Mary-Anne With the Shaky Hands

Dave and I shared two loves. We both loved the Who and we both loved Mary-Anne. Whenever she entered the teachers’ room, Dave would start in with the Pete Townsend lyric “Linda can cook” and “I would respond Jean reads books, Cindy can sew” and then together we would sing, “But I'd rather know Mary-Anne with the shaky hands, What they've done to her man, Those shaky hands.”

Mary-Anne was beautiful. She was a Korean-American, adopted at birth by an American couple in Torrance, California. Tall, thin, with buckets of black hair and dark eyes, rooms lit up when she walked in. Raised entirely in the US, she had come to Korea after graduating to learn a little about her roots. She started working as a part time teacher at ELS CHONG NO and had been there about a month, but Dave and I were in love from the first day.

On the last day of the month, the teachers usually went out for a beer after classes finished at ten o’clock. This time Dave invited Mary-Anne along. We ended up at a beer garden on the top of Nansam Mountain in the center of Seoul. The mountain is a park with paths leading down to the neighborhoods around the base of the mountain, one of which is ITAEWON home to the US army base.

Around midnight, the bar was closing down. The curfew in Seoul had recently been reinstated and most of our group had already left. The three of us, Dave, Mary-Anne and I, were finishing up our last beers. Dave had brought his guitar and was casually strumming. I was jealous of Dave’s guitar ability. He was not good looking, bird thin, with a head too big for his body, hands like dinner plates. I had thought he was retarded when I first met him, but as Eddie Van Halen explained, “After I learned to play the guitar, I got all the tail I wanted.”

Dave’s musical ability made him swordsman par excellence among the ELS CHONG-NO staff. When I saw the guitar and heard him gently humming Stairway to Heaven, I guessed I would be going home alone and Mary-Anne would be another notch on Dave’s belt. The idea made me kind of sad, but it seemed right and natural at the time. Imagine my surprise when Mary-Anne stood up, looked at our two shiny, beer perspired faces and then said, “Kelly, can you walk me home. I don’t want to walk through the park alone.”

I had to step past Dave’s seat to get out. I was eager, but paused long enough to lean in to his ear and whisper, “Fuck you Dave.”

I did not have a lot of experience with girls and even though she had invited me to walk her home, I did not know exactly what was expected of me. When we entered the woods, she slipped her hand into mine. The night was hot and muggy, but that is not why my hand was hot and slippery with sweat. Her skin was cool, but she had calluses on her palm. I remembered she did gymnastics. That was in high school, but she still had the calluses. Maybe it was the beer, but I felt calmer after she took my hand. She was leading and that was fine with me, better really. If left up to me we never would have gotten anywhere.

There were benches along the path. She pulled me over to one and we sat down. I turned her hand over to look at the calluses on her palm and then showed her the calluses on my hands I had from installing sprinkler systems before coming to Korea. Soon we started kissing. Just kissing. It was good. A hot, moist night, a couple of beers and now making out with a beautiful girl in a park, life seemed good.

Like those scenes in the teenage slasher flicks where the couple starts to get it on and then gets attacked and killed by some crazed maniac, I felt Mary-Anne stiffen in my arms. “There’s someone in the woods.” She pulled away. “Seriously. Look over there.” She pointed and off the path, in the woods, just outside the light from street lamps was a weird lump – not a tree stump or a rock, but a weird lump. I stood up and walked to the end of the path. I couldn’t tell what it was. I cupped my hands around mouth and called, “Yogio” (Hey, in Korean).

The lump stood up and walked toward the light. It was a man and he was holding his arm out in front of him in a weird way. I took a step back and as he came into the light, I saw it was a policeman and he was holding a gun in his hand stretched out in front of him.

I fell back and stood next to Mary-Anne. The policeman waved the gun at me, but spoke to Mary-Anne , “Kun Chun Ai Yo” (Are you OK?).

I answered in Korean, “We’re OK.”
“Shut up.” The policeman again spoke to Mary-Anne. “Are you OK? Who is this guy?”
I had been in Korea about six months and my Korean was very basic. Two beers and some of the squid with hot sauce, I could manage. Mary-Anne had been in Seoul less than a month and did not speak a word, but she looked like she should and she was the one the policeman wanted to talk too.

“Who is this guy? Is he an American soldier?”
Mary-Anne , shaking slightly, nodded yes, “Ne” (Yes in Korean).
I understood the word soldier and was worried where this was going. Koreans have very mixed feelings about the US military presence and have conservative views about inter-racial relations between the GIs and local females.

“I’m not a GI,” I protested.
“Shut up.” He again spoke to Mary-Anne. “Are you OK?” He said something else I did not understand, but I guessed he wanted to know what our relationship was, was she here against her will.

“Hang Gu Mal Upsio,” she doesn’t speak Korean. I practically screamed. The tension was rising. My heart was beating.

He told me to shut up again. Again he asked Mary-Anne some questions, neither of us understood. The gun was shaking in his hand, moving back and forth between us. I could see he was sweating and nervous.

“Tell him you are my wife,” I spoke to Mary-Anne . “Say ‘Nyobo’.” I did not know the word for girlfriend and I could not explain what we were doing here. He did not listen to me anyway.

The policeman spit out another burst of Korean. His voice sounded angry. Mary-Anne closed her eyes and shouted, “Nyobo!”

The policeman stopped. “Nyobo?” he repeated.
“Ne” Mary-Anne said.
He looked at me, “Nyobo?”
“Nyobo,” I said.

It seemed very quiet. The policeman smiled, but did not lower the gun. With his left hand he gestured for me to come toward him. He waved his hand palm down in the Korean style. I was reassured by this. I had heard that dogs and criminals are gestured to in the palm up Western style so felt relieved that he was being polite.

He moved behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. He pushed me gently off the path and into the woods. He did not say a word, but pushed me again when I paused at the edge of the light. We were going into the woods. He still held the gun in his right hand. I thought he was going to kill me. He was taking me into the woods to shoot me. My knees were knocking and I could hear my heart beating. Mary-Anne was standing alone on the path just watching us go. I looked back and she was crying. He pushed me again.

I was going to die. My muscles did not work right. I was dizzy and my arms and legs felt jangly and loose. He was going to shoot me in the woods and I was going to die. There was an incredible emptiness in my stomach. I felt sick.

We reached a small clearing in the trees. The lights from the path did not reach here, but there was a little light from the stars and the moon. The night was clear. I stopped again. I felt his hand on my shoulder. He leaned in close to me and whispered in English, “Here, very quiet.” My legs had no strength. I was going fall down. He said it again, “Here, very quiet.” And then slowly, he walked away.

To this day, I do not know what he was thinking, what his intention was. Did he expect us continue making out in the woods after having a gun held on us and being interrogated by the police. To just start kissing again seemed ridiculous.

I stood alone for a minute after the policeman had left. I walked back to the path. My legs were still jerky and stiff. I felt exhausted and wanted to sleep. Mary-Anne was still on the path. She did not say anything. She did not hug me the way women in the movies do. We walked down the path in silence. She did not hold my hand.

We reached her apartment building. She went quickly inside without kissing me good night and I took a taxi home.

The next Monday was the start of a new term at ELS CHONG NO. Mary-Anne did not come to work. One of her friends told the director that she had returned to California. She was not coming back to Korea.

“Linda can cook, Jean reads books, Cindy can sew. But I'd rather know Mary-Anne with the shaky hands, What they've done to her man, Those shaky hands.”