A Common Pornography: A Memoir

Korea

Darren and I wanted to feel the skin of the cashier at the Mayfair Market.

It was cold outside and I had just gotten two ski masks from my brother Russell, who was stationed in Korea. They were Christmas presents, and I think they had trees on them—red trees on white stitching. In black letters it said KOREA on the back. Darren and I thought ski masks were funny looking, and we knew from watching TV that only people in Antarctica or guys robbing banks wore them. I gave one to Darren and we wore them on our heads but never pulled them down over our faces.

Behind the grocery store were some doctors’ offices and a pharmacy. By the pharmacy was a big generator. One afternoon, we hid the two Korean ski masks behind the generator, where nobody would find them.

That night, after the store had closed, we hung out by the telephone booths. Five minutes, then fifteen, passed. Darren took a lap around the store and looked in the windows to see what the cashier was doing. She was still there and so was a yellow Volkswagen in the parking lot.

We had no knowledge of being watched, but we were. Across the street in the dark lot of a Chevron station was a police car with its lights off.

After Darren got back to the telephone booths, we talked about the girl and made a decision. As we started back to get the masks by the generator, we saw the police lights. We told the police we were looking for a cat (we whispered this alibi to each other as they got out of their car). They wrote down our names and phone numbers and asked us to show the tread on our shoes. They told us to go home and got back in their car to watch us walk away.

When I got home I remembered the ski masks by the generator. Then I quickly tried to forget.