Read Online Sad Peninsula by Mark Sampson - Free Book Online

apartment, albeit with a roommate. “His name is Justin,” she informed me. “He is from Nova Scotia, like you.” She could have added He is also emotionally damaged, like you , if she had known.
    As my departure grew imminent, I gave notice on my apartment, sold off whatever shabby furniture I hadn’t hawked yet, cancelled my phone. But it didn’t feel like a new beginning, a chance for a fresh start. Not at all. Even before I stepped on Korean soil, I knew the truth about what I was doing. People don’t go to Asia to find themselves. They go there, for better or for worse, to run away from whatever they have been . And all I could hope for was to butt up against something, anything, to fill in the craters that resided within me.
    I t’s the photos of Justin’s kid that always get me. He has a collage of them tacked to the wooden headboard in his bedroom; I see them every time I go in there. This is what Justin has been — a father to a son who died in 2000. His name was Cody. Nearly six years old when he was killed in a freak accident while the family was vacationing in Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland. The photos on the headboard show the little guy in various states of little-guy animation. They overlook Justin as he sleeps.
    It’s early on a Saturday afternoon and I’m just getting mobile. Freshly showered, I towel down the remnants of my hair and try to shake off my soju hangover from the night before. A crew of us had gone out after work for kalbi , Korean-style barbecue, and the liquor had been flowing; Justin and I didn’t get home until nearly dawn. Let me describe what I mean by home , this shoebox that ABC English Planet has provided. Imagine the smallest apartment you’ve ever seen and cut in half. It has the Korean-style floor heating, called ondol , a plastic simulacrum of hardwood that you never walk on with your shoes; you must leave your footwear in the small, sunken entryway by the door. Our kitchen is just a countertop with propane hotplate sitting below a row of cupboards, and with a small fridge to the right. We have no kitchen table. The living room is a leather couch parked in the centre of the apartment facing a tiny TV in the corner. We get a few English channels — CNN International and the Armed Forces Network. There are two bedrooms to this apartment. Justin’s is much bigger than mine. The benefits of seniority.
    After I’ve dried off and dressed, I knock on Justin’s door and enter when he calls me. I find him on his bed reading a paperback. The photos of Cody hover all around his head.
    â€œWhat did you say we should do today?” I ask him. “You mentioned it last night but I can’t remember.”
    He laughs his deep laugh. “Wow, you really were drunk.” He sets his book aside. “Scrabble at the COEX.”
    â€œRight. Scrabble at the COEX.” This had been our plan, to take Justin’s Scrabble board and play a game in the food court of the COEX shopping mall. He and Rob Cruise had done this once before, with humorous results — it had caused a growing and enthusiastic crowd of Korean passersby to stop and watch them. Koreans are generally fascinated by English, even if they don’t speak it; most know that access to English means access to power. Scrabble is especially captivating, since there can be no equivalent of it with their own alphabet. My students are always begging to play the game in class, but Ms. Kim frowns upon it.
    Justin gets up and digs the Scrabble board out from under a pile of clothes. It’s an early version of the game — the maroon box is sagging and held together with an elastic band. “We’ll probably only have time for one game,” he says. “I have my private at four o’clock.”
    â€œFair enough,” I reply. By private, he means a private tutoring session, not exactly the most legal of activities in this country.