Thrill-Bent (9 page)

I’m glad my darts skirted all the obvious, reverse-fall, loop-de-loop giga-coasters, those massive steel giants named after superheroes that awe teenagers in hot Midwestern suburbs, and instead I’ve been forced to take a more underdog approach to thrill. (When I asked Buffy if she’d been on any other roller coasters, she rolled her eyes and said, “Disney World? Hello?”) I’ve discovered that a big part of physical excitement for me is the element of surprise. I want to discover something unexpected while I’m being thrown around by g-forces. Roller coaster designs are inherently tricky: since the first drop is always the fastest—because the ride requires the momentum from this descent to power the rest of its turns—the subsequent features are necessarily less conspicuously thrilling. The coaster designers can’t lean on sheer speed to coerce high-pitched exhilaration. They have to resort to physiological/psychological manipulations to achieve their own brand of chills. The most obvious example of this body/mind ruse is the loop, which turns up in most new steel coasters because it is the most dramatic way to exploit centrifugal force. You don’t need Indy-500 speed in order to achieve balance upside-down. In fact, slower speeds produce a more dramatic effect of almost-falling-out-of-your-seat danger. At higher speeds the loop would go by too fast for the rider to really notice or appreciate; the whole point is to allow for the brief suspension of disbelief, that moment where you realize fully what is happening to your body, and you register the absurdity of your flight through space. The corksrew turn is another popular inversion element used to produce a similar oh-my-god-this-is-really-happening reaction.

The ’dan, however, doesn’t employ any of the pyrotechnics of spirograph design. The rest of the ride is pretty standard fare, a double out-and-back layout where the train takes the first series of hills to a turnaround, returns toward the lift hill at a lower elevation, turns around again and heads home (in other words, it goes
out and back,
twice, thus the name). The out-and-back is galvanized with flat turns—where the track, instead of banking into the curve, remains virtually flat, giving the rider the feeling that the coaster may tip over due to lateral gravity. Imagine taking a sharp curve on a motorcycle, without leaning into the turn. The Sidesplitter is aptly named. Every time we swivel more than forty degrees, Buffy crashes into me and we’re both slammed against the side of the car, even while we grip our black rubber horsecollars for dear life. It’s a cunning and abusive stunt, one that the ’dan repeats again and again in case you missed it the first time. By the time we are released from our car by the men in the white coats, Buffy and I are clutching at places on our bodies and moaning dramatically.

When we exit the ride, I notice that a group of Buffy-esque girls have gathered on the other side of the red gate. They are hard to miss, since they’re the only group of teenagers in the vicinity who look like they are ready to audition for a gothic rendition of
Annie.
Ruffles and babydoll dresses abound, along with fishnet gloves and lace headdresses. Not all of them are Korean-American, but they could all be sisters. They immediately flock to Buffy, talking over each other and smoothing her rumpled peacock-blue hair back into its spearlike shape. One girl takes a mini can of Aqua Net from her purse and sprays, which no one seems to mind, even though the fumes make my eyes water as they waft up to my atmosphere. A waif in a Marie Antoinette wig invites me to go out to a noraebang with the group, but when I ask what she means my voice is a croaky whisper. As the eight of them stand in front of Crawdaddy’s ticket booth deciding where to go, I find the group mentality that emerges downright spooky. No one seems grumpy or annoyed; no one insists that their own personal agenda be adhered to; no one threatens to withhold money, transportation, or liquor if their special needs are not met. I am definitely not in New York anymore. In fact, no one asserts any sort of negativity at all, as if the consequential emotional pain and abashment of rejecting someone else’s idea, however distasteful or idiotic, would be far less tolerable than just going ahead and traipsing off to that same karaoke bar for the fiftieth time, or jumping on the count of three into the Wallisville Reservoir. Listening to the high-pitched sounds of the evening’s plans being laid like the egg of some glassy-eyed bird, I feel slightly nauseated and dizzy, and I decide to go back to my hotel. But just as I am slyly extricating myself from the huddle, Buffy wobbles over on her platform heels (I’m glad that she seems to travel in groups, because if she ever got mugged, there’s no way she could outrun anyone).

“You
have
to come,” she whines. “This is part of what your editor paid for. She wanted you to experience some Houston night life!” She narrows her eyes and shakes her head like a yenta. “She warned me that you might resist.”

