by Sungju Lee
That morning, when I had looked at the mountain, it seemed harmless, like a hiccup in the fields. As we ascended it, though, we had to navigate around sharp crags and dead trees jutting out from the rock face, the roots of which twisted around and hung on to the ledges as an old woman’s knotted fingers do her cane.
We stopped at a wide ledge and spread out, looking for a shallow pit in which to bury Myeongchul.
Unsik found an indentation in the ground, deep enough to be used as the burial place, and we laid Myeongchul’s body in it.
On top of Myeongchul, we laid pine tree boughs.
Young-bum and Unsik both began to cry, big sobs that made them curl over at the waist. I found myself growing jealous of their tears because I wanted to wail, too.
We all bowed three times.
Instead of leaving right after, though, we stood and stared at the grave.
“You really aren’t more handsome than me,” Unsik finally said. “I just wanted you to know.”
“You really could have been the best actor in the country,” Sangchul said next.
Chulho nudged my shoulder. “Say something,” he whispered.
I rocked back and forth from my heels to my toes and looked up at the sky. “To live on the streets means we have nothing left,” I finally said, then stopped. So many thoughts were moving fast inside my mind, I couldn’t catch just one.
“Our families—our pasts—feel like they never existed,” I began again. “We’re little more than animals now. At least that’s what the merchants say about us, and the other kotjebi, too. The government once called us the kings and queens of the nation … Everyone has abandoned us. Everything has been taken away from us, except hope. You taught me that we can only give hope away. No one can take it. And you also taught me that hope is what makes us human. That, and love. It’s time to let you go,” I ended. “Leave here. Go find your parents and go to a better place, where you can act all the time and become the next Gil-nam Lee.”
Back at the shed, the farmer gave us some radish and rice to eat. Then, dragging our feet, we headed back to the train station, as if we were the losers and not the victors of this city.
I didn’t care where we went. Neither did the others. We had grumbled that we would take the first train, and wherever that took us was where we would go. Even though we had won the territory in Rajin-Seonbong, none of us wanted to remain there anymore. There were just too many yu-ryeong.
A passenger train was the first to arrive. The police and military were no longer standing like barricades on Parade Day, guarding the steps up to the carriages, as they had on my first train ride from Pyongyang to Gyeong-seong. They now waded deep into the crowd, waving their long batons as if they were farmers cutting hay with long, curved knives.
My brothers and I ducked between some of the carriages and bent down low so as not to be seen. When Unsik whistled that it was safe, we quickly climbed, one after the other, into a freight car with an open door.
We weren’t alone. There were many people hiding behind boxes, including an old woman with a baby. They whispered to us with sharp Chulho-like tongues to hunch down low and be quiet. I could hardly breathe on the train once it got moving and the door was shut—there were just too many of us and no air.
We hopped off in the middle of the night at Eodaejin, a port town.
We walked, all of us silent, heads down, dragging our feet, weighted, I guess, by the coat of despair that hung on top of us. Our gang of seven was now six. Without Myeongchul’s proverbs and stories, the silence was deafening.
Eventually, I caught the scent of fish and sea salt and then heard gulls cawing and the roar of waves crashing against rocks. The others stopped when they reached the shore. I kept right on walking, over the sand and into the waves, too tired and still in shock over Myeongchul’s death to notice until it was too late that the water was freezing. I screamed when the cold hit me. I was angry at … well, everything, including that I couldn’t even clean myself in the waves. I dragged myself out of the water and lay down in the sand. Covering myself with a blanket, I stared up at the sky. I’d never looked at the sky from the sea, over the top of which the stars curved, wrapping themselves around the earth like a baby’s cradle or a mother’s arms. It seemed so pure up there. For a moment I wondered what my life looked like, what Joseon looked like, from the stars.
Unfortunately, when we finally walked into Eodaejin’s main market, we discovered that kotjebi from across the country had invaded it, much as they had done in Gyeong-seong. My brothers and I didn’t want to stay and fight. We had nothing in us, so we made our way back to Cheongjin, planning to go back to Pohwang Market and join up again with Hyekchul.
As when we had first arrived in Cheongjin, the train stopped in Ranam. While we waited for another train to take us to Pohwang, a policeman announced that all the trains had shut down, maybe for a few days, because of no electricity. Hungry, we timidly ventured into Ranam Market, hoping to stay on the outskirts, away from the gang whose leader had defeated me in battle.
We were scoffing bread sticks, candy, cigarettes, and sool, when suddenly some female merchants ran past us and some male vendors started yelling. A crowd had formed, and soon there was cheering. My brothers and I crept up and peered through the bodies.
Two gangs were fighting, five on five, or at least that’s how many I counted. One gang was made up of a group of kids our age or just a little older. The other gang was a group of young men. I couldn’t believe it: boys against men, and fighting right between a stall selling old furniture and a stall displaying farm tools.
The kid gang members were small, but they tossed around weapons that looked like two short sticks tied together with a chain. They swooshed these weapons in the air and then around their bodies. Then flick! the weapons moved hard and fast, striking the men across their knees, their ankles, even their stomachs. One member of the man-gang stumbled backward with a head wound that swelled to the size of a football and from which blood spewed like a fountain.
