The train car went mad. The boy's mother joined in and maybe the father and then there were many male voices shouting as they tried to free the boy. As the doors had slid open the boys hand had been pulled along into the recess in the wall where they rested. I couldn't see him and I'll be honest: I didn't move from my spot at the back of the car because already there was a huge group of people around the door, yanking and yelling and the addition of one more body in the press, especially one that couldn't understand anything that was being said in the panic, wasn't likely to help. Also, I didn't move from my spot because the intensity of the mother's screams led me to believe that if I caught sight of the boy it would be with one limb missing and a growing pool of blood spilling down the gap between the train and the platform.
The boy was fine as far as I could tell as his father carried him onto the platform. His arm was red from all the yanking but still attached.
***
12:30 is about the perfect time to go on. Bars in Korea stay open until five or six if there are still people stumbling in them, so by midnight-thirty people are just falling into step. Going into the third band of the night, there was a decent crowd. Then I saw, what I must admit, was a pretty amazing trick. The lead singer of the band had already executed step one by getting himself very drunk. Step two was rambling between songs about how much he hated 'hippies' (an easily and often comically maligned group) and 'faggots' (not so much). Now maybe there is a step three, but you don't need it if you just repeat step two over and over again. And that is just what he did. If his intention was to clear the bar, he nailed it. By the time they'd finished he'd effectively slimmed their audience down to those people too drunk to leave the bar and their friends who came to see them. (Those friends left when they did, which was right away save for the drummer who I will say in the interest of fairness bought us all shots and stuck around to watch our set).
So, in true rock and roll fashion, we played to a nearly empty bar in a performance that was so intimate a girl felt the need to compliment us before she left. "You're lovely", she said. "I thought you were just surf rock at first but you're really good." Now I don't really know what surf rock is, or why she's maligning it, but it did immediately beg the question, "if we're really good why are you leaving the bar?"
***
On the early morning after to return in time for Ultimate Frisbee, Greg and I watched as a man pitched key chain flashlights in the subway car. Mass transit salesmen are common. The only thing that caught my eye was the keen interest of the old man who sat on the other side of Greg. Hands on his knees, leaning forward, he nodded along with the man as he went through what I assume were the various grand properties of this particular flashlights. The old man and one other lady in the car bought one. At the next stop the old man got up and exited the train, only to walk into the next car. The salesman, completing his sales and corralling his inventory, took his cart through the double sets of doors that connected each link in the train. Greg and I looked at each other. It couldn't be. We watched, excited, through the port hole as the man silently went through his selling points again. Sure enough, the same old man leaned forward and summoned him over and bought another flashlight.
I am a large fan of street theatre and the 'flash' work of such groups as 'Improv Everywhere'. I was fortunate enough this weekend to be a part of a live infomercial. I did not even buy the product, and yet I am completely satisfied.
