restoration of the Berlin-Tokyo axis, TUSK would always sing the praises of the current regime. Like the court physicians, his family line was needed by whoever occupied the Dragon Throne. All hail Mao, all hail Puyi, traitor to the Japanese dwarves. TUSK will still be here, desperately seeking out the color of your daughter’s panties. They are pink, they are pink, but once revealed, all he will do back is point his erect phallus, ineffectual to actually sink in the damn thing.
WEEK 3
TUSK broke. Classical narratological theory suggests that action take a gradually rising curve, with subplots elegantly woven in and out of main narrative until the moment of greatest crisis, when all forces come together and the final showdown is unveiled. In this way plot mirrors the sexual act. But reality sometimes has its own timetable, and in this case, it did; the individual constituent elements of 2/1 did not conform to narratological theory; they did not all briefly consider every single possible amorous pair-up before dissolving into a orgiastic free-for-all, even ROLLER losing her Christian inhibitions to join in.
They couldn't in any case. 2/1's classroom, like many others, had one large wall that was opaque glass. Individual faces could not be discerned, but passerbys would instantly detect any sort of highly unusual activity. Although the room was in a giant edifice shaped like a vulva, this design elements of the structure did not inspire feelings of instant amorous action.
Tusk broke on Sunday, when in a clear afternoon recovering from the hangovers caused by Friday and Saturday previous's adventures, he went to pick up his second-to-last interviewee. His paperwork had been falling apart lately and the concept of trying to finesse one of the girls to meet his classmates had long been discarded, but he still made the meeting point for the girls the main gate of Keiwha University. The security guards finally cottonned on to the show being provided for them; they hailed him with glad waves of the hand.
2pm, however, revealed a surprise. This was not SHIM Jun-young, male engineering student and technical specialist, it was a girl. A very beautiful young girl. ROLLER struggled to pull out his scrap of paper. Something had gone wrong.
"Um, you're here for your university interview?"
"Yes, you must be TUSK!"
The character that revealed itself in the next few minutes proved to be the final esoteric universe force that broke TUSK (or TUSK', TUSK'' whatever his identity was at this point). Desiring to major in English, capable of fast and furious on-the-fly analysis of 'the Dramatic Situation,' and offering an elegant and unique twist on aesthetic theory, SNIPER dominated the interview as no other had before her. Finally a blush broke out across TUSK’s cheeks. SNIPER wouldn't have done it by herself. Nor could dreams of the thirteen year old hooker from last week dancing through TUSK's head inspire such a reaction. It was only the one-two-three-four almost-five blow of ERI, hooker, AKEMI, and finally SNIPER that tore through TUSK's last defenses, leaving him agog, tongue-tied, helpless in the university cafe right in the pudenda structure's clitoris.
SNIPER began blushing back. "Moving right along, my relationship to my father has defined who am I because after he was fired from his corporate job (and Korea has a lifetime employment system at the highest levels, this meant he would never be hired again by a top company), we really had to scrimp expenses..."
As if in reaction to the two blushing youngsters (TUSK looks about twenty-five) and the apparent scenario of a Keiwha grad student or assistant professor blushing at a first year undergraduate student, another woman at the cafe began to blush. And various other tables made skeptical comments, one male even swinging by on his way to the cashier to personally wave his skeptical face at TUSK. Only one other interviewee had inspired any sort of cafe-dweller reaction--the Christian girl, actually, who looked young and made some onlookers believe compensated dating was in progress. But the cafe staff and most of the rest of the people at the cafe carried on their business without reaction and TUSK called an end to the interview after fifty minutes (his shortest yet).
There was, in essence, one major reason why this interviewee in particular inspired such strong feeling out of TUSK. About ten years prior TUSK had become involved with a statuesque black woman at Yale. But right before that moment, there had been another assault on his heart, a one year older transfer student who happened to be Korean-American, another literature major, from Seattle , Washington , who offered ironic literary commentary and rich-girl aestheticism and superior disdain for the Economics majors of the world. Right in the wavering period before what would be a traumatic seven-year relationship, TUSK almost fell for the Lit girl. It was the biggest unresolved decision of his life; he didn't regret what eventually transpired with crack addict (seven years is seven years), but of all the decisions he made in his life, he wondered most about what would have happened had he gone for Lit Girl.
