can’t have things getting out of control in the way they’ve been getting.”
One of the employees walked into the room. He was young. Maybe 17 or 18 years old the couple figured. He had a scowl on his face and he didn’t pay any particular attention to the manager or the fact that an interview was taking place. He opened a locker, took out a pack of cigarettes and slammed it shut.
“Ah. This, folks, is one of the best hires I ever made,” the manager leaned back in his chair and poked the boy in the kidney. The kid turned around and tried to make a face approaching a smile, but it was more of snarl. The kid was clearly craving a cigarette and wanted to be on his way. He held a pack of Parliament Lights out from his body, like a leash he hoped would suddenly and uncontrollably jerk him out the door.
“This fella is my neighbor. And his grandpa used to work right here, right in this same place,” The manager looked at the boy, clearly expecting him to offer some insight into the fact that his grandpa had worked at the same store.
Finally the boy nodded.
A big fake grin came over the manager. “This fella’s Grandpa used to manage the grocery store that used to sit on this very property. Before this company bought it out. Worked here…what was it? Twenty, 25 years?”
The boy longingly looked at the door and swallowed, pretending the question hadn’t existed. He mumbled something.
“Yeah, anyway,” the manager turned back to the couple, “When this store was looking for property they bought that grocery store out, and, being the kind of company this place is, they offered almost all the old people who worked at the grocery store new jobs. With us.”
The manager looked at the boy again and raised his eyebrows, half-attempting to allow the boy to interject something.
“So he worked here…as a greeter. You know the people who stand up at the front of the store and, you know, greet people? That was his grandpa for a while.”
The couple nodded and looked up at the boy uncomfortably. But they looked away as quickly. They didn’t want their gaze to keep the boy there any longer than he’d already been. It was clear to both of them the boy wanted nothing more than to leave. They each looked up at the manager. Surely he also knew he was holding the boy against his will. All the manager had to do was somehow indicate that the conversation had moved beyond the boy and his grandpa. That the job interview part of the conversation was going to resume.
But the manager did no such thing. He just stared at the boy. The words he’d spoken about the boy’s grandpa still hung in the air. The manager had no intention of adding anything to the story, but no one dared interrupt.
The woman looked at the manager. She really started to wonder about him. In her mind the manager was abusing his power. Everyone in the room knew the boy had been uncomfortable from the moment he’d walked in the room. He probably hadn’t even wanted to walk in the room. He probably just needed a cigarette. What a jerk, she thought. She wondered if she could work for him. What an abuser. She tried harder to figure out who the manager reminded her of. She was almost positive it was at a bar somewhere. Some guy hitting on her. Some creep.
She tried to think. Who was he like? She inspected his ears, then his nose. His hair was most familiar. Kind of dark and a little thin. But freshly trimmed. She had to give him that. His hair was pretty trim.
Finally the manager nodded, but not like a manager nodding to an employee. It was more like a king nodding to his servant. The boy took the cue anyway and briskly walked out of the room. The manager watched the boy walk out of the room. They could hear him ripping the plastic off the cigarette pack as he got outside.
Once the boy was gone the manager sighed out his nose. He brought his hand to his chin and started to touch it.
The man shifted uncomfortably in his chair. What an abuser, he thought. The way he made the kid stand there was downright awful. It didn’t bode well. Especially for someone like himself. Someone who doesn’t like to take orders from people anyway. His father had tried for years to get join the army. But he’d held out. No way he would have survived in the army. All that yelling and crap. Some people were made to take orders, but not him.
The manager turned back to the couple. “Where was I?” he said, “Orders. Soap. Candy. Hmmm…well, do you guys have any questions? I think I’ve said just about all I have to say here.”
For the couple the situation was bad. They both thought about what they’d gone through to get there. Everything that had happened leading to them leaving town, the bus ride to Livermore, the bags that were too heavy, walking across the dusty lot, the manager going on and on, and then treating that boy in the way he did. And on top of it all they didn’t even have a place to live.
They both started to wonder if it was smart to come to Livermore at all. Sure, he had family there. He’d wanted to spend some time with his grandma before she died. Neither of them could question logic like that. But was it reason enough to move there? To work for this kind of manager? They needed the money, sure, but was it worth it?
Neither of them had meant to, but as they sat there confused and a little frustrated, they started to question each other. They wondered if they were ready to make the sort of sacrifice, to work for this sort of manager, just to be together. They wondered if they were even really in love. If their relationship was going anywhere at all, or if it would just end up like all the other ones. They’d been fairly certain at times. But they also each knew they’d pretended a little too. Overdid it a little and there. Made themselves appear better than they actually were. Tired to cover up this or that. They’d downright lied at times. Both of them. They wondered if the other person knew they’d lied, and at the same time hoped the other didn’t know they themselves had lied. They also had the feeling they’d come too far to give up. They’d sacrificed more than they’d intended. Given up too much. And maybe, more importantly, received too much. What a mess.
The manager sat back in his chair and looked at the couple. First at the man and then the woman. “So,” he started to nod and smile a little. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. It was the kind of smile the manager might have given the kid. The sort of smile that made it clear he was the king and he was bestowing something upon the couple.
“You guys want to work here or what? You seem like pretty good people to me. I’m comfortable with you. How about joining our staff?”
It hadn’t been what either of them had expected. They’d both known the interview had been going pretty well, but there had been no indication that he was ready to hire them right then and there. They’d hardly said a word.
Like before, the words hung in the air. The couple sat there, their minds somewhat cleared from what they’d been thinking just a few seconds before. The question sat there. Did they want to work there?
Right then she remembered who the manager had reminded her of. Her old teacher in high school. Her history teacher. Not a bad guy in a bar. She tried to remember his name. Mister….something. Mr. Jones? No. Mr. Frank? No. Weird, she thought. Weird how people you know or knew can reappear in your life when you least expect it. Sometimes your past follows you into the weirdest little places. She kind of liked that about life.
In remembering her history teacher she started to change her mind about the manager. She had fond memories of her old history teacher. It was totally platonic, of course. She remembered him because he’d given her a chance. She’d never done all that well in school. In fact, she’d always school. She’d especially hated history. But that teacher had been ok. A good guy. She’d had problems. Not big problems. Not alcohol or drugs or anything like that. But problems. Problems that people have. But the history teacher had seen past that. He’d respected her for who she was. And in return she worked hard and got a good grade. One of the only good grades she ever got.
She wondered if the manager had any problems. She was sure he did. Who didn’t?
The man had also been surprised at the offer. He really didn’t like the looks of the manager. The more he’d talked the less he’d liked him. And then the thing with the boy. If the manager tried to pull anything like that with him he wasn’t sure what he’d do.
He looked at the manager. Still, no one had said anything. The manager calmly waited for an answer. In the background a voice could be heard from the store speakers. Telling customers about something that was going on sale.
He looked deeply into the manger’s eyes. Looking someone straight in the eye was something he’d had good success with during his life. But the manger was a hard guy to read. There was something there. A wall. He figured the manager was the kind of guy you’d have to work with for a couple months before you could really find out who he was. A lot of people are like that. He wanted to like the manager. For his own sake and for his girlfriend’s sake. Even for the manager’s sake.
He kept thinking as the manger continued to wait. He thought about how sometimes when we don’t like people, or situations, it’s seemed important to remember that we’re all cut from the same mold. We’re all the same. All locked into life. All struggling with the same sorts of things in our own way. Trying to make sense of the world. Certainly there are bad people and good. Situations that are worse or more difficult than the other. Tragedies that make us reject or embrace faith. No matter the outcome it’s all the same. We’re born, we struggle, we die, and the world continues in much the same way it has for millions of years. There’s no shame in this. There’s no reason to be sad or disappointed. Life after we die is much the same as it is before we live. What’s so bad about that?