“We can’t stay here,” I whispered to the others, not taking my eyes off the scene in front of me.
Chulho didn’t need to be told twice. He was on his way out of the market before I even turned.
We walked to Pohwang, taking back alleys and an entire night to do so.
We wanted to avoid gang battles, but we couldn’t. For nearly a week in Pohwang Market, my gang met up with other kotjebi gang members, who egged us on to fight, sometimes me alone against their leader. A few times, though, all of us waged war. We knew we couldn’t keep on running from town to town, so we gave in. Unlike the situation in Rajin-Seonbong, these kotjebi gangs were not operating only on the fumes of some mythical drug. They still had hope tucked away somewhere inside them, which meant they held something back in battle. Many were also new to the streets. Most lacked experience in tae kwon do and street fighting. Not once did any gang come near hurting us or chasing us away.
After a week of this and no Hyekchul, we decided to check the other markets to see if he was there. As we were walking out of town, we found ourselves surrounded by a man-gang. A tall, giant Korean with shoulders the width of a cow said he’d been watching us and was impressed with our speed and strength. “But you lack a lot of skills,” he said, “skills that if you don’t hone, might get you killed.”
Like, really? I thought, rolling my eyes. “We already lost a brother,” I spat at him. I was readying myself for a fight. Instead, though, he sighed and stood down.
“I thought so,” he said in a sad voice. “You’re the guys who beat up the crew in Rajin-Seonbong but lost someone in the process?”
I grunted a yes.
“Come with us,” he said, turning and starting to walk out of the market. “We’ll help you,” he added, waving a hand over his gang of five young men. I’d say all were eighteen or nineteen years old.
“How do we know we can trust you?” Chulho said with a snarl, not moving from his spot. “Maybe you’re spies for the
Shangmoo.”
“You can’t know,” the man said, stopping and facing Chulho. “But you either trust us, wait and see, or leave and face a gang with that weapon that will tear your scalp off if you’re not watching.”
I shivered, for I knew he was right. Besides, it wouldn’t be that bad to work under another gang. We would have to steal and earn won for them. But in return, we would be fed.
“What’s your name?” I called out.
“I can’t tell you,” he said, taking a few steps toward me. “See, we’re all dodging our military service. If we say our names and you get arrested and tortured, you might spill who we really are.”
I sighed and looked at my brothers, who all nodded slowly.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll come with you.”
The men led us to an abandoned house on the outskirts of town, a one-room home with a kitchen the size of a small cupboard. The house was empty inside except for some plastic buckets the men used as their toilet and to collect water to bathe, piles of clothes and blankets, and cockroaches, lots of them.
“You can call me ‘Big Brother,’” the man said.
“Why are you avoiding your military service?” I asked, looking around at the chipped paint and walls that had concrete falling down from the corners. This house was in even worse shape than my home in Gyeong-seong.
“Please, no questions,” he said, raising his hands into the air. “I’ve told you too much already.”
“But you’d have food, be party members. You’d be safe.” I was unsure how to size this guy up. I was willing to trust him, but at the same time part of me was certainly not believing him. I wanted to tell him about my life in Pyongyang and how rotten it had become since I had left. “Join the army,” I wanted to shout at him. “You’ll be safe.” But I didn’t, for the same reason that Big Brother didn’t want to tell us his and his gang’s real names or their stories. “I just don’t understand. Why would you choose to be homeless rather than fight for our country?” I asked instead. I wasn’t expecting him to answer.
Big Brother laughed then, the way Young-bum and Chulho had laughed at me when I asked them questions at school.
“Look,” he finally said, as if he were the schoolteacher and I was in first grade. “My gang and I don’t believe in Joseon, because it lies to us. It says Joseon is a paradise and children its kings and queens. But children are dying from terrible starvation and diseases. Kings and queens don’t die like this. The military are thieves,” he said. “They don’t protect people; they steal. I don’t believe in the army, not anymore.”
“What’s that weapon? You know, the one that can tear the scalp off a person,” I asked next.
“It’s a nunchaku, a martial arts weapon from China or Japan. Who knows. On the streets, it’s deadly,” Big Brother explained. “I run away myself when I see it coming out.” Big Brother was like a mountain of hard gray rock. If he was scared of something, then everyone else should be, too.
“How are they getting them?” Chulho asked. I could hear something in his voice: curiosity. He wanted to find a way to get them and sell them.
“They’re making them,” replied Big Brother. “I mean, maybe someone somewhere is importing them from China to sell to the street kids. But mostly what I’m hearing is that the street kids are making them from oak wood they carve and chains they steal at the market.”
“Should we make some?” I asked.
“No. Too dangerous. If that weapon ever got taken away and used against you, whew! I have a better weapon for you.” Big Brother pulled from his backpack a handful of metal chopsticks, so slim that if they were hurled at someone’s eye, I could see them slicing right through to the brain.
“We’ll teach you how to use these to both annoy kotjebi enough so that they leave you alone and, if necessary, really hurt. But I’m a bit of a pacifist,” Big Brother added. “Exert only the force that is necessary to help you survive. No more. There has been too much death already.”
