My Knife Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, dialogue, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The opinions of the characters in this book do not necessarily represent the opinions of the author.

  Editing by Elaine Ramirez

  Photography by Sylvia DeRocchis

  For Patrick. Itaewon will never be the same without you. RIP, friend.

  For the girl in HBC who left me her book collection; thank you. You changed my life.

  And for Gregory (my Yoda) and Christine (my radical conscience).

  Contents

  Chapter I: El Turco

  Chapter II: Arian’s Perspective

  Chapter III: Jasmine Talks

  Chapter IV: Helena’s View

  Chapter V: Helena Deciphers the Sex Diary

  Chapter VI: Chez Bubba

  Chapter VII: Ishmael Remembers

  Chapter VIII: Joaquín Speaks

  Chapter I: El Turco

  It was only yesterday

  As seen by Arian

  El Turco was sitting in his usual thinking spot. It generally involved smoking a pack of cheap Thai clovers in a corner of Jake’s Cabin. It always took him a pack to get to whatever big answer or conclusion he was trying to reach. Always. He had done the same during his Oberlin days and had developed almost a ritual around it. Maybe the nicotine and familiar smell relaxed his brain in a way that allowed him to shed his indecisiveness and reach a conclusion he deemed logical.

  But unlike his Oberlin days, he wasn’t trying to complete a complicated problem set in a darkly lit corner of his room. He was trying to comprehend the disappearance of our friends, and it frightened him, for it confused him more than string theory after a late night on Hooker Hill. This confusion, I think, was further compounded by what he should have told Muirne in regards to how he felt for her.

  Muirne

  It was a typical last Saturday of the month when he first spoke to her in the cave. They were used to seeing each other passed out in different couches of Old City, but after witnessing her work her way through a Filipino and a group of Nigerians like they were a Japanese house full of paper fusumas, he was cautiously, and righteously, apprehensive about making false moves around her. El Turco found it incredibly difficult to talk to her, which only reinforced my belief that he had a wild crush on her. He wasn’t the type of guy who had difficulty acquiring women, and he was as social a character as any I will ever meet.

  A short, stocky Mongolian had just finished licking a tall, unkempt Nigerian. “Alright, guys, you know what match is coming up: two men for the half million!” announced Antoine right before Muirne walked up to him, grabbed the mic and said, “In this case it’s gonna be a woman against a man for the half million.” None of the other girls in the cave wanted to take on Muirne. Hell, none of the guys did neither.

  I grabbed El Turco’s arm, lifted it in the air and screamed, “Me!”

  “Son of a bitch!” he said looking my way, but his voice was drowned out by the crowd cheering him on to enter the cage with Muirne.

  The fight was gonna be brief, just like every single one of Muirne’s. If Muirne hadn’t been born Celtic, she woulda been a typical viking berserker. They both put on their fencing masks and shook hands before they walked into the cage. She shook it fiercely and his eyes glowed behind the mesh as he looked into hers.

  “Alright, guys, you know the rules for open fights better than any other men here,” Antoine said nervously after realizing that Muirne wanted him to use gender neutral pronouns. “Individuals,” he continued after clearing his throat. “Serrated, flexible blades no longer than four inches only. You may have as many knives as you wish on you, but only one in use at any time. As soon as you see blood, the match is over.”

  Muirne was pumped, pacing side-to-side, and growling, her red mane the most visible thing in the entire cave. Antoine took his time to ring the bell, allowing the crowd to build up anticipation. He decided to forgo the typical racial jousts he used to aggravate fighters; we all knew Miune didn’t need any more aggravation in her life.

  El Turco’s forehead was gleaming with cold sweat through the mesh on his mask when Antoine rang the bell and Muirne leaped through the air with knife in hand, almost cutting through El Turco’s mask in half, the blade nearly running right through his nose. He fell on his back, and he grabbed her wrists while tussling on the ground. El Turco dug his nails into Muirne’s wrist. She screamed wildly and dropped her knife. Just a scratch--the blood didn’t make him victorious.

