by Martin Limon
They were waiting for us. A hundred grim-faced girls lining either side of the narrow lane. Some were beautiful, some plain, some plagued by pock-marked faces or erupting complexions. But they all stared at us as we walked by.
Ernie strutted, twisting his head back and forth, disdainful of their hatred.
As we descended the long flight of steps, I felt the eyes of the girls on the back of my neck. Fire flushed through my skull until my face burned.
Back at the compound, Ernie was still angry and made the mistake of telling Riley about the threats to Ortfield’s life. It wasn’t long before the first sergeant heard about it and then the provost marshal.
Riley strutted into the admin office, the starch in his fatigues crinkling with each step.
“Straight from the first sergeant,” he said. “New assignment for you guys.”
“No more payoffs, I hope.”
“Not this time. Guard duty. Ortfield’s hold baggage is being picked up in the morning. He catches the first flight out of Kimpo tomorrow afternoon.”
He slapped a plane ticket and a packet of orders into my hand.
“Until then you and Ernie watch him. Every minute. Day and night.”
“Babysitting.”
“You got it. And if he doesn’t make it to that flight, the provost marshal is to send you both back to the DMZ.”
I unfolded the tickets, checking the flight times, making sure the emergency orders were signed and sealed. Ernie’s face flushed red. He looked as if he were about to bust somebody in the chops. I spoke before he had a chance. No sense bitching about it.
“Tell the provost marshal thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Be happy to,” Riley said. “Enjoy your duty. And have a nice day.”
We found Ortfield in the 21 T Car barracks—that’s the 21st Transportation Company (Car). He was playing grab-ass with one of the houseboys, a man twice his age, who was trying to ignore him and get his work done.
Ernie decided to set Ortfield straight from the beginning. He grabbed him by his scrawny shoulders and slammed him up against a metal wall locker.
“Hey! What’s the idea?”
Ernie shoved his forearm under Ortfield’s chin. Cheeks bulged. “The idea is that you’re a dirt-bag, and from this moment until you get on that plane you’re going to do everything we say.” Ortfield gurgled. “You got that?”
His voice came out choked and frightened. “Okay. Okay!”
Ernie let him go and told him to go back to his bunk and quit bothering the houseboy. We followed him over to his area and found that he hadn’t even begun to pack. Ernie dug out his canvas duffel bag from the bottom of his footlocker, threw it at him, and told him to get busy. Ortfield grabbed it on the fly and, completely convinced of Ernie’s sincerity, went to work.
Ernie walked over to me and whispered, “The maggot. Babysitting him all night means we miss Happy Hour.”
“Tough duty,” I said.
“I’ll take the first shift. Put the fear of God into him. You come back after chow and take over for a while.”
“Right,” I said. “See you then.”
The sun was setting red and fierce into the Yellow Sea when I strolled back to Ortfield’s barracks. I went in the side door, down the hallway, and into the four-man room. Empty. No Ortfield. No Ernie.
I rushed out toward the front entrance and the office of the Charge of Quarters. An overweight staff sergeant in wrinkled khakis sat behind the desk reading a comic book.
“Have you seen Ernie?”
“The guy guarding Ortfield?”
“Yeah.”
“He left about ten minutes ago to pick up some beer. Decided to give the kid a break, his last night in country and all.”
And give himself a break, too.
“Did he take Ortfield with him?”
“No. Isn’t he in his room?”
“No. I just came from there.”
“Maybe he’s in the latrine.”
I sprinted down the hallway and checked the latrine, and when I didn’t find him there, I ran upstairs and pounded on as many doors as I could. After five minutes of scurrying around the barracks it was clear. Ortfield had disappeared.
Whistling, a bag of cold cans in his arms, Ernie strolled toward the front of the barracks. I caught him at the entrance but before I could speak he saw it in my eyes.
“The little dirt-bag took off?”
“You got it.”
“But I was being nice to him.”
I turned back to the CQ. “Did any Koreans come into the barracks?”
“Not that I saw.”
We checked around, but none of the GIs and none of the houseboys had seen any unauthorized Koreans in the barracks.
