THE
PLASTIC KISS Part 2: Parallel Lines & Hazy Times
by Mike Denver
We
walked up the stairs from the basement bar, the overhead neon
sign buzzing like an external migrain cursing my world; Cha
Myong's left arm hooked around my right and her right hooked
through Gemma's left. Their spirit's were booming,
they'd begun singing a line from one of those Brittany
Spears pieces of shit that was playing in the bar as we left;
something like ' Oops ... I did it a-gain ... I played with
your heart ... lost in the blah blah blah ...; while I'd
further receded into an ever growing abyss of confusion,
convolution, shock! at the strange scenario that'd begun to
unfurl over the course of the last hour; all the while I was
constantly puffing on his ManVannen Guernocco cigarettes and
dealing with the dual aquariums of ephemeral amoeba's
swimming revolutions around my eyeballs.
"Yogi-yo"
- here - " Let's take this cab.", he said, staggering over,
opening the door and pushing us in gently, first me by the
arm and then her, with his hand on her ass. Before
Cha-Myong could speak to the Korean Taxi driver, Gemma let
loose another finely pronounced volley of Hanguel Mal,
ordering him to take us to Gam-Jin Dong.
Immediately, Cha Myong began to remark in English about how
after living her entire life in Pusan, except for a few
years studying abroad in Sydney, she had never heard of
Gam-Jin Dong.
Gemma
replied, " Yeah, it's a bit out of the way, one of those cozy
little areas in which Pusan hides away it's well-to-do
citizens. Then I looked over and saw that Gemma had
given Cha Myong one of his ManVannen's from a fresh pack,
and was lighting it for her.
I quickly
asked her, " Cha Myong, since when did you start smoking?".
"Since
tonight, I reckon.", she replied blankly. " Hey, ", she
then remarked, " These taste really funny," as I noticed her
moonlit pupils narrowing into pinpoints, " , not like the
smell of those Marlboro's you usually smoke Mikey ...", and
then she trailed off, as she was probably just coming on
with those patented Guernocco speed lines that I'd encountered
earlier. Just wait until you meet the amoebas I
thought. I glanced over and noticed Gemma,
watching us with a slight smirk perched above his somewhat
flabby weak chin.
The taxi
driver had responded instantly to Gemma's quick directions
given in Korean, and I'd been too preoccupied to notice the
beginning turns the driver had made; what with Cha Myong
having taken up ManVannen smoking and all. By the time
I began to pay any attention to the roads the driver was
taking, I found I had no clue as to our location in the city; a
city which other wise, after having driven a motor cycle on
it's streets for the past year, I know very well. But
in the few short minutes that we'd been moving, we'd
breached the area covered by my mental map of Pusan.
To this
day, I couldn't confidently tell you where we were in Pusan
that night; or even if we were in Pusan, which after endless
hours of recall and contemplation over the events that
occurred that night, I don't think we were; for all I know
we were in New Jersey; we were in Soweto; maybe we were in
Kahlambrica; then again, maybe we were in a television studio
set in Heaven, or a sewage treatment plant in Hell.
Hell, I
thought, this has gone too far ... we have. My mind was
spinning, I reached out to Cha Myong, her eye's all glazed
over while she puffed the cursed guernocco; I put my hand on
her arm and squeezed hard enough to leave a bruise, but she
didn't respond. Then, fighting back those spectral
amoeba's assaulting my own mind, I said in the most dire voice I
could muster to the taxi driver, " Aggashi," - Sir - "
Yogi!", and then turing to Gemma, who was seated on the far
side, with Cha Myong between us, " Gemma, this is fucked, I
want out ... we're getting out here ... now! Tell the driver
to stop.".
The
driver didn't stop though, he merely flashed a wordless shrug of
helplessness in the rearview mirror, as if to say, " But
there's nothing I can do.".
Gemma
then replied, " Relax man, you can't get out here ... look where
we are.".
I looked
out the window and realized that we were driving along a
narrow suspension bridge ... a very long and very high
bridge ... in keeping with all of the other events, it was a
bridge I'd never before seen during my time in Pusan.
Then Gemma let out a little laugh and said, " Don't worry
Denver, the ride's on me. Look down there, at those black
waters. It'd be a big jump, right before a long swim
back to your part of town. Heh ha heh!".
I began
to feel sick to my stomach, the sort of feeling I've had in
those seconds before the couple-odd car accidents I've lived
through in my life ... like the reaper was working the grip
end of his scythe up my anus.
Then
Gemma chimed in with more reassurances and of course, more
ManVannens. " Listen man, I know a stranger taking you
to a strange part of town set's off the nerves in a man," he
said sincerely, " I'm a traveler too, I know the way it
goes. But for landsake, don't let your nerves crush
your sociability. Relax my friend, you're in good hands.".
I looked
out the window again; we were in a tunnel now; like the
bridge, longer than any other I've ever driven through in
Pusan, or anywhere else in Korea. I'd missed the
transition from bridge to tunnel ... I had now idea what
river we'd crossed or what mountain we'd entered ... my sense
of time was gone in a cloud of smoke ... the lights, the
dark of night ... a whirlpool of dust and gas ... familiar
smells, strange smells ... the echo of the car's wheels
moving fast and heating up, rubber and asphalt becoming one
in a heated low friction viscosity cocktail; my head elongating
and becoming as long as the distance between point A and
point B; my mind growing into a continuum of doubt and
uncertainty ... so thick and heavy unlike a feather bleeding
lead and dropping up.
As
the taxi sped up on the down sloping straightaway, the arched
lines of the tunnel segments moved through my peripherals in
a way that made them appear to be moving along with us ...
as if we were traveling through the gullet of a snake moving
forward at full speed ... moving faster than we were.
