by Junghyo Ahn
Kijun cast a furtive sidelong glance at Chandol and promptly looked away, hoping he would not be assigned the first shift of lookout duty tonight.
“I’ll be lookout,” Kangho volunteered. He had been reluctant to join this game anyway. He wondered why he had come in the first place.
“Good,” Chandol said. “You go over there to that outhouse, Kangho, and watch out for anybody coming in this direction. Toad will relieve you in ten minutes.”
Kangho hid himself in the shabby outhouse, which was only two canvas walls like a folding screen, and watched the U.N. ladies soliciting and catcalling at the passing soldiers.
Chandol and Kijun positioned themselves among the logs and broken planks and mud bricks at the rear wall of the shack and peeked through a chink in the window frame. The bengko and the whore were almost naked now under the bare electric bulb. The girl, clad in flimsy underwear as thin and transparent as a dragonfly’s wing, was lying sprawled on the floor like a dead frog; the bengko mounted her like a huge white hairless bull. The soldier began to suck the girl’s mouth, making a lot of slobbering sounds.
Holding their breath, Chandol and Kijun watched the naked grownups play in the room.
“The girl kept moaning and whimpering all the time that huge soldier was swimming on her stomach to push himself into her.” Kijun was telling the boys what he had seen at Texas Town.
The four boys were on their way to the bengko dump for another afternoon raid.
“Go on, go on,” prompted Chandol who had missed that exciting scene because he had had to go on lookout. “What happened next?”
After a dramatic pause Kijun continued, “When the Yankee was about to force himself into her with his cock like a horse, the girl babbled something, pushing him away. The bengko fell down on the floor and lay there on his back, waiting with a grin as he rubbed his balls, and the girl stood up. She was facing the window and, oh, boy, I could see everything. Her breasts were wet, as damp with sweat as if she had just had a bath. And she had such bushy black hair down there. Then she came over to the electric bulb and turned the light off.”
“Damn!” said Chandol, disappointed. “I wonder why they always turn the light off when they do it.”
“Some bengkos keep the light on,” said Kangho, drawing an endless line on the sand with his stick. “Like the bengko we watched the other night.”
“Couldn’t you see anything more after they had turned the light off?” Chandol asked.
With a complacent beam, Kijun said, “I could see what they were doing clearly enough because the other girl and her bengko drinking in the hall kept the light on outside the paper door.”
“Well, tell us what they did, then.”
“The girl, giggling, sat astride the bengko’s stomach, the way you ride a horse, and picked up a packet of balloons from the sewing basket by the door. She placed the rubber balloons at the tip of the soldier’s cock and began to roll it down like this, like this, until the whole thing was covered by the silvery balloon. And then she began to pound him down with her hips, gasping again, and the bengko was on top of her next moment, and she began to squeal like a stoned bitch. Watching all that made me have an erection myself. Boy, they really knew how to play.”
“It’s really exciting to watch them play naked,” said Chandol and he began to describe what he had seen. With some inevitable exaggerations, because he was the boss and supposed to have seen more strange and exciting things than any other boy had, he told them about the Yankees and the whores he had watched. There was a lot of repetition, with only slight changes in detail, but nobody minded. “As the Yankee fumbled her tits and cunt, the whore began to pant like a dog in summer. And then they began to suck at each other’s mouth.”
“What for?” said Bong, puzzled. “Why did they suck each other’s mouth?” The little boy had heard so many strange things about the grownups’ game, and he was sorry that he had never gotten a chance to watch the whores’ rooms at night.
“They just do, all the time,” Kijun said. “The Yankees just love to suck and lick the girls mouths, and everywhere else, too.”
“Why do they suck the girls so much?” the little boy said, his curiosity still unsatisfied.
“How can anybody know why they do that?” Jun said. “Dogs also suck at each other’s muzzles before mating, don’t they?”
“Dogs only sniff at each other,” Chandol said.
“Imagine sucking out anything from a girl’s mouth,” Bong said, mystified. “Some girls must smell bad at the mouth. Many people have a foul smell in their mouths, you know.”