“We’re going to have to track him,” Ernie said.
We returned to Ortfield’s bunk. Ernie popped me a beer and opened one for himself.
“No sense letting it go to waste,” he said.
I sipped on mine, thought for a moment, and started looking through the junk in Ortfield’s locker. I found it amongst the toiletries, behind a red and white striped can of shaving cream. A photograph. Ortfield sitting at a cocktail table with a Korean woman. I handed it to Ernie.
“Do you recognize her?”
Ernie squinted, slugging back his beer. “Yeah. A business girl. I’ve seen her around. Out in Itaewon.”
I studied the façade behind them. “We’re experts at every bar in the red light district, Ernie. Look hard. Which club is this?”
He thought about it, sorting the possibilities in his mind. “Colored light bulbs on the ceiling, plaster made to look like the walls of a cave. Round cocktail tables with plastic tablecloths. The Sloe-eyed Lady Club. It’s got to be.”
“You’re right. That’s what I thought.” I stuffed the photograph in my shirt pocket. “Let’s go.”
Ernie glugged down the last of his beer and followed me out the door.
By the time we hit Itaewon, the sun was down and neon lights flashed lewd invitations to the few packs of GIs roaming the streets. Girls stood in doorways, half naked in the cold winter air, crooking their red-tipped fingernails, cooing siren songs of sensual delight.
We ignored them, heading like two hound dogs toward the top of the hill and the Sloe-eyed Lady Club. We pushed through the padded vinyl doors of the club and entered a world of blinking red bulbs and grinding rock music and the smell of stale beer. A sea of young women gyrated on the small dance floor. No men yet. Most GIs still hadn’t left the compound.
As our eyes adjusted to the dim light, we scanned the room. No Ortfield. Ernie spotted her first. “There she is.”
He waded out onto the dance floor, pushing girls out of his way like Moses crossing the Red Sea.
When he found her, he stood behind her, but she continued to dance. She still hadn’t notice him. The girls dancing with her stopped. Ernie wrapped his arm around her slim body, pinning her arms to her sides, and escorted her quickly off the dance floor. I led the way to a table in the corner, and we sat her down. I leaned toward her.
“Where’s Dwayne?”
“Who?”
“Ortfield.” I showed her the picture.
“Oh, him. I don’t know. I no see long time.”
“Weren’t you his steady yobo?”
“For two months. Maybe three.” She waved her hand. “Anyway, he go. Catch another girl.”
“Which girl?”
“I don’t know. He butterfly honcho. Maybe catch many girls.”
Ernie leaned in front of me and grabbed her wrist. Slowly, he began to twist.
“You kojitmal me?” he said, breathing into her face.
“Ok-hee no lie,” she said.
They stared at one another. She seemed to enjoy the pain, and he enjoyed giving it. For a moment I thought they were going to clinch, but the music stopped and we heard a murmur coming from the girls on the dance floor. I glance back and saw angry faces and pointing fingers. Korean business girls
protect one another. If they attacked, they’d rip us to shreds with their manicures.
I tapped Ernie on the elbow. “Come on, pal. Let’s get out of here.”
He let the girl go but continued to stare at her as we walked out the door.
There was nothing to do but search the clubs one at a time. When we saw business girls on the street, I stopped them and asked about Ortfield and showed them the photograph, but they all shook their long glistening black hair and said they hadn’t seen him.
It was less than an hour before the midnight curfew. We took a break and ordered some onion rings at a stand outside the Lucky 7 Club. The GIs were out in force now, swirling from one joint to another in drunken abandon. We ordered two cold ones to wash down the greasy batter.
“We’re screwed,” Ernie said.
“Maybe he’ll show up on his own.”
“Maybe. And maybe he’ll go AWOL, and you and I will both lose another stripe.”
I shrugged. I’d lost them before. “That’s not what worries me.”
Ernie set down his brown bottle of Oriental Beer. “Then what does?”
“Mr. Choi.”
“Who?”
“The dead girl’s dad. He doesn’t believe justice was done in our military court.”
“He’s right about that.”
“I’m afraid he might administer justice on his own.”