  But it didn’t take much once Muirne dropped her knife for him to finish her off. El Turco kneed her in the gut, flipping her over him. She landed on her back, he rolled to the side and then slashed her in the leg, as was a sign of respect to show to an opponent who came close to victory and fought well. They took off their masks, hugged, and she dug her tongue into his mouth after slapping him in the ass. He shoulda put the moves on her right there in a corner of the cave, but instead decided to be all classy and took her to Molly’s for soju kettles.

  It was there at Molly’s that, instead of becoming man and woman in the bathroom as they rightfully should have, they began competing to see who could outdrink the other. The half million won El Turco had earned in the cage that Saturday disappeared by the time they made it to the Wolfdog Sunday night. They both blacked out, she pulled an Irish goodbye, and he was as confused when he “came to” at Seoul Bar Monday morning as he was there, alone at Jake’s.

  Out of Blackout

  The way the dark overhead lamp hit him made him feel as if he was in his own world. He had his own private view from that little corner of his. He could see out, but not everyone could see onto his drink-littered table. He looked out from his corner and saw an ocean of darkly lit islands just like his, the faces too dim to make out. It was perfect for him. He didn’t like being analyzed, and the darkness allowed him to remain incognito.

  It was Saturday, almost midnight, and no one had heard from our friends since Wednesday. He had finally come to accept that they were not coming back. They were gone and no one could get hold of them.

  Helena called, her voice tense. “Have you heard from them?”

  “From whom?” El Turco asked.

  “From our friends.”

  “No. I was hoping you would know. Lola doesn’t know where O’Connor has gone, and Jasmine has no idea what’s happened to Bubba either.”

  El Turco hung up his cell, defeated. His friends had vanished, seemingly into thin air. He finished his first pack, but nothing came to him. That was a first. Never before had he smoked a whole pack and not reached a conclusion. He went for a second and eventually a third. Hours passed, were forgotten, lost in a drunken haze, and squeezed of substance. The clock struck four ante meridiem. Closing time was nearing and he would be forced to move to another bar. Of course, having to walk would disturb him too much. He needed the dark setting at Jake’s Cabin to think. All of the bars open after four were loud, hectic, and unpredictable. He knew he wouldn’t be able to think there. In Korea, it is seen as rude to close down a place when customers are still present, and he managed to squeeze in an extra hour. But the thoughts in his mind remained largely the same: he figured the disappearance was a sign. A sign of his own incomprehensible and dreadful mortality.

  Conflict

  El Turco was a conflicted individual. The seventh son of a Muslim Turkish man, yet the first of a Christian American woman, he existed between two worlds. One was Western, the other Eastern. His father was a Muslim, which, legally speaking, meant he was a Muslim as well. But he never became as devout a Muslim as his father, who died when El Turco was young, and his mot
her never had a strong influence in his life.

  He once told Antoine, our malnourished Bavarian friend: “My mom basically left me to my own devices. I did what I wanted when I wanted. The freedom allowed me to spend long days in my chamber reading classics and pondering the deeper meaning of existence. Most of my elementary and middle school summers were devoid of human interaction. I willingly chose to spend them in my dark room reading Bukowski and Nietzsche.” And indeed, it was El Turco’s love of those two authors that had taken him to Jake’s: a dark place with booze.

  By the time he had finished his third pack and last beer, Jake’s Cabin was finally cleaned up and the staff looked ready to leave the premises. He had received a text message from me some hours earlier. I was on the other side of town. El Turco would have to travel from Sincheon all the way to Apgujeong, where I was drinking my own sorrows away at Gorilla Beach. He walked out of the dark basement that was Jake’s and hailed a taxi. The taciturn cab driver passed Hongdae and braked suddenly yet without emotion when he almost ran over two drunk college girls in front of Jen Bar 3. The girls stumbled across the street, and the driver sped across town and crossed the bridge over the river. It was worth it to El Turco to come over. He always said I was a good listener. Even if I didn’t suggest anything, I would help him think about what the hell happened to everyone.