“Sometimes they do lots of other strange things too,” Jun said. “Indeed there are lots of things to watch at Texas Town if you go there at night. Anyway, Chandol, what did they do when they were through mouth-sucking?”
“The bengko stripped down her panties. Her black panties were so beautiful, with lace and frills and everything. Then he took his own pants off and climbed on top of her. In no time he started to thrust his cock into her crotch.”
Laughing and chattering, the four boys hurried along the shore and arrived at the dump to find two strange boys picking through the garbage heap of steaming coffee grounds, crushed tin cans, wet papers and soiled chicken bones.
“What the hell is going on?” Chandol said, stopping short and squinting.
“They’re stealing our garbage,” Kijun said.
“Come,” Chandol said. “We have to drive them away.”
“Hey, you!” Chandol shouted. “Don’t move!”
“Stay there and don’t move!” Jun shouted.
As the four Kumsan boys swarmed to the pit, yelling, the two intruders looked up at them. The taller boy holding a “pillow bread” soggy with swill and grease was Sinil, the fifteen-year-old captain of the Castle village boys. Sinil started to climb out of the pit, his feet sinking into the slimy garbage and leftover food and his eyes blazing as he glared back at Chandol. The smaller boy was as young as Bong. Something rattled in the can he carried in his hand as he followed his captain as if he was afraid to be abandoned in the pit.
Chandol blocked Sinil’s way at the edge of the pit and, trying to stare him down, said, “Who says you Castle boys can come here and steal our things?”
“We are not stealing anything from anybody,” said Sinil. “And nobody can say we can’t come here either.”
“This dump belongs to Kumsan,” Chandol explained. “I cannot let you take anything from this place.”
“I think differently,” said Sinil, who showed no intention of giving in. “I don’t think you should try to stop us from coming here. This is an open place. Anybody can take anything he finds here. And I find lots of things that I want to take home with me.”
Chandol quickly examined the situation. He had never had a fist fight, one-to-one, with Sinil yet, but there was no doubt that Kumsan would beat Castle now in a group fight. Kumsan outnumbered them by two to one.
“You’d better watch out,” Chandol warned, “unless you’re ready for punishment.”
“You want to punish me?” said Sinil. “All right, Chandol, come on and try.”
There was no need to exchange any more words. Sinil had hardly finished his challenge when Chandol kicked him in the groin as hard as he could. As Sinil was about to fall forward, Chandol butted him in the forehead like a charging ram. Sinil collapsed on the bed of garbage, blood streaming from both nostrils. The little Castle village boy trembled in fear, expecting he would be attacked next. Children’s fights usually ended when one boy had a nosebleed, the undeniable sign of the loser. But Sinil would not admit that Chandol was the better fighter.
“Don’t think this is the end of the fight,” said Sinil, wiping the blood off his nose with a handful of sand. “I’m coming back. I’ll be back soon, with my boys, and then we will have a real war.”
Sinil’s announcement meant that this year’s Autumn War between Kumsan and Castle would be a contest over the right to the dump. It was going to b
e a bloody fight, Chandol thought. Up to now, the boys of the two villages had never fought over anything tangible. This time some boys would get hurt for sure … But he did not want to give the Castle captain the wrong impression that Kumsan did not want to fight.
“Get going. Quick!” Chandol said. “You’d better not dream of coming back here. If you show up around this place again to steal something, I’ll chop your hands off with a straw-cutter.”
Staring after Sinil and the small boy walking toward the ferry, Chandol began to worry. He knew Sinil would not forget the shame of his nosebleed in the presence of the other boys. Chandol had won today owing to the success of his surprise attack. Now Sinil would be wary and he had longer arms than Chandol’s. Kumsan would need a lot of preparation to win the fight with the Castle boys this year. The annual mock war with stones between the boys of the two villages had been delayed this autumn due to the outbreak of the war among the grownups and the coming of the World Army. Chandol was sure that Sinil would not wait much longer to declare war, because of today’s humiliation.
