On Friday evenings, after the last class, the Gang of Six takes me out to a local bulgolgi joint, where, in low light, we sit around on cushions in a circle, snacking on kimchi and downing prodigious quantities of soju. The Gang is comprised of Seoul National University students, except for Gus Hahn, who is a middle-aged taxi driver, taking lessons to improve his communications with tourists. Our tipsy talks are more free-ranging than in class, where we follow a loose structure mostly centered on talking points. Any topic goes, but reunification always comes up, along with the detested presence of American military bases, global politics, pop culture, and general observations about life. I try to exploit my journalism background to sound out the students. Johnny grows teary as he describes the time he got "wasted" and tried to cross the DMZ to sneak into the North to visit an ancient relative. Just about every student knows someone who knows someone who's "stuck" in the evil North. In a sad pause, Eddie raises a glass and gives a Korean salute to 'all the lost relatives and friends' up there.
After a somber moment, Erica, a Chinese-Korean, whose father works as an attache' at the Chinese embassy, offered up an anecdote that changed the mood. "Sometimes teachers don't last very long here," she said, and the others laughed, as if they knew what was coming. "We had a teacher once who got very drunk on soju and whiskey. We kept saying to him, 'You mustn't mix them. You mustn't mix them.'" They laughed a little louder. "And he suddenly got a strange look on his face, got up and went outside. He began to undress and ran down the middle of Sejongro Boulevard shouting, 'Get me out of here.'" The Gang roared with laughter. "Korea is not for everyone," Erica said.
"What became of him?" I asked, slurring, vaguely connecting their tale to that Dylan song about Texas medicine and railroad gin strangling up the mind until people got uglier and there was a lost sense of time.
"We don't know," said Erica, "I guess he went dicky Tao." She twirled her index finger next to her temple. "We never saw him again."
The Gang looked sober then, even downright morose. We called it a night. I got up from my cushion and the soju hit me. I felt sick, so sick that when we got outside the restaurant I immediately vomited in a nearby alley, right next to a rat bait box. Gus immediately offered to drive me home in his taxi, while Sue insisted on accompanying me to my doorstep. The taxi was dark and from the back looking into the front seat I could see he had built up a Buddhist shrine of sorts, with tassels and ornaments hanging from the rear view mirror and backward swastikas covering the carpeted dashboard, a lit candle and incense, and the entire cab filled with an eerie blue light. He played a CD of what sounded like a Korean version of Hank Williams in full-throated, yodeling despair, but darker and eerier, the accompanying music featuring a hoarse pipe organ that reminded me of a soundtrack out of something from, say, David Lynch's Eraserhead. Sue held my hand the entire trip.
I was too ill to understand the import of Sue holding my hand in the taxi that night, although I should have been able to read it in Gus' eyes in the rear view mirror as he watched us. The fact is, Sue and I shared a mutual attraction; she was my brightest student and she often chatted me up after class. She was a mechanical engineering student; she liked the color blue; she knew of a special "foreign" restaurant; she had a quiet wit and shy smile; she hoped to travel to America someday. Gus kindled the attraction, often referencing the cab ride. The Gang gently ribbed Sue (Beth, however, seemed to whisper admonitions into Sue's ear), and soon she was sitting close by me in our soju sessions, much to my delight. There was more hand-holding, more taxi rides with Gus, who seemed intent on acting as our chaperone, and it wasn't very long before we were practically living together in my apartment.
We were married at the American Embassy. I stood in line with Sue, feeling like a soldier of fortune, behind two Marines, also marrying local women. Sue was garbed in a local traditional wedding dress, while I wore blue jeans and a pullover. Finally, the clerk called us up to the thick bullet-proof glass, papers were passed and sorted, and he ever-so-efficiently brought us through the vows, finishing off his pronouncement with a courtesy smile. It was over in 15 minutes. Sue and I kissed, then she nudged me and muttered, "Cowboy." Gus took us home, "Wedding March" replacing the blue country-eastern yodels.
I've been married to Sue for two years now. Perhaps this is most unfair, as Sue is kind and utterly devoted. But there are days - many of them - when I can hear the clock on the wall ticking and the heat coming up through the ondol system. My most communicative conversational English student is, at home, quiet, even meek. It often feels like an ashram. There is nothing she wants more than me.
It does get loud at times, briefly, such as when my mother-in-law visits and gets into animated to-dos with Sue, their mother tongue syllables sounding out like twanging ancient stringed instruments. Sue recently took a job in an engineering firm, and, although I have cut back my hours at the hagwan, she works long hours and I hardly ever see her. When she is home, after carefully and quietly preparing a meal for me, she spends her time on small chores, reading local newspapers, browsing the internet, and avoiding me (but always pleasantly so). Like Dylan, I hear the ticking of the clock. Literally.
I stare into space a lot. And sometimes I feel like some astronaut watching Earth recede, until it is little more than a dot within the cloud of stars it sleeps in. And then not so much a dot even, but a memory of a dot, an after image that sits in the silence. I think of my father, some 50 years away now, and hold a photo of Laura (dancing, of course), and the silence is redoubled. I wonder: What do I want with this abysmal silence? Why not let it go? Why must it speak? And I wonder if there is any way back, not only through space and time, but through the emotional distance bound up in all the things and people and places we leave behind. All the after images we call our own before they fade.
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