sleepless…as usual
It’s almost 1:00am.
One of the many Korean habitants of my hotel is drunk.
He is shouting. Does it matter with whom? Is it his wife?
The thought disturbs me, and then I remember why.
On the previous weekend, Carlitos and I ended our night on the town prematurely and headed back into the hood. The only place with the semblance of a nightlife was the local watering hole.
As I dragged on my cigarillo, admiring a hot brunette whom I’d passed earlier on the way to the loo, Carlitos was eyeing his footie match. He sat contentedly with his pint of beer, and I with my diet coke, my eyes, occasionally making contact with the vivacious girl, caught being wing-woman to her East Indian girl friend.
Our attention was diverted to one of the many Vietnamese bar girls signalling to the owner of the pub. Desperation was in her every motion.
I glanced further to the right, and around a pillar, one of the drunken expats was trying to get a cell phone picture of himself kissing another bar girl. She turned her head into the pillar, evading his face, but he pulled her hair.
I felt an old fire burning from behind my eyes, and my heart raced.
But I also felt bolted to my chair, shock keeping me from moving.
Luckily, the owner came to the scene, taking the drunken expat from behind with a rear-bear-hug, and he ejected the ass.
The Vietnamese girl crumpled into the arms of her colleague.
Within minutes, the rest of the bar returned to their banter, like nothing happened. People returned to their drunken flirting, convos about football, playing wingpeople, and general merriment.
The Vietnamese girls disappeared, unnoticed, behind the bar, without further acknowledgment from us patrons.
I couldn’t fit back into my skin, as it crawled for the rest of the night.
I sat in the background like everyone else, and did nothing.
I don’t judge anyone else, but myself. I was a spectator when something wrong was happening, and I did not interfere.
Tonight, I sit on my bed watching Star Movies’ dodgy b-movie line up, unable to sleep. I toss as I hear the banging and shouting in Korean. Is it an angry husband locked out of his hotel room? Is there a terrified wife hoping her husband will take a chill pill?
I opened my front door, to walk downstairs.
It turns out that it’s not in the hotel I’m at.
The walls and the air between hotels must be thin that I could hear what’s going on two buildings away. While I ponder the possibility of some domestic abuse happening within ear shot, cabbies are probably sleeping in their cars, haunting the side roads for tomorrow’s potential customers. Some of the all-nighters cozy up against an unfinished building, and urinate.
Others are burning garbage and tossing dice to humor themselves.
And I perch at the edge of my bed, wishing I could be asleep. Wishing I could turn off my hearing for the precious five hours I have left before I must wake up and come into work to polish my lessons.
And so, we’ll see.
Maybe I’ll write a letter to Sapphire…but she no longer reads me.
I’ll write a poem, or a sonnet.
Maybe, I’ll stare at the ceiling and imagine subtitles appearing at the bottom of my vision, as the drama from the hood unfolds.
Tags: August 2008, September 2009