Chandol had good reason to worry. Last year, Kumsan barely managed to win; at one time, Chandol’s boys had been driven as far down as the abandoned water mill when the Castle boys attacked them with mud bombs containing bitter peach medicine. If a mud bomb exploded anywhere near you and a puff of the yellow powdered pesticide got into your mouth, you could not eat anything for one whole day. And Chandol had a new handicap this year. The five boys of Kumsan had fought successfully against the seven Castle boys for the past three years, but now, there were only four of them. Mansik was out. They would need a good plan to win this year’s war and keep the Castle boys out of the dump. When the Castle village boys were gone, Kijun and Bong and Kangho slid down into the pit and began to rummage through the garbage, but Chandol remained on the sand, looking over at the ferry with an uneasy expression.
Night after night Ollye entertained customers. She found herself so drunk by the time she was ready to go home that she could not walk. Yonghi had reassured her over and over again that she would soon get used to drinking but she was drunk again tonight although she had only two cups of beer. And when she was sober, she felt restless or depressed most of the time; her skin would crawl all over with self-consciousness when she was at home, sober, with Mansik and Nanhi.
Sarging Mike with his hooked nose grinned at Ollye and said “Korean cunt namba wang” and something else, imitating Korean pronunciation, and Sarging Fist Nose and Sister Serpent laughed. Yonghi kept her left breast hanging out of her white dress because Sarging Mike wanted to suck it after every cup of beer as a “relish.” Ollye tried to join in their laughter in time but she missed her cue again. Her belated laugh sounded, even to herself, empty and stupid. Sarging Fist Nose was Ollye’s only steady customer. He came to see her every week and Yonghi wondered why he liked Ollye so much since she spoke so little Migook. Ollye herself could not understand why he had fallen for her. He kept coming to see her even after she had vomited beer and pieces of ham and kimchi pickles and rice on his face and chest at their very first encounter. Sundok believed that the soldier had been utterly fascinated by the totally unprofessional service Ollye offered him.
As she spent more and more time with him in bed Ollye thought of him less and less as one of a kind with the monstrous bengkos who had violated her long months ago. She was no longer afraid or suspicious of him. This changing attitude enabled her to follow Yonghi’s advice to “enjoy” the work now and then. One night she had totally abandoned herself to him, and was so aroused that she kept clinging to him for almost two hours until both of them were as limp as wet rags, drenched in perspiration. Yonghi, who had been with her own customer in the next room, kept commenting through the wall, “You’re driving both of us here nuts. Can’t you do it a little more quietly and ladylike?” Sarging Fist Nose had entered her three times but he was not willing to let her go at midnight when she usually went home. The sergeant called Yonghi to Ollye’s room and told her that he would not be satisfied with a short-time and wanted to have his woman all night. Yonghi, half naked herself, observed with an amused expression the naked couple under the sheet and the telltale signs of violent passion in the littered room. “Great, Sis, great,” Yonghi said. “You’re doing really great like a pro tonight.” Then she told Ollye what the sergeant wanted and demanded that she give him a long-time. By now Ollye had no strength left to leave. The sheets turned soggy with their sweat that night and smelled musty the next morning.
She had awakened, sober and frightened, at sunrise. The soldier was gone already, leaving only the odor of cigarette smoke and spilled beer in the stuffy room. This was the first time in her life that she had ever spent whole night outside her home. She winced in anticipation of going back to Kumsan in the bright morning sun and facing her children. She vaguely persuaded herself that she had to go to Central Market and buy some vegetables for side dishes at supper. She ambled around town for over two hours after buying some turnips and pickled garlic, because she was afraid to go home. When she finally returned to the Chestnut House around noon, Mansik was sullenly waiting for her by the walnut stump. Nanhi had cried until her eyes had turned red.
“Do we have any more beer left?” Yonghi asked. “I believe there’s a case of beer out in the hall, Sis.”
Ollye tried to remember but her head kept swimming. “I’m not sure,” she said. She tried a little harder to remember and she thought there was still one more case of beer left in the hall. “I think there is,” she said. “Yes. We have one more case of beer in the hall.”
