by Un-su Kim
Professor Kwon was dying. Cancer and cirrhosis were simultaneously taking over his liver. When Professor Kwon asked the doctor, who was also his friend from high school, if he would be OK, the doctor smiled bitterly as he said, “When it comes to livers, there are no miracles.” It wouldn’t have been so bad if the doctor had said, “Well, let’s wait and see,” but that’s not what the doctor said. Livers never experience miracles. Professor Kwon should have looked after his health a little and not been so obsessed with research and organizing files. If only he’d eaten something healthier than cup ramen and castella.
As there weren’t going to be any miracles, it was settled that Professor Kwon was going to die. Even he knew it. He wasn’t married, and because he had no wife and was conservative when it came to relationships, he didn’t have any children either. All he did his whole life was research. But even so, because he hadn’t published a paper in forty years, no one was interested in his research.
Why in the world did he use me as an assistant? Over the last forty years, he never once had an assistant, nor did he have any students; so why did he entrust the management of all these monsters to me of all people, someone with no background in science? For the last seven years I’d been asking myself this question. And now that he had only a few months to live, that question was becoming even more nagging. No matter how I looked at it, there was no reason for me to be entrusted with Cabinet 13.
It was late in the evening when Professor Kwon finally awoke. I was just about to head home.
“You’re still here?” Professor Kwon said.
“Not because I was worried about you, or anything like that. I just wanted to avoid rush hour on the train.”
“You don’t have to lie.”
Professor Kwon stared at the ceiling and let out a sigh. It was a warning. He was about to evoke my sympathy and make some sort of great request. But I wasn’t going to be tricked this time. As expected, Professor Kwon turned his head toward me and looked at me with sad, vulnerable eyes. Secretly I wanted to say, “Haven’t you asked enough of me? Just with answering your phone my head feels like it’s about to explode.” But whatever it was that Professor Kwon was going to say, I wasn’t prepared for it. Being prepared. Professor Kwon would know better than me that it’s impossible ever to be prepared.
“You know, right? I don’t have much longer to live. When I die, what will happen to the poor people of Cabinet 13?”
“Why are you asking? Professor, people should have a sense of shame. And they should feel guilty making someone work so hard. And what’s more, I don’t know the first thing about biology, genetics, anthropology, archaeology, or psychopathology. And there’s one other thing you should know; I majored in Korean Literature in college. Perhaps you, as a STEM major, don’t know what that means, but Korean literature majors research useless things like features of vowels and consonants; there’s nothing I’m qualified to talk about in those files except for the fact they’re written in Hangul.”
“No, you’re perfect. You’re perfect because you’re outlandish and stupid. And you’re terribly sincere. I can tell that just from seeing how you fell for that stupid parlor trick and how you’ve worked for seven years without any compensation.”
“I didn’t do it because I’m stupid; I did it because I pitied you.”
“Even better. You’re not just stupid, you’re sympathetic, too. Must be hard living in this cruel world.”
“Do you really intend on making me your successor?”
“My successor? I’m just a failed scientist and a loser. Someone like me doesn’t have any need for a successor. I just need someone to look after those poor people when I’m gone. Someone like you.”
“I can’t do anything.”
“You’re just like me, then. For the last forty years, I haven’t been able to use the power of worthless science to help those people. In fact, you’re much better than me. You’re stronger and nicer. I’m not asking you to do everything I did. I just want you to record and safekeep. And in such a way that people understand symptomers are not dangerous or dirty monsters, but our new descendants, and eventually, the new destiny we must come to accept.”
“Isn’t there anyone more suited for the job? Like another researcher in the field?”
“They don’t understand. Science is stuck in a hole it created for itself.”
Professor Kwon grabbed my hand with his, a hand that was now just skin and bones because of a liver that couldn’t detoxify anything anymore, a thin hand that was black and brown from all the needles. The hand was cold despite having come from underneath his blankets.
“I’m begging you.”