I jangle the rental car keys in my pocket as a sort of aural hint to myself that I’ll be okay soon, that I do have an eventual escape route from the the blaring, communal pandemonium that is bound to follow. The noraebang of choice, as it turns out, is only a few blocks away, and so I am corralled into walking down the street en masse. Maybe we should all hold hands, Montessori-method, I think, or pair off, buddy-system.

The karaoke club (or parlor, as Buffy’s friends keep calling it) has a faux stone entryway with giant dragons “carved” into it, their gaping mouths filled with bright bouncing neon sticks—an awesome, postmodern marriage of Korean mythology and 1980s techno. Buffy translates the name as “the Monster House” and assures me that I’ll love the place. I can’t believe how bright and spacious and institutional it is when we walk in; it looks like a PTA meeting is about to start. Folding chairs line the foyer, and mom types in snug, high-waisted jeans pace around talking on cell phones. After a brief conversation with the hostess, we are ushered to a small room in the back. This room is darker, with neon sculptures and low couches along one wall, flanked by fake potted palms. On the opposite wall, there are six large TV screens. Cushions are scattered on the floor, and intermittent clusters of stuffed animals are arranged in domestic tableaux—a lion, a giraffe, and a couple of bunnies.

“Do we want some bi bim bop?” Buffy asks, before our hostess exits. Again, there is a lengthy, high-pitched group discussion, the upshot of which is,
yes, we want some.
I’m not sure what it is, but if I ask I’m sure Buffy will accuse me of “resisting,” so I go with the flow. Immediately, Marie Antoinette picks up a microphone and punches some numbers into the karaoke machine, and while the rest of us choose where to sprawl, she launches into a spirited rendition of a song called “The Beautiful People” by Marilyn Manson. She writhes in mock agony as she sings, and the screens behind her flash images of puppies and kitties frolicking on someone’s immaculate front lawn. At one point she takes a bottle of Robitussin from her pocket and then throws her head back and gulps it down between phrases. A round-faced girl hands me a paper cup filled with soju (“It’s like Korean sake!” she yells as she presses it into my hands). These girls are too young to drink, but I guess the proprietors look the other way when teenagers come in with bulging backpacks.

In between songs, Buffy slides in next to me and tells me that the women I thought were PTA moms when we came in are actually “helpers,” a.k.a. prostitutes, and that some of the private rooms actually have secret passageways that lead out to the back alley in case the place gets raided. Women of all ages are recruited for this work, and it is not uncommon, she tells me, for middle-aged Korean moms to earn a little extra cash in the noraebangs at night. “I know,” she says, nodding at my perplexed expression, “It’s like totally Lifetime movie of the week: ‘Secret Life of a Korean Soccer Mom.’” Then she hands me a tambourine (one that lights up purple and pink when you slap it), and pulls me up off the sofa for a duet of “Up Where We Belong” from
An Officer and a Gentleman.
Buffy winds the hunk of hair above her ear as she sings, closing her eyes and obsessively coiling while her friends yell, “Go Buffers!” The cheesy chorus is surprisingly fun to belt out, cathartic even, and during the instrumental parts we argue melodramatically about which one of us is the officer and which is the gentleman.

The bi bim bop arrives with a soft knock on the door and a cheerful “Ahn yong ha-se-yo!” that somehow sounds like “Yoo-hoo!” A young man in tight black pants and a slinky silver shirt pushes the door open with his hip and sets a tray of steaming bowls on the low table in front of the couch. Except for Marie Antoinette, who is splayed prone on a floor cushion with her head on the floor, the girls dive on it as though they haven’t eaten in weeks. Bi bim bop turns out to be a delicious mix of rice, vegetables, thinly sliced beef, and egg, with a tangy red pepper sauce and sesame oil on top. Maybe it’s the soju, or maybe it’s the preponderance of stuffed animals (I am lounging so hard now I’m practically horizontal, tickling the ear of a velveteen tigger with my toe) but I feel like I am about fifteen years old. The irritation I felt only an hour ago with the teenage groupthink is completely gone, and the fact that this is a private room only adds to the clubby feeling. Maybe next we’ll go door-to-door selling cookies. Even though I know I’m much closer in age to the noraebang helpers in their light-wash mom jeans, Buffy and her friends have charmed me and welcomed me into their teenage fold with a strange, endearing mix of kawaii sartorial stylings, succulent new flavors, and deeply earnest karaoke panache. I lean back on the couch and look around for a door to a secret passageway, savoring the soju’s starchy zest.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and set my empty bowl on the floor. Two of Buffy’s friends are clinging to each other and riffing in duet, segueing from “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart” to “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” Now Buffy is sitting next to me again, and she grabs my hand with both of hers.

