The Thong Also Rises by Jennifer L. Leo

English.
    They followed me down a steep dirt trail that led all the way from the top of the Mercato into an underground storage area where once our eyes adjusted to the dark we found three Ethiopians smoking a joint and unloading crates of lettuce from a service elevator. The three fellows quickly unloaded the remaining crates and left without a word. We decided to take the service elevator back to the top and as soon as the elevator doors closed we discovered there were no control buttons on the inside. Then the lights went out and the elevator began to move DOWN! Hello Kitty girl began to squeal like a pig to slaughter, which in turn caused the Australians to start laughing hysterically. When the doors opened we found ourselves deeper in the bowels of Perugia than seemed possible. Armed with my flashlight and some matches from the Aussies, we found a stairwell and climbed our way up towards the light. Six flights later we reached the top of the market, just a few feet from the dirt path where we had begun, and coincidently only a few yards from the cafeteria entrance.The Aussies, blessed with a robust sense ofhumor, appeared to have enjoyed the whole experience, but the Japanese girl seemed positively pissed. I guess she missed the non-intentional irony of the situation.
    Over lunch I learned the Australians were both in their mid-60s, and had come to Perugia from Melbourne to take one month of Beginning Italian. Despite the fact they were speaking English, their heavy accents made it challenging to understand everything they said. She introduced herself as Grace and he gave his name as something that sounded like Attha. I thought it was African or Abo, and all through lunch I kept calling him variations on it like Attar or Atho and at one point I called him Aphid, like the bug. But it was not until Grace wrote down their names and phone number that I realized his name was Arthur, not Aphid.
    Grace and Arthur told me the apartment they rented near the school had a kitchen full of pots and pans and other cooking utensils, but no dishes, cups, or eating implements of any kind. I joked that they should just borrow some items from the cafeteria to which Grace replied, “Capital idea!” and Aphid immediately began stuffing cutlery and plates into his backpack. After the heist, we decided to meet up later that evening and go to the movies. Grace and Arthur thought it would be a good way to immerse themselves in the language and culture without actually having to speak to anyone.
    Much to our surprise the movie was not in Italian but in Korean with Italian subtitles. The film, from South Korea, was called La Moglie Dell’Avvocato , The Lawyers Wife…not the avocado’s wife that Grace thought it meant. Anyway, talk about weird; it turned out the film was basically porn disguised as a highbrow South Korean soap opera.
    From what I could piece together the story was as follows: Hojung is the frustrated wife of Mihjang, a successful lawyer who disses Hojung and takes up with his secretary.Seeking revenge, Hojung gets involved with a very young guy—Wohung—who lives in her building. But things get complicated when Mihjang and his lover are killed in a car accident and Wohung’s father discovers that his son is seeing Hojung and all hell breaks loose. I think it was a comedy. Aussie Grace thought the name of Hojung’s lover was “well hung,” which it did sound like and makes you wonder about the South Korean sense of humor. Arthur, a.k.a Aphid, slept through most of the show and spent the rest of the time pondering the possibility of swiping a stack of cold drink cups from the concession stand to augment their ill-equipped kitchen. I suggested he might as well take the popcorn maker, too, while he was at it, but he didn’t think he could fit it in his backpack.
    We continued to meet each day at the cantina between classes and fell into the kind of accelerated intimate friendship that is