certainly wasn’t bashful. But what bothered me was the lack of consideration Ernie and Brandy showed me.
The yoguan was a wooden-floored, traditional place, with sliding oil-papered doors and warm ondol floors. Small rooms featured cotton-filled mats to roll out on the floor as mattresses and thick silk-covered comforters instead of blankets. Immaculately clean and quite comfortable. But after the three of us settled in and ordered Chinese chop from a restaurant in the neighborhood, Brandy and Ernie immediately started playing grab-ass. It was as if they’d been denied one another for so long-about three hours-that they could no longer restrain the heat of their mutual passion.
Luckily, the food arrived before they’d ripped one another’s clothes off and since we were all famished, we ate heartily. But then, once Brandy set the tray and the bowls and the chopsticks out in the hall, instead of becoming sleepy and catching some shut-eye before our eleven o’clock rendezvous, Brandy and Ernie started necking. They didn’t even bother to turn the light off. Of course, I could’ve sat there and watched. Neither one of them would’ve minded. Brandy was proud of her voluptuous body and her smooth golden flesh. I couldn’t blame her for that, but I didn’t feel comfortable in the presence of all that heavy breathing.
I slid open the door and stepped into the hallway. Neither one of them acknowledged my good-bye.
When I reached the front landing, a soft rain had started to fall. In Korea there are many names for rain, probably because rain is important to Koreans. Without rain, rice doesn’t grow and without rice, people starve. Some of the names for rain actually sound like rain. For example, bosulbi means a light drizzle. Busulbi, with a soft bu as the first syllable, means a slightly lighter drizzle. But the name I always remember, the one that seems most poetic to me, is danbi. Sweet rain. The ajjima who owned the yoguan loaned me an umbrella.
I staggered into the narrow flagstone lane. Not from drunkenness but from exhaustion. Last night, I’d spent the evening in a Korean National Police interrogation room. Not the best place to sleep. Now, I had to stay up until eleven to meet someone who might or might not have useful information. A light shined from within a noodle shop. The glass windows were painted over with red lettering advertising neingmyon, cold noodles, and solnong-tang, beef soup. The small panes were heavily fogged and squeals of laughter erupted from the crowd inside. I thought of entering. It would be a cozy place to sit, indoors, out of the rain. But I knew that as soon as I slid back the wooden door and ducked inside, every pair of eyes in the joint would be on me. And then, after the few seconds of shock at seeing a GI in a place where he doesn’t belong, the crowd would turn back to their own business, studiously ignoring me. I wouldn’t be able to find a seat. I’d stand there awkwardly until finally the female owner would acknowledge me and maybe ask someone to share a table with me. And then things would start to relax. I’d order food, maybe a glass of soju, and eventually someone would speak to me in English. But the awkward period from first walking in the door until first making friends was too much to endure.
I walked past the noodle shop, through the sweet rain, through the cold night air of the city of Tongduchon.
When I was a youngster, East L. A had been a wonderland to me. Full of vitality, I rode my first bike through town, running errands for the foster family I was currently living with. Picking up milk at an Anglo market-and speaking English. Buying pan dulce, sweet bread, at a tortilleria-and speaking Spanish. Sometimes I was tasked with stopping at the local Japanese market to buy fruit or vegetables, although the owner spoke to me in gruff English, never Japanese. I enjoyed running errands. I enjoyed the freedom of speeding around town on my bicycle. And mostly I enjoyed evading, for at least a while, the hard stares of the foster father who seemed constantly surprised that I wanted to eat meals at the same time as his natural kids.
I was an errand boy par excellence. That is until the cholos caught me. It was bad enough that they stole my bike-and the few dollars in my pocket my foster mother had provided for shopping-but then they stole, or attempted to steal, what they really wanted. My dignity.
They shoved me to the ground and spit on me. And when I tried to rise, one of them kicked me and then another joined in. I lay still. They laughed. When they started to argue about how to divide the money they had stolen, I leaped up and punched the leader in the left kidney.