“We’re with you on that one,” Sangchul said.
“What’s the deal?” I asked, eyeing Big Brother up and down. “Why are you helping us?”
“We need bodies, young bodies like yours, to steal for us in the market. You’re quick and can get in and out before anyone knows anything has been stolen.”
“You want us to work for you?” Chulho said.
“Yeah. Give us won and food. Maybe fight alongside us if we have to face a gang all together, not one-on-one. In exchange, we’ll give you a place to stay and train you.”
“Do we have any choice?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Big Brother said. “You can go. It’s cruel out there. Another one of you will die, I promise you that. But you can go whenever you want.”
I pinched my eyes shut as my brothers huddled around me to discuss what to do. Big Brother, I knew, was right. We had to join forces with him and his gang. It was the only way we had a chance at surviving.
Every second or third day over the next few months, my brothers and I would head out to the housing divisions and aim those metal chopsticks at the lowest beams of the fences, at the approximate height of a street kid’s shins or knees. Against the old abandoned house that became our home for nearly a year, we aimed higher, as if going for a street kid’s chest.
Big Brother didn’t need to tell me, although he did anyway. The chopsticks were good only at a distance. So he put Mingook in charge of building our endurance. Mingook would have us run, barefoot, across the hills, marathon distances, in the heat of summer. And in fall, with sneakers on, we’d run the dirt paths that wove their way through the forests. We’d run the same paths in winter, our feet digging into the snow, adding extra tension to build up our muscles and strength.
Young-bum oversaw our weight-lifting training, using as weights small boulders he picked up in the fields. Big Brother and his gang started doing mock fights with us, during which I taught everyone tae kwon do kicks and punches. But mostly Big Brother taught us street fighting, including holds and how to bite. He and his crew also taught us some stealing techniques, like using two razors instead of one. By placing one razor flat, between our index and middle fingers, another between our index and thumb, we could make large holes, shaped like half-moons, in our victims’ bags, allowing us to steal even more, maybe even the entire contents of a bag. In battle, of course, holding the razors like this could be deadly against a victim’s throat.
We stole money for Big Brother and his gang, and by autumn, we were fighting other kotjebi gangs alongside them, too. All the fights were easy. We ruled Pohwang.
By winter solstice 1999, my brothers and I were strong, just as strong as the men. And certainly stronger than any of us had ever been in our lives. My chest muscles rippled like the waves on the sea, and my leg and arm muscles when flexed were hard as steel.
Starting in the spring of 1999, every second month or so my gang and I returned to Gyeong-seong for a few days just to check in, to see if our parents had come back. On my first visit, I went to my house and asked the old man who now owned it if anyone had come looking for me. He stared at me through hazy blue eyes, as Young-bum’s grandmother had. He opened his mouth to say something, but then the younger man stepped between us and pushed me away.
“If you ever return here, I’ll call the Shangmoo,” he said, kicking me in the rib cage. “Get out of here and never come back.”
I could have fought him, that man who stole my house. A burning hatred grew inside me whenever I thought of him. I knew, though, that if I punched him, he would never help me. I needed to believe that if my mother returned, he would at least tell her I was a kotjebi, so she could look for me.
Whenever I returned to Gyeong-seong, I’d sneak up to my old house and spy on it from the back of a bush, hoping maybe my parents might come out instead of this other family.
We boys shared few of our experiences in Gyeong-seong other than letting one another know that our parents still had not returned. We all choked on the tears th
at we refused to share. It was hard to go back there. It was like walking into a grave.
My brothers and I did talk, though, about how we would give anything to have Myeongchul back, even if that meant working underneath another gang like Big Brother’s. None of us cared that much anymore about winning. But looking after ourselves to make sure we didn’t lose another gang member? That was my new goal. I would fight to my own death. I knew that now.
These thoughts were swirling in my mind when, in the fall, on a visit back to Gyeong-seong, we came face-to-face with Young-bum’s old gang, the Jjacdari-pa. Spitting angry, they wanted an “all together” fight. The leader of Jjacdari-pa, the boy who had busted Young-bum’s lip open and forced him to lose a tooth back when we were still all going to school, was like a smaller version of Big Brother. Big and hard. He also had piercing eyes that dug their way into Young-bum. I knew that look now. It meant kill.
It was as though Young-bum had done something to really offend him. But all he did was leave—or, rather, get kicked out—because he kept back some won to buy his grandmother medicine. Big Brother had taught me that when my opponents became emotional, that was weakness. Play on it. Make them angrier. So I did. I spat insults at the leader about how his gang didn’t know how to fight, how mine had become fierce, how in kicking Young-bum out, the Jjacdari-pa had lost its only good fighter.
It worked, and our battle with the Jjacdari-pa was over in less than fifteen minutes. Every Jjacdari-pa member eventually ran off, the leader calling over his shoulder that they were heading to Rajin-Seonbong to take over the territory we refused to claim for ourselves.
I shook my head as he ran away and slung my arm around Young-bum.
“We should chase after him,” Young-bum said.
“Nah, let him have the last word and Rajin-Seonbong. We have you.”