I didn’t know what to do. And the fact I didn’t know what to do was obvious to Professor Kwon because I lacked any skills or talent that would allow me to do anything. But I couldn’t say no to a dying man; I had to at least lie. And yet, it felt like I was going to regret it if I said even a single word. Professor Kwon was reaching the end of the road, which was sad, but no one lives forever. Couldn’t I say something humanitarian and encouraging at least? Then I remembered how much I resented him for having done nothing for me over the last seven years. How could he think of asking this of me? But then again, wouldn’t it be too cold to say no to a dying man? I was afraid, too; taking over Cabinet 13 wasn’t your everyday request. But here was Professor Kwon, batting his big, sad eyes at me.
So I hesitated. Why did I have to take over that headache of a cabinet? Professor Kwon had devoted forty years of his life to it; what more could I do? Wouldn’t I first need to read some books on genetic engineering, molecular biology, and Mesopotamian hieroglyphs? These questions seem like they might have been smart things to consider in the moment, but actually, at the time, I wasn’t thinking much. There was no way I was smart enough to consider all of this on the spot.
I was probably thinking instead about the bathroom on the fourth floor of the office. In that bathroom there’s a large steel fan that spins round and round, and as it spins it slices and devours the smoke from my cigarette. I sit there with some coffee, a newspaper, and a cigarette as I take a satisfying shit, and as I sit there I always imagine absurd things, like my soul floating away with the smoke, up to the fan, where it is cut into tiny pieces before dissipating through the grates.
My tongue started to move on its own as the last remaining logical thoughts in my head were sliced up and dispersed by the memory of this fan blade, unable to reform into definite shapes.
“Professor Kwon, Cabinet 13 scares me.”
Professor Kwon stared at me for a moment with a look of regret. Even so, he didn’t press me any further. After saying goodbye to Professor Kwon, I took my bag and left the hospital room.
“Was I being too selfish?” I asked myself on the way home.
“You’ve always been selfish,” I replied.
DRINKING CANNED BEER
Everyone has times they want to forget. 1997 was such a time for me. Nothing compares to how bad of a year 1997 was. My banker friend once said this to me:
“Unhappiness never comes in installments. It always comes in one big lump sum. That’s why it’s always so tough to deal with unhappiness.”
It was January of that year. My mother had collapsed. By the time we got her to the hospital, it was too late. At the emergency room, the resident was useless and flustered, and the nurse seemed to be having difficulty understanding my explanation of what had happened. Back in the ambulance, my mother had been holding my hand like she knew she was going to die. “Son, get a stable job. One that’s good.”
I guess these were what my mom thought were the most important words with which to part her pitiful son.
My bum of a father – who may be still alive, I’m not sure – left when I was just a baby; after that, it was just my mother and me. Because the only relative we had was my uncle, my mother’s funeral was as lonesome as her life was miserable. After they put my mother into the incinerator at the crematorium, I said this to my
uncle:
“I guess I’m an orphan now.”
My uncle stomped out his cigarette on the floor before saying:
“Don’t sweat it, kid. We all end up orphans, in the end.”
I graduated from college that spring and was cast out into the world. Needless to say, I wasn’t the least bit prepared for it. Since the fall semester of my senior year in 1996, I had applied to a total of 126 companies and failed to get a single offer. As though to say they were uninterested in meeting someone like me, seventy of them outright passed on my resumé. Another fifty rejected me after I took their test. I did get six interviews, but I failed all of them. One salt-and-pepper-haired interviewer asked me if I could bring anything special to the company. Being seated in the middle of the board of interviewers, he looked like the CEO. I was terribly nervous as I said, “I don’t have any special skills, but I’m confident I can do whatever work comes my way.” A smirk formed on the corners of the interviewer’s mouth as he said, “And when I was your age, I was confident I could conquer the world. But now look at me, sitting here talking to some naïve kid fresh out of college.” He was right. Now that I thought about it, my answer was naïve. Confidence wasn’t enough in the twenty-first century. It wasn’t the Wild West anymore. What I needed were certificates that vouched for my skills, not confidence.