  Gorilla Beach

  “I hate Gorilla Beach. Every army hick looking for a fight comes here. But the soju buckets are cheap and someone looking to get smashed on a budget only needs come here to have a good time. Hell, I take it back; the soju buckets are worth the fights,” El Turco would always mutter before entering Gorilla Beach. He made his way past the yellow lockers and the six-foot-plus, heavily built Korean bouncers. Right as he walked in, about seven US army MPs and Katusas in digital camo cut him off. Normally, he would have cussed out anyone who disrespected him in such a manner. But there was no way he was going to start a fight with some super-buff, heavily armed Americans right then. He was still not drunk enough to make decisions that could land him in a stretcher.

  He was going to look for me but decided to buy a bucket before doing so. Three bottles of soju in a bucket of Korean Kool-Aid are more than enough to send a reasonable man over the edge. By the time he went in search of me, he was already smashed to bits.

  “There he is!” He saw me and came over. He sorta bowed, kinda shook my hand but in the end just concentrated on his bucket. “I know what happened to our friends.” I wondered if it was the soju speaking or a genius realization I must have overlooked. “I must go to New Haven,” he said. With that, he walked out of Gorilla Beach and cabbed to the airport. He purchased a plane ticket with his smartphone and, as soon as he got to Incheon, boarded the next available flight to Boston, didn’t even pack any bags. After all, he had the privilege of having a wardrobe ready for him before arriving at almost any destination.

  Part 1.5: New Haven

  El Turco Speaks

  I had ten sick days left. I was originally planning to use my sick days for some R and R in China, but I knew for a fact that the answer as to why my friends disappeared would be in New Haven. I wrote my boss an e-mail before I left from Incheon: “Sick, can’t come in this week. Call Pablo, he’ll cover for me.”

  I arrived in Boston, and by then the effects of the nicotine and soju had worn off. I was going to head down to New Haven immediately, but figured that I should head to my summer home in Nantucket, detox for a day, and change into something that didn’t reek like a wet gorilla. However, I passed out for almost twenty hours and was too hungover Tuesday and Wednesday to bother getting out of bed. I emailed my friends back in Seoul, trying to get word, but nothing. By Thursday I had already realized that maybe I was right, perhaps the answer to what truly happened to them could be found in New Haven.

  To New Haven

  Joaquín was into some deep shit with some well-connected individuals. It was just last Tuesday when I had gone to his chill out lounge at around 6 a.m. Yes, it was Tuesday, I believe. I believe. The days blur together. Muirne, Joaquín, and I drank six bottles of vodka in anticipation of Chuseok, the Korean thanksgiving. They were in bed, naked and sweaty, under his thick Italian blanket sipping Australian wine when they woke me by blasting “The Blue Danube,” as was usual when we crashed at Joaquín and Helena’s place after a late night of drinking.

  Surely, anyone walking in on that scene would assume that they were intimate. But Muirne was to Joaquín one of the guys and Joaquín was to Muirne one of girls. In some mysterious way, they both learned to love and embrace their true selves thanks to the acceptance they offered one another. Joaquín encouraged her to explore her inner self and her bisexuality. He was the type of person who would make you feel comfortable with who you were. He accepted the circle of life. Biological predispositions to him were nothing more than random combinations of DNA strewn about throughout the cosmos eons ago from the stars. To the core of those stars we would return, with our stays on this rock being nothing more than future distant memories that would eventually cease to echo. What’s the difference between 50 and 80 years when we think of time in galactic terms? Insignificant.

  Joaquín always put my existence in perspective. It’s not as if he encouraged me to disregard my own life because of a greater cosmic misanthropy which made everything pale in comparison, but rather that his words helped me stop worrying. I saw no point in worrying when existence was random, meaningless, and brief. His philosophy was enjoying life. The reward was happiness; and the consequences of our actions would eventually be forgotten by the eternity of time. When you’ve done as much as I have, you hope that time forgets you and your actions.

