Thirteen Specimens (11 page)

     He stepped off the elevator on the 8
^th
floor, and instantly saw that he was the only one here.

     The walls of the corridor had been painted to look as if they were made of mortared stone. He walked across the empty, polished floor to a door, and – hoping he didn’t set off a whooping alarm that would summon security guards (or those dreaded Vietnamese immigration officers again in their brown Cub Scouts uniforms) – he tried to open it. It was locked.

     He surveyed the dimly-lit tunnel of the hallway again. So it was a walk-through ghost train sort of entertainment, then? When it was operating, this hallway must be filled with eager young people waiting in line, clutching each other’s arms in delicious anticipation. But without whatever smoke and mirrors might be employed here, and the crackling anticipation of the patrons, the mock stone hallway was mundane, unimpressive, lonely.

     Returning to the elevators, he found a sign partly in English that said the attraction would open at 11 AM. He saw by his watch that it was not even ten; he had thought it might be later, but then he had set out on the streets early, over two hours ago already. He glanced back down the hallway rather longingly. Should he go downstairs, explore the various levels of the store and return in an hour? As much as he wanted to, he decided not to give HORRORWOOD a look. He was a bit shy about the idea
of waiting in a crowded queue and going through such an attraction companionless, here in an alien country. Maybe he’d come back before he left for Vietnam, he told himself...as he punched the button for a lone elevator standing apart from the others.

     When the doors opened, Ford and a middle-aged woman surprised each other, she getting off as he got on. He realized from her pail and mop that she was a cleaning woman and this was a service elevator. She smiled at him shyly, nervously, as they passed, and he smiled back at her – guilty for having startled her, for being someplace he shouldn’t and using the inappropriate lift. Still, he rode it down to the next floor, where he got off to switch to an elevator reserved for customers...somewhat frustrated with himself that even selecting the correct elevator had become a hurdle for him on this, the other side of the world.

4: The Mask

     On the street again, he took to letting his feet carry him pretty much where they would. He had decided to travel light, bringing his backpack but keeping it all but empty. He had brought his sunglasses and he put them on now, not so much for protection from the sun as to obligingly hide his too-bold blue eyes from the solemn dark eyes of uncomfortable pedestrians. If they were inclined to pretend they didn’t see him, then the dark glasses made him feel all the more like the Invisible Man.

     He passed people who’d set up tables on the sidewalks to sell heaps of vegetables...steaming food on sticks...stacks of dried, mummified squid...cooked octopus arms almost as thick at their base as Ford’s wrist. Sunglasses, rugs, cheap jewelry, chintzy toys, souvenirs. Amongst the latter he saw
some wooden masks that looked like full-sized versions of the framed little faces back at the guest house. He would have liked to stop to look at them, because he was very drawn to masks. In import stores in the US he liked to examine wooden masks from Ghana and Kenya, and at home above his computer he had hung a rectangular, primitive wooden face from Indonesia with protruding eyes, sharp teeth and a circle or halo attached to its top; he had no idea of its significance. He owned a molded iron decoration that had been painted with the pretty ghost-white countenance of a woman to resemble a Japanese
No
mask. Years ago he had hung several porcelain masquerade-style masks, wildly painted and streaming ribbons, but they seemed too gaudy to him now. Despite his interest in these Korean masks, however, he restrained himself – he needed to conserve his money for his “true” vacation in Vietnam.

     He wandered from the broad main streets back into the maze of smaller, side streets. He walked past many courtyards, closed off by metal gates. He worked his way up steep, alley-like passages – a few times dead-ends so that he had to retrace his steps. Huffing his way up the steepest street yet, his feet beginning to ache in the stiff new black shoes he had bought only days before his flight, he saw a group of elderly blind people with canes, some of them holding hands to guide each other, gingerly working their way down. Apparently they lived in a home sadistically located on this terrible slope. On one building’s gray wall he saw a ragged old poster advertising the DVD or video for a horror movie he recognized as
Freddy vs. Jason
, though the writing was all in Korean.

     Even in the most twisted and desolate back alley, Ford never felt that he was in physical danger, no matter how chilly the passersby might seem in this city. He felt safer
here than he did in the cities back home.

     He came upon an open market area that a banner strung across the street identified as Namdaemun Market. It was a maze in itself, of crowded stalls selling everything from clothing to imitation designer handbags to children’s toys, the streets comprising the market thronging with people. Ford found himself getting lost in the labyrinth of goods, doubling back through the same streets until he finally worked his way out.

     Off one of the busier main arteries again, a familiar sight drew Ford excitedly. Rows of bright orange, plastic jack-o’-lanterns. Stacks of black conical witch’s hats. A bucket bristling with bloodied axes, swords, pitchforks. And cheap rubbery faces hanging on a board with metal pegs through their eyes: a gorilla, a hideous old woman, a shiny red devil, various skull-like or decayed toothsome zombies. Ford smiled. Halloween in Korea! He wondered how many of them got into it, how many of their children actually trick-or-treated (for dried squid and octopus arms?). After examining the outside displays, he entered into the little store itself.

     Candles, decorations, plastic bugs; nothing that he wouldn’t find at home, but that was what charmed him. He didn’t feel so much like he was missing out on October’s Halloween atmosphere, now; this made up a bit for the HORRORWOOD let-down.

