Simple America

I slept well that night. A very deep slumber, so deep I did not hear Jin go to the toilet. The only reason I knew she had awakened was her body now lay atop the covers. Quietly, I exited the sheets and went to do my morning toilet. I dressed using the light from the loo. This allowed me a view of Jin’s lovely bare back. My desire beckoned for me to take her, but I felt certain she would be hung over so I left her to her rest. Let her recover since there was a whole weekend for making love. That was my hope that my care would be rewarded with a little kindness from her. The time to leave came too quickly and I walked to the door. I took her in with my eyes one more time. A complete survey of her smooth back, nice sloping butt leading to thin legs crossed in sleep. A memory to carry me through my Friday.

 

I spent all of that Friday working, splicing and soldering cables to main frames, but her nakedness never left my mind’s eye. I kept wondering what meeting her parents would be like. My hope was that her elders would accept me and she would lose some of her abrasiveness. If I was accepted by her folks I would offer to pay her debts, freeing her from the New York Club and then we could go jewelry shopping. So many plans were bouncing around my infatuated head.

 

Got back to the hotel that evening and Jin was gone. I expected as much. She would have to work since it was Friday. I went up to JB’s room and Choon taught us men folk how to play cards. Hanafuda cards were very colorful, though smaller than western poker cards. I would describe them as a third of the size. In English hanafuda translates into flower cards. The name hanafuda is Japanese in origin though the cards are played more in Korea. But that is not surprising. Korea still had a lot of Japanese things permeating its society, even though it had been 30 years since they were liberated from the Japanese occupation. The most common thing was bits of Japanese language that dotted Korean conversation. I think that made it a lot more difficult for me to separate things culturally. It made me place all I learned in one big Asian cultural pot, rather than a Korean pot, a Japanese pot, and a Chinese pot. Fortunately, it was a small obstacle that I would eventually overcome. But it made it hard to understand my Asian friends later in College when they did not fit my cookie cutter model.

 

When the hour closed on midnight I left the cards to JB and Choon and went back to my room. I read for a while. I think by now I read James Clavel’s King Rat which talked about Changsi Prison in Singapore during World War II. One o’clock arrived and no Jin. Where could she be? Curfew had passed. I went to bed but sleep proved hard to find. Every hour I awoke and looked at the clock. The sun arrived but Jin did not. I looked at the ceiling trying to figure out what to do with my day. Time rolled and I phased in and out until I rolled out of bed after 10. A thousand scenarios passed through my head. Jin getting hit by a cab, raped by some drunken GI, sick in a hospital and me without the means to find her. There was only one lead I had and that was the New York Club. I would go see if Miss Kim could help me locate my Jin.

 

I dressed quickly bundling up for the cold outside. You could barely see Itaewon outside my window as a thick fog covered the city. Buildings peeked like ghosts and faded back into the white soup. The streets were spookily empty as I walked besides the shops. Looking through windows at blankets, suits and tennis shoes, but not really registering the contents I surveyed. My head remained full of my last image of Jin. The perfection of her body, her frailty, the innocent appearance of her tiny frame remained crisp and clear. My mind constantly pursued its worship of her breathing on my bed.

 

These thought engrossed me totally causing me to ignore a trio of Adashis. As I passed them, one grabbed my hand and before I could stop him, he had slipped a ring on my finger. I looked at them aghast. Why in the hell had they put a ring on me? It looked gold with a black stone set in it. It was butt ugly. Not something I would wear in a million years.

 

“Twenty dollah,” Adashi demanded.

 

I just laughed. Reason being I needed to cash some travelers checks. I had left the hotel with not even a nickel in my pocket.

 

“Upso dollah, Adashi,” I replied half laughing and half pissed for being delayed.

 

Then I tried to pull off the ring and it would not slide off. I tugged once, twice to no avail. My hands had swelled from the cold weather. Adashi realized that he would not get any money from me and he took a turn at trying to remove the ring. It was stuck on there thanks to my swollen knuckle. Then the three adashis hawked back and forth in Korean.