He basically didn’t like the manager. That was clear to him. The manager talked too much, mostly about himself. He seemed to treat people with a lack of respect. He really hated that. But then a strange thing happened. He started to consider what he would feel like if he were the manager. If they somehow switched seats. He wondered if the manager was all that different from him. Sometimes he liked to talk about himself too. Sometimes he wanted people to just sit and listen to him too. Just the other night he’d had a few beers and he’d talked his girlfriend’s ear off about this and that.
All of the sudden the manager didn’t seem so bad. We’re all the same, pretty much, aren’t we? We’re all the same. All locked into life. All locked into death. We all struggling with the same sorts of things each in our own way. Some people are good, some bad. We try to make sense of the world, each person knowing deep down it will never be completed to satisfaction. That ultimately, the one thing we all want won’t happen. We can’t survive life.
He started to smile a little. He couldn’t help it. He looked over at his girlfriend and smiled. And she smiled back. Then he turned his head and looked right at the manager. He couldn’t stop smiling. He meant it too. He was smiling on the inside and the outside. Part of him wanted to cry. Part of him wanted to laugh. The manager’s small grin started to turn into a smile too. Soon, all three of them were sitting in the break room, just staring at each other smiling. They were all thinking the same things right then. That maybe they’d all made the right decision. That everything would be ok. They all had a hunch that everything would work out in the end.

4,510 words.
It seemed silly. She was meeting the person who’d been her best friend for years. So why would she be nervous? Technically, they were still best friends. They just hadn’t seen each other in a while. But that didn’t mean they weren’t still best friends, did it?
Min-ju opened her phone, turned on the display screen mirror, and eyed her bangs. She patted them and then turned her head to look at them from a different angle. She checked the time, shut her phone and put it in her purse. It wasn’t unusual that for Kyung-sun was late. Of course she would be late. How could Min-ju have thought otherwise? Thinking of this made Min-ju smile broadly and remember the countless times she’d stood waiting for Kyung-sun. Outside a movie theater, in front of a convenience store, or outside a classroom or the cafeteria. She’d spent hours, maybe even days of her life waiting for Kyung-sun. What did a few more minutes matter?
She was standing in Seomyeon in front of the December Café, a relatively elegant place Min-ju’s ex-boyfriend had introduced to her before they’d split up. Each table had its own curtain and the place was filled with candles. The environment was very adult, which was ironic because it wasn’t far from one of the princess cafés she and Kyung-sun had used to frequent in high school. Things change so fast. One day waiting in front of princess cafes; pimpled faces dressing up in wedding gowns, makeup, dreaming of marrying an actual prince. Then, a couple years later; faces clear, wearing makeup all the time, boys, separate lives, college, travel; standing in front of an new, more adult kind of café, a little nervous because it’s been a while.
She leaned her head, looking down the street trying to spy one of the princess cafes. She couldn’t see it. She shook her head to herself. Silly.
Min-ju kept a small smile on her face. Her eyes were a little wide, but not too wide. She gently rocked back-and-forth in her high heels, proudly displaying her recently slimed calves covered in sleek black nylon stockings. She held her new purse with two hands across her front.
She wondered if Kyung-sun had changed much. Of course she had. She must have. People change when they finish high school. Kyung-sun had always been a little rough around the edges. She had a deep voice, and zero sense of style or beauty. Kyung-sun was the tough girl in their class. Min-ju tried to picture Kyung-sun in her mind. Her face, like her head, was large. That was easy to remember. Her hair was naturally curly. How Min-ju used to envy that hair, even though Kung-sun herself could have cared less. And her eyes! Min-ju giggled out loud thinking of the torture Kyung-sun endured because of her eyes. “Countryside eyes!” they called her. Indeed, her eyes had the look of a bygone era. She looked like photos of Korean women during the 50s, 60s and 70s. Fat single lids. The under part of her eye bulbous and pronounced. The fact that Kyung-sun’s skin was a deep shade of brown didn’t help her cause. Min-ju chuckled, remembering Kyung-sun, furious, her deep voice rising to the point that she sounded more like an old man than a high school girl. She’d start swinging her fists with abandon, slugging people on the arm or back. If nothing else Kyung-sun was powerful. How many times had Min-ju woken up in the morning to find her skin dotted with black and blue bruises courtesy of Kyung-sung? Surely nowadays she didn’t hit people so often.
The traffic in the back streets of Seomyeon was naturally heavy on an early Saturday evening. The electric signs on all the restaurants and bars started to come on. Their buzz signaled the beginning of the night. In front of Min-ju three taxis were lined up in a row, moving just a few inches per minute. Masses of people wound their way through the seemingly parked cars. During high school it was rare for Min-ju to be in Seomyeon so late. Her parents were strict in that way. She usually had to be home for dinner or by 6:30 p.m. But of course things were different. They’d relinquished control for the most part. An early curfew seemed absurd in light of her plans to go abroad. They couldn’t very well keep tabs on her in America during three months.
Min-ju stared forward, not looking at anything in particular. After a minute the taxis had moved about half a car length and Min-ju playfully rolled her eyes at Kyung-sun’s continued tardiness. She saw a group of high school girls, dressed in green sweatshirts and long red plaid skirts, not completely unlike the ones she used to wear. Not wearing a uniform was just one of the pleasures of having finished high school. Being able to wear makeup, ear rings, short skirts, high heels, and carrying a purse made it all the sweeter. She couldn’t imagine her life before, even though it hadn’t been all that long before. She watched the girls and smirked disapprovingly. They were huddled around a game, trying to guide a crane toward small, inconsequential stuffed puppies and kittens. They were shouting and shrieking. It was all very familiar to Min-ju. Her closet was littered with such objects. She wondered if the girls had any sense how much their lives would change once they’d finished high school. She wondered if in a couple years, one of them would be standing in the same exact place she stood now, watching other high school girls, thinking the very things Min-ju was thinking just then.
The taxis finally moved along and were replaced by two other taxis and a black Hyundai. Min-ju sighed, blowing air through her bangs, looking toward the sky. It was dusk, and the sky had deep golden hue. Hwang-sa, the yellow dust, was in full swing. While the idea of breathing in pollution and sand via China was a little disgusting, it did make for a uniquely beautiful sky at times. Min-ju felt a vibration in her purse and pulled out her phone.
“Guess what?” the text message read, followed by three surprised emoticon faces, “I’m late! Sorry!”
Min-ju laughed.
“Hurry up! Are you a snail?” she typed, adding a winking emoticon.
She snapped the phone shut and thought about going inside the café to wait. It was a little cold and she didn’t particularly like being seen standing alone for minutes on end. People might think she was lonely. Min-ju wondered if anyone she knew had seen her. If they had they’d probably seen her reading Kyung-sun’s text message. Obviously she was waiting for someone. And if she went inside she’d be alone there too.
Only then did she notice loud music coming from the speakers outside a makeup shop, not far from where the high school girls continued to play the crane game. It was a song by Dongbangsin-gi, New Power from the East, the pop group she and Kyung-sun had loved throughout much of high school. She had hardly thought of Dongbangsin-gi since she’d finished school. How strange. Was it fate she would hear it again on the very night she was meeting Kyung-sun? It seemed so.
The song was “HUG,” which was one of their major hits. Although nothing about DBSK had seemed minor at that time. Min-ju, self-consciously, but also a little sarcastically, bobbed her head in time with the music. She and Kyung-sun’s infatuation with the group had been no small matter. For about a year it was the only thing they talked about. Since their school was all girls, they rarely even saw boys, let alone talked or hung out with them. So when they passed notes back in forth during class, or in their final year of high school, when they finally got mobile phones and could text message one another, it was usually about DBSK and others like them. Although mostly DBSK. During high school they lived and breathed DBSK.
