Martoons

Cast of characters

Dame

Rose

“Mr Hero” (Fred)

*

“You’re going back to school tonight, honey,” Dame said to Rose.

“We’ll go get some rice but for the next few minutes, you’re a student of Dame’s School of Hard Knocks.”

“I’m going to teach you self-defence in 30 seconds. Okay? So from here on in, you’re acting. If I push you, you shove back. If I slap you, you punch back. Got it?”

“Neh (yes),” she replied obediently, now hiding her own inner excitement. This was striking a chord with her somehow.

“Ready? Action!” Dame locked his hand around her bicep and gave her a good yank out the door (which he was holding open with his other arm).

“Get outside you wench!”

She almost stumbled. Yet this was where the whole thing went haywire.

* This must be when Fred intervened… *

From there on in, Dame could only recall scattered images of the next few moments of that night:

-Himself pulling a kick and punch on Rose and then suddenly being thrown off;

-Himself looking up and seeing the sweaty, fit-looking waygook guy hovering over him with law-enforcement eyes.

“Who the hell are you?” Dame asked, picking himself up and stepping forward to take a closer look.

It was the Canadian he’d met before on the outskirts of Chinju but couldn’t presently recall his name.

Dame lunged at him but Mr Hero stuck his foot out. Dame tripped and rolled around on the pavement.

Instantly realizing he was clearly outclassed, Dame’s flight instinct kicked-in. Yet where had Rose gone? Mr Hero had scared her off.

Dame was panicky – didn’t want to lose his date – yet Hero was now holding him down.

And the maddening thing was this whole thing was based on a misunderstanding!

Hero had taken the whole thing out of context, jumping in without having a clue what was going on.

“Don’t you know Sir,” Hero said, “that you are not supposed to beat women? It is considered very cowardly and unmanly.

”Perhaps you are not a man. Perhaps you are…”

It was his lecturing, nagging motherly tone that irked Damion the most. But the next moment made the whole thing worthwhile:

Suddenly Rose appeared out of nowhere and started whaling … on the Hero!

The two exchanged words and that gave Dame the few seconds he needed to get up and reassess the situation.

“That’s my girl!” He turned to Hero.

“Even though it’s none of your business, you might want to know that my meeting with this young lady is on my dime so if you’ll excuse us . . .”

He stepped past Hero and resumed his rampage on Rose, tearing her bag out of her hand and throwing it on the sidewalk.

Then he pushed her down to the pavement where she collapsed into a pile of discarded boxes for the trash collector.

Then he laughed uproariously.

And so did she.

Yet Hero still didn’t get it! He jumped in and restrained Dame.

But then another surprise from Rose: She emerged from the boxes and got up, straightened herself out and commandingly stepped between Dame and Hero.

She stiffly put her arm in Dame’s arm to indicate they were an item.

“He’s with me” she said and motioned with her free arm for Hero to screw off.

And that was the end of it, yet the damage was done. Hero had made Damion Lee look like a complete idiot in front of his new female companion.

She’d basically saved his ass. He’d been humiliated – and that’s huge in Korea.

And when Dame found out moments later who Hero was – Rose of course recognized Fred – Dame decided he’d make his compatriot pay for this outrage.

* So is Dame pressing charges because he felt humiliated? *

*

Tomorrow: Dame and Fred finally have their meeting.