by Robert Chafe
1:17 AM G______: And the scariest?
me: Maybe.
1:19 AM G______: And was she sad about that? Or scared?
1:23 AM me: I don’t know. not exactly the kind of thing you ask someone at the reception afterwards.
1:27 AM G______: Maybe she was too preoccupied about her dead mom to be worried about being alone.
1:34 AM me: She’s since become partnered. I see her on facebook all smiliey with this nice looking guy. She was never the type to date much. I haven’t seen her in years but I’m really happy for her when I see those pics. I also think back to that funeral moment when I see those pics.
1:35 AM G______: You need to get laid.
1:37 AM me: I’d be angry at you for minimizing this, if it wasn’t for the fact that that is true.
1:41 AM G______: Maybe you’re not afraid of being alone at your parents funerals so much as you are afraid of being SEEN alone.
me: What do you mean?
1:44 AM G______: Maybe you’re afraid that someone will look at you with pity like you looked at her.
1:45 AM me: I didn’t look at her with pity.
1:48 AM G______: Or whatever. Empathy. Call it whatever. But you looked at her and thought/felt something that you wouldn’t want attributed to you.
1:51 AM G______: Maybe?
1:52 AM me: Maybe.
me: Semantics though really. It still scares me, regardless of why I’m scared.
1:56 AM G______: Well you can’t conquer a fear of the ocean by climbing a tall ladder. <===== Chopra, bitch.
1:59 AM me: Huh?
2:02 AM G______: If you’re afraid of the ocean, you got to tackle your fear of the ocean not your fear of heights.
2:03 AM me: Ok? Soooo….
2:05 AM G______: So if your afraid of being seen as being alone, that is a different thing to tackle than tackling being alone.
2:06 AM me: Are you trying to talk yourself out of a date? lol
G______: I was alone at my moms funeral.
2:18 AM me: I’m an asshole.
3 minutes
2:21 AM me: Panda?
7 minutes
2:28 AM me: Sorry. :(
Nov. 8
4:17 PM G______: i'm at my favorite pho place. bitch.
me: i sure do love me some of that rare beef cooked last minute in that there broth. yum yum.
4:20 PM G______: how is your day going?
4:21 AM me: tis good. just went for a lovely walk. had a weird moment on the street with some folks fundraising for the united way or something. but other than that…great. you?
G______: i kick them in the nuts
4:22 AM me: ha! they are usually sweet. but these two actually cornered me, blocked my way under one of those construction scaffolds. and wouldn't move, until i said, dudes you're being really fucking pushy. sigh. and then i felt like an ass.
6 minutes
4:28 AM G______: ha!
4:29 AM me: my life.
4:31 AM me: what kinda pho panda bear?
4:32 AM G______: chicken pho this place has the best of that kind
4:35 AM G______: this place is packed with KO-reans
4:42 AM me: i want to go somewhere warm.
G______: we should meet up, like in sub Saharan Africa
4:44 AM me: i hear they love the gays there.
me: do you like camping panda?
G______: i haven't been since i was very young.
4:49 AM me: i've only been a few times myself.
me: Didn’t go much as a kid. Dad was usually too busy to make it happen. i kinda want to go more now. I always think it would be so romantic.
me: sharing a sleeping bag. Two man tent. skinny dipping. cookouts over a fire. a bottle of whiskey. sigh.
4:50 AM G______: tres romantique
4:51 AM me: provided there were no large carnivorous animals. that's not so romantic.
G______: and Africans
4:52 AM G______: and KO-reans
me: and somewhere that if we were stumbed upon sharing a sleeping bag it wouldn't end up with the UN having to intervene.
Nov. 9
10:05 PM me: Whatcha doin?
20 minutes
10:25 PM G______: here i am. watching tv. you?
10:27 PM me: ah. what are you watching?
10:28 PM G______: was flipping by entertainment tonight.
me: a show best flipped by.
10:29 PM G______: they did a segment about how the Victoria secret fashion show was the first big ny event post superstorm sandy...
