Martoons

Today: Things get violent and nasty

Cast of characters

Wide Eyes

Coffee Lady

Random Drunk Man

*

“It ain’t fair,” he blathered. “A wide-eyed way-gook parachuted into this good neighborhood, this family neighborhood, of Koreans for Koreans.”

He held his bottle up like a flag.

“Korean independence forever!” he railed. “Waygook go home! Ayeesh!”

Coffee Lady rolled her eyes and fired up the scooter to drown out the drooling drunk.

“Hey you, strange man!” The drunk shouted over the small motor trying to turn over.

“You … America?”

Wide Eyes waved him off. “I’m from wherever you want me to

be from buddy. Have yourself a good night, sweet dreams and you can go now.

Anyway, Coffee Baby…”

“America man take beautiful Korea lady back to America? Not fair!”

* Wide Eyes’ ‘sharp’ encounter with a Korean racist *

He suddenly bashed the base of his bottle against the wall of Coffee Lady’s building, breaking away that base and causing 750ml of perfectly good soju to splash against that very same wall, with a small residual puddle forming below.

What remained of the bottle was now a circular, jagged instrument of violence in the firm grip of an enraged, racist individual.

“Oh my God!” Coffee Lady gasped.

Wide Eyes took mild notice of the unfolding melodrama and snickered, commenting to the guy, “Calm down dickfuck.”

He just couldn’t take the drunk seriously but Coffee Lady did.

She’d just fired up the scooter and quickly torqued the hand throttle, accelerating the metre or two right into the drunk, knocking him over.

His weapon flew out of his hand and shattered into uselessness.

He just lay there blathering on.

“Independent Korea forever!” he slobbered.

* Is the Korean Coffee Lady too passive? *

Coffee Lady’s tray flew off her scooter during the collision and inverted.

Upset at her loss, she quickly disembarked the bike, engaged its kickstand, and scampered over to her flipped-over tray.

She picked the whole thing up and heaved it at the frothing alcoholic laying horizontal on the sidewalk.

The coffee pot on the tray, even though tightly under wraps of the tied-up terry cloth, disseminated its boiling hot contents on the drunk, scalding his legs and mid-section.

He screamed in agony, quickly got up and ran away.

“Ayeesh! She-bal!” (Bitch!)he yelled repeatedly. “You burn me! You burn me!”

Wide Eyes helped Coffee Lady retrieve her inventory and pulled from his wallet and counted off another small stack of bills to pay for the loss.

“It’s my fault,” he said apologetically. “I shouldn’t even have been out here hassling you. Sometimes I don’t know when I’ve overstayed my welcome. Sorry.”

She waved him off and this time didn’t try to hand back the money, just wanting to rid herself of the annoying, wide-eyed foreign patron.

Wide Eyes bid her farewell and walked down the street, the opposite direction from where the drunk had departed.

* Something good comes out of the soju bottle glass smash – but for whom? *

Wide Eyes snapped out of his flashback from last night.

He bent over, picked up the broken glass lying just outside the phone booth, and deposited it delicately in a nearby trash bin.

My good deed for the day.

As he walked on, keeping his eyes open for a cab, he just shook his head. “What the hell am I doing in this country?” he asked himself.

He wasn’t sure, but was sure of one thing: The sooner Donna got here and handed over his airfare back, the better.

That drunk, as out of it as he was, was an angel of sorts – sent by the Gods to tell me I don’t belong here.

I absolutely have to get out of this God-forsaken country.

And that means tightening the screws on Go to get rid of the Golden God.

*

Tomorrow: Master Lee gives Fred an idea.