Getting Dave out of a Korean jail

It was after 4 a.m. when we three girls jumped out of the cab and hurried toward the South Korean police station. From the street, you could hear the wails of the captive, our friend Dave. There he was, handcuffed and tied around the ankles, flat on his back in the lobby of the police station and making it well known he was not happy to be there.

"Let me go; let me go; let me go," he screamed at the officers surrounding him, tears streaming down his face. "I'm going to kill you all."

The officers were so happy to see three white girls willing to take the beast of their hands that they immediately moved to untie Dave. But in his drunken stupor, Dave hadn't yet fully registered that friends had arrived, and we were pretty sure he'd get up swinging if we didn't calm him down first. His fists were what had gotten him into trouble in the first place.

Just a quiet night

After traveling for more than 24 hours, Mary (the teacher I'd replaced) had arrived back in Busan after two months in Canada. Sarah, Mary and I were all tired and wanted nothing more than an evening on the couch.

Dave had other plans. Like most nights, this Torontonian was getting liquored up. When sober, Dave is a sweet and witty guy capable of cracking up the most severe individuals, including Bossman Nick. To a point, this rings true when Dave starts drinking, but he quickly disintegrates into a destructive and depressed 22 year old, who will punch out someone just before he turns around to cry about a boy who hasn't returned his phone calls.

Dave is also a chronic drunk dialer. So it wasn't anything new when Sarah and I started receiving goofy calls from him around 11 p.m. But by 3 a.m., the calls had a frantic edge to them.

"You were supposed to take the last right," he screamed into the phone, only to hang up before anyone could respond.

"I'm at the bottom of a mountain," he said during yet another call.

Usually, I'd just brush off Dave's craziness as, well, Dave's craziness. Tomorrow, I'd hear yet another story about how he threw up in a cab and then stiffed the cabbie before making his getaway down an alley. Just the day before, Dave had had too much to drink during dinner and then insisted we go watch "GI Joe" (which was god-awful). While in the movie theater, he hollered at the screen, left on beer runs every 15 minutes and to top it off, lit (and smoked) an entire cigarette. After the movie, he played in six very busy lanes of traffic. He's single-handedly giving the foreign population of Busan a good name.

But that night, there was something in his voice that just didn't sit right with me.

"Let's just call him one last time," I said to Mary.

To our surprise, a Korean answered the phone and promptly hung up on us when he realized we didn't speak Korean. However, a moment later, the phone rang. It was a translator from the police station saying they were holding one belligerent Dave and could we rush down and pick him up.

We were out the door in a flash and arrived to find a terrified but very angry Dave on the police station floor.

The biting and the breaking

He was covered in blood, sweat, tears and what was likely urine. He'd struggled for so long that he'd worked his pants down and the top of his penis was hanging out for the world to see. He turned to spit at a police officer and got me in the arm instead. I stared down at the massive, brown wad of phlegm, quickly deciding Dave wouldn't be any worse off if I wiped it on his jeans.

Finally getting across that we were there to take him home, we told the officers to untie his legs, all the while telling Dave not to kick because I was kneeling at his feet. As soon as his feet were free, he started bellowing to get the handcuffs off.

"Promise you won't hit anyone," we girls yelled back at him.

"I won't do anything, just let my hands go," he sobbed.

But as soon as he was free, Dave was ready for a fight.

"I'm going to call my daddy," he screamed, lunging at the officers. "You're going to lose your job. I'm going to kill you."

The three of us managed to push Dave out the front door before his fists could connect with anymore faces. Without the officers to berate, Dave turned his anger on us.

"You're too late. I've been here for three hours, and I'm crying like a baby," he said.

While Sarah dealt with the police paperwork, Mary and I concentrated on keeping Dave away from the cops by promising him cigarettes from the convenience store at the end of the block. During the 100-meter walk, Dave managed to rip the side mirror off a car.

Appeased by nicotine, Dave alternated between calmly musing about the night's escapades and bemoaning his broken body: a big, busted lip and assorted cuts and bruises. When Mary left to see what was taking so long, it fell to me to keep the 6'3", 250-lbs boy in check. I left the scene a little worse for the wear, but Dave never did get back in that police station.

From what we can piece together, Dave and a few of our other friends had been heading home in a cab earlier that night, when, at a red light, Dave leaped from the vehicle and took off running. It's not the first time he's done this, so his party continued on its way home. Dave found his way onto a roof where he wrecked about $1,000 worth of property, which is when the police arrived.

Of course, it'd be too easy to go peacefully, so Dave fought back, possibly breaking an officer's nose with a well-placed head butt and biting one in the neck. Even after they wrestled him to the ground, Dave bit a cop in the the ankle and threw punches at whatever was in front of him.

He doesn't remember a thing

Of course, after that ordeal, Dave claims amnesia. He'll have to pay a fine, but he's not getting deported. Things are turning out fine for Dave, which means he hasn't learned a damn thing and will likely do it again. Sarah and I have yet to receive thanks or an apology for the services rendered. What do you do with a kid like that?