Already a heavy
drinker, left to my own devices, I began to drink more. By the time She finally
moved out, I was drunk nearly every day and soon after that, “nearly”
disappeared from the phrase and just became every day.
Even now, a couple of
years later, I don’t try to figure out who to blame or maybe I ignore my own
faults. To say She left because I was drinking is an easy assumption to make
but I think that’s a cop out. I was drinking when I met her, while I courted
her, and married her for 6 years. It wasn't like I was some fabulous guy who
turned into an abusive alcoholic after marriage. And I started to drink much
more after She was gone, leading to my current situation. It got much worse
after. It was like my best friend dying except She wasn't dead and She was no
longer my friend. I was a stranger in a strange land in my own house. She
abandoned me in a foreign country to fend for myself in a foreign language
after depending on her for basic necessities for my entire life here. At the
same time, my visa and passport both expired. My passport was easy to replace,
the visa, not so much.
At the Immigration
office, due to our separation and separate addresses, our 6 years of marriage
was now under investigation as a fraud. It seemed pretty fucking real to me. To
make things worse, She was actually in New York with her new boyfriend. While I
was struggling to keep my life from falling apart, She wasn't even in the same
fucking country, further eroding my credibility.
My life included our
(now “my”) dog, our (my) apartment, with all our (my) furniture, including the
refrigerator, washing machine, TV, bed, etc. Since, I no longer had a wife or
any need to be in a foreign country in the first place anymore, I still had to
deal with getting rid of it all and I needed a visa to do it. I was also
technically married and couldn't get a divorce, even if I wanted to because She wasn't in the country. At one point, She had added her niece to her family
registry and this unknown element came as quite a shock when asked by the
reviewing immigration officer if I had a daughter with Her. It was more than a
shock because it was nearly a year after she had left and therefore more than
possible, however unlikely (due to a lack of a sex life before our split), that
the daughter was born without my knowledge. I was greatly relieved to discover
later it was her niece. At the time, my stammering reply only further destroyed
any credibility I may have had left, convincing the immigration officer that my
marriage really was a sham. I was told to return 6 months later.
In the meantime, as I
dismantled my previous life and my current one disintegrated in a haze of
cigarettes and booze, I naturally became more cynical and combative about my
country of residence.
I was bored and lonely. I couldn't stand being
alone in my (our) apartment. I went to drink at bars, but not socialize—just so
I wasn't sitting alone. I was hostile to any attempts by strangers to be friends.
I didn't need new friends; I had Jim & Jack to keep me company, as well as
few Russian girls and my usual suspects. I rejected Korean and Koreans, and
when pushed, I fought back.
I would get so
blindingly drunk, sometimes I never made it the couple of blocks home, opting
to pass out in a doorway along the way instead. Roused by a concerned police
officer, I thought I was being mugged and attacked. This got me my first fine
of $4000 for preventing an officer from fulfilling their duty, or “obstruction
of justice”. I didn't pay it. I had no job or money and my source of income was
questionable, if nearly non-existent. I had odd jobs and sold most of my (our)
belongings. Near the end, I had an empty house with just my clothes, a few
pillows and blankets, my laptop, and an internet connection and that’s about it.
Everything else, including the refrigerator, was gone, although I kept the
vacuum and washing machine right up to the last minute.
Back at the bars, I
ended up in two more incidents, resulting in two more $2000 fines for a total
of $8000 of unpaid fines. On the visa front, She had returned to Korea and we
finally divorced. I was scheduled to get a new visa, but now rid of all our
(my) belongings, I decided I no longer needed a visa since I wasn't married and
no longer had any stuff tying me to the land. I bought a ticket to Thailand
instead, said my good-byes and went to the airport.
Only to be blocked at
the departure gates due to my $8000 in unpaid fines. At this point, a sad,
pathetic story becomes surreal and ridiculous. It becomes a Catch-22 on an epic
scale.
A story of fucked if you do and fucked if you don’t... Continue to the next page>>
A story of fucked if you do and fucked if you don’t... Continue to the next page>>