It was a good punch. Even then-at the tender age of ten-I was strong. His right knee buckled and the other punks laughed and this enraged him. Although I fought back for the first few seconds, he was five or six years older than me and in the end he pulverized me good. When he was through, he kneeled over me to see if I was breathing; I was. He punched me one more time, on the side of the head, hard, and then rose to his feet, dusting off his loose khaki trousers, turned and strutted away. He could’ve killed me but he didn’t.
Kids were decent back then.
The Tongduchon City Market, partially lit by overhead fluorescent bulbs, was deserted. Wooden stands stood empty, some of them folded and laying on the ground. Canvas roofing vibrated from the steady susurration of sweet rain. The air smelled of green onions and fish, overlaid with a hint of rust. I wandered through the stalls, meandering, heading for a blue light that glowed at the far end.
Brandy’s note said that whoever wanted to talk to us would meet us here at eleven this evening. I had come early because I had nowhere else to go. Besides, I wanted to survey the meeting place. Make sure it was safe. Make sure there were no boulders waiting to fall on us or trapdoors ready to open and swallow us whole.
Within the blue glow, shadows shuffled. When I stepped closer, I could see that the blue and now greenish glow came from enormous tanks of live fish. Various-sized creatures wriggled and squirmed through the murky blue waters. More tanks were propped on tables, arranged at odd angles. Was this fish heaven? It looked more like fish hell to me.
The shadows I’d seen in front of the tanks were a Korean woman and her three children. I greeted the woman. “Anyonghaseiyo,” I said.
She stared at me, wide-eyed. I explained that I was here sheltering from the rain and that later I would meet a friend. Korea is a trusting society. She nodded and proceeded to fuss with her children.
The toddler waddled toward me, holding a red rubber ball that was almost as big as his head. He smiled and let go of the ball, thinking he was throwing it to me. Instead, the ball fell to the ground, bounced once, and rolled listlessly in my direction. I stooped, picked up the ball, and bounced it gently back to him. The toddler squealed with glee and chased the ball, which had somehow managed to slip past him.
The little family’s living quarters consisted of sleeping cots and a small hot plate that held a brass bowl of steaming rice. They lived here. For economic reasons, undoubtedly. Probably also to protect their fish. Where was her husband? I asked. She told me. He was a fisherman and once she had sold their share of the fish, she would return to her village on the shores of the Yellow Sea. Why come all this way? To avoid the middlemen. To pull down a larger share of the profit.
I would’ve liked to have asked her more questions, to pry into her personal affairs. Because I’m curious about things. And I’m especially curious about people who are different. Ernie tells me I’m nuts. Still, I would’ve liked to have talked to this woman, to find out more about her life. But there was no excuse. I wasn’t a reporter and she wasn’t under criminal investigation, so I continued my stroll through the market.
After a few yards, I reached the noodle stands, the same spot where Ernie and I’d eaten lunch just the day before yesterday. The stands were deserted now. No loose pots and pans sitting on the stoves, all bowls and chopsticks and bottles of soy sauce and vinegar locked up in wooden cabinets. Not so much as a napkin left unguarded.
Toward the back of the dining area, shadows ruled. The only illumination to reach this area came from the blue glow of the fish tanks. I found an unvarnished wooden table with folding legs, unlatched the legs, folded them, and lay the table flat on the ground. No sense returning to the yoguan. Who knew how long Brandy and Ernie would be at it. Ernie knew we had to rendezvous here at the Tongduchon City Market at eleven p.m. He’d show up. Probably, so would Brandy.
I lay atop the table. The surface was splintered and unyielding, yet it felt wonderfully comfortable. Better even than the cement floor of a KNP interrogation room. With the soft blue glow of fish heaven in my face, I closed my eyes and, almost instantly, I was asleep.
The first thing I heard was a scream. A woman’s scream.
And after the scream, a crash. Then the even higher pitched shrieks of children. Terrified children. And water. Water crashing like a wave. In less than a second, I was on my feet, reaching for the. 45 in my shoulder holster.
Gunshots rang out. My military training took over and I leaped to the ground. Face first. When I looked up I realized that the blue glow of fish heaven was much weaker than I remembered. Across the vast cement floor, a sea of liquid spread toward me, an expanding tsunami less than two inches high. By a trick of light the liquid
