God Hates Us All

suits, who gather in three distinct circles. Each circle has its own bottle of the local hooch, passed with cheery camaraderie from one smiling man to the next.

Not a female in sight, I notice. That explains the smiles.

16

“MY WIFE IS IN MANCHESTER, MY MISTRESS in Hong Kong, and my lover in Jakarta,” says the Englishman.

“You don’t have a license to kill, do you?” I ask with sarcasm that goes unregistered.

The Englishman grins, his head snaking toward me. “No, but I once saw a man die in my arms. What do you say to that?”

“I think you’re either totally full of shit or the most interesting man I’ve ever met,” I reply. “But either way, I think you’ve had a little too much of the yellow.”

“Impossible!” he growls, rising to his feet. “I’ve been drinking nothing but orange all night. Now let’s go pull your friend off that dancer before we’re all led off in wristcuffs.”

I’d met the Englishman, along with the Mormon and an American woman who called herself Janie, at the Superior Guesthouse, the hostel Ray recommended—a two-story wooden structure with a front door lit like a Christmas tree, hidden in a back alley between the ass-ends of a restaurant and a flower shop. The kind of place you can imagine the guidebook calling “an undiscovered gem.”

I don’t have a guidebook, and my discovery of the Superior is severely impeded by a blistering rain that begins right after I’ve passed the drinking circles. Coupled with darkness, visibility is a serious issue. I miss the entrance to the alleyway three times before stumbling inside, soaked and miserable.

The room can hardly be called a lobby after the Four Seasons—the small, wood-paneled cubicle has a lot more in common with a sweat lodge. I point toward the cheapest rate and am directed to a room with two bunk beds. Well-traveled backpacks claim dibs on the bottom bunks, so I climb onto the bed farthest from the door.

Sleep comes quickly, but it doesn’t last long: Two hours later, I wake up shaking. Or rather the shaking wakes me up. I open my eyes to see Ray. He reeks of alcohol.

“You asleep, man?” he asks.

“I was. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be having sex with a goddess right now? Getting all funky and shit?”

“Yeah, that one got kind of messed up.”

“What happened to taking advantage of her low self-esteem?”

“Hah! Turns out part of the test for becoming a goddess was spending a night alone with a bunch of severed animal heads. Without crying. She was fucking three years old. Bitch is a natural-born icicle.” Ray shivers for effect. “That, plus your going psycho didn’t do me any favors.”

“Sorry about that. I guess that makes us even for the whole international date line fuckup.”

“You should be thanking me. Imagine if you had to spend the whole weekend here. Let’s go get drunk. It’s on me, motherfucker.”

“What about us?” asks a British voice. We look over to see the Englishman, seated Indian style on the lower bunk across the room.

“I’d like to get drunk,” chimes in a voice from the bunk below me. Ray jumps back from the bed, discovering the Mormon’s head just inches from his crotch.

“Jesus Christ,” says Ray. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

“Utah,” replies the Mormon. “But that was a long time ago. Let’s go get drunk.”

Both men are clearly accustomed to being on the road. Each looks to be about thirty, with scruffy facial hair and billowy hippie clothes of indeterminate nationality. Neither has showered for several days.

“Where are we getting drunk?” says Janie, a big-boned but tragically low-waisted American girl with fashionable glasses. She’s holding a manila envelope.

“Is that what I think it is?” says the Englishman, referring to the envelope. “Has our shipment from San Francisco arrived?”

“My shipment,” Janie corrects him. “I know you’re going to try and treat this like your personal stash, but this is mine.”

“What are you going to do with a whole sheet of acid?” asks the Mormon.

“Whatever I want,” says Janie.

“Give us a taste, you sick tease,” says the Englishman, springing to his feet.

Janie relents. “You can each have one tab.” From the envelope she pulls out a letter-sized page scored into tiny boxes, each inked with a blue star. And, I gather, an ample serving of LSD. The Englishman and the Mormon hungrily accept their tiny tabs, placing them on their tongues. Janie turns to Ray and smiles. “Care to join us?”

“Me? No,” says Ray. “I don’t want to be seeing trails and shit when I’m forty.”

“That’s such an urban myth,” she says, then turns to me. “What about you? You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”

“Much appreciated,” I say. “But I’d prefer to keep my feet on the ground just now. I believe there was some talk of getting drunk?”

“We could take them to Suzie’s,” suggests the Englishman. “How about it, mates? Shall we storm Hooker Hill?”

The word “hooker” seems to demolish any objection Ray might tender. A few minutes later, the five of us are packed into a taxi headed to Itaewon, Seoul’s version of a red-light district. The Mormon—whose real name is Gene—uses the trip to explain how he’s arrived at his current station in life. He’d been on a religious mission to Indonesia, with his wife and newborn daughter, when he experienced an “awakening.”

The Englishman coughs theatrically. “More like a descent into moral disrepair.”

“I just realized that I wasn’t living the life I was supposed to be living,” replies Gene.

“Because you’re a queer,” says the Englishman.

“I am not a queer,” Gene says, looking directly at Ray. “Although this one’s got this whole butch thing that’s really turning me on.”

“Because you’re a goddamn poofter,” the Englishman says, as if stating the obvious.

The Mormon smiles with practiced tolerance. “I’m really not gay. Anyway, I’ve been traveling for two years ever since. I’ve seen so much of the world.”

“What about your family?” I ask.

“I tried to stay in touch with them at first. But after a while they didn’t seem so interested in hearing from me. I think we’re all just moving on.”

When the taxi arrives at Suzie’s, no one but Ray can find a wallet. Mine appears to have been stolen while I slept at the hostel. I take some consolation in the fact that the thief or thieves ignored my passport and plane ticket.

“The front desk should have warned you,” Janie says. “That’s the fifth or sixth robbery this week.”

Ray grudgingly pays the cab fare. “He’s got an excuse,” he says, pointing to me. “What about the rest of you?”

The Englishman raises his hands in surrender. “What can we say? We are but poor travelers. But if you’re intent on recompense,” he says, pointing to the Mormon, “I’m certain he’ll bless your knob with a thorough spit- and-shine.”

“Ha!” says the Mormon with a laugh. “He’s kidding. I’m really not going to, you know, do what he said I’d do. That would be a sin.” The Mormon’s leg vibrates nervously: The acid is kicking in.

“Just pay the fare,” Janie says. “And stop pretending that you don’t like being the moneybags.” Something tells me that Ray and Janie are not destined to be boon companions.

Inside, Suzie’s looks like it might once have been a car dealership. Large plate-glass windows provide natural advertising to the foot traffic outside and a colorful view of the gaudily lit neighborhood for the customers within. Most of the interior space is devoted to a dance floor, where a dozen or so Korean beauties in slinky dresses and