My Knife

by Jos

  Part II: Aftermath

  1 Month After I Last Saw El Turco

  With each passing day, I grow even more sure that El Turco came back to gauge how much we knew about the Crew. I suspect that he was a member. The way he interrogated us at Iguana’s and at Noah’s pad was simply too suspicious. The questions didn’t come naturally. It’s almost as if he was looking for a specific answer... just to see if we agreed that we knew what happened to our friends. After telling Jasmine to keep quiet, we decided to play dumb and deny knowledge of everything. However, I had already figured out why The Itaewon Knife Fighters disappeared: they were a CIA squad training individuals to carry out hits made to look like drunken accidents.

  While in the past it was easier for people in power to whack someone, it has become harder now with the advent of the internet and a global web of information. I always knew the dudes in the crew enjoyed starting fights, and I don’t think I would put it past any of them to take me out if I knew too much. I knew I had to keep quiet. I couldn’t trust anyone. I trusted Jasmine to a certain extent, but I wondered why she always spent her time snapping pictures. Was she being paid by someone to take them?

  I’ve known enough people who had been taken out by government agents to be fully aware of the dangers that running my mouth in public can cause. The US government is in full control of South Korea. There’s a giant army base right in the center of Seoul and American MPs patrol the bars in certain areas. Joaquín often used to hang out with military guys, who for some reason were all able to maintain non-regulation hairstyles. Soldier + non-regulation haircut = Special Forces.

  It’s not very difficult to make someone in Seoul disappear. Numerous disappearances have been attributed to North Korean agents. North Koreans make the perfect patsies. After all, they had even kidnapped a famous South Korean director and forced him to make Pulgasari, an atrocious Godzilla rip-off.

  2 Months After Last Seeing El Turco

  Things have been too dangerous over the past month; I’ve refused to go out except to work. I haven’t been able to get in touch with Noah either. Is Noah a member of this international alcoholic conspiracy? I suspect so. It’s almost as if he has disappeared as well. After all, he’s notorious for his philandering, wanton destruction of property and brushes with the law. He was told by the police, after his second misdemeanor, that a third one would result in his deportation. The third one came and nothing. Many of my friends no longer have jobs; even one of my own co-workers has disappeared.

  Is the party happening in another city? I suspect that these individuals move from country to country causing destruction until they get bored. I suspect. I suspect. I suspect.

  The evidence is in the damage to places, the disappearances, the strange army guys, the words Noah has spouted drunkenly about things he’s overheard at the high-roller poker tables. Noah won’t speak of it when sober. I tried to bring it up once but fear overcame his face. His eyes opened wide and immediately shifted. “Maybe I misspoke,” he said. I don’t understand what could possibly have scared a man so much.

  3 months After Last Seeing El Turco

  My contract is up next month and I have decided to leave. I feel that it’s better for my safety. Groups of people don’t simply vanish without a trace. The corporate media is clearly bought and paid for. I haven’t seen one single report on my missing friends. There’s clearly a cover up and I want to investigate. I wish I could, but I don’t want to risk it. I see no point in ending up like my parents. There will be new cities, new bars, and new friends. I think I’ll move on. Though part of me keeps wondering if I should man up and try to discover what really happened to the people I once called friends.

  Army Contacts

  When you spend enough time in the grittiest bars in Itaewon, you eventually develop enough contacts to pull military favors. I met Rocky outside of gate ten – the only gate at which guests are allowed to enter – and headed to a hotel room in the Dragoon. I hadn’t discussed any details prior to meeting him there. I simply asked him to rent a hotel room for me because I was going to party with some members of the K-16 crew.

  Rocky had friends with high-level security clearances who worked as intelligence analysts à la Bradley Manning. He was retired from the army, but had been in Korea for twenty years and knew Itaewon better than any other man alive. He was also discreet. No one knew what he did. He knew who was doing what, when, where, and with whom. I had known him for over two years, and I knew he could be trusted. And he trusted me, as far as I could tell. We had done enough together that we would feel obligated to bury each other anyway. In the hotel room I showed him some pictures. Pictures I had saved on my camera’s SD card of Smith, Bubba, and the others. He immediately recognized Smith and Bubba by name. He didn’t mention if he had ever seen any of the others.

  “I haven’t seen them around in a while; I guess they were deployed to another base or country.” I asked him if he would be able to access information about their whereabouts. “Easy. I’ll have my buddies sift through the army records.” I thought it would be harder; I had arrived with money in case he wanted to be compensated.

  Response

  I agreed to meet him again at the Opry on Hooker Hill a week later. I waited under the Confederate flag and enjoyed watching the line dancing for half an hour. Eventually I got tired of waiting and called his phone, but it went straight to voicemail. His phone was apparently turned off. I assumed I had been stood up and left the bar after an hour. As I made my way up the dark, narrow street to my house, a figure in a long, dark jacket and a dark blue baseball cap appeared from the shadows in an alley. “There’s no record of them having ever served in the army,” he said. “In fact, I shouldn’t even be talking to you. Any men who have the connections to get themselves erased from army records are not the kind of men I want to search for.” As he walked down the hill, he turned back and mumbled: “Don’t contact me about them again.”