G______: ... but they spliced in scenes from the suffering of those poor souls affected by the damage.
10:31 PM me: ug. that show is contemptible. the last time i watched it, no joke, sept. 12, 2001. it was fucking disgusting.
me: "the images cnn won't show you". including jumpers, with sarah mclaughlin playing in the background. gross.
G______: i know. et luvs reporting the celeb reaction.
10:34 PM me: it's all schadenfreude.
10:35 PM G______: that's les schadenfreude
me: ha!
me: what did you have for supper?
G______: it was a turkey bologna sandwich
10:40 PM me: turkey bologna. there is such a thing?
10:41 PM G______: yes. this is america. we have everything. we are a
freedom loving people
10:42 PM me: turkey bologna. that's in the constitution right?
G______: correct
10:43 PM me: i'm gonna have to bone up on my constitutional history and cold cuts, if we're gonna keep this chat up.
10:44 PM G______: yah, that would help
10:45 PM me: i don’t require the same of you. i was just so delighted you knew where newfoundland was. most people don't.
G______: well, our public education system is ridiculously bad. I blame the teacher’s unions.
10:47 PM me: i was making no statement about les americans, but more of a global statement. newfoundland is on the map of very few.
G______: i know, i was.
me: we were all excited when we showed up in raiders of the lost ark, we were a dot on his map when flying to tibet.
10:49 PM G______: ha! i will look for that next time i watch it
me: people cheered in the theatre. we've become a little more cosmo since then.
10:50 PM G______: signing off, smooches bubba noodles
10:51 PM me: night. xo
Nov. 11
11:04 PM me: hey, do you tweet? as in twitter?
11:06 PM G______: yes, G______ on twitter, but warning i mostly vent about politics.
me: so?
G______: so, that might upset, might it not?
11:07 PM me: because… we disagree on politics?
me: do we?
11:08 AM G______: well i wasn't kidding when i said im tea party conservative.
14 minutes
11:22 PM G______: Hello?
11:24 PM G______: noodles?
11:31 PM me: I would say we disagree then. yes, I would say that. lol
WAYGOOK
WE were in Daegu city about a month when me and Joanne first went out with the crowd from my work. Samantha from Vancouver, and this Australian guy she was seeing that week, I forget his name. Min, the teacher rep from my school. And Raoul.
Fucking Raoul.
Joanne took right to him too. Raoul was in his second year of teaching. Originally from Orlando, he’d worked a year in Seoul, said it was ridiculous. The way a magnet draws metal filings, he said, so crowded, and he decided to downgrade to the slower paced Daegu for his second year. Raoul still had this booming note of surprise at the littlest differences between the cities: the price of vegetables, the bus schedule. Pounding you on the fucking head with it all, making you feel like a cretin for not knowing how to call a waiter.
He took us to his favourite barbeque place, a couple of blocks from the school. His favourite. The way he said that, like he’d personally eaten at every restaurant in Daegu, what a
douche. Yeah, and Joanne migrated to his end of the table before the food even arrived, limp wrists, the both of them, voices shrill like a braking bus. Joanne loved the gay ones. She’s a looker, my girlfriend, something about being able to make honest eye contact with a man, Joanne takes to them time and time again.
I had to fight an anger at her going down to sit with Raoul. First night meeting some of these people, the Australian dude was a complete stranger. What does it say to someone when your girlfriend leaves you alone at the far end of the table? Started to play drum solos with my chopsticks, stuck them under my lips as tusks.
“Babe, did you know Raoul used to be Goofy. Like he actually played Goofy at Disney World. How cool is that!”
No, Joanne, I did not know that. No surprise though, and no costume needed: that one constant slack-jawed expression, his stupid fucking laugh.