Their obsession seemed a little strange now. A little silly and stupid. The group was still popular, but it didn’t interest her anymore. A group like DBSK seemed unimportant in light of doing something like going to live in California for three months. Min-ju grinned a little. She stared at the girls across the street. Min-ju squinted a little more and tilted her head to the side. The small smile disappeared from her lips. The cars in front of her had been replaced again by two mopeds, a taxi and a white Hyundai.
What had she and Kyung-sun been thinking being so concerned with a silly music group? The infatuation had started with an appearance on one of the Saturday afternoon variety programs. Min-ju was stretched out on the floor at Kyung-sun’s family apartment. At the time they had the latest and greatest plasma TV money could buy. She vividly remembered walking into the front room the day they’d bought it. The thing took up 75 percent of the wall and was much taller than either she or Kyung-sun was. Sometimes they’d watch standing up, or even pretend to be part of the action. After school on Saturdays, if they didn’t go to Seomyeon, they ended up at Kung-sun’s apartment.
When the announcer had said a new group would debut on that program Kyung-sun and Min-ju hadn’t thought anything of it. Even the fact that the new group had some affiliation with Super Junior, who they both liked, didn’t get them excited. But the instant DBSK had walked on stage Min-ju’s heart began to thump.
So handsome!” she’d muttered in disbelief before they’d even reached the front of the stage.
Kyung-sun scooted toward the screen.
“Ohhh!” they said at the same time, their mouths wide open, when they started singing.
Kyung-sun made a whimpering sound as the member they would later know as Micky Yoochun, came to the front for a dancing solo.
“He’s so beautiful,” Min-ju said. “So beautiful.”
As they watched the song each of their mouths fell wider. Sometimes they gasped. Other times they cried out.
“Oh-ma,” Kung-sun said. Her mother, thinking her daughter had called for her poked her head out from the kitchen.
“Oh, no no, mother, I was talking about this,” Kyung-sun said, gesturing to the TV. Her mother smirked knowingly and went back into the kitchen.
During the performance the girls became more and more titillated. Like Min-ju had initially said; the boys were beautiful. They had angular faces accented with perfect make up. Their eyes were dark and outlined in the shape of almonds. Their lips were glossed, giving them the perfect pitch of pink. Each member’s clothing was stylish and a little wild in their own way. One could even say DSBK were almost visions of the women Min-ju, and to a lesser extent Kyung-sun, had aspired to become. The women they weren’t quite yet allowed to be. But they were men and they danced and sang wonderfully.
By the end of the performance Min-ju and Kyung-sun were on their knees in front of the TV. When the band went offstage they hugged. They held each other for a long time, cheek to cheek, still occasionally whimpering or whining in adulation. After the song the band did a short interview and self-introduction. Kyung-sun and Min-ju’s mouths were still wide long into the commercial break that followed.
They shrieked, stood up and sprinted into the bedroom in what would become a regular pattern. DBSK on television--screaming, rapture, often crying, embracing, then directly to the bedroom where for hours they would discuss the band with thousands of other girls in the same heightened state via the Internet.
Across the street from Min-ju one of the girls she’d been watching screamed and held a pink bear in the air. She held it like a trophy, high above her head, her arms fully extended. She jumped up and down in her black converse sneakers, her friends rushing forward to take a turn at holding the prize. They pulled at her sweater and skirt, some even trying to grab the toy from the girl’s hand. One of the other girls turned back to the machine, determined to win her own. She stuffed several coins into the slot and slammed her fist on the top of the game as the crane jerked forward.
Min-ju saw this and shook her head in disbelief. She probably wasn’t even two years their senior, but it may as well have been two decades. “HUG” ended. The silence seemed loud in contrast. Min-ju looked in the direction of the makeup store. She remembered she needed to buy some eye-liner. She had to remember to buy it the next day. She’d only brought enough money for dinner and a pitcher of beer. She inventoried the other makeup and hair care products set aside for her trip. She was worried about finding the various cosmetics she’d need while in America. American women don’t wear as much makeup as Korean women do. And once she got to America there was no telling how easily acquiring such things would be. She was going to be living in an apartment near the restaurant she’d be working at. The agency she’d been dealing with had told her she’d be close to a shopping mall, but who knew if it would have what she needed. “Chance favors the prepared mind,” she thought. A ball of nervousness grew in her stomach. In less than a week she would be in a strange country.
Min-ju took out her phone again. Kyung-sun’s lateness was starting to bother her a little. She looked at the time. It was 6:06 p.m. Only four minutes had passed since she’d last checked. The cars had changed back to three taxis. Another DBSK song erupted from the speakers at the makeup store.
Two songs in a row by DBSK? Strange, Min-ju thought. She wondered who had programmed the music at the makeup store. But it occurred to her the group still had some popularity. She didn’t know or care much one way or the other.
The song was “When We Promised,” which Min-ju remembered had come out at the height of she Kyung-sun’s mania. By then they’d been following DBSK nearly six months. To call them fanatical was an understatement. They knew each member in explicit detail--their nicknames, favorite foods, clothing lines, animal, colors, and seasons; their ideal types, blood types, birthdates, religions, where they lived, where they liked to hang out, the kind of people they liked, what they did when they got ready in the morning, and what they did at night before they went to bed.
But the memory that jumped out at Min-ju was the stories they used to write about their respective favorite members: Micky Yoo-chun and U-Know Yun-ho. There were countless forums where DBSK fans could contribute their own stories about the different members. The stories were sometimes based on real events; concerts the group played, rehearsals, flying to Japan for a publicity tour, and shopping for clothes. But more often than not they were entirely made up situations; the group spending the Lunar New Year together, enrolling in the same University, visiting their parent’s homes, or serving in the military together.
Min-ju and Kyung-sun were avid contributors and readers of the forums. It wasn’t a stretch to say they spent the majority of their and energy during the day either creating and trading ideas for new stories, or critiquing other stories. This communication would build to a fever pitch during the day, until school finally ended and they could sprint to the closest computer game room or Kyung-sun’s apartment to pound them into a computer.
Min-ju had been quick to claim Micky Yoo-chun as hers. She was fond of saying she’d fallen for him before he’d reached the front of the stage during that first TV performance. What he wore, did, or said mattered very little to her. She loved him unconditionally due in no small part to the fact that it had been love at first sight.
For Kyung-sun, U-Know was to her liking. He was the best dancer and a bit of a prankster, which they both thought suited Kyung-sun’s personality well.
The first story Min-ju and Kyung-sun wrote together involved Micky and U-Know coming to Busan for a publicity appearance and then stopping in the Starbucks in Seomyeon for coffee and scones. The second story, which was basically Kyung-sun’s idea, had the pair single handedly saving Korea from drug-smuggling Japanese Mafioso. Min-ju always preferred to write subtle stories, often involving hints of fate and romance, but Kyung-sun was partial to action-based plots with fist-fights and violence. Eventually there was some disagreement about this. They even argued about it a few times. Although in the end Kung-sun, despite being bigger and more powerful, usually yielded to Min-ju because since she was six months older.
At one point someone on the forum wrote a story in which Micky and U-Know fall in love with each other and become a steady couple. For Min-ju and Kyung-sun this revelation was second only to DBSK’s first TV appearance. Of course they fell in love! The idea that two boys that were so handsome, kind, and polite, could be a couple was mesmerizing. They never gave a second thought to the fact that, if the stories were true, then that would mean Micky and U-Know were likely gay and probably even less accessible to them in real life. For them, Micky and U-Know, much like themselves, were sexless objects. They were beautiful, just as Min-ju wanted to be beautiful. Kyung-sun to a lesser degree, but this was due in no small part to her father’s wish than Kyung-sun had been born a son.
