The drop, p.32
The Drop, page 32
Freddie smiled again, a natural smile, like the ones I used to see before I put my big old foot in my mouth. "We're still talking about our pasts, right."
"Don't be crass, Freddie."
"Alright. It's a deal."
I stuffed another bit of waffle into my mouth. The maple syrup and the butter exploded on my tongue, and I wished that I could order a never-ending stack of waffles rather than actually open up about my feelings, my loss. They weren't special, no more than anyone else's, so I didn't see why I should share them. But a deal is a deal, and I like Freddie. I thought, if I knew him better, we could make a pretty damn good team. So, telling myself it was all for the story, I opened my own floodgates and let the river of information flow.
It came, like a Biblical flood, pouring out of my mouth without me even being able to pause and think about which bits of information I wanted to hold back, and there were bits of information I did want to hold back. But I told Freddie everything, about school, about Professor Martinez, about Carla, about the downfall of America... about Dad. I did it as quick as I could, hoping that the pain would be like ripping off a Band-Aid, but it wasn't. The pain was more like a death by a thousand cuts, each memory, each bit of hoarded agony, building upon the pain of the previous memory, until it tottered, threatening to plunge me into the black embrace of sorrow. My tower of pain teetered for a while, and then I looked down and noticed that tears had splashed upon the forgotten remains of my waffle.
I put my hands to my face, and wiped away tears that I hadn't even known were there. I blew my nose on a cheap, brown napkin. When I was done, I looked at Freddie, and I could see the tears in his own eyes. He had a big heart, this man. He felt things, despite that tough exterior, despite being able to crush me with his hands, my story had hurt him, and I felt closer to him because of it.
I excused myself and went to the restroom of Roscoe's, cleaned myself up, looked at my tired face in the mirror, and when the tears stopped flowing, and my nose stopped running, I returned to the table, to find Freddie ordering his own beer. Somewhere in my long, convoluted story, I had polished off the two beers I had ordered previously.
I ignored the concerned looks of the other patrons as I took my seat. Pre-Drop, people would have asked if I was alright, if I needed help. Post-Drop, complete emotional breakdowns had become so commonplace that most people had stopped asking each other if they were ok. Because, no, we weren't ok. None of us. Everywhere the survivors of The Drop went, they were reminded of their lost loved ones. Anything could do it. I still got a little choked up every time I saw someone writing with a pencil on a notepad. Anything, to any number of people, could set the memories off, and along with the memories came the sadness. That's what happened when people died. You carried them with you, the little sayings, the habits, the things that made them unique, and when you saw or heard those things again, it's like they were right there with you, their memory cutting open your scarred heart, nostalgia pouring out of the wound, and suddenly the sadness is flowing through you again, and it happens this way, every damn time. People say it takes time to heal from the death of loved ones, but the truth is you don't. They're always there... they're always there, waiting to spring out at you at a moment's notice. And we love it, we fucking love that feeling because even though we get sad as fuck, truly torturously sad, for a brief moment, they're alive again, and though their life is brief and filled with the pain of our sadness, that brief life is better than nothing at all. I'm glad I'll never get over my father's death because that means he'll always be with me.
Freddie was silent, until the beers came. He took a long look at it, and then upended the whole thing. I waited for him to begin, but he couldn't seem to do it.
"It's ok," I said. "It feels good to let it out."
He looked at me like I was crazy. "You didn't look good while you were letting it out."
"I didn't say letting it out made you look good. I said it made you feel good." I called the waitress over and asked for another round of beers. I needed it, and Freddie looked like he needed it as well. When the waitress was gone, I said, "Two beers, it takes at least two beers to tell a story like you have."
He laughed then, his wide, flat face turning into something completely different. His voice filled Roscoe's and the other patrons turned to look at the giant Korean man who was laughing so hard that tears came to his eyes. His face turned red, and the laughter was like a time machine for his face. Somehow, with his eyes squeezed shut and his face a berry red, he lost twenty years, and I could see the boy that Freddie had been. I loved it. I loved every second of that face.
His laughter finally faded to the soft wheezing chuckle of someone who knew they were coming to a point of no return. I knew that once he opened his own floodgates, it would all come out. It would spill all over the table, and it would stay there, like maple syrup, sticky for weeks even though you swore you had cleaned it all up.
When Margo the waitress returned with two beers, she set our bill on the table. It was a subtle gesture, one meant to let us know that we were welcome to finish our beers, but after that, we were expected to leave. I understood. Our raw emotionality and Freddie's huge laughter had left the other patrons feeling a bit uneasy. Erratic behavior is never welcome in a late-night eatery.
I held up my beer to him and gave him a wink. He held his up to me, and we drank. When he had finished his second beer, he told me his story, and he didn't stop until it was over.
Chapter 12: Freddie's Story
I used to be a hired security guard. I was the muscle for several of Samicom's executives. When they went out to party, I would tag along, make sure no trouble found them. When they went overseas, I went with them. Of course, in order to do that, I had to learn English, which they paid for. The work was easy, and I look big. No one fucks with me.
If they do fuck with me, they find five years of South Korean military service, ten years of taekwondo, and twenty-two years of hapkido waiting for them.
