In Real Life

by Lawrence Tabak

  Across the dance floor is a spiral staircase and I follow her up and through a double door. When the door shuts the music is still loud, but not abusively so. We go through another door, and enter a large room full of people sitting at round tables. The music is thinner but the smoke thicker.

  My new friend continues to lead me across the room to the far wall where there are a series of booths. Deep in the far corner, in a booth which could hold a dozen people, is a startling sight. Six westerners, four guys and two girls, sitting with drinks in their hands and looking at me with puzzlement.

  “This is great Starfare player Seth Gordon,” says my new friend.

  “Haven’t I seen you somewhere?” says one of the girls in an accent that could be British or Australian. She is looking at me the way you might eye an odd animal at the zoo.

  “I believe that would be on a neon poster, about twenty times life size,” says the guy on the far right. He semi-stands and reaches out with a hand. “Guy Hamilton,” he says. “Good to meet you, mate.”

  I shake hands all around and they shift over and I sit down, absolutely ecstatic to be among English speakers again, only then realizing exactly how much I’d been missing it. I set my beer in front of me and realize that I’m grinning like an idiot. A mute one, because I have yet to say a word.

  Hamilton says, “I see you’ve met Sumi. Her hobby is collecting foreigners and then getting them all together in one spot, like a collection of dolls.”

  Sumi blushes and says, “It is only that I practice my English so I someday study in America.”

  The Western girl next to me hands me a little cocktail napkin and points to her lips. “It seems Sumi has been practicing a little more than English.” No accent at all.

  I wipe and see the red smear of lipstick on the napkin.

  The American girl says, “You’re welcome. And since you looked like you were in a state of shock, I’ll repeat the introduction. I’m Sarah. From Hollywood. Florida, that is.”

  Then I get about six questions at once and for the next half hour explain how a high school kid from the Midwest has ended up, not only in Korea, but unaccompanied at the hottest nightclub in town. Turns out all six of them are teaching English at various Korean schools and from what I gather, none of them is liking it much. They either aren’t getting paid as much as they were promised or their students are arrogant and indifferent or their bosses are either trying to get them to go to bed with them or trying to make sure they don’t go to bed with anyone at all.

  When I finally check the time I’m shocked how late it is. Everyone at the table seems at least a little drunk, except me. I really didn’t like the taste of that beer very much and didn’t order anything else. All evening Sumi just kept wiggling closer until now she is sort of draped over me, a position that seemed to amuse but not surprise the other English speakers.

  And while I’m not exactly pushing her away, it’s so weird touching another girl. And while this Sumi is pretty and seems willing, it just makes me think about Hannah. So I’m stuck with this awful mixed feeling, this excitement of physical contact and wishing it was Hannah instead.

  But even with the building guilt, I’m still thinking how I can sneak Sumi back into the apartment. When I announce I have to go, Sumi hands me a slip of paper, which I assume will be her phone number. Instead I unfold it and realize it’s a bill. For a lot more than I’ve spent all night.

  The Westerners at the table all have a big laugh at my expense and throw some bills on the table, apparently splitting Sumi’s fee.

  The Aussie guy says, “It’s an old Korean custom. Female companionship, at a price.”

  I think he sees something in my expression, something hopeful, because he adds, “In case you were wondering, the fees are for public companionship only. And I’m not telling you anything that you probably don’t know, but the locals here, they don’t abide having their girls mixing it up with foreigners. I had a mate who taught with me, got jumped a few months ago, walking out of club with a Korean girl. Got messed up pretty bad. Threw in the towel and headed back to Sydney. Can’t blame him.”

  I count up the bills and add the difference and give it to Sumi, who now appears to be all business. She takes the money and bows and says “I hope to see you again soon.” As I get ready to go Sarah, the girl from Florida, tells me that they try to meet at the club every Sunday night and that I should catch them next week.

  Then she pulls me aside and says, “Look, you seem awful young and alone here. If you every need any help…”

  And then I connect the dots. I pull out my wallet and find the folded scrap of paper I got when I was in customs. I read the phone number out loud.

  Sarah looks at me like I just grew horns.

  “Is this some kind of parlor trick?”

  “No, no,” I protest. “It’s just when I was going through customs I met this couple and…”

  “Christ,” Sarah says, shaking her head. “You met my mother.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

  “Crazy old Mom. She’s always adopting every waif within miles. Well, all the more reason to give me a call if you need anything. You know, I’ve been here a few years. I have the system down pretty well.”

  I thank her and weave my way out of the club and to the street where the cabs are lined up waiting. Once in a cab I pronounce my address as clearly as I can and it must be good enough because it doesn’t take long to get there. I pop the main door of my apartment building with a slide of my card key and head to the elevators. And even as I’m still buzzing from the excitement of meeting all these English speakers and the feel and smell of Sumi hanging onto me, I realize I’m just as alone and lonely as ever. Upstairs I can’t even stand to look at Hannah’s pictures or open up Facebook. It’s better to just head into the welcome unconscious of sleep.