At first the stories they wrote about the Micky and U-Know couple were drenched in romantic whimsy. Min-ju of course was partial to them having fallen in love at first sight. While Kyung-sun had been preoccupied with the physical nature of their relationship--the first time Micky and U-Know held hands at a Lotte (Busan) Giants baseball game, and their first kiss over a chocolate sundae at the McDonalds in Seomyeon.
Largely due to the volatile emotions of the contributors the forum became very competitive. People often either loved the stories or hated them. They made the fans either cry or slam their fist against the keyboard in disgust.
The forum went beyond written stories too. People posted actual photos of Micky and U-Know, touching one another, standing with their arms around each other. The evidence seemed almost convincing at times. A growing segment of the forum believed the two were actually in love with each other. This case was made stronger with the posting of things like a video showing Micky cupping U-Know’s cold hands with his own, and warming them up by blowing into them.
As Min-ju remembered the video of Micky cupping U-Know’s hands she realized she herself felt cold. She bent her knees a little, bobbing up and down in an effort to warm up. She checked her phone again. It was 6:09. Nearly 10 minutes late. She started to recall why, when she and Kyung-sun drifted out of contact, that she didn’t care that much. Clearly they were different people with different priorities. It seemed Min-ju had simply outgrown her. The cars moved steadily for a minute. Then stopped again. A truck carrying a billboard announcing a new nightclub was also stuck in the traffic. The music joined the DSBK song from the makeup store to make one loud, blaring sound.
And Min-ju’s distancing away from Kyung-sun had started during their height of DBSK infused craziness. She didn’t think about it concretely at the time, but she couldn’t help but notice that Kyung-sun, who was a very physical person to begin with, would grab Min-ju’s hand, or want to walk arm-in-arm, more often than usual. Min-ju didn’t object to this. It was quite normal for Korean women to do such things. But there soon became something a little different in Kyung-sun’s touch. At first Min-ju was comfortable and sometimes she even liked it. They would sit together, writing a romantic story about Micky and U-Know, sometimes even pretending to be them. They’d be Micky and U-Know watching a movie together, secretly holding and rubbing each other’s hands, trying to keep themselves hidden from the fans that were always around, always watching their every move. At Kyung-sun’s house they’d play a DVD on her family’s giant TV screen, dancing and singing with the band before slipping away to lay on Kyung-sun’s bed where they could talk about the concert and their gratitude for their passionate fans.
Their role plays never went further than that. But the more the competition became fierce on the “Micky/U-Know Love Story” forum, the more Kyung-sun started to treat Min-ju like her partner. This came to a head one Sunday. Min-ju was woken up at 8 a.m. because Kyung-sun had called her several times trying to wake her up. She told Min-ju to come to her apartment immediately. When Min-ju protested Kyung-sun became angry and hung up on her, only to call back two minutes later, making the same request in a much more polite tone.
When Min-ju got there it was obvious that Kyung-sun had been up the entire night. Several empty Coke cans, remnants of dried squid and banana peels covered the desk. Kyung-sun’s eyes were bloodshot. She took Min-ju’s hand and led her to the computer chair and sat her down. Then Kyung-sun stood behind her, wrapping her arms tightly around Min-ju’s neck.
What Kyung-sun had been up all night creating was a spliced video loop of Micky and U-Know coming together in a deep, passionate kiss. The visual was entrancing, and looked very realistic. It showed the two standing in an embrace, then slowly moving toward each other, locking lips; their heads turning, deepening the kiss.
Min-ju’s mouth dropped open as Kyung-sun nestled closer to her. She sat there, watching the clip, which was set to play on an endless loop.
“Do you like it?” asked Kyung-sun.
“How did you do it?”
Min-ju was speechless. She did like it, but somehow, seeing Micky and U-Know kissing had made the fantasy too direct. The longer she stared at it, watching them come together again and again, the less plausible the situation became. Her mouth closed and her eyes softened. Soon she had blank expression on her face.
“Don’t you like it?” asked Kyung-sun.
Min-ju was speechless. She didn’t know what she thought about it other than the fact that for the first time, the idea of Micky and U-Know being a couple seemed a little strange.
Kyung-sun quickly caught on to this. First she loosened her embrace of Min-ju, then she pulled her arms completely away. Even though Min-ju couldn’t see Kyung-sun, she could feel the anger growing behind her. Finally, Kyung-sun stomped out of the room and locked herself in her bedroom. She waited for a while, but it was clear that Kyung-sun wasn’t coming out again.
From then their interest in the “Micky/U-Know Love Story” forum waned. For a while Kyung-sun tried to act like nothing had happened. She’d grab Min-ju’s hand tightly on the way to school or wrap her arm around her, as if to both embrace and put her in a headlock. Min-ju didn’t usually protest, because she knew Kyung-sun would get angry again. But she never reciprocated. In fact, it drove her further away.
They remained best friends, but in name only. Soon, a boy from the nearby boy’s high school showed an interest in Min-ju. They became a couple and started spending all their free time together. Min-ju had less time for Kyung-sun. High school ended. Even after Min-ju and her boyfriend broke later that summer her friendship with Kyung-sun continued to fade. In the fall Kyung-sun went to college in Gupo to study pet grooming. And Min-ju found an ad for a Korean agency that placed young women in temporary waitressiing jobs in California.
And now here she was. In less than a week she’d be out of Korea and working at some restaurant called Chan’s in Livermore, a district of San Francisco. San Francisco--one of the greatest cities in the world. Who knew what Kyung-sun had become?
The girls across the street pulled another prize from the crane game. This time it was a purple kitten. A few of them shrieked and took turns pushing their noses into the soft fur of the stuffed animal. Min-ju watched them, relieved that part of her life was over. These days she was given to the adventure of life; the unpredictability and freedom that adulthood offered. She had a hunch that her life was only beginning, and she was much happier to embrace it, rather than embracing some silly stuffed animal or a fantasy concerning two pop stars she would never have the chance to even meet.
Content with two toys the group of girls left the crane game. The DSBK song ended and Min-ju felt a tap on her shoulder. She whipped around. It was Kyung-sun.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Kyung-sun said, smiling a little, but visibly nervous.
Min-ju’s mouth dropped open as she looked Kyung-sun over. She could hardly believe it was the same girl she’d known during high school. At first Min-ju thought Kyung-sun looked like an actress, but after a minute she concluded she looked more like a runway model. Her hair, which had always been ragged and unkempt, was healthy, radiant and long. She wore a tight fitting skirt that showcased a body, once chubby and shapeless, that was slim and curvaceous. But the thing that stood out the most was her eyes, the eyes she and their friends had once labeled “slits,” were now bright, wide and circular.
“It’s only a few minutes after six,” Min-ju said, also nervous, “You aren’t late.”
They stared at each other for a couple more seconds, then cried out in unison and interlocked the fingers of both their hands. The winces of nervousness quickly gave way to knowing smiles and they burst out laughing. They had lost touch for some time, and their circumstances had changed and would naturally change more in the future, but they were still Kyung-sun and Min-ju--the same girls who had been best of friends throughout much of their high school lives.
After exchanging pleasantries they immediately dove headfirst into the stories of their youth. The old, mean teachers from their high school, the awful food in the cafeteria, the long walk up and down the steep hill every day--and of course DBSK. As they battled to exchange reminisces they interlocked arms and edged their way through the taxis on their way to dinner, roaring with laughter, sometimes doubling over and stomping on the ground in excitement. As if high school had never ended.

