A Fool in Korea

Who Knows?

Yesterday, I woke up at 8 a.m. and drank a cup of instant coffee. Then I read the headlines on my smartphone while taking a nasty shit. A group of kids from the city of Incheon decided to visit a shopping mall. They stepped outside in order to smoke cigarettes, and two grown men squirted them with fire extinguishers to teach the naughty boys a lesson. The police arrived shortly thereafter, but they decided not to arrest the guys for the assault. In Korea, it's important for children to have manners. Yet the peninsula takes this notion a little too far in my opinion. True. Rugrats and tobacco don't mix. However, there's no reason to hose them down for such a trivial matter. It's not like they killed somebody.

I walked to the kitchen. The Dragon Lady was standing over the sink and doing the dishes.

I said, "I'm going to church with Rice-Boy Larry in a couple of hours."

"So?"

"I'm just telling you today's agenda."

She sneered at me. "I not need to know you bidness. It not mattah to me."

"Fair enough."

I went back to my room and switched on Netflix. Then I watched a couple episodes of Seinfeld. I'm on the part where Jerry buys his father a Cadillac, but Jerry's mother refuses to let the old man accept the gift. Meanwhile, back in New York, George is cheating on his fiancée Susan with the Oscar-winning actress, Marissa Tomei. It turns out that Ms. Tomei is into short bald men who are quick with a joke. Go figure, right?

Later in the afternoon, I drove to church with Rice-Boy Larry in my wife's SUV. You know. The one that I actually paid for, yet never get to use. We struck up a conversation along the way.

Larry said, "What is Mom still doing here?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I have no idea."

"How long does she plan on staying?"

"She says that we are going to the courthouse on Tuesday and that she's leaving on Friday."

"Why are you going to the courthouse?"

I sighed heavily. "We're going to file the divorce papers again. Anyway, that's according to her."

"Mom's so crazy." He paused for a moment. "Do you know what she said to me?"

I shook my head. "I haven't the foggiest."

"She told me that she's going to kill herself. But before she takes the plunge, she plans on writing a suicide note blaming me for her death."

"Your mother's a little fucked up in the head, so I wouldn't take it personally. Besides, she's been threatening suicide since I put the ring on her finger. But she's still breathing oxygen, right?"

"I guess so."

The pastor delivered a sermon which was a bit nuts. He told the congregation that the ten richest men in America are all Jewish. He then stated that Jews are rich because God has their back. In other words, the Almighty has blessed them with wealth just for being Hebrew. After that, three or four people in the audience started babbling loudly in tongues. The whole scene was quite bizarre.

Larry and I talked about it on the ride home.

I said, "What did you think of today's service?"

"It was weird with a capital W."

I smiled at him. "What a bunch of garbage, huh?"

He nodded his head up and down in agreement. "Why do we keep coming here?"

"I like the pastor on human terms. He's a good guy. I'm more about relationships than actual theology."

"Is that the way God wants you to see the world?"

"Probably not. But what's a boy to do?"

After returning to our humble abode, the Dragon Lady fed us dinner. We had fried rice and pork. The meal was fabulous, and the apartment was clean for the first time in six months. But there's more to life than food and comfort.