Martoons

Cast of characters

Fred

*

It was almost as if Fred’s and Go’s minds were communicating through the ether.

The Canadian was contemplating ‘the plan’ but suffering from a lack of info.

All he’d been told last night was that someone was supposed to buttonhole him around the beach somewhere and tip him off about what he was supposed to do next.

So, now on his quest for drinks, as he jogged along the beach’s frozen sand to the steel stair case and ascended to the road, his alertness antennae was fully telescoped.

He passed through the taxi parking lot but concluded there weren’t likely any accomplices here – only one guy taking a leak behind his open car door; and a woman from the same car aimlessly walking around the other side, yawning, stretching and using clenched fists to wipe sleep away.   

Fred wasn’t exactly sure where the corner store from last night was located but after a quick scan he spotted it a bit up the road.

Bumper-to-bumper parked cars lined each side of the narrow beach avenue.

Late-coming vehicles were inching along looking for last-minute spots.

Fred nimbly weaved his way between the parked cars and the moving ones, almost like walking a tightrope.

There was no road shoulder – typical for many Korean country roads – just an immediate decline into what were now frozen rice fields.

As such, cars were parked at obtuse angles and practically falling off the road into the adjacent fields.

Fred eyed-up the store but it was still a ways off. Now worried a little about time, he picked up his pace.

He was truly stoked about the impending sunrise – certainly his first New Year’s one in Korea… and very possibly his last.

* Do you think it will be his last? *

He looked ahead again and as the store got closer, the thought struck him: Miss No had said the store was owned by relatives of Go’s best buddy Kang…

The next piece of the puzzle for his beach getaway plan could very well lie in there.

*

Honk        

A car to Fred’s rear blasted its horn.

He didn’t take it personally and ignored it; Koreans are incessant honkers and he figured it was an impatient, late-arriving New Year’s sunriser wanting him – Fred – to get off the road.

He waved the honker’s vehicle by yet the horn kept blasting.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you kimchi-breath,” Fred muttered. “Your horn works just fine.”

More honks.

“What? Okay so you want to get by me. Where do you suggest I walk – along the tops of the parked cars? It’s not my problem you get here at the last minute.”

Honk-honk-honk.

* Who’s honking at Fred and why so much? *

Something inside Fred snapped and he started to turn around intending to gesture the annoying driver.

The car slowed almost to a standstill beside him and its passenger side window came down.

Fred avoided eye contact with the driver and a woman began yelling – yet it wasn’t an angry yell.

“Ha-row! Ha-row!”

* Who is it? *

Fred didn’t look but as the car inched past he noticed that it looked exactly like Go’s.

If it wasn’t for the hollering lady driver and another lady passenger, it could have been Go.

After all, he hadn’t been in the motel this morning and had to be somewhere.

The car moved ahead, the honking died down momentarily and the procession of vehicles slithered along like a giant, exhaust-spewing slug.

Fred was now near the store yet another driver started honking at him.

What is this – honk at the waygook day? Fred grumbled and again got a stiff index finger on the ready, but the honking became a familiar, friendly pattern.

Toot-toot-toot-toot-toot … toot-toot.

“Hey waygook – maybe you will be hit by car!” Then, in a choppy and phony Korean accent, “Belly (very) dangerous!” followed by raucous laughter.

Fred was elated. “Thomas! What the hell are you doing here?”

*

Tomorrow: Thomas and Fred discuss plans.