“I want you to have a souvenir from your trip to Houston,” she says, stuffing something into my palm. It’s a tiny plastic bag, the kind used for spare buttons, saffron threads, wood screws, or small quantities of illegal drugs. I open my hand and look at the three yellow-and-black capsules inside. “Those are bumblebees,” she says. “If you take them before you go to bed, you’ll have the wildest dreams.”

“Really?” I ask. Wilder than watching two Korean-Texan teenagers dressed as eighteenth-century monarchs belt out a Neil Diamond-Barbra Streisand duet? “Like psychedelic, purple paisley unicorns kind of wild? Or more like Dian Fossey living naked with the gorillas kind of wild?”

She seriously weighs the question, her lips pursed tightly. “Well, that’s pretty much up to you. Cause when you dream with the bumblebees, you’re in charge.” She looks at me earnestly. “Have you ever had a dream where you, like,
know
you’re dreaming?”

She explains that these capsules are filled with a high concentration of dextromethorphan, or DXM, which is the active drug in most cough syrups. I’ve heard of kids getting high off cough syrup—isn’t that what James Ellroy used to do in LA in the ’50s?—and we have a local example leaving a pancake makeup stain on the cement floor right in front of us. But I’ve never seen the capsule form. Apparently, when taken in doses higher than what fits into the bottle’s miniature plastic cup/cap, it feels like Special K (ketamine) or PCP, neither of which I’ve ever taken, with the extra added benefit of inducing lucid dreaming. When I ask where she gets these capsules, Buffy nods her head toward Marie Antoinette, who I now notice has broken out in cherry-red spots all along her arms.

“My friend Brianna makes them. She’s into chemistry. She calls it the Agent Lemon process, something to do with adding lemon juice to cough syrup and freezing it, then scraping off the crystalized top layer. I don’t know. All I know is, it works! Especially for flying dreams. I used to think she was lying about that, but then I tried it, and it’s awesome!”

As she’s saying this, I notice how shiny Buffy’s eyes are. They look almost like pure liquid, sloshing back and forth as she speaks. I put the mini-baggie in my pocket, and hold Buffy’s hand as we shout encouragement at her crooning friends.

“Come on, bring her some flowers already!” I like flying dreams as much as the next person. Especially when the next person is a hair-twirling, platform-booted future design star. “Sing her a love song, dude!” I yell.

By the time I peel myself up from the sofa and put down my
BadMouth
credit card, I really don’t remember what city I’m in, much less where my car is parked or my hotel is located. Buffy and her friends are headed to a disco, and after a protracted good-bye/hugfest, they walk away from me down the neon-lighted street, clutching each other’s arms like a costumed square dance troupe. I know that my rental car is American, with one of those sexual-sounding names like Pulsar or Ram. I pace the streets of Koreatown like a coyote, despondent and predatory. I remember having seen a stone statue of Buddha when I parked, but now I can’t find the statue through the dense throngs of nightclubbing youngsters. I consider going back to find Buffy and her entourage, but I doubt I’d be able to locate them either—and even if I did, can a soju-soaked pack instinct really help me find my parking place? I can’t even see the Kukwa-dan anymore, since it is quite dark and the profusion of two-story buildings prevents any sightlines. I am almost in tears by the time I spot it: a shiny maroon Ford Probe whose chirp responds like a primed lover to my thumbing its alarm-button.

I drive like the annoying non-driver I am, jumping lanes and passing on the right, not even having taken the time to pull a map from the glove compartment. I will myself to be sucked toward my motel; I attempt to psychically zone in on peace and quiet. In a fraction of a second I go from having no idea where I am to being firmly grounded in time and space: As I dart around a Datsun in the fast lane, I recognize the stunted silhouette of the Kukwa-dan on the edge of the blue-black skyline. They must have switched on the electricity—now the spiro-graphic shape of the little coaster is lit with red Christmas lights that look crayoned onto the sky. It’s like a bleak but beautiful popsicle-stick replica, red on charcoal gray. The vision of a coaster in the distance is immediately soothing to my emotions, more evocative than a neon cross on a hill, or hundred-foot-high golden arches when I’m famished. The specter of a cambering structure whose only purpose is to hurl our bodies around curvaceous bends and hills for no particular reason (a.k.a. fun) calls up a childlike faith in humankind. I pull over to the shoulder of the road, a camel’s hump of gravel that grinds my muffler in one long, aggressive purr, and I tap out a Marlboro from the pack stashed in the glove compartment.