I Have the Right to Destroy Myself (2 page)

I turn on the computer and start opening password-protected files. The first file tells the story of a young woman who hired me two winters ago.

The pain of bewitchment often
Makes me dream of a bird's light body
My jealousy is lighter than air
I want to disappear because I love.

—Yu Ha, "Looking at a Warbler's Nest"

"IT'S SNOWING SO MUCH!"

"..."

"How's K?"

It's already been five hours. Judith and C sit in the idling car on the national highway at the entrance of Hangye Peak. They sit still, doing nothing, periodically turning on the wipers to push away the snow heaped on the windshield. The radio reports that this is the heaviest snowfall in twenty years. Apparently it's caused by the meeting of a front formed in China and an air mass originating in Siberia. The cars on the road don't budge. In snow that comes up to car bumpers, chains are useless.

There aren't any houses nearby. Night is falling. The sky, which was overcast during the day, turns black at 5:00
P.M
. C moves to turn on the wipers, but Judith stops him, breaking her long silence.

"Leave it alone. It's better not to see outside."

She files her nails, whistling. Without the wipers, the snow
blankets the windshield in a matter of seconds. The inside of the car is almost pitch-black, the headlights only faintly discernible. C can't even see Judith, who's sitting right next to him. He can merely sense the outline of her body. He actually feels comforted. His eyes begin to smart from the dry air inside the car.

"It's like the North Pole here," Judith says, leaning her face on the window.

"The North Pole?"

"You know that guy, Heo Yeong-ho? I watched him get to the North Pole on TV yesterday."

"So?"

"Heo Young-ho was heading to the North Pole, pulling his sled, but apparently the Arctic is a big floating chunk of ice that keeps moving all the time, around and around. So for a while Heo Young-ho just kept circling the North Pole. When he finally got there, he had just enough time to stick a flag into the ground and take a picture before he split. The pole was drifting off to somewhere else right at the next moment."

"The North Pole doesn't move. The ice does."

"Same difference. It's the same thing, whether the ice is moving or we're moving or the North Pole is moving. Don't you ever walk down a street and stop suddenly, looking around, and wonder where you are?"

C vividly remembers the first time he met Judith. It was the day of his mother's funeral. When C came home after the
burial, K was having sex with Judith in the living room. They were entangled together, not stopping even when the front door opened and a gust of cold wind reached their naked bodies. A picture of his mother, draped in black ribbon, was looking down at them. K saw him first. He got up with a bored expression on his face and started putting his clothes on, picking them out of the mess of clothing flung around him. Even then, she lay there, her eyes closed. Go into the room, K told her. She finally opened her eyes and looked at C. Her pupils, still brimming with lingering lust, looked blue. She resembled Gustav Klimt's
Judith,
the ancient Israeli heroine who seduced the Assyrian general Holofernes and cut his head off while he was asleep. But Klimt excised Judith's nationalism and heroism and left only fin de siècle sensuality.

The woman resembling Judith scooped up her undergarments and disappeared into the guest room. "Why aren't you coming in?" K asked, as if C, who was still standing at the front door, were the one behaving strangely.

"What are you doing? This is my apartment," C rebuked K in a low voice, and headed uncertainly toward the living room as if he were entering the apartment for the first time.

"I know it is. How did the funeral go? I'm sure it went fine. Funerals and weddings usually end up being fine one way or another."

"Why didn't you come?"

"Will you believe me if I said I didn't feel like it?"

"Yeah. Who is she?"

"Just a girl. She's okay. We're going to stay a few days."

K came home only after receiving news of his mother's death. It had been five years since he had run away from home, dropping out of high school, and he had changed more than C expected. K hung out in C's apartment instead of attending their mother's funeral. Nobody, not even C, tried to dissuade him. And while clumps of dirt fell on their mother's coffin, K was fooling around with Judith in C's apartment. C thought about the hard work he had put into the funeral compared to K's carnal pleasure. He felt tired. He went into his bedroom and fell asleep in his clothes.

The blizzard hasn't slowed. The fuel gauge is now pointing at half a tank. When C turns off the engine to save gas, the inside of the car quickly turns chilly. It was -12°C during the day, so it's probably colder now. He turns on the engine again.