7,279 words.
There were two pieces of orange left on the plate, which meant there was one. He was a little drunk, but after sweeping his eyes to the left and then to the right he located a toothpick. There were small green remnants of melon on the toothpick. He hated melon, which meant it wasn’t his toothpick. Not ideal, but at that point he was far too drunk to waver on such things and he let the weight of his body fall toward the table. As it got there he pawed at the sliver of wood. Once it was well under his palm he dragged it toward his body. As his hand came across the faux-mahogany glossy table, bits of ash, flakes of gold foil from the top of a beer bottle, and some gummy remnants of undeterminable food gathered under his hand, along with the toothpick.
“Ahhh, this chick sings well,” a co-worker said in the general direction of his ear. “Really fucking well.”
He swung his head in acknowledgement, in case the person speaking to him was older. He wasn’t sure, and he’d more or less forgotten where he’d been sitting in relation to the other people. The fact that someone was singing was also something of a surprise. But he could feel the music blaring in his ears. To concentrate on the voice he forgot about the toothpick and listened to the rich tones flowing up and down. The song was so familiar he let it enter his ears and course through his body. It was “Busan Kalmegi,” “Busan Seagull,” a symbol of the city; its citizen’s willingness to reach higher. To fly up to the heavens to reach success.
He sat and let his head bob up and down, backwards and forwards, as if it were a baton his body was using to conduct the song. He let his eyelids fall closed. The song nearly disappeared, and a dizzy, black, vortex began to overtake his stomach and force its way up. In a panic his eyes shot open. Things became momentarily clear. He surveyed the room. Then he remembered the toothpick he’d been after, to get that last piece of orange.
He lifted his hand up. The toothpick had stuck to it, so he brought it toward his body, snatching at it with his left hand. With some determination, fueled in no small part by the song’s crescendo, he vaulted his left hand in the direction of the orange. He’d eaten several slices earlier in the evening when the fruit plate, along with several buckets of beer on ice, three silver boxes containing bottles of Chivas 12, a giant plate of raw fish, and a partitioned tray of M&Ms, dried squid, dried anchovy and peanuts, had first arrived. The juice would do his parched, cigarette laden, whiskey coated mouth well.
But as his arm sprung forward another arm; female, much less-drunken than his, had darted ahead. He couldn’t be sure of the sequence. All he knew was that the particular slice of orange he’d been working on for the better part of five minutes had vanished. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone chewing and delicately letting a toothpick fall to the table from her index finger and thumb.
“Bitch!” he said in the direction of the single remaining orange slice. “You fucking bitch!” he said a little louder. His turned in the direction of the girl, but as he did, his head hung forward a little, and bounced as he squinted and tried to make out who she was. All he could see was the sparkle of the silver sequined straps of her dress. But that was enough to remember who she was from the beginning of the evening. He’d thought her the prettiest of the lot and at one point he had chosen her, and she’d been sitting with him. But at another point she’d disappeared and a girl with a silver hairclip had appeared beside him.
“You fucking bitch,” he screamed. The sound was muffled because of the song, but everyone heard. Still, they barely glanced over, focusing on the song. The girl with the sequined straps looked over and widened her eyes.
The song was winding down anyway. From her vantage point, standing at the head of the table, the woman singing the song saw the whole episode unfold, right from him pawing at the toothpick. In fact, she had been standing there, singing that particular song, because it was exactly the time of night where this sort of thing was likely to erupt. 3 a.m.
In the middle of singing the last line she abruptly broke off. The other men at the table snapped out of their hazy nostalgic trances, pleading looks on their faces. They wondered why the woman had screwed up the conclusion to such a blissful rendering of “Busan Kalmegi.” At first they assumed it was some fault of hers. She was the teasing sort, an older style of madam. Not attractive, but motherly. She treated them like sons. She was stocky and hard, more apt to be sarcastic and pushy than polite, despite the considerable expense. Of course, no one complained because this almost always rendered the employees of such a woman particularly meek, congenial and servile. Especially with their boss right there in the room, keeping tabs on them at all times.
However, anyone in the room who hadn’t figured out what was happening, did as he yelled another insult, extended his hands on the table, and made a broad sweeping motion across it. Some paper from the fish plate went into the air, a few M&Ms rolled across the surface like marbles, and one of the Chivas 12 bottles flew off the table. Everyone saw the bottle wobbling in the air, the label rotating slightly, as it went in the direction of the six televisions behind the woman with the microphone. The song had completely ended, leaving the room silent, except a whiny gasp from one of the girls.
The bottle hit the plastic corner of one of the televisions. Remarkably the screen didn’t break. And in what would be one of the more joyfully recounted facts that Monday, the top of the bottle broke clean off. As if someone had stood it on a table and sawed straight through it. If it had shattered, suggested one of the men as he dropped his cigarette butt into his paper Maxim cup the following Monday, none of them would have been fucking that night.
In the safe confines at the end of the hallway on the 14th floor of their workplace, they howled at this candid observation. But just 19 hours earlier, they had all had some serious doubt if the conclusion to their evening would indeed be a happy one.
Lucky for them the woman in charge had recently sunk thousands of dollars in the opening of a computer gaming room not far from the room salon. She needed the extra money so she wasn’t about to throw everyone out. Once the bottle had stopped bouncing and spinning on the floor, and the karaoke machine had flashed “YOUR SCORE: 97” on the televisions behind her, she took control of the situation. She marched over, grabbed the offender by the collar of his shirt, and playfully tapped him on the head. “Hey,” she said. “Hey you!” Surprised and docile he let her gently push him back in his seat. She picked a toothpick up from the table, stabbed the last orange slice and stuffed it into his mouth.
“You’re sooooo polite in not wanting to take the last orange slice,” she said to him like a mother, dotting at the corners of his mouth as the orange sent bursts of juice into his mouth. “You need to be less polite around this room salon if you’re going to get what you want!”
Everyone burst into laughter. Even the woman with the hairclip, who was now nervously anticipating being left alone in a motel room with a drunken, possibly violent patron. She nervously shifted her feet, making a mental note to ask the woman with the silver sequined straps, the person who’d talked her into working at a room salon in the first place, to arrange for their rooms to be next to one another. In case there was a problem. So she could scream for help.
Not wanting to risk any further problems the manager quickly negotiated the final price for the girls and the rooms. She took the money from the tallest and oldest of the group. As he handed her the money he jokingly let his opposite hand fall onto hers, slurring something about wanting her to teach him something nice from her vast experience, in lieu of the pretty young girl he had been partnered with.
“But you might feel cheated,” the madam said as they exited the room, “Because I will have you exhausted and asleep within two minutes…and you’ve already paid for two hours!”
The group burst into collective laughter again. As the madam pushed them down the hallway toward the front door she doubted, as non-existent as her sex life with her husband had become, if she could stomach having sex with such repulsive looking man. He was tall, gangly, and had the mouth of horse. Imagining his purple shaded lips and bizarrely misshapen teeth drunkenly looming over her naked body was enough for her to burst out yelling “Hurry! Hurry! Go up to your rooms!” She pushed the entire group out the door and up the stairs, toward the third floor where the motel manager was patiently waiting with each of their keys.
The girl with the hairclip managed to get a room next to her friend. She felt a little more at ease, but not entirely. Her customer hardly acted like the violent type now. As he flopped down on the bed his head hung like a vulture. He sat there in silence while she inventoried the room, arranging the pillows and such.
“Sir, I’m going to take my shower now. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable and I’ll prepare a towel for your shower.”