 

“Yo, dudes. I got things to do.”

 

That got the trio more agitated. There was a noodle house near us and I went inside asked them for some water. After wetting my hand and working the ring and wetting it some more I managed to remove the ring. I returned the ring to adashi who gave me the ugliest damn look. In my current mood I had no problem glaring back. My expression must have been pretty intense, because the other two adashis hawked and spat while dragging him down the street.

 

Happy to be free of that distraction I stuck my hands securely into my pockets and walked towards the New York Club. I made it without further interruptions. The only occupants of the bar were Bob the bartender and the elder Miss Kim. Those two exchanged a worried glance. Kim pointed at the beers and Bob set me up.

 

“I don’t have money Miss Kim,” I said. Besides being penniless at the moment, I was a firm believer in not drinking without food in my stomach and I had not eaten a bite all morning. Bob popped the top on the brewski anyway.

 

“Sit please,” Kim asked me as she parked herself. There was a firmness in Kim’s voice that would not be disobeyed, not that I could ever tell a woman no anyway back in those days. So I sat.

 

Kim looked at me. She had eyes like a hawk and she always analyzed people. I had noticed that about her. Despite the look I did not feel nervous or concerned.

 

“Jin has gone away.”

 

I looked at Kim. Then I turned to look at Bob the bartender and he did everything he could but leave the room to avoid making eye contact with me.

 

“What do you mean Jin has gone away? I’m going to meet her parents. Has she gone to get her mom and dad?

 

“Jerry,” she said looking me straight in the eyes.

 

The pause that followed could be counted over the span of my rapid heart beats. How could she go away before I met her parents?

 

“Jerry, Jin is an orphan.”

 

I stood up and knocked the stool into the bar. My mouth opened and it fell trying to find a bottom that never came. I looked at Bob but he busied himself with something under the bar and away from my gaze. Kim slid off her stool and caught my arm. I looked at her while in my mind’s eye I still saw Jin’s frail body laying on my bed.

 

A thousand different thoughts coursed through my head. Every nerve screamed aloud and I quivered from head to toe as I sought to compile this information. I looked at the beer, grabbed it and chugged the bottle dry. Rules did not matter anymore. I patted Kim’s hand and looked in her eyes. She let me go and I slammed the bottle on the bar. It sounded loud, but this is a moment, a profound time where every sense works at peak efficiency. It is the culmination of the understanding that you have been a complete idiot and made a complete ass of yourself and now you must pay the piper. So the body cooperated by making the pain more evident. I tried to smile at Kim, failing miserably.

 

Without a word, not that I could utter a coherent thought, I left the club. And then I did what I seem to do best. I walked the streets creating a distance from my problems. That is the only relief an infantryman ever gets is walking. And I walked a circle around Itaewon over and over, attempting to find Jin and escape me. Marching oblivious to the shops, other GIs stepped aside, and even the whores saved their invitations for others not so frightening. I’m not certain how many times I walked the ville. Winter days turned dark early in Seoul and I wandered dispassionately in front of the shops when the dusk arrived that day. My feet dragged and I stopped. Looking about I realized I stood across the street from the Hamilton Hotel.

 

I lit a cigarette and held the smoke in savoring the taste. What was I going to do about Jin? I looked around me at the buildings and then the mountains beyond Itaewon and thought of the vastness of Seoul The futility hit me then and I just laughed. It was loud and free. People on the street walked half circles around me. I babbled for a good bit but it felt good to say whatever the hell I said. It beat fucking crying and feeling pity for my dumbass. Tears would be permitted later. When I lay on that bed embracing the empty space where Jin lay the last I had seen her.

 

Looking up and down the streets, I recovered my composure. My body no longer shook and now I felt ready to live for a bit more. “What a waste of a Saturday,” I said aloud. From here I could see the leather shop where they tailored my motorcycle jacket. Adashi said it should be done by now. And with that thought I moved on to the leather shop.