The girl was draped over the mailbox like Salvador Dali’s Limp Watches, dripping down the blue paint. She was wearing a matching blue dress and he appreciated her white buttocks that pushed out like two frozen supermarket chickens.
Colin Pierce’s first goal was to christen his homecoming with a cold beer. Two beers. Poking someone in the nose might also be a gratifying way to say, “I’m back.” He banged open the door to O’Malley’s Plimsoll Line, the bar where he’d had his …
The slacks and sweater had to go. They made this woman in her young thirties look like a ’50s beatnik. She smiled mysteriously under her large nose. Her eyelids and eyebrows hung down at the corners, as though the laws of gravity were battling the forces of her inner enlightenment. Her otherwise even, white teeth had a distracting gap in front. But in spite of this grab-bag mixture of features, the entire package bubbled over, displaying a fusion of excitement and vivacity. Our attraction was magnetic.
His attitude turned to one of amazement when he walked out of the hotel and into the crisp morning. Seoul’s tired streets now looked like Fifth Avenue. Here was a Benetton, nearby a Coach, and a Starbucks on every corner. America, with its potholed roads, crumbling buildings, and panhandlers, was a second-class country in comparison.
The walls of his living room began closing in. Old feelings returned and gripped his heart in its fist. Standing abruptly, he grabbed his keys and cigarettes and slammed the door on his way out of the house.