He grunted something and started to fall back onto the bed, but he had the wherewithal to know he would automatically fall asleep or vomit if he did. Before going into the shower she stood looking at him for a moment, pondering how she could make this situation as smooth and unproblematic as possible. This was the worst part of the job. Trying to make something out of nothing. It was better when they pounced, because at least then it was all over within a couple of minutes. This sort of situation had the potential to go on for the entire two hours.
She hoped that by leaving him alone for a couple minutes he might regroup. In the past, when she’d played it correctly, she’d managed to get a big tip out of a similar circumstance. As she walked into the bathroom she slammed her big toe against the corner of the doorway. She cupped her hand over her mouth and whimpered, shutting the door behind her and turning on the water before crouching down to inspect it. She couldn’t walk on it, but the skin wasn’t broken either. She gingerly stood upright and hopped on her back heel, before stepping into the shower.
As he sat on the bed he could hear giggling in the next room. It was his boss, the tall one. The truth of the matter was he had semi-consciously hoped his bottle outburst would sabotage the evening and get them all thrown out of the place. His cock was like a wet noodle. It seemed more likely to invert rather than to go into someone else’s body. This had been going on for some time. Drinking too much, cigarettes, being overworked, and feeling unhappy in general; all of these things came into play. Not being able to have sex with his wife was one thing. They barely even bothered following the birth of their second child. But this was a perfectly attractive, slim, young, willing girl. If he couldn’t do it with her, who could he do it with?
The thing that bothered him the most about his impotence was the cold truth that he was getting older. He was dying. Between finishing school, getting a job, marriage, and having two children, his life had breezed by. He was clearly on the other side of the mountain and looking down. If the pattern maintained itself life would only get faster. There was nothing he could do to stop it.
He debated bolting out the door right then. He could hear the girl in the shower, the water falling to the plastic floor as she wet her hair. She’d still get her money. He could even leave her a small tip on top of the television. Hopefully she wouldn’t tell any of his co-workers if she happened to run into them once they’d all finished. The shower in the room next door went on and he could hear the tall guy humming “Busan Kalmegi.”
He stared at the front door. Suddenly it looked more like a gateway to freedom than simply a way out. His woman turned the shower water off. The shower door slid open and he could hear her drying herself off. His eyes ping-ponged back and forth, from the bathroom door to the front door. The girl was pretty; there was no doubt about that. In the abstract, having sex with her would be a pleasure. But did he have any hope of doing it? His mind drifted back to earlier in the evening. She’d been running her hand up and down his leg, touching his hand, whispering into his ear. None of it broke through. If anything it made him recoil. He’d sat there in fear of the moment when she would find out. When she would find out he was a man in name only. He stared at the bathroom door. At the last possible moment he leapt off the bed and scrambled to slip his shoes on. He fumbled with the lock a little, but managed to get the door open. He felt a rush of excitement, as if he were a boy running away after breaking a window with a rock. For a few seconds it was fun.
Before she opened the door she sensed he might be gone. It had never happened to her, but her friend had told her occasionally customers take off. The other girls confirmed it had happened to each of them a few times. Chalk it up to the small mind of a man who can’t perform. It’s nothing to take personally, because there are ample opportunities during the night for a man to switch to a woman they like better if that’s the problem. If a man ditches out while you’re in the shower he’s either guilty or impotent. And drunken men rarely feel guilty about much of anything.
She walked into the empty room. For a few seconds she wondered if he’d maybe gone to get more cigarettes. But she had a hunch he had left. She wandered around the room, half-wondering if he’d come stumbling back through the door and half-hoping she’d find a tip. She checked the table, the bed, and lastly the top of the television. Nothing. She sat down on the edge of the bed. She kicked her legs in the air and let them fall to the floor with a slap. When she pieced together the other events from the evening it started to make more sense. The guy hadn’t seemed interested at all. At times he even looked a little fearful when she moved close or touched him. She sighed and stood up, moving to the bathroom to get her purse. She stared at herself in the mirror. Certainly he had left because he couldn’t get it up. She nodded in the mirror. But still, even being confident of that she couldn’t help but worry it was because he thought she wasn’t pretty. She carefully inspected herself in the mirror. She’d been getting some pimples on her forehead. Probably from lack of sleep. She thought it might not be such a bad thing to go home early and get some sleep.
Outside the fresh air did him good. It sobered him up a little. Once he’d gotten far enough way from the motel and room salon he stopped running. He bent down and tried to take a few deep breaths. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d run anywhere. Possibly not since he’d finished his military service. The boyhood excitement he’d initially felt running out the door was long gone. Now he felt less like a child and more like an adult running out of a motel room to avoid the embarrassment of impotence. He thought about his penis again and what a void it was. He took out a cigarette and tried to think of something else. At least he was out of the motel.
He debated getting a taxi and going home, but he felt like walking for a while. He needed to clear his mind. It had been a shitty night to cap off a shitty week. Work had been a massacre. They’d had all kinds of new budgets thrown their way and they’d all been slaving the entire week. Nobody had been scheduled to work that Saturday, but they were requested to come in. They still hadn’t made much headway on what they needed to get done and the following week would be as bad, if not worse. When the tall guy had walked over to their section near the end of the day and said “Let’s go out for a drink,” they all stared blankly at one another, hoping the other would lead the “we’re excited” brigade. On one hand it would be nice to cut loose a little. Sing a song or two, eat some tasty food. But with the tall guy there was never anything “little” about it. It would be full tilt, until they were either stumbling out of a bar, puking and picking themselves off the street, or passed out in a motel room in bed with a whore. And often all three.
The tall guy had been fixated on getting prostitutes long before the evening had even started. His wife was on a golf tour in Thailand with a group of friends. His kids were in Yangsan staying with her parents. The entire week he’d seemed hell bent on making the most of his freedom, and the extra budgets had simply gotten in his way. So where the extra work had worn the rest of them down, it had the tall guy all the more determined. His hands were all over whatever girl had come into his vicinity and he kept making this excited “wheeeshhh” sound he’d recently picked up from a character on a weekly variety program. It had annoyed everyone the entire night.
A taxi drove by and beeped on the horn to highlight its availability. He was sure the last thing he wanted to do was to go home. As exhausted from work as he’d been during the week, the idea of getting into bed next to his wife was downright revolting. Of course there was no danger of her trying to have sex with him, and therefore discovering he was incapable. But he didn’t even want to see the lump her body made in the bed. Not for a while at least.
He stared at the reflection of pink light in a puddle. Couples shuffled around him, coming or going from one of the many motels. He’d needed to get completely out of the area. He started walking in no particular direction.
He got out of the nightclub/room salon/motel area and found himself in the vicinity of his old high school. Still a little drunk, he laughed to himself as he approached the front gate. It had been years since he’d even thought of the place. He wanted to go inside and have a look. A smile came over his face and he looked around for a convenience store.
He bought a bottle of soju and a pack of cigarettes. He felt a little silly to be drinking alone at nearly 4 a.m., so he requested two cups. The clerk was sleepy, looked to be of university age, and had a chemistry book open on the counter. He wanted to say something smart like “study hard” or ask if the young man had an exam coming up, but the clerk hardly seemed to be in the mood for teasing. He handed him the cups with his eyes half-shut, mumbling “thank you” with zero enthusiasm.
He walked outside the store and stood in front of the school before going in. He took a deep breath. He wanted to take it all in. He wanted to ready himself for a proper trip down memory lane. He smiled as he imagined himself as a boy, walking through the same front gate. They always traveled in packs during those days. Usually six or seven at a time, occasionally even 10 or 15. This was before the days of computer game rooms, where he heard most kids dwelled nowadays. He had an idea to call one of his high school friends he still contacted occasionally. To invite him to enjoy the nostalgic rapture he was about to begin. But he thought better of the idea. He twisted the cap off the soju and downed two shots before lighting a cigarette and making his way across the street toward the gate.
