by Seong-nan Ha
For ten years, the men I dated accompanied me home, gladly, without showing a hint of annoyance. There was just one who walked me up to the ticket gate at the subway station, saying it was a waste of time and money to escort me all the way home. Since we had to part by eight in the evening, there wasn’t enough time to get to know each other. Eventually, we broke up without even a kiss.
I’ve recently had to take a taxi alone a lot more, but I got home unscathed each time. I might have paid more attention if someone other than my mother had been giving the advice. Still, during the ten years these words were drilled into my head, nothing happened to me. I never heard of a girl losing her life or coming close to losing it, all because she happened to get into the wrong cab. At the very least, it seems luck has been on our side.
Why does a mother’s advice to a daughter sound like nagging, no matter how protective or affectionate? All mothers exaggerate.
•
I didn’t know when the rain started. At the late hour, the wet asphalt gave off a bluish sheen as if it had been sprayed with oil. Drunk men swarmed out from every corner of the back street, shrieking. It wasn’t raining hard enough to need an umbrella, but it was enough to soak my coat while I stood outside to catch a cab. I wanted to get into one that would take me home before the rest of my clothes got wet.
Taxis sped along the road, but I could tell by their lights, even from a distance, that they were already carrying passengers. For half an hour, I raised and lowered my arm repeatedly, without any success. It was late, it was the end of the year, and it was raining on top of that; of course it would be difficult to catch a cab.
In the end I wasn’t the one who caught it. One of the men from work did. He wasn’t my boyfriend or husband, and he was past the age to try to wrangle a kiss from a girl by escorting her home. He probably thought catching a cab for his female coworker was the right thing to do.
Someone opened the door and I was jostled into the car.
“See you tomorrow, oh, I guess it’s not tomorrow anymore. See you in a few hours. Don’t worry, I’ll—”
Another coworker slammed the door shut, cutting off his words. At last, I was left alone in peace. But a part of me felt as though I’d been sent packing.
“Jungdong New Town, please,” I said, my tone brisk and businesslike.
After enduring the laments of a taxi driver on one particular ride home, I came to believe that a certain distance needed to be maintained between the passenger and driver. The driver, as though in confession, had mumbled he had harmed someone and that he’d been out of prison for nearly a year. While trapped in the backseat, I’d been forced to listen to every detail of his crime, even the exact shape of the red brick, which is what he’d used to strike his victim. But when I’d climbed out of the cab at last, I hadn’t even gotten a proper look at his face.
There was a queer, distinct odor inside the taxi. Mixed with the fishy smell of rain on my clothes, it was enough to make bile rise in my throat. The air was dank and musty; the cab seemed to have been shut up for a long time without any circulation. Wipers skimmed the windshield, as though performing a rainy-day duty. They merely smeared the dust around, since there wasn’t much rain.
A drunk, middle-aged man ran onto the road toward the taxi. The driver didn’t take off, as if he intended to pick up another passenger. I didn’t want to share a cab with a stranger who reeked of everything he’d had for dinner. I was just about to say I’d pay extra to go alone when the taxi driver spoke.
“He’s copying down the license plate,” he said, looking at his rear-view mirror.
I turned around to see my coworker, the one who had hailed the cab for me, glancing at the taxi plate while scrawling into a little pocketbook he’d fished out from his pocket. What a nice man. He was jotting down the plate number of the cab that would take me home to make sure I’d be safe.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“My boyfriend? No, just someone I work with.”
I wondered if the driver would find my coworker’s action insulting.
“I’m sorry if you’re offended. I didn’t ask him to do that.”
He adjusted the rearview mirror and stared blankly at me. He then said slowly, “This is a stolen car.”
I didn’t catch his meaning.
“So it’s no use even if he writes down the plate number,” he said.
I was a little shocked. After a short pause, he burst into laughter. “I’m just joking. It’s just a joke.”
