The Luthier

Was he ninety years old, his brain forgotten in a small glass of water by his bedside? He'd explained the directions to his place over the phone in a tone like he was reading them backwards to a brick wall. Then he explained them again.

"I'll just call you if I get lost," I said, offering a punctuation point for him to rest his jangly jaw.

"Oh, okaaaaay, do you have a cell phone?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Well, do you have my number?" I said yes, I had just called him.

"Well, make sure you've got my number in your phone..."

Twenty minutes later I called him from his front door, where we had agreed to meet. He was standing on the street I had just left, waiting at the bus stop. A minute later he strolled around a corner, looking at a distance younger and bouncier than I'd imagined him. As he came closer I began to have the feeling like I was dreaming; like this character couldn't possibly exist here in front of me. He was short and round, but didn't look exactly fat, because his bare legs were chicken-like to the point of appearing appetizing. I shook my head to try to knock out the thought as it occurred to me. He was talking on a phone wedged between his ear and knobby shoulder because his hands were overflowing with cellophaned sandwiches, cans of Coke, and, in my memory, maybe a t-shirt or two. His open-fronted shirt and navy grey t-shirt hung low over his too-short shorts. His chin hung low over his chest, hiding any evidence of a neck, and his wiry, thick hair hung in his eyes, a blaze of bottle-dye orange capped with dull silver roots an inch and a half in length. He resembled a giant ball of Jim Henson's laundry balanced on a pair of stilts.

He shifted and held, briefly, everything he was carrying, between one hand and his armpit, allowing a window of time in which to shake my hand.

When we got into his apartment he dropped everything and shouted, "the guy's here to look at the guitar!" Silence answered him, and for an instant I doubted that anyone else was there. He led me into a room and showed me a giant pile of lacquered wood and steel and double checked, "six string, yeah?" He brought out three acoustic guitars and sat me down, offering a cup of coffee. I declined politely and set to the investigative pluck and strum.

In a flash he asked, "so what are you looking to spend, anyway?" I laid it on the line clearly: I was in the market for a guitar costing under 140 000 Won (about 150 CAD). The first guitar had good action, cost exactly 140 000 won, but the thin body begged to be amplified, and wouldn't be suitable. A second guitar, dark in colour with a freshly sanded neck and headstock, he described as a 25-year-old Korean model, refurbished. A collectors item, he said. The only trouble was, it had no truss rod, and might need to be set every once in a while if I was not careful about humidity. Did I know Dave down at Baehanguk Music? He could do it for me. It was 650 000, but he could let it go today, for me, at 450 000. The third guitar was a Sigma dreadnought, perfect, though a little much at 160 000 Won.

As he had kindly done with the coffee offer, I threw out some pleasantries to try to buffer the hard haggle that I knew was coming. I asked where he got all the guitars. He said, "I'm an amateur luthier. I've collected them from here and there, mostly ex-pats moving back home. I take 'em in, rework 'em a bit and sell them." I nodded. We talked about the world of luthiering until I could no longer fake it.

"You don't know what a luthier is, do you?"

"No," I said, ashamed.

"It's someone who makes and fixes guitars." He looked disgusted.

This was my cue to move on to business. I picked up my future Sigma and madly strummed my "test chord" - a sort of high-positioned E7. He asked me what I play.

"Ah..." I couldn't quite answer. "Well, I don't really play like blues or straight folk or rock tunes--"

"I didn't ask what you don't play. What DO you play?"

I took a minute. "I guess I mostly like to write songs, but--"

"Oh, so you play originals."

"Well, I mean, I learn covers sometimes," He pressed me. "Leonard Cohen," I finally spat out. He agreed that Leonard Cohen was great, and he knew plenty of Cohen tunes. I had to tell him that I had only learned one, So Long Marianne, but I didn't tell him that I had only learned it so that I could sing those great female backing vocals from the chorus. So loooong Mariaaaa-aa-aaaaan, it's time we began...

