Martoons

Cast of characters

Dame

*

The cabby cruised along as slow as traffic would allow, and Dame filmed street after street of shops, people, traffic, buildings.

He saw a theme here that he hadn’t seen in the rest of his brief travels in the country, and especially Chinju: Poverty.

“This place looks like Korea 50 years ago,” he narrated.

“Yet this isn’t the hopeless, children-with-distended-stomachs type of poverty you see in third world countries –”

“there, young men in the prime of their life walk around with desperate, shattered eyes, listlessly pushing carts.”

“Here – there is a sense of hope, of patience and optimism that this town’s time will come.”  

Dame’s comments were prescient:

That coming-of-age for Kwangju was still off in the future, about ten years hence, but he of course would be long gone by then.

“Cut,” he announced and shut down the camera. It was time to get the hell out of this butt-fuck town and get back to the old homestead.

He was craving for a shot of soju and Chinju nightlife.

And maybe before that, a good strong coffee from a certain little estranged someone.

* Does Dame mean Coffee Lady? *

*

Exit Kwangju          

“Back to Chinju!” Dame declared. “Bus terminal please.”  

The taxi efficiently inserted itself into the middle of busy but steadily moving traffic, and within minutes they arrived.

Dame included a fat tip along with his fare.

“Your city is good,” Dame said to the cabby with a thumbs-up. “I wish you the best of luck.”

“The roulette wheel of history will continue turning and the lucky ball will land on your city eventually. I can sense it.”

“Thank you, Sir, thank you for your kind thoughts.”

The cabby graciously grabbed the gratuity, nodded, and sped off into traffic.

As Dame boarded his bus moments later, it felt like journeying through a different Korea this time.

The sense that he was an ‘outsider’ – which he’d felt since arriving here – was dissolving.

* Will Dame stay in Korea now that he feels less like an outsider? *

He wondered again if this fresh, exciting ‘inside’ feeling would be with him when he got back to Chinju.

The bus slithered into traffic and he dozed off.

[…] Just after dark, the more-full-than-empty long-distance bus began barreling down recognizable Chinju streets.

Dame somehow, suddenly woke himself up and darted to the front.

“Bus driver, please let me off here. Me go out – here!”

The alert, quick-to-respond driver pulled over right away and slammed on the brakes, almost sending Dame face-first into the front windshield.

Suppressing a cuss, he collected himself, turned on a huge ear-to-ear fake smile for the driver, and stepped down on the curb.

“Thank you driver for the lovely ride. Customer service – very good!”

The driver said nothing, sealed the door closed and the bus coughed-off in a cloud of exhaust.

When that cleared, Dame looked up and realized he was right outside Coffee Lady’s café.

* Will he go in and visit her? *

Pleasantly, even after a fairly deep nap of several hours on the bus, the new sense of purpose and positiveness that Dame felt back in Kwangju lingered.

He stood still on the spot and took a deep breath, looking around at the street light-lit sidewalk.

Had somebody swept the streets of the millions of cigarette butts?

A handful of noisy ‘salary men’ types shuffled past shouting, laughing, and commenting on the waygook standing nearby.

Had they all been to the barber and had their dull, grey chequed jackets dry-cleaned?They seemed to shine.

Even the dilapidated, urine-smelling street-level building entrance to Coffee Lady’s café radiated a fresh, perfumed hue.

Dame felt a deep, sincere appreciation for having a comfortable hang-out in this chaotic, flashing neon circus called downtown Chinju.

As he tromped up the stairs to the café, he flashed-back to how the unsinkable and inimitable Coffee Lady had so decisively and unequivocally dumped him for Thomas only days ago.

He’d swallowed that bitter pill and no longer bore any grudge. The whole thing seemed like ancient history now.

* Really? *

In an act of unfathomed kindheartedness, he thought of Thomas and wondered how the Golden God was making out in his relationship with Coffee Lady.

Oh, how I miss that son of a bitch!

Well, actually not.

In fact, can’t say I miss that bastard one bit.

*

Tomorrow: Dame misses Coffee Lady.