Martoons

Cast of characters

Fred

Coffee Lady

*

“Coffee Lady – anyong!”

She was already furiously wiping down the main counter. Her eyes shot up to get a quick snapshot of Fred but again she said nothing.

If she recognized him from the pool hall, she didn’t indicate it.

An agonizing few seconds of silence went by (for Fred) then Coffee Lady said out of the blue, “You Thomas’ friend?”

Turns out, within the confines of her own café, she was more loquacious than over at Max’s.

Fred was taken aback, and surprised that she’d broken her silence.

“Yeah, Thomas and I are from the same city in Canada. Anyway, maybe you know that he’s disappeared and that I’m trying to track him down.”

She waved him off. “He’s not in Chinju now. He go another city.”

Fred asked for details and she temporarily stopped chores. “Before he come here every day – some days many times. I very happy.

“Then, suddenly, several weeks ago he stop coming. I got bad feeling and visit his workplace – Central Institute.”

“I look for him there but one lady – maybe the owner – only tell me ‘Thomas no here.”

I ask, ‘Where Thomas go?’ and she ignore me. Me get very angry.”

She resumed wiping her counter with tornado-like swirls. Some other customers walked in and stole Cleaning Lady’s attention away.

Fred quickly took leave and headed out.

At the bottom of the stairs he turned in the direction of home. He could already see the glow of light up ahead, dimly struggling to make an impact on the darkening skyline.

The evening sky was quickly surrendering to a dead night blackness and the gentle breeze of earlier had been nudged aside by a dull, stale, gaudy mugginess.

It was already after 9 p.m.

Coffee Shop Max vanished into the distance behind Fred. A taxi hovered slowly nearby but Fred ignored it so it sped off.

Overall traffic had died right down on the street – after all, it was Sunday night – and with no busses around Fred was content to walk home.

Returning to the apartment at night on foot was enjoyable and relaxing.

There generally weren’t many revelers out and about (Koreans seemed to go everywhere in taxis) so the streets were empty and quiet.

The setting reminded him of the many late-night walks he took back home.

He was thinking about Coffee Lady and his residual feeling was one of tremendous respect for her and her creed.

From what little he’d seen, her duties included being the brunt of all kinds of insulting, invasive and prying questions from red neckish customers.

And that wasn’t the worst of it: All those stray hands and playful little slaps undoubtedly often turned into unsolicited feels and rubs.

And that likely went on in the smoky offices upstairs of all the dozens of pool halls and small companies in this backwater little city, where these coffee females did the bulk of their business.

Furthermore, surely serving the small cups of coffee at the outrageous price of 4 bucks a pop was just to ‘grease the wheels’.

Fred passed by the little alley that he usually turned down to go home, but Chinju Rotary glimmered in the distance and he was drawn that way.

*

Tomorrow: Fred tries to provide helpful foreigner insight.