I didn’t find it a bit funny. I tried to laugh along, but the muscles around my half-open mouth felt stiff. I was convinced that my coworker had offended him.
“I understand. After all, it’s a scary world out there. So, which way would you like to take?”
I wanted to tell him to take the quickest way and floor it at 120 kilometers per hour, but I didn’t. I had learned from past experiences that it was best to leave it up to the driver. I hated being terrified, tumbling like beans on a hot pan in a recklessly speeding cab, and I hated cowering in the backseat, listening to the driver swear at other cars. Partly though, I was afraid that what he’d said about the taxi being stolen was not a joke.
“It’s up to you …”
Instead of responding, he laughed quietly. In the dark, all I could see was the back of his head that showed above the headrest, but I sensed the strain lift at once.
I glanced back before we took off, but my coworkers had already gone. What I saw instead were the stuffed toys that were stuck to the rear window. And not just on the rear window, but on both backseat windows. They dangled everywhere, except from the windshield and a bit of space on the rear window to see out through the rearview mirror. All of them were small enough to fit in your hand, and the suction cups seemed to have been glued on so that they wouldn’t fall off.
Every time the taxi changed lanes or came to a sudden stop, the toys swung together in the same direction. How wide they swung to the left or right differed, but every one of them moved at exactly the same time. A red rooster’s head, crudely stitched and made of cheap material, dangled by my right cheek. The toys looked like they’d been hanging there for quite some time. The fabric was sticky with dust, and grime had collected around the suction cups.
The driver didn’t join the traffic heading for the Mapo Bridge. This route—taking the Mapo Bridge, cutting through Yeouido, and then passing Yeongdeungpo-gu—would add about 3,000 won to the meter. Instead he got into the right lane that would lead to Ilsan. He seemed honest and knew his way around the area. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that he was actually following the speed limit at this late hour. A stickler like this would have no doubt been insulted by a stranger copying down his plate number. I wanted to look outside, but it was hard to see between all the stuffed toys.
The sign for Seongsan Bridge came into view. If we crossed the bridge and headed toward Mok-dong, we would be able to merge onto the Seoul-Incheon Expressway. I would arrive home by 1 A.M. at the very latest, wash up, brush my teeth, and go out like a light.
“I see you’ve had a drink,” said the driver, after we’d been on the road for about ten minutes.
I did have a drink. I’d been sitting right in front of a charcoal brazier where the meat grilled, and the heat had made the booze go to my head more quickly than usual. On the way to the bathroom, I’d stepped on the hem of my skirt and landed flat on my backside. When asked to sing, I’d stood up without any hesitation and started to sing. My wool overcoat reeked of charred meat, which the driver probably found nauseating. I tried to roll down my window, but because of all the dolls stuck to the glass, the window only moved down a centimeter. The raindrops that slipped through the crack hit my forehead intermittently. The rain continued to fall lightly, like paratroopers practicing their landing drills.
“It’s the year-end after all. These outings are practically a part of work.”
Again he smiled with his mouth open. Each time we passed under a streetlight, I caug
ht the faint outline of his face. His hair glistened, as though he had combed it back with pomade. That was probably what I’d smelled when I’d first gotten into the taxi. I didn’t know a single man who still used pomade. I suddenly recalled the last person I knew who had used it: my grandfather.
But it was difficult to guess the driver’s age just from the fact that he still used pomade. Although it was something older men tended to use, his hair was black and thick. Judging by his voice, he seemed to be in his early forties, but I wasn’t sure. I’ve never tried to guess someone’s age by just the voice.
I looked between the front seats. His right hand rested lightly on the steering wheel. He was wearing white cotton gloves. I’d seen plenty of drivers in white gloves so this was nothing out of the ordinary. But each time I gazed at my own hands in my lap, I couldn’t help thinking there was something a little odd about his right hand. I soon realized what that was. It was his right pinky finger. It hadn’t moved at all since I’d gotten into the cab. It remained straight and rigid each time he turned the steering wheel, not bending with the rest of the fingers. The rest of the gloved fingertips were gray with dust but the tip of the pinky was white. His pinky finger was a useless object.