"So, do you do it in A?" He picked up another guitar and looked at me expectantly. I quickly put down the dreadnought and foolishly touched the vintage Korean guitar. It was a real collectors item, he said, I should really buy it. I could take it home to Canada. I said I already had a guitar at home, and when he asked what kind I stammered a moment, trying to remember, and when I finally said, "A Yamaha," he clearly didn't believe me.

"It's way out of my price range," I said with authority, trying to close the matter.
He looked at me with his big waxy face, perplexed by my existence.

"Well, how much money do you have on you?" I didn't answer. "You could pay me, say, 250 000 today, and then pay the rest on pay day, like a payment plan." I declined his offer, and he shot, "Why not?!" The corners of his mouth flew to the floor like they were dragged by heavy weights and his eyes radiated a surly Irish-blue desperation. It was time to buy my guitar and leave.

Suddenly his wife appeared, a Korean woman that looked his age, but carried herself like a shrewd ajumma. An ajumma is a species of Korean woman, everyone uses the term, though despite its literal meaning - auntie - it has connotations. Ajummas wear synthetic fabrics in bold patterns, usually pants and a long sleeved "shirt" (upper-body-case?), always in bold clash with each other. They spend a lot of time at the hair salon and shield their faces from the sun (dark skin = labour work = dirty) with huge visors that make them look like members of the Fett family in Star Wars. This seemingly soft description of a feminine, delicate creature is completely misleading. Ajummas are war-pig death-tanks that will destroy anything in their paths. Get in front of them in any line, and even if you're already jammed against other bodies they will pound at your back. The most important advice I can offer if you ever find yourself in the company of an ajumma is this: NEVER stand between an ajumma and an open seat on a bus or subway car. They may just crack five feet on average, but they pack a shoulder like a linebacker. Also, I think they actually sharpen their elbows.

True to their ruthless reputation, ajummas are known to be keen business people; they own and operate most of Seoul City's mom and pop (mostly mom) restaurants. The luthier's wife was right on cue when I first expressed interest in the Sigma. She walked by coyly and said with award-worthy believability, "Ooooh, the Sigma," here she bent and strummed a few strings, widened her eyes and brought her hand to her face, "WOW."

And this is when the shit-wagon really started to roll.

The luthier and the ajumma worked a sales act so heinously, ploddingly predictable and see-through it almost made my brain bleed. You know, compliments and other unneeded idiocies. He started by countering my offer of 140 000 Won, "Well, that guy Dave I mentioned earlier, he said he'd buy it next week for 160 000."

I held fast, explaining that I had given myself a cap that wouldn't budge. He mentioned the payment plan again; 20 bucks next week. This pissed me off, "Look, if you want to take 150 000 now, I'll take the guitar, but if you ask for any more that will send me on my way." I heard the words coming out of my mouth from somewhere else in the room. Could this be my voice? The luthier agreed and from another room the ajumma appeared to ask me if I was in business, or maybe...marketing? "Save it, bitch," I, of course, didn't say (but wanted to).

I handed him the cash, which he then handed to his wife, rolling the words, "count it," off his shoulder. She nodded that it was all there and I made a quick move for the door. Just then another guy burst through the door, obviously a friend of the luthier's. My sneakers were on, the guitar was over my shoulder, and just as I began to say, "well, thanks a l--" he cut me off with a left-field string of invites and friendship bids. He mentioned an Irish bar they go to, that it had an open-mic night, that I should come down sometime, maybe tonight, that I could call them anytime. I said, "sure, maybe I'll see you down there sometime."

As the door closed I heard him shout, "Great, really hope to see you again sometime."

I know the bar they go to, and I'm practicing my Cohen covers.




///


We went to meet Mr. Lee's daughter. To my utter disappointment the meeting was completely normal, even pleasant. She wanted lessons, and if we were worried about accepting money (and thus breaking the conditions of our work visas) she and her brother could just buy us things. Meals, and such. I said that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that. Then I learned she is a graduate student in product design, about to finish her thesis.

Korean design is a topic I want to write about. Shit.