I looked
to Gemma again; yet again I found myself at a loss for words,
beginning to resign myself to ride the chaos, so to
speak. I see him fishing in his pocket and removing a
small green velvet pouch. Then with his index finger
and thumb he parted the string drawn top open and removed a
small metal and plastic pipe, a familiar sort which I've
used in ganja smoking sessions since middle school, and a
small plastic film canister. " It's your lucky night
my friend, ", he says smiling, " Let's have a toke of the
good stuff. ".
I see the
driver looking back at us curiously in his extra-large
rearview mirror. There's a triangle of eyes darting
forth between myself, Gemma and the taxi driver. Then
Gemma says, " No worries here boy, ha ha!", and passes up a
ManVannen to the driver, which he accepts, smiling in the
rearview as he leans forward to light it on the lit lighter
Gemma is also holding between the front bucket seats for
him.
I swallow
hard and think, well, fuck it, " Yeah man, let's get high.".
I say.
" Ha ha,
", laughed Gemma, " Now you're back on the right track,
boy-o".
I look
out the window and see that we're still riding through the
tunnel, which is now leading up a winding incline.
There are no other cars to be seen.
As I
watch him drop a pinch a substance which I can't see from
between his fingers into the bowl of the pipe I think,
Christ, this is more fucked up than Cambodia any day of the
week.
Cha Myong
is still staring into space; and now I see that the driver's
eyes are ManVannened as well. Another thought about
making the driver stop and let us out crosses my mind, but I
fight it back, telling myself, shit, you're still young and
stupid, you get yourself into these things, just walk away
when it's all over and everything'll be alright ... ride it out,
ride it out.
And then
the pipe and lighter are in my hand. I peer
into the bowl amidst the murky tunnel light and see what
looks like average weed, broken up into fine, seedless,
stemless chunks. I light it up, cooking the bowl with
the flame, puffing on the pipe's nipple to get it going.
It tastes good, like the sort of decent grass that I'd all
but forgotten while working in a nearly grassless South
Korea. " Ahhh," I sigh, exhaling my first toke and feeling
it go to my head in a comfortably eye-crossing, familiar manner,
" that's what I'm talkin' about.". After the
first few initial breaths, I begin to feel better; grounded,
I notice that the amoeba's have retreated from my eyes; I
begin to scold myself for being so paranoid about this guy,
who is probably just another benevolent freakazoid ... the type
that I usually end up feeling lucky for meeting.
"Hey, ",
asks Gemma, " You ever see that twisted David Lynch movie
'Blue Velvet'?".
" Fuck
off!", I say cracking a smile and choking on the smoke. "
kaaaaaak aaaaak aaaak'".
Gemma
puts on a fake hurt look on his face, " Just asking ... jeeez".
I pass the pipe
to Cha Myong and she takes it and presses it to her lips
without saying anything. I light it for her and she
coughs too, " Kaaaaak aaaak aaaak". Then she
passes the pipe to Gemma and says, " No more, it makes me
sleepy,", and puts her arms around me, pressing her head against
my neck and closing her eyes like a little angel. I
look over and see Gemma re-packing the pipe and hitting it
himself.
By the
time we roll out of the tunnel and the driver buttons the
windows open enough to air out he smoke, we're all chinese
eye'd ... stoned to the bone. The black vinyl interior
of the cab is wrapped around me and Cha Myong like the
living definition of comfort. Gemma says, "Hey were's the
fuckin' music?", and I second the motion with an ," Amen,
brutha.".
He speaks
some more Korean to the driver and I see the white gloved
hand flip the radio onto a AM station; I pray for
rock'n'roll ... good old non-bizzare rock'n'roll ... and my
prayers are answered as I hear the light-fantastic organ
tones of 'Riders on the Storm' fill the cab's speakers.
"
Oh man, ", says Gemma, " This song cooks. I saw The Zone
Troopers play this one live when they first hit the scene in
like ... -12 ... dude ... we road tripped from Moentat, all
the way vanth to Quayton City for the show ... outdoors
at Steamdancer Amphitheater on an easy summer night with
all of my best buds and bud, on 3 tabs of vega-synth with my
brain squirming like a toad .... wooooo-babyboyo!... I'll
never forget that ....".
All my
rising illusions that things with Gemma were okay instantly
re-shattered, " You Asshole!", I shouted, " Are you insane
... who are the fucking 'Zone Troopers'? I have never heard
of a band called the stinking 'Zone Troopers' ... this song
... ' Riders on the Storm' was recorded by the late great
Jim Morrison and the Doors ... the fucking Doors! ... it was
recorded before I was born ... in the late sixties or early
seventies . .. I'm not sure ... do you understand? the
NINE-TEEN-SIX-TEES or the NINE-TEEN-SEVEN-TIES ...
A.D.! ... but it has nothing to do with anybody called 'the
Zone Troopers' and there is no such thing as the year minus
twelve ... my friend, I'm starting to fear that you are
mentally ill ... and I'm worried that you're having some
sort of osmosiatic effect of mental illness on my girlfriend
... this sweet girl right here, who I dearly love!".
And then
Cha Myong stirs and looks up to me with her sweet eyes, and
says, " I love you too baby, but this song is by the Zone
Troopers. I've got the tape at home, I'll show you
tomorrow.". And then she smiles like a fairy and
closes her eyes again.
With a
slow quiet screech of break pads the car comes to a stop.
" Oh, we're here!", says Gemma in a pleasant simple way,
sitting forward in his seat in fishing in his pants
pocket for the taxi fare, " Just in time, I need a drink ...
and Mike, you reeeeaaally need a drink. You guys aren't
going to believe just how cool Moon Ta and her family are!".
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