We were face and eyes into the meal then, all of us fighting for room on the table-top grill. Joanne had been vegetarian for three years before we got to Korea, and was just now starting to adjust her bowel to the challenge of chicken and fish. The galbi was sending up its smoke, and I wondered if that lovely dimple forming in her chin might be nausea. But there she was five minutes later, one elbow propping her up across the table, a full-body stretch to the grill. With each bite she had her smiling eyes closed and her hand on her heart. I wondered when we landed whether Joanne would be able to take it. The crowds, the instant and sweltering heat when we stepped off the plane. The windows were down on the ride in from the airport and there was no relief, only a barrage of new and challenging smells. Min driving and Joanne in the backseat looking like an abducted child, lost and afraid. She had sworn on the plane that she was ready for this, willing to make it work, anxious to try new things, and here a month later with her mouth full of rare red meat she was doing just that. I loved her for it, even if she had abandoned me and my end of the table.
Raoul nudged her and said things with his big mouth full of food and bullshit. He was dipping deep into the soju, his eyes starting to cross and his voice as loud as his shirt.
“I’ve gotten more skin in this fuckin’ country than I got in college. It’s true, darlin’, every word.”
Joanne was delighted, looking at me, her eyebrows in the rafters. Checking out Min on her other side, his little face pulled back to let his ears get out front. Min leaned in, a vacant smile, not getting any of it, his English thin. Joanne started translating, drunk enough to think she could. Min laughed, covered his teeth. All of it spurred Raoul on.
“I think half the married men in Daegu like it on the down-low.”
“What is down-low?” Min’s eyes tracked around the table, hoping someone could summon enough Korean to keep him in the game.
Raoul told the table, and just about everybody beyond it, about the secret gay haunts of Daegu city, and what awaited any Westerner horny enough to seek them out. Delicious corners at the dirty end of alleys. Not so secret knocks, questions from behind fat doors. Doorman’s eyes wide with delight when he sees pale skin, the alien height of the man, the hair on his arms. Raoul talked about walking into the makeshift clubs, all eyes following him to the bar and the scurry of men ready to buy him drinks when he got there. His pick of the dick, all with wedding rings, and shiny credit cards, and one-button speed dial to their favourite hotel.
He took another swallow of the soju, his gooey eyes winking over the table at me, asked Samantha to refill his glass. “Bad luck and terribly impolite to fill your own glass of soju, darlin’.” This was Raoul being polite: with each shot downed he was sending a flash of his buckteeth around the table, forcing people to top up his glass for him.
“And this happens in Daegu? This down-low.” Min looked troubled by this.
Raoul gave him a deep nod and contemplated the last of his drink. Min shrugged, laughed an awkward little laugh. Raoul was a bad movie: you could stand and walk out, or try your best to find it funny.
“Lovely stuff, the old soju. I think we might need another bottle soon.”
Raoul rested his nose on the rim of his glass, gave a big sniff, tested the bouquet finally now that he was half a bottle in. He up and downed the rest, and scanned the table for eye contact, to have his glass filled again, and found me staring back at him. I always thought myself better at hiding my thoughts, but Joanne was there sitting next to him willing me to be nice. Raoul didn’t need her help. He worked his tongue across his lips and tapped the soju bottle with his chopstick. It was my turn.
I didn’t expect her to come with me to Korea. I was taken aback when she said she wanted to. I wanted to earn back some of the money I had sunk into that English degree. It was practical. But Joanne saw Korea as nothing if not a gifted reprieve: from her parents, their basement apartment, the booming steps of the jailers upstairs. A reprieve from her shitty job at the recycling plant. I made the mistake of telling her what my salary offer was and she decided it would be enough for the both of us.
We had known each other for years. Friends of friends. The first night we got together was just ten months before the big move. Her place. Me the only one left after a casual night, crowd of us watching a movie. Joanne, in her pajama bottoms. Cable TV and a cheap bottle of whiskey. Her sweater was riding up, so I could see the tattoo on her hip. We sat on the floor, backs to the lip of the couch. I didn’t know it was going to happen. She swears the same. Two of us, like little kids. She kissed me first, apologized, blamed it on the whiskey, missing her boyfriend Gary. I was trying to act casual, my cock in my pants telling the truth. And she saw it, grabbed it like it was hers already. We didn’t say anything after that. We fucked on the floor and then just lay there. She got up to go to the can, the door open, the sound of her. I started to feel stupid on the floor by myself, and moved up to the couch. She came back, shy, covering herself, climbed in next to me, kissed my chest. Slept then. In the morning she apologized again. Then she sucked me, fingered my ass. First time a girl ever did that. Knew I was into something then.