Ernie kept chomping on the onion rings. I heard footsteps behind me. I turned. It was the girl from the Sloe-eyed Lady Club, Ok-hee. Ortfield’s old flame.
“I see him,” she said.
“Where?”
“Chogi,” she said, pointing. Over there. “You come quick. Big trouble.”
We set down our food and ran.
She led us down an alley that wound away from the lights of the bar district. We swerved past a dark movie house with an enormous billboard above the entrance painted with the faces of giant Korean actresses. A flight of broad cement steps led down to the main road.
At the bottom, next to a boxlike black sedan, stood two men. One of them was Ortfield. The other was a Korean taller than Ortfield, trying to force him into the car. Ortfield flailed wildly. That mad resistance of a drunk.
There were no crowds nearby. The buses had stopped, and most people had sense enough to find shelter before midnight when everyone had to be off the street. Only a few taxis, their yellow plastic lights bobbing above the flat roofs, sped by.
Ernie sized up the situation immediately and bounded down the steps, taking them two at a time. He yelled. “Hey! What are you doing there?”
The Korean man, still with a fierce grip on Ortfield’s arm, turned and glanced up the steps. I recognized him. The lawyer. The same man who had confronted us at the home of Choi Un-suk’s parents.
I started down after Ernie, taking the steps more cautiously. They were narrow and slick, and I didn’t want to fall and bust something.
As Ernie approached, the lawyer seemed to evaluate his situation. He looked at Ernie, he looked at the squirming Ortfield, and he looked at the small back door of the black sedan. With a sigh of resignation, he let Ortfield go, opened the front door of the car, and climbed in.
Ernie hit the bottom of the stairs running. “Halt! You’re under arrest.”
We had no jurisdiction over Korean civilians, even ones caught red-handed trying to kidnap a drunken GI, but technicalities like the law never slow Ernie down.
The car pulled away. As oncoming headlights flashed through the cab, I saw that the lawyer sat in the front next to a driver. Neither one of them looked back.
Ernie grabbed Ortfield. “Who were those guys?”
Ortfield just babbled. He was so drunk—or stoned—that saliva dripped from his mouth.
When I reached the bottom of the steps, I watched the red taillights fade into the distance. What had they wanted? Why hadn’t they killed him when they had the chance?
All the way back to the compound Ernie cuffed Ortfield on the head. Back at the barracks, I took the first shift. Ernie took the second. One of us was awake all night. Watching.
The next afternoon was a clear winter day with a sky so blue that it must’ve drifted over from the vast plains of Manchuria.
Ernie drove. Quiet. Pissed off that we had to babysit and upset that Ortfield was getting better treatment than most GIs. A civilian flight out of Kimpo International Airport. A chauffeured jeep instead of a cattle car loaded with smelly soldiers and duffel bags.
In the morning the movers had arrived and—without incident—boxed up what little baggage Ortfield had to be shipped: a stereo set, souvenirs of Korea, extra uniforms. After chow we loaded up the jeep and started out for the airport.
Ortfield was still hung over. Morose. Unapologetic for having run off by himself last night. Just one more romp through Itaewon, that’s all he’d been after. He admitted to popping a few pills and drinking a bottle or two of Oscar, rotgut Korean sparkling burgundy. After that he remembered nothing. Not even the incident with the lawyer. All he remembered, he claimed, was the steady rap of Ernie’s knuckles on his head as we marched him back to the compound. He rubbed his greasy skull resentfully.
The little jeep wound through the bustling life of Seoul, crossed the bridge over the crystal blue ribbon of the River Han, and sped past open rice paddies until we reached Kimpo International Airport.
In the parking lot Ernie padlocked the jeep. We watched as Ortfield shouldered his duffel bag and suitcase into the busy terminal.
I started to breathe a sigh of relief. The ordeal was almost over. At the check-in stand I handed the ticket and the military orders to a pretty Korean woman in a tight-fitting blue uniform. She checked and stamped everything quickly, asking for Ortfield’s military identification. And then she handed everything back to us and we were on our way.