  16.

  I don’t drop off until 2 a.m. and it feels so good to sleep in, taking advantage of our Monday morning break. I can’t remember if we’re supposed to be back to practice at twelve or one, so I pick one. When I catch up with the team they’ve already done their exercises and are deep into practice. I figure I’m going to hear about being late from Yeong and sure enough, I’m barely inside the door when I hear him.

  “Seth Gordon!” he yells. “Come with me!”

  I can tell by the way he struts into the breakfast room that he’s hot. He slams the door behind us and I start to apologize for being late.

  “You not say anything!” he shouts. He reaches into his pocket and unfolds a newspaper. It’s one of the tabloids that I see every day at newsstands. They always have huge black headlines like war has just been declared.

  Yeong unfolds the newspaper on the table and I hear myself croaking something that sounds like the noise you might make if someone unexpected drilled a fist into your stomach. I lean over the wrinkled newspaper and stare at the large picture. It’s me all right, with the Korean girl, Sumi, both hands over my neck, looking like she’s expected a long, romantic kiss.

  “Seth Gordon!” Yeong is shouting. “You know the call I received this morning, from our great sponsors, ANC Computers? You know how I shout at you. Now think twice as loud from a man who is my superior who pays for this apartment and your food and your salary. And he pay for me also.”

  I’m wondering what the caption says. But think better of asking.

  “It was nothing,” I say.

  “SHUT UP THE MOUTH,” Yeong is now about two inches from my face. “It is everything. Everything! How you get to this club and find this person,” pointing at Sumi, “this girl of bad morals? How you find a way to embarrass whole team?”

  He crumbles up the newspaper and throws it against the wall.

  “You go back to room. Now! I cannot stand to look your way. Go!”

  I slink out
the door and go back to my room. Sit for about an hour, wondering if I’m going to be sent back home. Surprised that I’m actually feeling OK with that. And then just thinking about how hungry I am and how I better sneak out now, while the Tost-u cart is still doing business. I slip on my coat and stick my head out the door, see no one and sprint around the corner to the elevator. When I step out of the building a little gust of wind blows scraps of paper into a little tornado and I can feel the chill cutting through my pant legs.

  The street is still busy with traffic but the sidewalks are no longer congested. Like every day I’ve been in Seoul, the sky, where you can see it between the buildings, is gray, rather than blue. The air smells of car exhaust and some sort of spicy cooking, as if the entire city is permeated with kimchi. I look up and down the street, thinking of the thousands of people who drive by or walk by this spot every day. And I don’t know one of them.

  Five minutes later I’m taking a bite out of the hot, steaming egg sandwich. Thinking that here’s the one thing I’ll miss the most if I get sent home. But I’d be happy to trade the best Tost-u for a twelve-inch pie of good old authentic American pizza.

  17.

  The next morning I’m not sure whether to just hang out in my apartment and wait to hear from the Coach or write some sort of Korean-style letter of apology or just show up like nothing happened. At first I just hang out, doodling around the Internet. I check Hannah’s Facebook but nothing new and then I Google my name and get a screenshot of that billboard I saw the night I landed. The one introducing me as the newest member of Team Anaconda. I cut the Korean copy and paste it into Google Translator.

  “New Team Anaconda. Very best of American E-gamer is blond sexy. He is very happy of Korean girls to meet them soon.”

  I swear under my breath and then decide, what the hell, to just go for the “show-up and see what happens” option. As I walk towards the training rooms I just keep seeing that translation “blond sexy” in front of my eyes. I can’t believe how slow I’ve been in figuring out just what the “great team Anaconda” sees in me.

  When I walk into the breakfast room there’s a moment when everyone looks up and then the conversation starts buzzing again. I get a little bowl of rice and find a place to sit, at a table with Sang-Chul (who, of course, did best in the big release tournament) and two others.

  Coach Yeong is stalking around the room, giving what looks like pep talks to each of the tables, but he skips over ours and heads out the door into the practice rooms. Sang-Chul looks over at the other two players and then he sticks his hand up in the air. I don’t recognize this as any Korean gesture I’ve yet seen so I shrug my shoulders, hoping that a shoulder shrug isn’t some sort of insult.

  “High five!” he says, only it sounds to me like “Hig I’ve.”

  Still, I get the drift and give him a resounding slap. The rest of the guys on the team swarm over and are patting me on the back and saying stuff in Korean and broken English.

  Sang-Chul raises his hand and everyone is quiet.

  “You very just-do-it American,” he says and from the buzz that follows it seems the rest concur. “Korean player, he be good-bye.”

  I smile and say, “Well, sometimes you have to say, what the hell, and just go for it.”

  They take a minute to do a communal translation and they seem to like the sentiment. Then Sang-Chul whispers, “So you do something with this Korean girl?”

  I shake my head. I want to explain that I paid for the attention, but have no idea how to communicate this subtlety.

  Then Yeong comes back through the door, gives a sour look at the gathering around my table and shouts something that gets everyone scrambling to line up for morning exercises. It seems like we do a lot more than usual, but it’s no sweat for me. I actually think I might be getting into decent shape.