I didn’t have to touch it to know it would be stiff and cold. How had he lost it? I leaned my head against the seat and gazed at the finger. Perhaps he had backed out on a promise he’d made with a best friend. Perhaps that pinky had been the cost of betrayal.
“You’ve had too much to drink.”
Since there wasn’t anyone else in the taxi, I had to assume once again that he was speaking to me. I did have a couple of drinks, but I wasn’t drunk. I squeezed my knees together and sat up. But it didn’t take me long to notice that his attention was focused on his right-side mirror.
A 12-seater van sped along beside us, straddling two lanes. I could tell that the rain made the road just as slippery as if it had been icy. If the van were to skid, all the cars nearby would be in trouble. There was an unusual number of bends in the road. Each time the van went around a curve, it swerved into another lane, yet managed to make its way back once the road straightened out; it did this over and over again.
Other cars kept their distance, leaving a wide gap before and behind the van. The van sometimes veered toward us, as if it intended to crash into us, and then backed away. I watched the van from between the stuffed dolls on the window. I hadn’t planned on getting into an accident tonight.
“How much do you think he’s had?” I asked.
“Who knows?”
My driver looked tense. His pinky stood upright like an insect’s antenna. He changed gears and stepped on the accelerator. I heard the cogs mesh under me. In an instant, we caught up to the van as it raced along in the next lane. As we passed, I saw that the young man at the steering wheel was completely passed out. His face was so pale that it looked purple. The taxi driver honked and tried to alert him, but the man didn’t seem to hear at all.
I was so caught up in watching the van that my nose was pressed up against the glass. I could have gotten a better view if the toys hadn’t been there. They swung from side to side and kept hitting my head.
“People like that shouldn’t be on the road. Someone ought to beat some sense into him,” I blurted without thinking. If I had the time, I wanted to follow the van, pull the driver out, and beat him to a pulp. The taxi driver seemed to have read my mind.
“You’re absolutely right. He needs to be shown a lesson or two. If you weren’t here, I would have followed him. They need to learn never to touch the wheel again after drinking.”
In an instant, the taxi driver, a perfect stranger until now, and I were on the same side.
“What kind of people would let him get into a car like that? Could you even call them friends?”
We slowed down. I was hoping that my driver would speed up and leave the van far behind, but there were too many cars on the road. Instead, we were forced to keep it in sight, moving ahead and then falling behind repeatedly.
“How much do you have to drink to get like that?” I mumbled. “A bottle of soju? Maybe two?”
The taxi driver clenched the wheel, glancing around him and then at the van.
“He drank more than two bottles for sure,” I said. “Look, he’s totally out.”
“You want to find out? Should we follow him and ask?”
I took his words as a joke. “There’s no reason why we couldn’t.” I laughed and saw the sign that announced the entrance to the Seongsan Bridge pass over us. The driver seemed to realize only then that something was wrong.
“Shit,” he swore as he hit the steering wheel. “I was so busy watching him that I missed the on-ramp.”
I decided to believe him. It was partly my own fault, for simply going along with everything. It’s okay; we’ll take a little detour. I pushed back my schedule by half an hour. Just then, the van swerved out of its lane and careened toward us. It brushed against the taxi and then moved away. I saw orange sparks fly as the vehicles collided. The taxi driver wrenched the steering wheel; we lurched out of our lane, leapt onto the flowerbed in the median of the road, and came to a stop. I saw the van growing distant as it sped away, completely oblivious; on its side was a streak of navy blue paint that had come from the taxi.
The taxi driver put the car in reverse. When he pressed on the accelerator, the two front wheels that had sprung onto the flowerbed clunked back down onto the road. The left headlight had cracked and broken away when we had crashed into the flowerbed. I tasted blood; I had bitten my lip upon impact. We were back on the road, but the van was nowhere in sight.