  My encounter with Rocky only reinforced my belief that the Knife Fighters are a highly classified group carrying out operations on the Korean Peninsula. Were they COINTELPRO, provocateurs, Special Forces, a hit squad? I now know for certain.

  The CIA and the Contras

  Doctor Spadafora blew the whistle on cocaine smuggling in the mid-1980s by the Contras in Nicaragua. He was later brutally tortured and found murdered. Former Korean president Roh Moo-Hyun committed “suicide” in an isolated mountain not long after the cave opened up. Any connection? Of course, the Contras were being funded by the CIA with primary help from Colonel Oliver North, which was swapping arms from Iran for cocaine set to be smuggled into the US. If the CIA is willing to distribute crack cocaine to their own people to fund a paramilitary organization that was guilty of “targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination; kidnapping civilians; torturing and executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat; raping women; indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian homes; seizing civilian property; and burning civilian houses in captured towns,” what wouldn’t they be capable of doing to the Korean people?

  The formation also coincides with minor struggles, upheavals, and the dynastic succession in North Korea. The facts all indicate that someone was smuggling weapons and drugs into North Korea. The money had to come from somewhere. But where?

  Let’s tally the evidence: army guys, clearly Special Forces, disappear without a trace; they take along with them civilian companions. These guys were able to commit crimes, almost publicly, without any backlash from the US Army or the South Korean government. North Korea sinks the Cheonan, then fires artillery at Yeongpyeong Island. When we put the disappearance in a geopolitical context, it’s easy to realize that Washington and Seoul decided to destabilize North Korea by infusing drugs into the highly conservative society. These drugs were then used to finance subversive activities. Who were the motherfuckers with their hands on all the drugs? The Itaewon knife fighters for sure [redacted]

  I know enough abo
ut Seoul and who was doing what to finally understand the mysterious disappearance of Joaquín del Monte and his Itaewon Knife Fighters. I could never make this diary public, lest I be willing to end up “suicided” like my parents. Only when the North Korean government collapses, which the Ministry of Reunification has predicted will happen soon, will we know how they were brought down. I’ll take Rocky’s behavior as advice on what I need to do. I should lay low and forget I ever knew those guys.

  ___________________

  A large establishment with products for sale inside.

  Male sexual organ.

  A container used to hold liquids and made of an amorphous (non-crystalline) solid material.

  Walking surface of the cave.

  Chapter III: Jasmine Talks

  Letter to Bubba

  My dearest boo,

  I hope this letter finds you well. I cannot bear the thought of being away from you. I’ve left this sealed letter with your mother in the hope that you’ll return one day and read it; hopefully she won’t open it ; - )

  I don’t think I told you often enough how much I loved you. Perhaps if I had told you before you left, you’d be by my side today. I feel abandoned, empty. Defeated. Your scent lingers on in every part of me you’ve touched.

  I remember when you would caress the side of my body with your fingers and whisper sweet thoughts into my ear. When you gently took off my panties and kissed every area around my tattoo, I was aroused beyond belief. I became so wet that I felt as if a dam of love had burst inside of me.

  The first time you placed your warm tongue on my smooth, pink labia, pure ecstasy coursed through every one of my veins. Even before I viciously rubbed my pussy on your mouth and came savagely on your face, I couldn’t resist the moment when you would deeply and slowly penetrate me right up the shitter, just how I like it. The way you started slow and paced your rhythm until I begged you for more made me your sex slave.

  After you’d wipe the fecal matter off your black donger, we would cuddle under the sheets and promise each other all the sheep in New Zealand. I don’t know where you are now, but I wish you were with me, preferably on a beach. My dearest love, I hope you return and find me. Whenever I think of you, boo, I find myself unable to keep my fingers away from my throbbing cunt.

  Our connection was too deep, our paths too intertwined for us to part ways. I’m addicted to you. Since you left, my heart has been in pain. I would rather see death than continue being without you.

  Forever Wet 4U,

  Jasmine

  XOXO

  Retrospective

  I wrote that letter two months ago to the day. I remember the exact day because it was also the last day I saw El Turco. We were at Noah’s pad. I don’t know where he went, but I miss him, too. I don’t know if he left with the others. If he did, I can’t imagine why he didn’t take me with him. I would give anything to be with him and Bubba right now. To have Bubba by my side, to have El Turco telling me drunken jokes would be a return to the days before I used to cut myself.

  Now I only feel alive when I slice my own skin. I’m very smart about it, though. I only cut under my armpits. I do it with Bubba’s knife ‘cause it reminds me of him. The very same one he used in the legendary red vest match against the Alawite diplomat. I’m not reckless about it; I only do it once or twice a week. It makes me feel alive. I can’t feel anything anymore, not since Bubba left. I find myself alone. Perhaps I am obsessed, perhaps I’m a fool. But why couldn’t he even write me a letter before leaving? I guess the best thing for me is to bust a gut thinking more about the past. Perhaps that will allow me to figure out where they went. Reminiscing about the past is hard because I’ll think of my parents.