  18.

  Things settle down into the old routine for a few weeks. Morning practice, Korean lessons in the afternoon. I still can only say a few dozen lines, but that’s because we spend a lot of time doing stupid stuff like practicing bowing. One bow for someone your age, another if you are a bit older, another if you are a little younger. My Korean teacher gets completely flustered when I don’t even see the differences. It’s like this guy I used to know in grade school who was really into comic books. He could glance at an old Superman book and instantly tell if it was in fine, very fine, or just very good condition, while they all looked the same to me, even if I paged through them for minutes.

  Mom and I continue to have our Sunday morning chats, and the longer I’m here, the more I seem to be looking forward to them. She keeps me up to date on Garrett’s basketball. The thing is, after we disconnect I always feel worse than I did before the call.

  So after the call where Mom tells me how glad Garrett is to be done with basketball season I call his cell.

  “Good God,” he shouts, when I get him online. “What the hell time is it over there?”

  I tell him it’s Sunday morning and that I just talked to Mom.

  “She worries a lot about you,” Garrett says. “It was the same when I went away to college.”

  Which is just the opening I need, because I have a serious question for him and I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to ask.

  “When you left for college,” I say. “I mean, it wasn’t like a surprise or anything. But when you got there, were you ever, you know, sad or whatever?”

  “You mean homesick?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Hell yes. You remember that girl I was going out with the summer after senior year?”

  “Kimberly?”

  There’s a pause and he says, “Seth, I know you’re smart, but how the hell did you remember that? I don’t think you ever met her.”

  I don’t say a thing.

  “Anyway I was totally crazy about her. We were going to call each other every day and we had plans to set up visits, but then, just before I go, her parents convince her to break up with me. I was, like, just blown away.

  “So anyway, there I am, up in Fargo in this athlete-only dorm, every night, just pining for Kimberly and missing everyone and feeling all sorry for myself and wondering if I made the right decision. I really thought about quitting.”

  “Yeah?”

  “But then, just like that, I go to this fraternity party and I’m sitting kind of alone in a corner and this beautiful girl plops down on the couch next to me. Like she was dropped from heaven. Seth, you should have seen her. She looked like she came off the cover of Maxim. So we start to chat, turns out she’s a huge basketball fan, and before long we’re hitting if off like we’d been going out for a year. So man, if you’re homesick, just get laid.”

  “Great,” I say. I could always count on Garrett for good practical advice.

  Meanwhile, Coach Yeong hasn’t spoken a word to me since the day the picture appeared in the paper. So I’m a little unnerved when he taps my shoulder while I’m deep into a practice round with one of the lower-ranked guys on my team. And actually holding my own.

  “Mr. Seth Gordon,” Yeong says. I’m loath to look up from the game, but after a few dozen quick clicks, turn in my chair.

  “We have entered you in very large tournament. It is National seventeen-and-under championships. You only pro. I believe you have chance.”

  “Great,” I say, wondering how long I was going to be just a patsy for the guys on my team. “I’m getting my game in pretty good shape.”

  Yeong shakes his head. “Not so good yet, but it important for our promotions to get you TV. You win three rounds to get to TV round. Not easy. Not for American.”

  “How long do I have to gear up?”

  “Tournament tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow. Thanks for the warning.”

  Yeong scowls. “You not like my coaching strategy?
You like to worry, worry and not sleep and train right? No, this is the best.”

  I stand up and try a bow and say my Korean words for “thank you very much.” The bow for someone who is older and more powerful and who has just done you a big favor. I think I nail it, but how will I ever know?

  When I glance up, Yeong at least seems pleased by the effort.

  19.

  Yeong got one thing right. I didn’t sleep too well that night. Thinking about the tournament. I kept coming back to that game I played when I first got to Korea. Against that girl who was number five on her high school team. Who thought I was sandbagging, to make the game close. And when I can’t sleep, I always seem to end up wondering what it must be like back in Kansas. I imagine Hannah at her environmental club meeting, getting everyone fired up about eliminating plastic bags on campus or something. The tall guy, the one I’m sure is only in the club to bag Hannah, pretending he’s fascinated with her every word. I drift off to sleep. Wake up thankful I can’t remember any dreams.

  At breakfast Yeong leads me to the front of the room and gives a little speech. All the guys applaud politely and then the two of us head out. I was wondering if anyone else on the team would be competing, but I know I’m the youngest. The guys on the team remind me every day. They’re real hung up on age in Korea. If you’re one day older than someone they have to give you the bow used for an elder. I may be the only one seventeen or under, which is actually sixteen or under the way we count years. My tutor tried to explain—what I got is that they start counting age from conception, rather than birth. They do a lot of weird things in Korea.

  Yeong and I sit silently in the back seat of the team car and get dropped off at the rear of a large building. It turns out the tournament is in an auditorium that’s at least as big as the one for the pro event and from the sound of things, the crowd is even younger and louder.