So here she was again, magically seventeen again, magically capable in a fluid and supple English, magically September ten years prior. Of course she couldn't see it that way, but if she didn't have some attraction to TUSK too, why did that blood rush to her cheeks so easily?
What transpired over the next four days for TUSK can be best be described as a "very slow-motion train wreck." Like a stop-action movie simulation of a train crashing into an immovable wall, the excruciating pace of events had its own quality, the first crumple, the wheel shooting off to the side, the rear of the locomotive jumping up as the coal car plows underneath, etc. For onlookers, it was pathetic, in someways attention-seeking. For JOHANN it was the moment of triumph; the final victory of cold European strategy over American emotionalism. For the Americans it was vindication that one of their own was not immune to the general trend. But for TUSK it was identity-collapse on multiple levels, endurable only because he had the utmost of inner self-contempt.
Monday TUSK told the girls "Japan is a prison! You are free here, you are free!" as SHINO excitedly twirled her hair and TABUN giggled. AKEMI hadn't succeeded. AJ-1 denied the remark, “You’re wrong, you’re wrong,” but TUSK only grunted. An hour later he said to AKEMI, it now becoming certain she was after him, "Let's go to Lotte World, let's go to Lotte World!" JOHANN felt TUSK should have stopped there; instead he repeated it twice more including once in Japanese and AKEMI, increasingly more angry, refused him each time. Tuesday AKEMI walked about in a daze, missing the welcome table of 2/1 students at lunch, feeling hurt and abused. JOHANN pointed it out. “Look, you’ve hurt her!” TUSK sent her a message on Facebook; it fell flat. Wednesday TUSK began blushing furiously during the first hour of class, seated as he was between AKEMI and TABUN (who he felt neutral about) who was right next to SHINO. By then the girls were paying full attention to every little detail of his behavior. They gasped at the peculiarity of fate that brought TABUN to the only available seat when it appeared he was trying to get closer to SHINO. TUSK continued even though she was there; but TUSK stopped blushing when ERI arrived; apparently her completely lack of sexiness was enough to deaden that impulse, and AKEMI refused to look at TUSK when TUSK turned his head to talk to her. He was about to say, "Look, stop mopeing around, I'm hurt too" in Japanese.
"Okay students last class. Let’s review what we did for three weeks.”
They gave a final in two parts; oral test on Tuesday; the written on Wednesday, but after a sleepless night, TUSK walked out of the written. One of the staff members, someone who never liked him, offered sarcastic sympathy.
Despite all this psychological turmoil, TUSK never broke completely. His university background had not yet come out; his living place and working conditions remained vague and undefined, but he never spilled details about his activities in China nor his mythical past, which had gone on over sixteen months in half-a-dozen cities in the Continental U.S. He remained continent; he did not toss cookies or lose his marbles completely; although contempt was now on the upswing against TUSK, he was able to rationally calculate that SHINO would never fold to him. Meanwhile JOHANN k
ept guilting TUSK, he kept pointing out how hurt AKEMI was and how much of a sadist TUSK was. Finally TUSK collapsed for almost-good at the closing ceremony, putting his head down on his arms, realizing that just as JOHANN had publicly given face to him the previous week, there could only be a public return of face to AKEMI; although SHINO was even more contemptuous and TABUN completely puzzled (later to transition to contempt as well), TUSK returned some honor to AKEMI, who hadn't asked for it and liked this development even less; ROLLER reflecting the return of sympathy to TUSK guilted AKEMI into sitting next to TUSK and going out with him that night, TUSK's mind went almost completely bonkers, he stalked SHINO for about an hour as well without her knowledge (this was never revealed; this never came out!), he drank, he walked about in a daze, he got to see some of Seoul.
AJ-2, as the closing ceremony, tossed TUSK a curious look and she seemed to think that TUSK had finally found guilt as a weapon, that AKEMI would actually have to do something. She was the dark one, a little quick in her manners, but with the most beautiful face. AJ-3 was not present, having been thoroughly pushed to the side,
The Flowers of Keiwha Page 13
