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Waterlogged

Andy Schenck

    I’m gonna rip his head off! I’m gonna take him up the tower and hang him from his toes until he apologizes for the absolute hell of a night he has put me through. As I stood outside in the pouring rain, I fantasized about ways to pay back that miserable security guard who slammed the door in my face. Since when was asking to use the phone a capital offense?
    Forget pitter patter, they were bullets raining from the sky. It was sometime after 9:00PM, dark, and desolate. Titans of Korea’s new international city, dimly lit skyscrapers, stood over me without the slightest interest in my dilemma. Not ONE taxi. If I had been a bomb, the entire island would have blown to smithereens. I wanted to explode, but the continual downpour of the monsoon, which decided to start the minute I moved my suitcases out of my old room, snuffed out my fuse.
    Two beams of light emerged from a wall of impenetrable murk, and a halo with 4 beautiful letters – T-A-X-I. My metallic savior arrived. “Trunkhu Yora Jusayo!” I shouted at the taxi driver to open the trunk, but he stared at me like I was Frankenstein. Korean is a tough language. Next, I tried a game of charades. I pointed to the luggage, and made some weird gesture to fly my bags into his trunk. The driver didn’t want to play. He just gave me a blank stare instead. Bomb or no bomb I was going to explode.
     Just as I seemed to be making some progress, a lanky young Korean guy came up to the taxi. He didn’t look any older than 21, and I figured he must be one of those college kids from the local campus. No matter how kind he looked, his approach was an assault. That taxi was MINE! I switched into goalie mode, trying to anticipate which way he would try to slip past me. But I was never good at soccer. He slid in and said, in nearly perfect English, “I have reserved this taxi.”
    Utter deflation, like the time my front tire blew out on the Thruway. I was grounded. The taxi driver wouldn’t send anyone. The door shut and I waited. One minute...two...three... It’s no use. I will not be able to get to my new apartment today. I turned and walked back, soaked through to the bone with water and disappointment.
    Wouldn’t you know it. As soon as I got far enough away from the glow of the taxi stand to render me virtually invisible, a taxi approached. And with the luck that only I seem to have, another passenger was right there ready to get in. I ran for the taxi anyway, flailing my arms like a shipwrecked sailor. Hope sailed away as the car began to move into the gloom. “Fu*% ... Son-of-a-*#%&!” Nearly every curse word poured out in a display that would have horrified my mother.
    Just as I decided to go back to the security guard and give him a piece of my mind, the taxi suddenly made a U-turn and came back to the taxi stand. The passenger got out, and the driver let me in. He was kind and helped me with my luggage. Thank goodness the driver was able to spot me before he drove away.
    It turns out that the college kid, the person I would have called my mortal enemy a few minutes before, reserved the taxi for me, AKA “the soaked 200-pound white guy.” You know, the simplest things in life make the biggest difference. The student’s kindness made me realize the goodness in people. I always hoped that I would run into him again, just to say thank you.

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