Guarding people in South Korea was easy. Most people left executives alone, and their money always afforded a private space for their activities, which mostly included drinking heavily and visiting local bordellos and strip clubs. Easy gigs. Korean people are nice; they tend to not bother you unless you bother them.
Overseas was a different story. People see Asian guys in limos, they think there's money to be made. People in other countries are crazy. They carry guns, knives, they have no care for their lives or the lives of others. All they want is money, and they're willing to get it any way they can. My bosses were not good people, but they weren't bad either. They would rob you in the board room, but not on the street, and they paid well and treated me well.
My job took me from my daughter for long periods of time, weeks sometimes, sometimes longer. When I was home, I would study English. I was not a good student. Learning for me was hard. It took me five years to learn English, and I never really managed to read it very well, but I did manage to speak it.
I did it all for In-sook. She was my world. She was eight when The Drop happened. Her mother, Jeong-ja, was still around. We did not get along well in person, and I know that if I had any other job, we would have divorced a long time before In-sook reached her eighth birthday. But, we had an ok life. I would go away, Jeong-ja and I would get a break from each other, and we'd be able to tolerate each other for a little while when I came back.
My family was always taken care of, and In-sook was happy every time I came home. Sometimes I think I kept working security for those executives just so when I came home, In-sook could run up to me and wrap her arms around me in a big bear hug.
I understood her. She was a simple, pleasant child. She took after her mother in the looks department, which was good, though I knew she was going to be tall, taller than all of the other girls. She loved me, and I loved her.
Every day I came back from being away, she would tell me the story of the time I had missed with her. She would write these stories in notebooks, so that I wouldn't miss a thing. She had such neat handwriting. I was proud of her. She was smart in a way that I never was, and I knew there were great things in her future.
Life went on this way. My wife and I had an easy truce. In-sook held us together. Without her, my marriage would have fallen apart. We were young when we met. She was a waitress at an establishment in town. My bosses always ate there. It was a fancy place with lots of good-looking waitresses. They would get groped, but they were compensated monetarily for our bosses' grabby hands.
I would always see Jeong-ja there. She was beautiful, her hair long and flowing, tied into a ponytail, her black dress always impeccable, and her smile, which she gave freely, always stayed on her face even when the bosses got grabby. I thought to myself, "Why is she here? Why is this goddess working in a restaurant and letting these gross old men grope her?"
One day, I got up the courage to ask her out. She said yes. We went out, got drinks, slept with each other. It was quick, and we liked each other very strongly for a very short period of time. I started to see a future there, and I guess she saw a way out. I don't know where we would have gone, or what would have happened if In-sook hadn't come along.
We hadn't planned on her, but when she was born, we decided to stay together. Jeong-ja quit the restaurant to raise the child, and that's when she started to turn sour. She was a dreamer, Jeong-ja. She wanted the finer things in life. She wanted to see the world. I think she hated that I got to go all of these places and see all of these cities. She shouldn't have been jealous though. Whenever we went somewhere, it was work for me. I didn't have fun on the trips with my bosses. I was too worried about covering doors, communicating with the other security guards, and keeping my eyes peeled. Only when I got the bosses to their hotel rooms was I ever able to relax, and by then, I would be too exhausted to go out and enjoy the world around me. Jeong-ja thought I saw the world and kept it to myself. But all I ever really saw of the world was the inside of hotel rooms, and those were all the same, everywhere I went.
When I came home, Jeong-ja would be happy for a day or two. We would go out and do things as a family. I think if she had kept working, she would have been happier, but she insisted on being there to raise In-sook, and I agreed with her. My parents worked every day of their lives, sometimes late into the night. When they came home, they were tired. I didn't have a great childhood. I was always staying with my grandmother; she raised me more than my parents did. That's how much they were working.
When my parents did take me out, those were the greatest days of my childhood... even if it was just walking down to the beach or eating at a restaurant. I wanted In-sook to have that every day, so though me and Jeong-ja were not a match, we held it together.
One day, I'm in Bucharest with my boss, and I receive a phone call from Jeong-ja. She told me that there was something wrong with In-sook. Jeong-ja is crying. She's begging me to come home. And I knew that this was something worse than a typical illness or a phase. Jeong-ja had pride, more pride than she knew what to do with sometimes. For her to beg me to come home was so far out of the realm of normal that I did it; I went to my boss and asked if I could return home.
This was maybe a week after HFOD had become a thing. The Drop happened slower in Korea. It takes a while for a phenomenon to transfer through a language barrier. Most kids these days are taught English in middle school. It was not this way for the children of my generation. So before the adults knew what was going on, Whoa-Town had swept through the country. It took us a while for the adults to catch on that this thing was not some fad, some trend.
Anyway, my boss didn't know about HFOD. He didn't care. He said that I could go, but if I went, it would be permanently. That was not a tough decision to make. I knew what I was going to do. In-sook came first. But still, it was hard in that moment to throw away everything that I had worked for. I apologized to him, and he fired me on the spot. The shame of being fired is something that I still carry with me.