That summer, I broke up with my girlfriend of 8 years and 7 months. Well, to be more accurate, it wasn’t that we broke up, it was more like I realized she had already left me. As high school sweethearts, we had always been by each other’s side, so when she left it felt strange. I wasn’t sure exactly at what moment she and I broke up. Neither of us questioned what had happened, and because no one questioned, no one answered. I called one day only to find out she was already married. This might sound too crazy to be true, but it’s not. I called her after a long time of not talking and said, “Sorry I haven’t been able to call lately. I’ve been busy with studying for tests. Anyhow, do you want to meet this weekend and see a movie or something?” And she said in a stuttering voice, “Deok-geun… I’m married.” At that moment, I didn’t have anything to say. What could I say in such a situation? Not surprisingly, she also didn’t have much to say to me. We just held our phones in our hands and didn’t speak for what felt like hours. I could hear from the other end of the line the sound of a soap opera. Past the sound of the TV, I also heard the faint sound of a man’s baritone voice saying, “Honey, there’s no toothpaste in the bathroom!” After the long silence, she finally asked in a concerned tone, “Are you OK?” I said yes. I thought I really was. That was the last time I talked to my girlfriend of 8 years and 7 months. We were together for 8 years and 7 months when suddenly one day she was married to a baritone looking for toothpaste. It is what it is.
Did I love her? Of course I loved her. She was a sweet girl and beautiful; too good for me, really. But I let her go. Back then, helplessness and dread lingered around my life like a thick fog. The word employment sounded like a distant dream; I had no talent, no experience to offer. One of my friends once complained to me about preparing his CV: “How do they expect us to summarize our entire life in just ten lines?” Hearing him say this made me feel miserable. How nice it must be to agonize over how to summarize all your experiences and achievements. When my friends asked me if I planned on getting married, inside my head I would say, “Married? I don’t have any money to get married.” Indeed, I would hate to cast a shadow over her future by combining it with my poor future.
The dog that my mother and I had raised for the previous ten years also died in the summer of that wretched year. He was a Labrador – laidback, quiet, and understanding. He never yelped in pain or cried for long. And true to character, he passed away quietly. He might have been trying to send me a message, but if he had I didn’t notice. If you’ve raised a dog before, you’ll know the pain of losing a cherished companion. It’s hard to explain the sadness of losing your dog. I still don’t understand how this was possible, but on the day my dog died, I held him in my arms and cried harder than I had at my mother’s funeral.
The day after he died, I wrapped my dog in a black garbage bag, put that bag in a shopping bag, then rode the bus out of the city. I was going to bury him on top of a small mountain. On my way up the mountain, I passed a man who suspiciously eyed the shopping bag in my hand as he asked where I was headed. I told him I was on my way to bury my dog. The man frowned as he told me, “That’s illegal, you know.” I just scoffed and went my way.
It was hot on the summer mountain trail, and my dog’s carcass was heavy. I had wanted to bury my dog on a mountain top overlooking the area, but I gave up halfway up the mountain and simply buried him where it was easiest. Needless to say, this too was illegal. I sprinkled alcohol on my dog’s grave and took a sip for myself. As I smoked a cigarette, I spoke to my old friend.
“We had some good times, didn’t we?”
I’m not sure what I was thinking, but on my way home from burying my dog I took all the money out of my bank account, which contained the inheritance left to me by my mother. Aside from my rented apartment, that money was my only possession. And then I used all that money to buy hundreds of cans of beer. It was about four hundred and fifty boxes of beer, which came out to more than twelve thousand cans. The cashier at the large discount store said she wasn’t allowed to sell this many boxes of beer all at once. What happened to unbridled capitalism? I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t buy whatever I wanted as long as I had the money – after all, it wasn’t like I was buying chemicals or guns, just cans of beer. So, I made a scene. “What do you mean I can’t buy these!” Not long after I started screamed, someone with more authority came out and told the cashier that it was all right as long as she took down my phone number and address. So, the cashier asked me for my contact information, and I gave it to her. I had the beer delivered to my apartment.
