Deleted Scene: The Starlet

After work I went to the health club I had joined for 63,000 won a month. I was feeling strong and healthy. I shared the dip rack with another, older Korean man. He got up on the rack and could only get two or three. I got 10. When I finished my set he gave me the thumbs up and said “Power!”

I showered and walked across the street to the Tex-Mex restaurant. I ordered a margarita, chips and salsa, rice, beans, a chicken enchilada, a fish taco, and a beef taco for 25,000 won. I thought about how independence equaled eating a lot of meals alone. The food made me think of Nebraska. Every taste of cilantro brought me memories of people I loved. I thought of California.

After work I went and got 100,000 won from the ATM at the Family Mart. Then I went down the corner where a movie theater advertised the new movies. I stood there looking at the posters billowing off the side of the building like sails.

The movie started in a half hour. I thought I was going to lose my nerve. This wasn’t like Henry Miller at the burlesque show. This was just a sad and lonely act. Nobody should have to go to movies by themselves. I’m going home, I thought. Just then a guy came up to the ashtray next to the bench and dug through butts for a smoke. I’m still pretty free compared to that. I bought the ticket for 7,000 won and a cider for 1,500, then sat down next to two girls taking pictures of each other with their cell phones. They looked at me and it seemed as though they didn’t approve of my loneliness. But maybe that was just me. What did they know? None of them were Scarlett Johansson.

It was “Lost in Translation” that made me obsessed with her. That opening shot of her ass. She made me a better person. I tried harder because I knew she was out there. Bad actress she was be damned.

I didn’t know it going in but the movie was about a king who loved her lips just as much as every other hipster boy. She ended up the good character that did everything right, was virtuous, and was also fully boring.