So I flew home from Budapest with no job. But the good news was I was cheap. I had no interests other than hitting up the gym in my off hours and the occasional bite of steak. I didn't drink. I didn't smoke. The only habits I had were wishing I could be with In-sook and my job. I had enough money saved up to keep us going for at least a year. Of course, on that flight home, I had no idea how bad things were going to be.
Our apartment was in Busan. My plane landed in Seoul, so I took the train to Busan, and a cab to our apartment. Our apartment building was typical of Busan. It was a massive concrete complex that towered in the air. There must have been a thousand people living there. The building was built thirty, forty years ago. It was in bad need of updating. The concrete had mold growing on it. Everywhere you looked, bits of crumbling concrete had accumulated in all the corners of the building. Our apartment was on the sixth floor.
The elevator stopped between floors, so you'd either have to go up a flight or down a short flight of stairs to reach the appropriate floor. The stairwells in the apartment always felt like the setting of a spy movie. I stood there for a long time. I remember that. I don't know why. Suddenly, it washed over me that I had just quit my job because my child was sick, and I felt my own pride, not as great as Jeong-ja's, but still substantial... I felt my own pride withering. It is a shame to be jobless in Korea... it is a shame to be unemployed, and worst of all, I had chosen to do it to myself. I almost turned around then to walk back to the elevator. I did not want my daughter to see me without a job.
But In-sook was sick, and she was the most important thing in my life, so I swallowed that pride. I knew something was seriously wrong the moment I walked in the door. Usually, In-sook was there. It didn't matter if she had a cold, the flu, whatever, she would come to me and wrap her arms around me. She'd scream, "Daddy!" and we would just hold each other for a while.
But this time, she didn't do that. Instead, I was greeted by the face of Jeong-ja. Her eyes were red like she'd been crying. There was no makeup on her face, something she never went without. She had no smile for me, not even the forced smile of someone pretending everything was fine. I can't explain how I knew it, maybe it was instinctual, but I knew that my life had just changed. I knew that my life would be permanently divided in my mind into two periods, the time before I had opened that door and the time after. I can't say how I knew that, but I remember the thought. And it's true. The man sitting here before you today is not the same man that went inside that door. That man died when he saw the look on his wife's face.
I walked into her room, and she was there, headphones on, listening to music.
"What's wrong with her?" I asked.
"She's not In-sook," my wife said.
"What do you mean she's not In-sook? She looks like In-sook to me."
"No. That's not my daughter," she insisted.
I started to get mad at Jeong-ja. I didn't like the way my wife was speaking. Her thoughts were not normal. She was telling me this wasn't my daughter, but the person who seemed not like herself was my wife, and I had just quit my job because of her.
I leaned down to my daughter and pulled her headphones away from her ear. I was just planning on saying, "Daddy's home," fully expecting her to jump up and wrap her arms around me. But I didn't get the chance. She snapped at me, screeching like an animal. I stumbled away from her not knowing what to do. She clawed at me, and I dropped her headphones from my hand. She picked them up and glared at me like a hurt animal before she put them on. Once they were on, she sank into her bed like a dog going off to the woods to die.
I didn't know what to do or say. I just stood there watching her. Eventually, Jeong-ja pulled me from the room.
Jeong-ja told me about HFOD. I spent that first evening reading everything I could find on the internet. This was before the connection to Whoa-Town had been discovered, so I read a lot of crazy things. People claiming it was an STD, people claiming that some sort of drug had done this, terrorism, religious punishment, you name it, and I read a theory about it. When I was done, I sat at our computer and cried. Jeong-ja, she just looked at me like it was my fault, like because I had been away, our daughter had contracted HFOD. And, I have to admit that a part of me felt that way too. A part of me blamed myself.
We watched her go through all the phases of HFOD, lethargy, tranquility, the self-hurt. But she never reached the final stage...
Jeong-ja didn't allow her to. I remember the day. We saw what was happening around the rest of the world. We watched as HFOD became The Drop. We knew what the end game was going to be. The Drop had been slow to reach Korea, so we were able to see a vision of our future, a vision of how things would turn out. To this day, I see Europeans and Americans saying they wish they had known what was going to happen, that it would have been easier to handle if they had known. But in Korea, we knew what was coming, and it only made things worse.
I went out to buy some restraints for In-sook, and when I came back it was over. I knew it was over the moment I opened that door. The silence, the stillness... my apartment had never felt like that, not even when I would come home from work and In-sook and Jeong-ja were dead asleep.
I found Jeong-ja in the closet of our bedroom, a belt tied around her neck. I can still see her face, her eyes bulging out, her tongue hanging. Her face was blue. I ran then to In-sook's room... and what I saw there... what I saw there... was so terrible. She still lay on her bed. Only the sheets weren't white anymore. Blood splattered the walls. Her eyes were closed, and she looked peaceful, even though a knife was sticking out of her chest.
I ran to her then, to see if I could help her, maybe do some sort of first aid, but as soon as my hand touched her skin, I knew she was gone. Once the cold sets in... you know.
From there, I went to Jeong-ja. I sat on our bed and just stared at her for hours. I cursed her. I yelled at her. I pleaded with her to tell me why. But she didn't answer. She didn't say anything.