She said she wanted to cook for me. She talked about it non-stop on the flight over: our apartment better have a good kitchen. Oh the markets they have there, she’d said, fresh fruit and veg, cheap as dirt. Make me coffee every morning, send me off to school with something in my belly, then settle in herself, that play she’d always meant to finish. Spend her days playing Korean housewife, her nights geisha girl.
The look of her, staring down at the passing cloud cover. The romance of it, she could barely fucking stand it.
Ten seconds into Min’s tour of the apartment they had assigned us and Joanne saw a cockroach. The apartment was tiny but looked to be clean. There was a little stove-top range, no oven. The heat in the place enough to strip paint. No relief on “the deck,” all hemmed in with frosted glass, more like a hothouse. Min told us the school had air-conditioning, a necessity. He said there was no way someone could stay in a heat like that all day. Joanne excused herself to check out the bathroom alone.
“You wife, she like market? Market very close.”
We were forced to lie to the school, tell Min and everybody else we were married, the cheap rings worn to prove it. He saw our disappointment with the room but was unsure of how to stem it. The shriek then and the bathroom door sent flying open, the handle lodged into the hallway wall. She was back out with us in a flash, pointing behind herself and fighting for her breath. A run on the spot, her feet trying to find purchase in mid-air. Scurrying under the sink, she said.
Min said: “No, no, not possible, very clean, very clean.”
“The fucking thing’s the size of a Newfoundland pony.”
Min found this funny and just kept saying no, smiling at me as though I was the one needing convincing. “View in bedroom window, view is very good.”
Joanne would have swum home right there and then if offered the option.
She saw it again a few days later. It was sitting in the middle of the kitchen when she turned the lights on, a spot of brown dirt on the white
floor tile, big enough to draw the eye, and then it ran towards her all legs and feelers. She scaled the wall, taking down the kitchen clock in the process. She’d never seen a roach before, at least not one like this, and she only trusted Min’s appraisal after looking it up online. Her screams brought the neighbours out into the hallway. Our neighbour, Mrs. Bak, a tiny bent woman, told Joanne all about Korean cockroaches. Told her they could be ground in a blender, mixed with facial cream and used as a beauty mask, spread thick like maple butter. Mrs. Bak said to be careful when collecting them, the Korean cockroach was highly territorial in the presence of its young. That was it then. Joanne had the walls crawling with babies, saw them coming out of the sockets, sleeping in her shoes.
She wanted to have Raoul over. We’d been in Daegu close to three months by then. I was taking more and more private clients. The money was good, but the lessons stretched into the evening, and by October, I was spending my commute home in the fading light of the city three nights a week. When I’d get in, she’d be sitting there in her underwear, two fans working the paper art on the walls, and her face drawn out longer than should be possible. She was miserable was the truth of it, and Raoul had been the only thing to bring a smile to her the whole time we’d been there.
“Why do you hate him?” She asked me one night, her fork spinning noodles on her plate, her eyes on it and not me. I lied and said I didn’t, but she didn’t believe me. I shrugged and I laughed and she pushed me on it. Tell me, she said. And I pushed back which I shouldn’t have done. And so it grew, and so it swelled until this little thing then—this little friendship in the making, this little spit of a fucker and his lack of humility and lack of grace and lack of discretion and his flamboyance, his fucking flamboyance—suddenly an issue, a major issue with me and my girlfriend. Her near tears and jabbing me with questions and pleas and guilt, calling up every little thing it could ever be said she’s done for me. The move to Korea itself. A major issue, so that I’m calling her baby and going to her and kissing her eyes and doing that lovey thing and making her look at me, really look at me, and making all the upset go away. Making it go away fast and clean so it didn’t have the chance to grow into something else. Anger. Suspicion.