"Are you bored?" he asks Judith, but she doesn't answer. Instead he hears a rustle. A click. She's leaned her seat backward.

"Are you going to sleep?"

"Shh."

Snow piles thickly on the windshield. C feels both nervous and reassured; they're completely cut off from the world. Judith's clothes rustle, faster and faster. She breathes louder. This is what she often does when she's bored.

"Do you want me to turn on some music?"

"Yeah."

He hears affirmation between gasps. He fumbles for a tape and pushes one into the tape deck. It's a B. B. King album. A slow, sticky blues beat fills the sealed car. She mumbles something over and over, like a possessed shaman. "Yeah, yeah, ah, ahh, yes, more, a little more." The car starts to shake. The snow on the windshield slides off, bit by bit. She forcefully takes his right hand and places it on her breast. C slips his hand inside her blouse and starts to fondle her breast, mechanically. He feels a faint wetness. "I'm going to kill you! Kill you!" Her muttering becomes higher pitched. "Aah!" With a short, sharp scream, her undulating body gradually quiets down. C gives her breast a last strong squeeze and removes his hand.

"And still everything's the same, even though I did my best to get as far away as I could. The snow's not stopping either," Judith spits out, smoothing her clothes.

"Where did you go?"

"Somewhere far, far away."

He turns on the radio. The urgent weather report continues. "The snowfall in the Yeongseo area has reached seventy-two centimeters at seven
P.M
. All train and bus service has stopped in Cheorwon, Inje, and Wontong. Gangwon Province has issued an emergency overtime order to all civil servants and is focusing on clearing the roads, but the work has been delayed due to the continuing blizzard."

"Sir, where to?" K asks his three passengers.

"Pajang-dong, please."

"And you?"

"North Gate."

"Excuse me, where do you want to go?"

"Please let me off at South Gate."

The taxi smells of liquor. The heater roars at full blast to battle the -10°C temperature outside. The dry, impure heat mixed with the customers' wet, alcoholic breath keeps the humidity inside the taxi at an adequate level. K inhales deeply and pulls his seat belt across his shoulder and waist. Constraining his body, strapping it to the body of the car, makes him feel more in tune with the 1994 Stella TX. He steps lightly on the accelerator while still in neutral, and the wheels turn in their place. He feels a gentle vibration. The needle goes up to 4,000 RPM and falls down again with ease. K checks his left mirror, then shifts into first gear and turns the wheel completely. With that, the car lurches forward. His customers, thrown backward, briefly wake up and look around.

It's 1:00
A.M
. People who missed the last train for Gyeonggi Province wander around Sadang Station. K shifts into third gear and steps on the gas. He feels a slight uneven vibration from the RPM falling quickly but doesn't give it much thought. His Stella, used to quick accelerations, shoots toward Gwacheon. His taxi is already going 130 kilometers per hour while still in the city. Near the Gwacheon racetrack the light turns red, and the brake lights of the slowing car in front gleam. K quickly looks in his right mirror,
changes lanes, and runs the light. The customer sitting beside him glances backward nervously.

K is satisfied with his Stella TX taxi. He knows many who prefer Sonatas or Princes. But there aren't many cars as good as this Stella TX. The structure of its engine is simple. It doesn't break down and the acceleration isn't bad. At the Gwacheon-Uiwang Highway tollbooth, he gives the collector a one-thousand-won bill and gets one hundred won in change. At this point, his muscles start to tense slightly. This section of the highway doesn't get much traffic but has two lanes each way—ideal for bullet taxis. As he steps down on the accelerator, he rolls up his window. The needle goes up to 5,000 RPM. He glances at the customers in the backseat. They're all sleeping, their heads thrown back by the force of the car's motion. Only the customer next to him is awake. He's either not very drunk or is nervous about how fast they're going.

A strong force pulls K's body back as the car accelerates. It's inertia, the tendency to continue movement. His body wants to stay put while the Stella wants to shove him forward. He feels a little dizzy, but it isn't entirely unpleasant. The world has always moved him around quickly, and right now this Stella is his world. Soon he will adapt. The speed of his body will adjust to that of the taxi. The taxi will comply with the law of inertia.