The driver leaned forward and his gaze swept the surroundings and the road ahead, moving his head slowly from side to side like a lighthouse beacon. “Ordinary people get hurt because of assholes like that. He needs to be taught a lesson.”
He suddenly stepped on the accelerator, pitching me to the side. The sign that said Ilsan New Town passed by in a blur. A cluster of apartment towers began to emerge in the distance. I was getting farther and farther away from home. I sat perched on the edge of the seat and was about to point out the quickest detour when the driver squeezed into the next lane without signaling. There was a small off-ramp on the far right of the freeway. He raced toward it. But it wasn’t the detour to the bridge.
“Where are you going? This isn’t the right way.”
“Hold on. It’s too late, I don’t have a choice.”
The P-shaped off-ramp turned into an old narrow road, pitted with small and large potholes.
Every time we passed over the potholes, the undercarriage of the cab scraped against the asphalt. The road was not lit by a single streetlamp; its end disappeared into murky darkness. I grew uneasy. My mother’s voice rang in my head: Don’t take a taxi alone at night. The taxi pushed its way into the darkness with its one remaining headlight.
“Wait a minute, did you hear what I said?” My tongue felt rigid, as if it had become a block of wood. My salivary glands seemed to have completely dried up; the inside of my mouth was like sandpaper. My throat stung. The driver still leaned forward in his seat, looking for something.
When we reached a fork in the road, he paused for a second and stared into the dark. I couldn’t hear the rain anymore. There seemed to be nothing beyond the darkness. In the end, he turned onto the left road.
His pinky finger bothered me. What he’d said about the taxi being stolen might not have been a joke. I tried to guess how much money there was in my purse. Nearly fifty-thousand won in cash and a credit card. How much was I worth? To be honest, I didn’t seem very expensive. I started counting to calm down. But I couldn’t go past six because I was so scared.
“There’s been a mistake … I don’t have much money. But if it’s money you want—”
He didn’t say anything. No, he wasn’t interested in money. He’d probably been insulted by my coworker taking down his plate number. It was understandable.
“Is this becaus
e he took down your license plate? I’m sure that’s not the reason why. You don’t seem to be that type of person. Even I can tell.”
This time too, he didn’t answer. In my frustration, I jabbed at the button to lower the window, but a stuffed toy got caught in the crack and the window jammed completely. These damn things. I grabbed the toys to rip them off, but the nylon strings dug into my hand instead. I tried to open the door to jump out of the cab, but the door wouldn’t budge. The impact with the van seemed to have jammed that, too. I tried to kick it open with my feet, but the door still didn’t budge. My whole body broke into a sweat. I threatened him, speaking to the back of his head.
“You better take me home right now. He took down your plate so if I don’t show up at work tomorrow, they’re going to call the police.”
Only then did the driver glance back. He looked annoyed. “Do you always make this much noise?”
•
There was probably a garbage dump nearby. I recalled passing under a sign that said “Nanjido” a moment ago. I didn’t want to scare some janitor who had come to Seoul’s official landfill to dump garbage. I’ll be brought to a nearby university hospital where they will perform an autopsy to determine my cause of death. Then they’ll discover that this poor woman’s last meal had consisted of a few pieces of charred meat and some shredded radish, soybean sprouts, greenish yellow vegetables, and several shots of soju.
The coworker who had hailed the taxi for me will suffer from guilt. Perhaps, my body will never be discovered. People at work will whisper among themselves: She was having a real hard time after her last relationship. What are you talking about? She wasn’t going through anything—it was like every other night. No, didn’t she seem different to you that night? She kept downing soju; she didn’t even hesitate when we asked her to sing—she stood up right away and started singing. She wasn’t the type to do something like that. Can’t you see? They were all signs. If only we had known, we would have made sure someone took her home.
