Love’s Gamble

“Ah, sir,” said Ken, “you are mistaking Korean cuisine with Chinese cuisine. We do not serve soy sauce with our food, we have different sauces.”

“Korean, Chinese, it’s all the same thing,” said the customer. “Who cares anyway? You’re all squinty, you all talk the same. I just want some real food, not this crap.”

A slight crease in his forehead marred the pleasantness of Ken’s features but he still did not raise his voice. “Sir, there is no need to be rude. Please, tell me what is wrong with the food? Does it not taste right?”

“It tastes like sh*t,” said that customer, pushing his plate away. “Make it again, I am not going to subject myself to this horrible food!”

“Sir,” said Ken, “you are going to have to be more specific. What exactly is wrong with the food? What is wrong with the taste?”

“Look,” said the customer, pointing his finger at Ken’s chest in a gesture that was both hostile and offensive. “I do not know where you’re from, and I do not care. I do not want any of this crap, do you understand me? I want real food. I want food that I will actually enjoy eating. Bring me something decent, like Kung Pao chicken of something like that. Can you do that for me? Can you at least get me some decent Kung Pao chicken?”

“Sir,” said Ken, “This is not a Chinese restaurant. This is a Korean restaurant. The food that you are requesting, it is Chinese food. I am afraid you are going to have to go to a different restaurant if that is the type of food that you want, because we just do not make it here.”

“I can’t just go to a different place,” said the customer in the same high pitched whine that made Freema want to punch him in the gut. “My lunch break is gonna be over soon. Can’t you at least make me some chicken Manchurian?”

“Sir,” said Ken, once again not failing to be polite as he tried to talk sense into what was, quite possibly, the single stupidest man in the world. “I’ll explain it to you again. Kung Pao, Manchurian chicken, these are all Chinese foods. We do not serve those here, it’s a Korean restaurant. You wouldn’t go into an Indian restaurant and order jerk chicken now would you? You wouldn’t enter a French place and order pizza, right? Now, we have a lot of lovely Korean dishes that I am sure that you are going to enjoy. Why do not you select something else from our menu? I will have it brought out to you in a jiffy, and you do not have to pay for your previous order. Does that seem fair?”

“I do not like any of this crap,” said the customer, “you are refusing service for no reason. You just do not want me to have a nice lunch. All you immigrants, you all just think you can come in here and do whatever the hell you want! Well this is America, kid, and you are gonna have to serve me the food that I want because that’s just what we do in America.”

“Immigrant…” said Ken in a confused tone of voice, “I’m from Chicago.”

“Right,” said the customer, crossing his arms in a gesture that was both haughty and arrogant. “I believe that, sure. Next you’re gonna be telling me that you like baseball. You immigrants are pretty crafty, you’re good at pretending like you fit in here but the fact of the matter is that you do not know how to be American. A true American would never refuse a fellow American service in a restaurant. You do not know how to run a business, you stupid Jap.”

Freema stood up all of a sudden. If there was one thing she hated more than anything else in the whole world, it was racism. She felt a fire burning in her, a fire that would have eaten the man in front of her alive if it had actual form. It was an emotional fire, though, so it came out through Freema’s words.

“Listen you fu*king moron,” said Freema, shouting across the empty booth between herself and the rude customer. “You might be too fu*king stupid to realize this, but the food you want is called Chinese food and it’s not available in a Korean restaurant. But you wouldn’t know anything about different cultures, now, would you? You’re too busy living in this little bubble of yours that conflates two completely different cultures just because you’re too fu*king stupid to see the differences between them.”

“Now listen here missy,” the rude customer began but Freema cut him off. She was not going to have any of this. She was not going to let this idiotic customer walk all over Ken Ahn, a man that was too nice to tell this guy to shove his stupid opinion about the food up his ass and fu*k off.

“No,” said Freema, “you listen. You do not like the food? Fine. No one’s asking you to eat it. But not liking the food does not give you the excuse to be a racist piece of sh*t.”

“When the hell was I racist?” said the customer, and the utter stupidity of his comment made her even angrier than she had been before. “Seriously?” she said. “Are you fu*king serious right now? You were being racist only fifteen seconds ago, before I put a stop to it. Anyway, I am not going to debate that point with you. It is clear to me that you are too fu*king stupid to debate with, so I am just going to have to settle for kicking you out of this restaurant.”

The customer looked up at Ken and said, “Are you going to let her talk to your customer like that?”

Ken looked at Freema and then at the customer. He seemed to be stuck in between a rock and a hard place. However, Freema’s look of solidarity seemed to stiffen his resolve. He knew that this customer was a jackass, and that he did not deserve politeness. He was just too nice to be the one to give this customer what he truly deserved. However, now that Freema had opened that door for him he was able to support it passively. He crossed his arms and gave the customer his best disdainful look.

“She’s my customer too,” said Ken, “and she was not rude to me just because I didn’t serve the particular cuisine that she wanted. I’m sorry sir, but I am going to have to be on her side on this one.”