“Would you bring in five more bottles?”
“I see. I will.”
As Ollye staggered up on her wobbly legs, Sarging Fist Nose asked her, “Odika? Where are you going?”
“Beer,” Ollye said. “Beer. Drink beer.”
Fist Nose asked Yonghi, “More beer? You wanna more beer?”
“Yeah,” Yonghi said with an apologetic smile. “Ah wanna moa beer. Pibe moa bottle beer. Okay?”
Nodding his head okay, the soldier gestured for Ollye to sit down and wait. “I can do,” the Yankee said. “I can do bring more beer.” He reeled out of the room.
“He really treats you like a queen, Sis,” Yonghi said. “I hope my Sarging Mike will learn how to treat a girl from your sarging.”
Mike could not understand what the two women were talking about in Korean but he was obviously pleased that his name had been mentioned. He gulped another cup of beer, pulled Yonghi’s exposed breast like an elastic toy toward his pouting mouth and sucked it.
Her mind was turning hazy from the drink, but Ollye still vividly remembered Mansik’s hostile expression. She had hurried into the kitchen to cook the late breakfast and feed Nanhi—and to avoid Mansik’s accusing glare. She scooped a gourdful of rice out of the buried jar and turned back, and Mansik was there, standing by the door, staring at her, his face frozen as hard as a marble tombstone.
Mansik asked point-blank, “Are you a whore?”
Ollye had been speechless. She could not even move her fingers. In the next room Nanhi was screaming at the top of her lungs.
Ollye had expected that Mansik would find out about her night work sooner or later, but she had not been prepared to face him.
Sarging Fist Nose came in with the beer in his arms and placed the bottles one by one on the table. Grinning broadly he mumbled something and Yonghi and Sarging Mike laughed and Ollye, though a moment late, laughed, too. You get used to anything if you practice often enough, she thought. Anything. Even laughing in time. Now she was quite used to the Yankee names too. The bengko names were so strange that she could not even imitate the sounds at first, but now she could say Jimmy, Billy, Duncan and almost all the names of the Yankees she had been in bed with so far. She also learned how to call a passing soldier whom she had never seen before; all she had to do was to just say “Hello, Joe, G.I. Joe, buy me drink,” as everybody else at Texas Town did.
One thing that she st
ill did not know how to handle was her relationship with her son Mansik. Sometimes, even while she was in bed with a soldier customer and drunk, the faces of Mansik and Nanhi, always with frigid staring expressions, haunted her.
At Texas Town, there was a twenty-four-year-old girl with the Korean name of Meri as well as the Migook name of Mary. She never told anybody much about herself and nobody knew where she was from or what her real name was but she must have had a complicated past, for she had a six-year-old illegitimate daughter. Olive watched Mary and her daughter, who had the Korean name of Suson, meaning “the Narcissus Girl,” as well as the American name of Susan, but Ollye could not find any hints in the mother-daughter relationship that might help in her own relation with Mansik. Susan was so used to the life of the Texas Towns that she played with any bengko who came to sleep with her mother. While Mary was working with her customer, Susan would wander around the shanty town, looking for somebody to play with. Everybody, both the U.N. ladies and the Yankees, treated her like a mascot or a human pet.
Ollye could not imagine Nanhi as another Susan, and she certainly did not want her children to grow up in a whoretown. Yet she thought that if she received long-time customers, she could make some real money quickly, leave this place for good, settle down somewhere far away and begin a new life.
“Work like a dog for just one year until you make enough money to open a small shop somewhere,” Yonghi would say. “Then you can go and settle down at a remote town in Chungchong or Kangwon Province, open a cotton shop or a noodle house and live as happily ever after as you want with your children. Nobody there will ever find out you were a whore unless you tell them.”
So Ollye had asked Yonghi, with pretended casualness, if Sister Serpent would still like to open a club at the snake hunter’s hut. Of course Yonghi wanted to, but she knew she could not make the boatman take her across the river. “Suppose you can find another boat …,” Ollye said. Sister Serpent realized that Mansik’s mother had been privately working on a scheme of her own.