  And so, on Thursday, exactly one week after they had disappeared, I told the Connecticut limo driver, “Yo homes, to College and Wall Street.” We arrived and, immediately, the Gothic architecture, bland colors, and foggy fall weather reminded me of my year abroad at Oxford. After finding out that I would need a magnetic ID card to enter the residential college, I almost felt defeated. After all, I had taken a trip half way around the world in search of a lover whom Joaquín once spoke of fondly. He never talked fondly about anyone else in his past; if anyone knew his whereabouts, I had no better luck than trying to gauge how much she knew.

  I could put no face to her name, and even her name had escaped me. I’m terribly bad with people’s names. All I knew was that she was tall, half-Japanese, half-Ecuadorian. For all I knew, she could have graduated years earlier. I was 23 and clean-shaven. I carried an approachable, non-violent demeanor, and my J Crew blazer, khakis, and yacht shoes helped me blend into the crowd. No one would assume I was any more than a random student walking around. I casually walked in behind some students who opened the main gate and made my way to the courtyard.

  Autumn was my favorite season of the year, and the trees around me were red, almost as if they had been scorned by the Roman god of war himself.

  I sat in one of the hammocks overlooking the red tree outside a building resembling a cathedral, which I later learned was Sterling Memorial Library. I thumbed through a copy of the Yale Daily News, which I had grabbed on my way in, and eavesdropped on some girls in the hammock next to me. I casually faded between the article I was reading and their conversation: “So, like, I so wanna like go to the screw with Tom, but Tim might ask my roommate first and I’m, like, afraid she’ll pull a mean one on me and set me up with Tim instead of Tom,” the pale brunette fired quickly in a nasal NY accent. Her friends tried to console her as I drifted out and read an op-ed in the YDN.

  Some third-generation legacy in Morse had written a column railing against the insane level of drunkenness outside of Froggy’s and how it inconvenienced him whenever he walked to his room “late” at 1am. Apparently the piss and vomit forced him to whip out his “perfumed handkerchief” every time. I thought that perhaps kidnapping the dude and throwing him off a car in the middle of Itaewon’s Hooker Hill on a Sunday at noon would teach him the real meaning of drunk.


  After about an hour of overhearing a plump, pale blonde utter, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Did you hear? Did you hear? Adriana got a haircut!” I wondered how it was possible for someone to be so constantly shocked all the time. Eventually, I felt as if I had learned enough about their first world problems to approach them without sounding suspicious. “I left a book in my Caribbean history class.” Joaquín once mentioned that his lover studied history. “The guy who sits next to me told me that a girl took it because she knew me and was going to return it. Well, I need it today to do my homework, but the problem is that I don’t know the girl’s name. She’s tall, half-Japanese, half-Ecuadorian.” After all, how many students would fit the description I had given the girls in the neighboring hammock? Even if Joaquín’s former lover had graduated, it was possible that someone would recall her.

  Gabriella’s Room

  After searching her name on the Yale online directory, I proceeded directly to the room listed on the webpage. I passed some arches, took the elevator next to the dining hall, and found myself on the second floor of Berkeley. The whole thing was wide open, no need for a key or magnetic ID.

  I knocked on the door and was greeted by her Nepalese roommate.

  “I’m looking for Gabriella. Is she around?” I asked.

  “No, but she’ll be back soon. Do you want to leave a message?” she asked.

  “Well, what I really want is to talk to her about Joaquín,” I told her. She told me to come in. I sat down on the bed.

  I looked around their bare room; only the blue blankets on the beds and a Che Guevarra poster decorated the place. She didn’t bother asking my name, and I neglected to ask hers. Of course, she knew him very well. He would make impromptu visits and spend a couple of days with her smoking NY diesel and discussing metaphysics. Here I was, a strange man looking for answers to a mystery half a world away and no one could suspect that I was anything more than a friend visiting from Nantucket.