A flight of steps led upstairs to the departure gates, but just before we got there, a frail man stepped out of the restroom. He stood in front of us, blocking our way, and I realized who he was. Mr. Choi, the father of the dead girl, Choi Un-suk.
He didn’t seem angry and he didn’t have any weapons in his hand, he just stood in front of us, moving slightly every time we tried to step around him. I positioned myself between him and Ortfield.
“Ernie, take Ortfield up the steps. I’ll deal with Mr. Choi.”
I turned back to him ready to speak, but he ignored me, his eyes following Ortifeld and Ernie as they approached the stairway.
Another man appeared from behind a newsstand. With a start I recognized him. The lawyer.
Ernie saw him too, and bristled. The lawyer stepped forward. Ernie stuck his fist out to stop him but like a cobra striking a mouse, he grabbed Ernie’s forearm and started to twist. Ernie was no novice. He went with the turn instead of resisting, and soon they were grappling with one another, banging up against the rattling newsstand.
Ortfield sized up the situation, re-hoisted his duffel bag, and started trotting up the stairs.
Good, I thought. Get to the flight. That’s the main thing.
I hurried forward to help Ernie, but the lawyer had already backed off, his hands held up, palms open, making it clear he didn’t want a fight.
Ernie’s fists were clenched and his face red, and his nose pointed forward as if he were going to jab it into the lawyer’s heart.
Mr. Choi started slowly up the stairs, his interest elsewhere. Ortfield was already out of sight.
That’s when it hit me.
With the back of my hand, I slapped Ernie on the arm. “Come on!”
“What?”
“Ortfield. He’s alone. These two guys were just trying to get us away from him.”
Awareness came into Ernie’s eyes. We’d been had. We ran toward the stairs and pushed through the steady flow of travelers descending from the upper deck.
The walkway opened into a long concourse that led to the various gates. No Ortfield. We ran to the end of the hall and turned but instead of another long passageway we were h
alted by a brick wall of people.
Everyone was agitated, trying to look forward over the heads in front of them. I saw braided black pigtails and white blouses and long blue skirts. Schoolgirls. Many of them. There were also men in white caps and slacks and blue sports coats and, toward the front, elderly women in long dresses. Everyone wore a white sash from shoulder to hip. The sign of mourning.
“Crap,” Ernie said. We both knew what we were in for. A demonstration. One of the few acceptable ways in Korea to vent emotion in public. Once they get rolling, anything can happen.
We pushed through the crowd. In front was an open area and a platform, and a woman stood atop it trying to switch on a megaphone. It buzzed and crackled to life.
She was tall and thin and wore a long blue skirt and a blue vest and her black hair was pulled tightly back from her austere face. I recognized her. The aunt of Choi Un-suk we had seen when we delivered the money. She turned away from us, toward a small commotion in the crowd.
“Wei nomu bali ka?” she said. Why are you leaving so quickly? Everyone cheered.
Over the sea of heads I spotted Ortfield. Two men had grabbed his duffel bag and his suitcase, and he was struggling with them, trying to yank them out of their grasp. Between him and the woman on the platform was a huge shrine. A blown-up photograph of Choi Un-suk draped in black and bedecked in front with dozens of bouquets. Behind the flowers stood the family, her mother, her aunts, her uncles.
Ernie didn’t like Ortfield, not at all, but he’s a territorial kind of guy. Ortfield was our prisoner, and Ernie didn’t want people messing with him or delaying him in boarding his plane. Before I could say anything, he shot forward like a Doberman freed from a leash.
He crashed into the two men holding Ortfield’s bags and knocked them back into the arms of onlookers. A great roar went up from the crowd. Ernie tossed the bags to Ortfield and started shoving him forward, toward the boarding gate twenty yards away.
The woman with the megaphone shrieked.
I’m not sure what she said. Something about the life of a Korean woman. But whatever it was, it was enough. The crowd surged forward, me with it, and Ernie and Ortfield were enveloped by a sea of bodies.
Ortfield cursed and threw a punch, and Ernie jostled with three schoolgirls, and then they were down and there was more screaming and in the distance I heard the whistle of a policeman but I knew they wouldn’t be able to make it through the melee.