  My parents do not approve of my lifestyle. If they knew how many men and women I’ve been with, they would disown me. Crikey, if they knew that I’ve even been with one woman they would disown me. They always warn me that the end of days is near, that those who follow God’s way will ascend to the heavens and those that do not will remain for the ultimate punishment. However, I’ve traveled extensively and encountered plenty of contradictory religions to know that it’s all myth. There must be a rational, scientific explanation to what’s happened. I just have to put it together.

  Us

  I worked late on Mondays, so I wasn’t a frequent attendant of the Chill Out sessions with the Knife Fighters. Without delay, I would drop in any time I got off early. Not only that, there’s also the number of days that I spent drinking with Bubba and Co. in many, many bars and I feel I have a good idea of who the Knife Fighters were. We were bonded by fate. When, in the history of the world, have such personalities been able to meet at such a far distance from their native lands yet share such a similar view of the world, such a connection? It’s as if our futures were forged by fire in the hearth of destiny. I must find them wherever they went. My suspicion is that they’ve gone bush and want only those who knew them well enough to be able to find them.

  Now, there aren’t many places where they could have gone. The place has to have a lot of green-fingered bros, if you know what I mean. It has to be cheap. Actually, that’s pretty much all there is to them when it comes to basic necessities. But I’m sure they’d prefer a place that’s no more than a few hours away from the US by plane. That’s where their families and friends are most densely congregated. Moreover, they would go somewhere tropical to maximize chilling hours per year. That limits them mostly to the Caribbean. To be in a location where they could truly enjoy themselves, they would have to be in a location with abundant cannabis and music they all love. Music and cannabis would be at the top of their selection criteria. That basically limits them to... I know where they went! They’re in Jamaica.

  Part II: Chillin’ in Jamaica

  My Travel Diary

  I had already passed the halfway point on my job contract and thus could leave without any penalty. I waited ‘til the end of the month so I could take one last paycheck and did a midnight run on the first. Without delay, I was at my new apartment in Kingston by the second. My plan was to hit the scene in Jamaica hard for a year. In the depths of my heart I had hope that I would be able to find Bubba and the Crew, but if I didn’t, at least I would get a year of fun in Jamaica out of it.

  I had barely posted the new phone number I had gotten at the airport on Facebook when I got a call from my old college friend Dillon asking me to join him for a house party. He even promised to pick me up when I was ready because we lived so close to one another.

  Dillon showed up on time. He was always punctual back in college. We used to joke that we needed to meet at Dill O’clock when something was important. Now, old Dillon was the only Irish guy I knew who had been born and raised in Jamaica. Our friends had set us up on a blind date back in college. We spoke over the phone and decided on a place and time. Naturally, I was expecting to be met by a “typical” Jamaican hoon. The topic of his race didn’t come up over the phone when we spoke, and, to be honest, I could barely understand him half the time anyway. He simply told me he’d be wearing a teal shirt at Donny’s restaurant. When he arrived, I looked him up and down with Acme cartoon eyes because I couldn’t believe he was a ginger and those deep Rasta sounds were coming from his mouth.

  Yeah, I made a fool out of myself as soon as I met him with every word I mumbled. And trust me, I was mumbling: “So, hmmmm, come here, umm, often?” The date continued to fall apart after that. He was a tall, handsome redhead with an attitude unmatched. If anything, he resembled a Greco-Gaelic statue in his propensity for epicness. My friends chose him as my date exactly because of the legends that surrounded him. In his first month in college, he had already been banned from most of the bars around campus. Hell, the dude was even banned from Kiwi Fried Chicken for allegedly setting the place on fire after a long bacchanalia. He woke up to find himself handcuffed in the back of a police car. Fortunately, the cops let him go after being persuaded by the white men in his wallet.

  He was never sure o
f what he did. His memory consisted of Monday to Friday afternoon at the most and nothing else. He had the ability to drink non-stop for five days. When he got completely pissed, he’d sound Irish, screaming “cunt” left and right at anyone who got in his way. He described his behavior after about 70-plus hours of continuous drinking as that of a rabid baboon. He was never in a condition to go to class. But then again, he was able to afford expensive ghostwriters in college. I wanted to wank and shift him before I ever saw him.

  However, I’m quite glad that things didn’t work out in a romantic way. He became one of my closest friends and confidantes in college. We messaged each other at least once a week, no matter where in the world we were.

  We finished that first date in a bar of which I only have a limited recollection. He pulled an Irish goodbye and disappeared without telling me he was leaving. At first I was shocked, but eventually grew used to him just stumbling out of the bar without informing anyone of his departure. “I’ll do what I want,” is what he would always say.

  Dillon’s Palace

  No doubt, Dillon’s pad was loaded to the max in niceness. I knew he was wealthy – after all, not many Jamaicans can afford to go study in New Zealand simply ‘cause they liked Lord of the Rings – but his place was furnished in ways I never could have imagined. There were about 20 of us comfortably seated on immaculate white couches. A servant in white short shorts and a long-sleeved white shirt with a bow tie walked in and dropped a brown bag and a hookah pipe on the white table that was surrounded by the couches.