As he walked he could just see the top of a statue of the school’s founder. It reminded of a prank he and his friends had pulled upon leaving the school, dressing the statue in woman’s clothes. They even put white paint for makeup on it. A smile came across his face. Fun.
When he was young, people had always said things like “enjoy your youth,” “don’t grow up to fast,” and “have fun now…your life will be harder later.” He’d always tried to appreciate what they’d said, but as he knew now, there was no way to understand. Not until it’s too late and you’re old enough to wistfully say it to someone else. Then you’re lucky if you even have a few spare moments to sit back and enjoy the good parts of life, or to even mourn the passing of time. A tinge of sadness welled in his stomach. He stopped again and took a long pull directly from the soju bottle. He was starting to feel lighter. Not as drunk as before, but energized, if a little melancholy. At any rate, he was ready to face his high school past, for better or for worse. He eagerly put the cap back on the bottle and marched through the gate.
Just inside the gate he heard a voice. Startled, he stopped and turned around. A guard was leaning his head out the window of his post.
“Hey, you can’t go in there.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds. He’d been so anticipating basking in the nostalgia of high school he hadn’t even noticed the guard right next to the gate. It was surprising that such a guard would be awake at this hour. They usually slept through the night.
“I just want to take a little walk around. I was a student at this school.”
“Sorry, but I can’t let you do that.”
Again they stared at each other. He thought about running into the school. The guard was old and surely would have trouble catching him. But then what? Hide under a bush? Hop up on the roof like he might have in high school? He doubted he could even remember the best bushes and corners to hide in.
“Please, sir, I just want to look around for a few minutes. I haven’t been here in….”
“No,” the guard said. “Sorry. Please turn around and leave.” The guard rose from his chair and started to step outside.
“Okay, okay. I get it. I’m leaving.”
Once outside he turned around and looked. The guard was standing there in the middle of the gate area watching him, so he kept walking. The guard watched until he was so far down the street it was clear he wasn’t coming back. He shook his head as he walked back into his post. Every Friday and Saturday at least one drunk thirty-something guy tried to reacquaint himself with his past. They think they can walk right onto the school grounds, sit down with a bottle of soju and soak in the nostalgia. When he first started working there he’d let them do it once in a while. He was young once too. It was sometimes important to revisit your past. But every time he let them do it, the next morning the place was littered with soju bottles and cigarette butts. Sometimes, they just passed out and were found by people coming to play soccer the following morning. So no more. At this point he’d grown sick of dealing with it. Nearly every Friday and Saturday. One of these days, as one of them is walking through the gate, they’re going to be met with a fist. Most of them would be too drunk to notice. They wouldn’t even know what hit them. They’d wake up the next morning, looking up at the sky, wondering how the hell they fell asleep at the front gate of their old high school.
The guard walked back into his post and sat down. He lit a cigarette, turned up his mini-TV and tried to calm down. He decided then that if another one of those drunk assholes showed up that night, he’d be ready. He looked at his hand and made it into a fist. The young generation has no concept of difficulty. When he was in high school the war was going on. People were flooding into Busan from all over the country. He and his friends just wanted the chance to go to school. Any school. There were so many students they had to sit on the floors. Teachers ran around, spending half the class time just counting the number of students. They weren’t worried about pulling pranks or their fucking mobile phone or Internet dating bullshit. They were worried about someone bombing their goddamn city. Worried week to week if they’d have a country or not. The guard stared at his fist and took a drag from his cigarette.
Far down the street a soju bottle shattered on the pavement. He’d tipped it back, almost balancing on his lips, until every drop had gone into his body. He’d let the bottle juggle from his fingers, bounce off his shoulder blade, and shatter on the ground behind him. He let his body fall forward, just catching himself, before he might have fell to the gorund. He looked ahead and tried to reorient himself. He was on a quiet part of the street, close to the center of Seomyeon. Younger people were still stumbling out of bars and clubs, many of them limping and swaying around, in groups of three or four. A taxi with its light on drove past him. The taxi driver craned his neck certain he needed a ride. But instead he made his way toward a convenience store called “25 Plus” across the street.
He had half a mind to back to his high school. To fight his way onto the campus. He’d march right through the front gate and if the guard came out again “POW!” He’d flatten him mid-stride. Just before he entered the convenience store he debated going back there. His mind was hardly clear, but physically he felt great. Good enough to pummel a cranky old guard, at least. As he stood with his fists clenched the sweat on his forehead started to cool him down. He took out a cigarette and smoked it. A couple of times he stumbled and almost fell over. No, there was no sense in doing something that was going to get him in trouble. How embarrassing would it be for the police to bring him home drunk, cuts all over his hands from fighting with a guard at his old high school?
Three girls of university age walked in his direction. They were drunk and had their arms were around one another. They wobbled from one side of the sidewalk to the other. The way they were dressed indicated they’d been at a nightclub. Two of them had miniskirts half way up their thighs. He stared at them openly, trying not to sway too much. One of the girls made eye contact with him and then abruptly stopped in her tracks. Her friends jerked to a stop.
“Oh why? Why did you stop?” one of the other girls said.
They looked at their friend and then to what she was staring at. Without saying a word they changed their course and veered toward the street to hail a taxi.
“Did you see that weird guy?” one of them said as they got in the back seat, resuming their giggling.
Reminded once again of the inverted phallus between his legs he took inventory of the evening’s previous events as one might flip through a set of photos--the bottle flying off the table, the tall guy’s spindly fingers through the hair of the girl with the sequined silver straps, and finally his own escape; bounding from the motel room before the girl came out of the shower. He looked at his watch. It was nearly 4:30. They were all probably finished fucking by now. He hoped none of his co-workers noticed he had gone missing. The others wouldn’t say anything if they noticed, but the tall guy certainly would. He was a relentless bastard.
He realized he’d been standing in front of the convenience store for a while. He’d finished his cigarette a long ago and he was still swaying a little, still imagining himself running out of the hotel room. His legs felt wobbly. He saw the bright green and red sign from the 25 Plus store and pushed open the door. Inside the store the light blinded him. He covered his eyes as he made his way to the alcohol at the back of the store.
“Fucking lights,” he muttered, waving his hands across his face to block the light. The girl behind the counter was of high school age. She watched him looked at him and her mouth dropped open slightly. She stood frozen, a little scared.”Sorry, sorry,” he said as he opened the refrigerator door and considered his options. “I’m just a little drunk,” he continued to no one in particular. “Don’t worry about me. I just want to buy something and then I’ll be leaving.”
The girl behind the counter was getting more nervous by the second. She looked down at her mobile phone, which was on the seat next to her. If she had to call her mother she could. Her mother had begged her to work the overnight shift just this one time because she’d had to work the previous 20 hours straight, since the other helper had quit. Both she and her mother were leery of her working the graveyard shift. She’d learned to run the store by herself in middle school. But she’d never worked overnight. But there was no other option. Her poor mother needed some sleep.
He stumbled as he made his way to the front of the store, knocking three bags of chips to the floor. He snapped his head around, as if someone were behind him. Realizing it was just a few bags of chips, he tried to straighten his back as if nothing had happened, but then bumped into the magazine rack. He paused again and tried to act like nothing had happened. He carefully placed the bottle of soju on the counter. He girl scanned it. He noticed her hands were shaking.
“Oh,” he said, gesturing at the girl’s hands, “Don’t be scared. I just want to buy this.”
She held out her hand for the money, not wanting to look at him directly.
It was then he felt compelled to make the girl feel comfortable. He had scared her, and the last thing he wanted to do was walk around Busan scaring people.
