In a reasonable voice, Major Chaek said, “this is not a photograph of a girl, Lance Corporal Yong. This is the photograph of a ghost,” and he methodically tore it into dozens of tiny pieces that fluttered to the grass below his feet.
“Yes, Sir,” Woo-jin responded, gulping, blinking, and fighting his emotions.
Major Chaek got into Dong-joo’s face the way that military drill instructors sometimes do, and noticed that Dong-joo’s neck was reddened.
“Did Lance Corporal Yong do this to you, Corporal Sang?” he asked.
“Yes, Sir!”
“I see,” he said, and turned to Woo-jin and asked, “what were you doing with such forbidden contraband in your possession?”
Woo-jin was nervous and kept silent.
“This is not a rhetorical question, Lance Corporal Yong. Why did you have a photograph of a girl in your possession?”
Woo-jin softly replied, “I do not know, Major Chaek.”
“And you assaulted a superior when he attempted to relieve you of such forbidden contraband? Yes?”
“Yes, Sir,” Woo-jin responded.
Major Chaek turned back to Dong-joo and asked, “Corporal Sang, what punishment do you propose I levy against Lance Corporal Yong?”
Without hesitation, Dong-joo barked, “Sir, Corporal Sang observed the sewer truck pumping out the portable toilets and believes they need washing!”
“That’s a good start,” Major Chaek said, eyeing Woo-jin, “use water from the lake, but do not rinse in the lake.”
“Sir!” Dong-joo belted out, “the Corporal also requests permission to be excused from trash duties with the Lance Corporal.”
“Request denied. You are both a disgrace to the Major, General Kim, and Supreme Commander Marshal Kim Jong-un! You are dismissed.”
Woo-jin and Dong-joo saluted Major Chaek and bolted out of the door. Dong-joo made a beeline to his private tent, while Woo-jin watched the sewer truck exit the encampment, its belly hungry for the next batch of excrement. Soldiers were already lining up to use the portable toilets because they stunk less when they were empty.
Woo-jin found cleaning supplies in the Sparrows’ upstairs bathroom and got to work, scrubbing the portable toilets in between the soldiers using them, many who intentionally “missed” the toilet. It would take him until dinnertime to get them as clean as Major Chaek requested, painstakingly dumping one filthy bucket after another near the trash pile.
After dinner, he and Dong-joo made their usual rounds in pensive silence. Woo-jin expected Dong-joo to throw him into the trash heap again, but he was only met with ambivalence from a partner who acted like he was invisible. And they were fine with that.
Winston awoke at six o’clock, a full hour before PLA dinnertime. Muffin had somehow rolled onto her back without falling down the steep concrete incline, and she hopped onto her feet when she felt Winston stir. He rooted through the provisions and plucked out two items.
“Let’s go see if we can find some apples, and bring this here can a peaches and some raisins to good ‘ol Ben.”
He placed the rifle and Muffin on his lap and slid back down to the ground, not bothering to check the trash pile for edibles, and dashed toward the road, Muffin close on his heels. He stopped at the road, but Muffin kept running, straight out into it. She stopped mid-road, turned back, and barked at Winston, thinking that this was a game.
“Shit,” he said and bolted across the road and into the field.
He continued running until he came to Calef’s apple orchard, and he and Muffin pressed forward toward the rear of the store. Winston vigilantly scoured the trees for apples and surveyed the surrounding area for PLA soldiers. There wasn’t an apple or soldier to be had. Despite his better judgment, he crept slowly up to the fence. It was still light out and he could see the prisoners, their gaunt and ghastly features brilliantly glowing orange by the waning sun, whose gingery rays lit up the stormy sky. Ben, it seemed, hadn’t moved an inch since Winston last saw him. But he was alive and in good spirits when he recognized his friend.
“Winston! It’s so good to see you.”
Winston kneeled to get down to his height.
“Ben. How are you?”
“Oh, we dead, Winston, we walkin’ talkin’ dead in here.”
“Cut that out, Ben. They been feedin’ ya?”
“Oh, sure, Winston. Why it was just the other day they served us chateaubriand.”
One of the men chuckled softly in the darkness.
“Who dat?” Ben asked of Muffin.
“Her name is Muffin. Found her down in McDonough.”
“She a Lhasa Apso.”
“That’s what she is. I thought Shih Tzu.”
“A common mistake.”
Ben put four fingers through the fence and pet Muffin’s coat. She stood in benevolence, enjoying the attention. Ben enjoyed it, too.
“Heard we was leavin’ soon. They all packin’ and movin’ closer to Atlanta,” Ben reported.
“Is that true?”
“Come back in a couple a days and I’ll tell ya.”
“Sorry I ain’t got nothin’ for you today, Ben,” Winston said in a slightly louder voice and coughed while he discreetly opened the can of peaches, “they feedin’ ya okay?”
“Oh, I can’t complain. It’s enough to get us by.”
“Good. Eat these,” Winston whispered, pushing the can of peaches to Ben and motioning for him to be hush about it. Ben winked and put dirty fingers into the peaches, pulling them out one by one and eating them like sardines.
“Oh, we been seein’ a bunch a ‘mericans rootin’ ‘round them trees night after night, jes’ lookin’ fer apples. Them gooks got one, ya know — you kin kinda see the body from here.”
Ben aimed a crooked finger toward the center of the orchard. Winston stood erect and scoured the area in the direction Ben aimed. Sure enough, he could just make out the curves of a rotting corpse. He kneeled back down.
“Know who it was?”
“Nope.”
Winston would divulge to Ben neither the atrocity he had witnessed in McDonough nor the contents of his and May’s barn, but they did chat quietly until the sun set. Woo-jin and Dong-joo should have by now taken care of the trash, and it was now safer to cross the road. Ben had finished eating the peaches without causing a ruckus, and Winston slipped the raisins through the gate to him.
“Okay, Ben. I gotta get. You take care now.”
“You, too, ol’ friend. Give May my love.”
“I will.”
Winston scooted off in a low crouch, whispering, “Muffin, come,” and kept moving. He looked back to see her lay down next to Ben, his four fingers still outstretched and lovingly patting her. Winston didn’t stop moving, and turned back to face where he was heading, hoping that she wouldn’t follow him. And she didn’t.
He crept across the road, making it back to the overpass in record time. He climbed up to the ledge, retrieved the provisions, and meandered slowly back to the fence to find the stepstool and water where he had left them. Lights out was probably still a couple of hours away, so he sat with his back against the tree he would climb when it was all clear. Suddenly, Amadeus slinked into view, holding a writhing chipmunk in his mouth. The cat stood there momentarily, gazing at his master as if to say, “I’m cool,” and then disappeared back into the woods. It was only a fraction of a moment that Winston was eager to share with May, for it would bring her much joy.
And then the rains came. In an instant, a torrent of rainwater soaked everything under the Georgia sky. The winds whipped up in a frenzy, sending tree limbs crashing to the ground. Winston instinctively leapt into action. He tossed the provisions, the three water jugs, his rifle, and the stepstool across the top of the fence, jumped up onto the tree branch, and climbed over. He dropped to the ground, gathered his things, and brought them to the window. He placed the stepstool under the window to open it, but it opened from inside.