     One of the shop’s workers was keeping an avid eye on him, either for fear that he might steal something or out of eagerness to make a sale. Ford glanced at him and smiled, and pointed to the stairs at the back of the gift shop. “Can I go up?” he asked. The worker nodded, smiled, invited him to do so with a gesture. Ford went to the stairs, and the worker followed after him.

     “Ahh,” he said, as he reached the second level. An
abundance of costumes in plastic bags, and a wide array of masks covering one entire wall. The worker hovered behind him as he moved forward to study the ranked, macabre faces more closely. Again, an army of desiccated ghouls. The ubiquitous mask from the movie
Scream
. The grinning green mask from the movie
The Mask
. Werewolves, grim reapers. Images of Western horror.

     But there was a single mask that seemed unique, out of place, and thus focused Ford’s attention. It was a rubber version of the wooden masks he had seen earlier, and those diminutive mask faces at the inn. It was a full-head mask, however, and was more detailed in that it even had veins bulging at its temples. As was the case with some of the heads he had seen in the frames at the inn, it had a kind of circle on its forehead like Buddha...but where the circle on those masks looked like a lump or tumor, this one was flattened like the head of a great spike that had been driven into the being’s skull. The face was painted brown like wood, and was wearing either a snarling grimace or a leering grin. It was offbeat, bizarre, and this time Ford didn’t think he could resist. He turned to his watchful companion, who seemed coiled to spring at the first opportunity to be helpful.

     “What is that?” he pointed.

     “Ohh...Hahoe,” he said.

     “Hahoe? Is that his name? Is he a God, a devil...a folk hero?”

     “Hero? Oh...hero?” The worker picked a Batman mask off a peg, and held it out to him. “Hero?”

     “Ohhh yeah...Batman...yeah, he’s a hero. But that mask there...what is it supposed to be?”

     Looking a bit nervous or at a loss, his eager friend turned toward another man at the opposite end of the room and called him over; Ford didn’t know if this was
because that man’s English was better, or if he knew more about this particular mask.

     The two exchanged some words in Korean, then the new man addressed Ford. “That mask is not for sale. Last one.”

     “Not for sale?”

     “It cost too much...ah, 120,000
won
.”

     “Wow...is that a museum piece?” Ford tried to joke. He was attempting to calculate that amount into dollars in his head. Twelve hundred
won
was roughly a dollar. His math skills were deficient, but 120,000
won
certainly did sound excessive to him.

     Anyway, he could tell the man was trying to discourage him from buying the mask. Was it because he considerately didn’t want him to have to spend so much money on it, or – as Ford suspected – that he felt Ford didn’t have the proper understanding of, or respect for, the mask’s significance?

     “Hero?” the first man offered, pointing to an adult-sized Superman costume in a plastic bag.

     “Um, no thanks...I’ll have to think about it some more, what I want to be on Halloween. I’ll come back again – okay?”

     His friend smiled and gave something like a little bow. “Okay...come back. Okay.”

     Ford left the store, returned to his wandering. He figured on the way back to the inn he should stop in a convenience store to try their ATM for money and to buy some drinks and snacks to get him through the night. He started working his way in the inn’s direction. He wasn’t too nervous about becoming lost, because in that direction loomed a rugged little mountain with a spire-like tower at its summit which was connected to a cable car system. If he had time before he left the country, he wanted to ride that
cable car for its obviously impressive view of Seoul.

     He found a convenience store, and an ATM inside it, but it wouldn’t give him any
won
. Well, he’d try another ATM or one of the banks he’d seen today, either later on or tomorrow. Right now he was tired and wanted to get back to the guest house for a nap. It was drawing close to 2 PM, the time he had settled in yesterday for his rest. He actually missed his cute little room for its safe nest of security; it was his own bit of space now in this huge alien city that might as well be on another planet, or at least in some partly-familiar but very warped alternate dimension.

     Ford made it back to the inn as easily as he had hoped by using that spire as his compass needle, trudged up the carpeted steps to room 201, let himself in. After dumping a handful of exotic coins on the desk and storing his drinks away in the miniature fridge, he lay back on his bed with head propped up on both pillows, TV remote in hand, his feet feeling blistered and his brain feeling soaked like a sponge, heavy with all it had absorbed.

5: The Figure

     After a short while, knowing he was close to sleep, Ford broke off from watching the cartoon
Spongebob Squarepants
dubbed into Korean to get up and use the bathroom before he fully succumbed. As he finished, his gaze was drawn to the little frosted window, and he slid back its panels, leaned forward to look at the brick building across the way.

     Sure enough, she was there. His hard-working factory girl, the suspended spiral cord of her iron swaying with her strokes, her ponytail bobbing, her shirt riding up in back...apparently the same long-sleeved maroon top from yesterday. Ford checked his watch. 3:30 PM. Just the start
of her second shift hours, then?

     Again, he thought of the hard-working, married Vietnamese woman whom he had developed such a strong crush on at his job. The diligent little Asian girl in the library, years before that. He thought of An, his future “ba xa”, if he could make it into Vietnam successfully...and if they hit it off with each other. What if it turned out she didn’t like him, having met him in the flesh? He was self conscious about being twenty years older than she was, though she had assured him her father was twenty years older than her mother and thus it was not an odd concept to her. She had reassured him that she was not simply using him as a means to come to the United States – there to abandon him once she achieved her citizenship.