Most of the road between Gwacheon and Uiwang is suspended in the air. Overpasses and trusses support this
highway. And the view-blocking, antinoise barrier renders the world below invisible. No one on the ground can see the cars moving, just as the drivers can't see anything below. Low-wattage streetlights are placed only intermittently, so the road is very dark. The headlights shooting out from the front of each car only illuminate the ten meters immediately in front of them. At these speeds, that distance disappears in less than one second—each car racing through the darkness as fast as possible, dashing forward like racehorses with blinders on both sides of their eyes.

"Nine-
pping
."

"Eight."

"I have a pair of deuces. What about you, Kim?"

"Do over."

"Dammit. I wasted the
ttaeng
price."

They are inside a run-down bar, located in the alley next to the twenty-four-hour convenience store in front of Sadang Station. K cautiously picks up two cards. Cherry blossom and clover bush. It's seven
kkeut.
He quickly surveys the others' expressions. Only one has folded, and the others are throwing in thousand-won bills.

"I'm out." K folds. His hand is too weak. The others' eyes shift quickly. Seong-bo Transit driver Lee's eye muscle twitches. He must have a good hand. Lee tosses in a ten-thousand-won bill. Gyeonggi Transit's Kim follows suit. Everyone else is out. Lee reveals his hand.
Gabo.
He wins. Kim only has five
kkeut.
He must have thought that Lee was
bluffing. Kim stands up. "Shit, me and my bad luck today! I'm going to go for another round, but be here when I get back."

By the time he returns, they won't be there anymore. Kim knows this, too, so his words are mere filler. When their turn comes, each will get up without any regret to drive his taxi. K gingerly picks up the new hand in front of him. He enjoys this fickle, short-lived tension of a hand of cards. He has one clover bush. He breathes in surreptitiously without letting the others notice, and slowly slides up the other card with his thumb. Another clover bush. He has a pair of fours. He tries not to look at anyone, to ensure that his expression can't be read.

Just one hand is dealt, deciding the course of the set. After that, only deception remains. You can't show your glee when you have a good hand. You also can't look dejected when you have a bad one. But, even more importantly, if you pretend to be let down each time you have a good hand, nobody will believe you after you keep winning despite your reaction. To wear no expression—this is the key.

Is this like life? K wonders. My hand is already determined from the beginning. My hand in life is probably something worthless, like three
kkeut.
There's no chance in hell that a three
kkeut
can beat a pair of aces. There are only two possibilities: either that I'm so lucky with my bluffing that the others with decent hands fold, apprehensively, or the others have worse hands of one or two
kkeut.
But I can only get pennies for that. I can only hope that the round is
over quickly and I'm dealt a new hand. But, in the end, even three
kkeut
is fine. I will live in the moment—to the end.

K puts down his pair of fours and waits for the others to bet. The stakes rise to ten thousand won. From his pocket, he takes the twenty thousand won he earned by going down to Suwon earlier that night and drops it on top of the pile. The others glance at him.

"Dammit, I'm betting everything I earned tonight. Fuck it. I'll just have to do another shift," K says, pretending it doesn't matter either way. The others hesitate. This is the climax of the game of
seotta.
When the stakes get higher and the gamblers hesitate, everyday fatigue and boredom evaporate. K's only thinking about the two clover bushes. At this moment, no birds sing and the creek has stopped, as the saying goes. And in the midst of all this, K doesn't even feel himself go hard.

Two players, dubious, toss bills in the middle of the circle, imitating K. K throws down the cards to show his hand.

"Shit, it's a pair of fours." The men's eyes scan K's face rapidly. Having lost not only the bets but also the flush bonus of twenty thousand won each, they wait impatiently for the next hand. These men don't play Go-Stop. Go-Stop, with its unintentional reversals and intense head games, fails to suck them in. And most important, Go-Stop is too damn slow.

The Stella races along the dark road, through the Gwacheon tunnel. People say these taxis "fly." But it may not be a mere
simile. It's as if its wheels hover slightly above the road. Every time the wind blows, the car sways a little. Speeding down the highway in the middle of the night, when there aren't any other cars on the road, K often forgets where he's going. His field of vision becomes narrower the faster he drives. The trees and streetlights lining the road lose their shape as the car accelerates. Clinging together like sticky mucus, they melt down behind the car.