I still don’t quite understand why I did something so stupid. It not like I wanted to do anything as dramatic as drinking myself into the grave. No, I just didn’t want to see anyone; didn’t want to talk with anyone; didn’t want to have to make any more lame excuses to anyone. I just wanted to dig myself a hole and stay there.
That summer I locked myself in my apartment and began drinking my cans of beer. I literally did nothing but stay in my apartment and drink beer. I stacked the boxes of beer I had purchased with all my money in the main bedroom, living room, kitchen, balcony, and even in the bathroom, and chugged beer for the next 178 days. I started drinking as soon as I woke up and kept drinking until I fell asleep from exhaustion. During those days, I consumed nothing but beer, peanuts, and the occasional glass of water.
But it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. All I had to do was open the fridge, take out a can of beer, break the seal, drink it, crumple it up, and toss it in whichever corner I fancied. When my throat was sore or I felt hungry, I ate peanuts. Then I would open another can of beer and repeat the process. Each time I finished a beer, I made sure to crumple up the can. It might sound like a small detail, but it was absolutely essential to the process. Oddly, the moment I crumpled the can, I got a destructive, devil-may-care feeling and that destructive, devil-may-care feeling is what gave me the strength to take another can of beer from the fridge.
As long as you don’t ask yourself why you keep doing something, you can keep doing it until the day you die. You might experience a bit of mouth vomit at first, doing what I did. You might even feel, after sticking your face in the toilet and puking several times, that you’ll never be able to taste another can of beer again. But that feeling’s only temporary. Give it a few more days and you won’t puke anymore. Eventually you’ll get over the torture and nausea; you might even think you’re not doing something that extreme. You won’t even feel hungry, despite only consuming beer, peanuts, and water. You’ll probably have the same ridiculous idea that I had that beer, peanuts, and water might contain all the necessary nutrients to sustain human life. And when that happen
s, you’ve achieved stable orbit. When that happens, you can really focus on opening cans of beer, drinking cans of beer, and crumpling cans of beer. When that happens, reality with all its envy, fear, and anxiety disappears, and all that you’ll be left with is the unreality that enters your head. When that happens, the mere thought of ever stopping will frighten you.
For 178 days, I repeatedly woke up, opened a can of beer, drank the beer, crumpled the beer can, and cracked peanuts until I collapsed from exhaustion. Sometimes I would pee into the toilet and watch the urine stream out of my body with a blank stare. Sometimes the sun outside my window would glare like a tropical blaze before tripping on the powerlines over the sunset, and the hazy sound of car horns would soar into the sky faster than a speeding bullet. But just like the laundry hanging from the townhouse balconies opposite my apartment meant nothing to me, these things also meant nothing to me. The wind would rustle the laundry on the opposite balcony, the sun would dry it, then someone would come out and air out the clothes before folding them. What was it they were trying to air out? I would ask myself while watching a woman from the townhouses air out grains of sunlight. Perhaps she was trying to get rid of her husband’s sundried sperm – those desiccated spermatozoa that were beyond resurrection. But I wasn’t really that interested in what the woman was trying to air out. The only reason I was merely imagining such fanciful things was because it was what was in front of my eyes.
Sometimes I would get a call from utilities pressing me to pay my bills, but I would just half listen to them or say I didn’t have any money. I also got a couple calls from what I think was the tax office. I found it laughable that buying four hundred and fifty boxes of canned beer was grounds for getting an audit.
“We’re aware that you’ve recently purchased a large amount of beer. Such a large purchase of alcohol needs to be reported. We’ve had instance of undocumented illegal distribution before. So, was the beer for some event? If so, could you give me the name of the event. We need it for documentation.”