“Hey,” he said, trying to prompt her to look at him, “I’m a normal guy. I work at an office not far from here. I have a lovely wife and two good children. I know I’m a little drunk now, but please don’t be scared of me. It’s okay.”
She nodded and took his money, still not wanting to look at him.
“I bet you’re a high school student,” he smiled as she handed him his change. “Right?” He stared at her until she nodded her head slowly. “I remember you….I mean, I remember high school. I hope you know how lucky you are. You know, life doesn’t get any easier. Before you know it you’re going to be married, taking care of your husband and children, and even though having children is wonderful….wonderful, you’re going to wonder where the time went. Do you know that?”
The paused, trying to consider what he’d said, which was difficult. She slowly nodded, hoping that was the answer he wanted to hear. Out of the corner of her eye she tried to locate her phone again.
“In Korea we have to work very hard. Nothing will come easy for you in our country. But you have to remember to stop sometimes. Don’t forget to enjoy your life a little, because it will be all gone in the blink of an eye. People always told me that, but I never listened. I mean, I listened. I heard them, but I didn’t really hear them” He pointed to his ear, to emphasize hearing.
He tried to steady himself on the counter, but he kept wobbling from side to side. The girl was trying her best to look friendly. She lifted her face up in an attempt to show him she was comfortable, in hopes that he would leave her alone.
“But also,” he started again. The girl’s face sank, “You have to know something about life. You have to know that with age comes responsibility. And with responsibility comes stress and with stress comes…” He’d lost his train of thought. He stood there, trying to appear as if he was pausing for effect, but he’d lost it. He tried to go back to the beginning of the conversation. He could only remember knocking over the chips. “But do you know what you can never forget?” he finally said.
She had been trying to listen to him, because she knew that at some point his voice would raise into a question. But she had no idea what he was talking about. She’d understood the first thing, the part about taking care of her husband, and the part about enjoying her life. But the last few sentences he’d been slurring and she’d only understood “stress.”
She nodded her head and looked down.
“What can you never forget?” he said again, raising his voice and lifting his finger in the air.
She shook her head, afraid he was getting angry. She wanted to call her mother. If she reached down and grabbed the phone, she could push the number 1 that instantly dialed her mother’s phone. Even if he started to hit her she could throw the phone on the floor and hope her mother would at least hear the struggle, and come running. Their apartment was just down the street.
“What you can never forget is…though the heavens may fall, there will always be a hole to escape through.”
He smiled and looked at her. He brought his open palm down and held it out, as if he’d given her a gift.
“Do you know that proverb?” he asked carefully, grinning. “They still teach that one in the schools?”
The girl nodded again. He nodded back and was quite proud of himself for remembering such a proverb at that very moment. In fact, he hadn’t learned it in school, but from his father. But the point was the same. He raised his eyebrows, turned around, and walked out the front door.
“You have a nice night. Study hard.”
When the door had swung closed the girl stood there with her head down for a couple minutes. Music played from a radio station she’d picked earlier. It was Dong Bang Shin Ki, one of her favorite groups. But it hardly comforted her. When she finally looked up she looked at the door. He was gone.
Though she’d had some trouble understanding him, his final words had been clear. She’d heard that expression many times in her life, but only from her grandparents. But when he had said it, her mind, as if it was creating a personal horror movie, she had imagined him saying it as a way to forecast he was about to do something horrible to her. To rain the heavens upon her.
She picked the phone up from the chair. Her hands were still shaking. She sat down and stared at the phone. It seemed likely that the man was gone, so she could let her mother sleep.
She had never wanted to work in the convenience store in the first place. She hated it, even in the day time. People were always rude and in a hurry. She always complained about working there. But her mother had forced her. She couldn’t wait to tell her mother the whole story the next morning. She’d think twice before she drove the next part time worker to quit. Was her daughter’s life worth it? She rested her chin on the counter. She was angry at her mother now. She closed her eyes and tried to calm down. It didn’t work. She stood up and grabbed one of the cigarette packs from above the counter. She walked to the back of the store and opened the back door. She pulled out a cigarette and held it awkwardly from her fingers. “This is your fault mom…,” she said to herself, striking the match. “This is because of you.”
After walking for a few minutes he let his body fall down on the steps of a department store building. He was still satisfied with the fact that he’d recalled such a wise quote at the exact moment. He was happy that he’d decided to walk around for a while. With a proud grin he watched the scene around him. He opened his new bottle of soju and took a long drink from it. It was nearing 5 a.m. and most of the people straying out from the bars and clubs were blind drunk. People were stumbling around, laughing, shouting and crying amongst a litter of nightclub flyers and empty coffee cans. Taxis circled around like buzzards, honking horns, flashing lights, trying to get patrons to notice them.
“So appropriate,” he said to himself, still thinking about his clever use of expression. He sat quiet for a moment.
“Give any tree 10 strokes and it will fall,” he then said, bursting into laughter. Another one. Equally appropriate. He grinned and took another drink. He could remember his grandfather saying things like that to him when he was younger. At the time he’d barely understood them. Like so much advice, it had gone in one ear and out the other, even when he had tried in earnest to comprehend it. Now, here he was, dispelling the same advice to younger people. The cycle of life continues.
“The ground,” he raised his hand and pointed his index finger toward the sky “hardens after the rain.” He nodded.
He stared at the soju bottle and again took innovatory of the night. In its own way it had turned out to be a good night. The way it had started, by him feeling shameful and old about being unable to perform. Going to his middle school, trying to recapture a moment of his young, and being denied and frustrated by that. But it had all led him to the steps he was sitting on, reconnecting with proverbs that his wise grandfather had told him when he was a boy. Things he never really understood until he had been able to say them himself. Sure, his life seemed bad at times. Surely getting old wasn’t fun. But now, he had something else to offer people. Experience. Wisdom. He would remember this night for some time. A night of transformation. Even though he was married, had a job, children, something had been incomplete. But now he had come full circle.
He drank the rest of the soju down in one gulp. He stared through empty bottle, which made him dizzy. He tired to stand up, but wobbled. He had to brace himself with his body on the department store doors. He told himself to take it easy. It was definitely time for him to go home.
He pushed himself away from the door and took a deep breath. He looked across the street. There was a Burger King restaurant. He was familiar with the restaurant because he’d eaten there countless times over the years, in both middle school and high school. He stumbled off the stairs and crossed the street. He peered through the glass doors.
The place was the same. The floors were black and white checkered, and all the seats were painted bright yellow and red. Even the photos on the wall were the same. Old black and while photos of people who he didn’t know, but whom he could identify as Hollywood stars. They were black and white stills from movies he’d never heard of. Most of them were people laughing or, in general, looking quite elated in one way or another.
He’d never thought about it before, surely it had never crossed his mind as a boy, but the photos all looked to be from the 1940s and 50s. A strange irony, he thought. Strange that the photos taken during arguably the worst point in Korean history would be hanging in a hamburger restaurant in that same nation just fifty-some-odd years later.
Upon coming to this conclusion he backed away from the window as if the entire restaurant might blow up at any moment. Once he was in the middle of the street he stopped. For the first time in a while he was tired again. He also felt drunk. Not energized drunk, like he had upon finding his old high school. But the kind of drunk that needed to be safe at home. Not wandering the streets. He could see a line of taxis down the street. Before he walked in their direction he tightly griped the empty bottle, reached back, and hurled it at the Burger King window as hard as he could.
He didn’t watch the bottle or the window shatter. He turned around and sprinted toward the taxis. When he heard the glass a burst of excitement radiated through his body. He felt the same excitement as he had earlier when he fled the motel room. Just for half a minute or so, he felt like a little boy again.