Irvine Welsh - If You Liked School, You'll Love Work

— As a chef, knives very important. A good set of knives is everything. Always must respect things that cut flesh, he says.

Kendra is not so fascinated this time, in fact she feels a little sick. She can’t help thinking about the danger such a weapon would be to Toto. He was so frail and small. How could anybody hurt something so defenceless? But there was evil in this world. She shakes off her melancholy thoughts. With the Scotch, the food comforts her a little and she regains some composure. — Thank you for being so kind. You like Scotch in Japan, yes?

The chef nods lightly with a dumb smile, like he doesn’t quite understand her.

— Japan, it seems so mystical, Kendra continues, feeling foolish as she recalls that Chef’s restaurant is called the Mystic East. — Eh, whereabouts in Japan do you come from?

— Korean, Chef points to himself. — Only came Japan study cooking. To Tokyo. But born and raise in Korea.

Korea .

And something thin and dark in the chef’s smile — something that does not lend itself easily to definition — disturbs Kendra greatly. Excusing herself she heads downstairs to her apartment. Cranking up the air con, she undresses quickly and tumbles into bed. An exhausted, alcoholic sleep claims her, and she feels herself fighting in the night against its terrors. Rattling sounds fill the bedroom. She can hear Toto whining miserably, as if entombed in the walls. She rises, aware that somebody is in the apartment. Chef stands in the doorway, naked. His body is sinewy and yellow in the light. He has an outsized penis, its tip almost at his knees. The samurai sword is in his hand, hanging losely by his side. Kendra screams.

She is back in her bed. Something warm lies next to her; her heartbeat races and dips, as she sees it’s just her pillow. The room is silent, save for the soft whirr of the air con.

The Saturday morning dawns muggy, the chirping of the birds in the oak tree outside particularly bellicose as Kendra wakes up, blinking in the striped sunlight pouring through the blinds. The bolt of fear surfaces in her. Toto, oh Toto . She rises and pulls on a Chicago Bears T-shirt, her dressing gown spilling, like so many other garments, from the wicker laundry basket to the floor. The desperate chaos of her apartment, clothes strewn everywhere, is hurtful to her, and it has been thrown into further disarray in the frantic search for Toto. Picturing the parental home at Highland Park, the stucco, the timbered gables, the electric green lawn, airy and swollen like a comforter (if only the earth really swallowed you up in that way), a sour alcoholic burping sob rises nauseously in her chest. She is supposed to work this Saturday morning but calls in, leaving a message on the answering machine. — It’s Kendra. I won’t be in this morning. My… she hesitates about telling the truth, —… my sister Karla… my baby sister, she says, choking with emotion as she recalls a young bathing-suited Karla with her on a lakeside beach, before an image of a galloping Toto with something in his mouth supplants it, —… was in a road-traffic accident… I just pray… I’m going there right now, and she puts the phone down.

Kendra doesn’t quite trust herself to drive and calls a cab, instructing the driver to head to the city dog pound at Western Avenue, on the South Side, going towards Cicero. In her emotional state, the guilt at using Karla in such an underhand way kicks in, and she fires off a prayer of forgiveness and one of salvation for Toto. On the journey paranoia is tearing from her. It takes them an age to get onto the Kennedy Expressway, and when they get to the South Side, it’s clear that the Indian driver doesn’t know the city. — You do nat stay on 55, Kendra screeches, her nerves shredded, — No Stevenson Expressway! No, no! You come off on Damon. Then you turn on to Western!

Now her overheated mind half recalls a recent case of a Chicago Police lieutenant’s dog being euthanized when it was supposed to be held for a ten-day rabies observation. The staff at the dog pound had tried to cover up the mistake and the authorities raided the facility. What if they had done the same thing with poor Toto ?

Western Avenue is a desolate enough street on the North Side, but this far down Kendra finds the neighborhood positively sinister: run-down, empty, and with an ominous air of threat. Although it’s broad daylight, she is still happy to complete the short walk from the car to the building. But the dog pound merely distresses her further. Inside, all those uncared-for and abandoned animals. But a search reveals that Toto isn’t one of them. — I’m sorry, a chunky Hispanic woman tells her.

She dials a cab on her cell, waits twenty wretched minutes before it comes to ferry her back over to the North Side, away from all the happy poor people, reunited with their loved pets. On the way back, the pop-up downtown area drawing closer, she can’t stop thinking about Chef. Who was he really, and what did she know about him? His love of Asian cuisine and samurai swords, his keeping of pufferfish in the tanks to be consumed fresh. That sword. She suddenly shudders in her seat as she thinks of it cutting her beloved Toto in two pieces like the watermelon, his existence — and all that love — snuffed out in one sharp yelp. The cab is so hot inside and to stop her neck burning on the leather headrest, Kendra has to undo her ponytail and let her long hair fan out and act like a cover.

When she gets home, Kendra goes online, searching for ‘Korean’ and ‘dog meat’.

Her heart pounds as she reads:

Consuming dog meat is an ancient Korean custom, its advocates maintaining that the only difference between slaughtering a dog for food and slaughtering a cow or a pig is the culture in which it is done.

But the average Korean does not consume dog meat, as it is generally considered a medicinal dish (either to promote male virility or to combat the heat in summer).

Even more upsetting is a subsequent passage:

The dogs are often beaten to death by clubs, as a way of tenderizing the meat. Some vendors claim they put the dog through considerable pain and torment during the slaughter, as this is thought to increase levels of adrenalin and thereby improve the value of the meat as a source of added virility.

So the lesson is, if you have a dog with you in Korea, lock it up and keep it inside. It may be stolen, as dog meat is very profitable.

Kendra prints off some of the papers, then heads out into the street. Walking for a bit, she passes one blue police patrol car, then another, until they thicken, spilling out into the adjoining streets like casino chips toward their concentration in one parking lot at the side of a building that sits imposingly on the corner of a city block. It bears the sign: CITY OF CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT.

The desk officer is munching takeout and drinking coffee from Dunkin Donuts. As Kendra walks in, her untied hair swinging wildly, he licks his lips. — Yes, miss? he says obsequiously, his eyes going straight to her cleavage.

— My dog has gone missing.

— That’s too bad. Well, we got a little form for you to fill out with some of the details. He smiles broadly, pulling some paperwork from a box in a unit of slated pigeonholes.

— No need for that. I know where he is. I have a neighbor, she blurts out. — He’s a chef. And he’s always cooking!

The cop chuckles lightly to himself. — Guess that sounds about right.

— No, Kendra snaps in irritation, — he’s Korean!

The desk officer looks pointedly at her. — And what has this to do with your dog?

— A chef? Korean? Hello! Her eyes go as big as eight balls on a pool table.

The policeman laughs in her face, and she can even feel some of his spittle hitting her. She rubs it with her hand. The officer looks dumbly at her in some vague lame apology, then steels himself, moving into pompous official mode. — We cannot go harassing members of the city’s Korean population every time somebody’s dog goes missing.