Jeannie broke open my wooden chopsticks, unfolded a paper napkin, placed it on my knee, and motioned with her open palm. “Duh-seiyo,” she said. Please partake. It wasn’t quite as polite as “chapsu-seiyo,” which means the same thing but is spoken to one’s superior rather than to one’s equal. I was pleased to be equal with this Korean business girl named Jeanie, so I dug in.
After chop, Ernie and Ok-hi retired to their own room. Jeannie cleaned up, setting the empty dishes outside in the vinyl-floored hallway. Then she slid shut the oil-papered door and rolled out two down-filled sleeping mats. I was tired, but not tired enough to ignore her.
In the morning, Ernie and I were up just after dawn. We said our goodbyes to Ok-hi and Jeannie who lingered in the yoguan since both rooms were paid for until noon.
The narrow alleys of Tongduchon were quiet and cold in the early morning hours. All the shops and nightclubs and bars were padlocked and shuttered with heavy iron gratings. A low mist spread along cobbled lanes. As we walked, Ernie stuck his hands deep into his pockets and breathed deeply of the frigid air, pungent with the odor of fermented cabbage and stagnating beer and ondol charcoal gas floating from the hotels and yoguans that dotted the bar district.
Most of the GIs had already left. A mandatory PT formation was held at 0630 and it was now almost 0700 hours. In the distance, on the other side of the main gate of Camp Casey, we could hear huge groups of GIs doing jumping jacks while they shouted martial cadences.
The narrow walkway we were following bled onto the main drag of the bar district and soon Ernie and I were walking past the shuttered facades of the Oasis Club, the Montana Club, and finally the Silver Dragon Club. Then we crossed the railroad tracks, went through another narrow alley, and came out on the four-lane wide Main Supply Route. Down the road about a half mile we could see the illuminated arch of the 2nd Division main gate. Beyond that, the twenty-foot-high MP, still standing at the ready, still observing everything. When I thought of what we would face at the PMO today, after the Weatherwax incident last night, I groaned inwardly.
Ernie seemed completely unconcerned.
A unit of GIs emerged from the main gate. All of them wore sneakers, gray training pants, gray sweatshirts, and red woolen caps pulled down low over their ears. All fifty or so men ran in unison, a senior sergeant shouting out the cadence. One man ran in front of the formation holding the unit flag. The guide-on, he’s called. We could tell by the colors they wore, and by the unit designation on the flag, that they were combat engineers.
“Where are the MPs?” Ernie asked.
“Don’t be so anxious to see them,” I replied.
We trotted across the MSR until we reached the southwestern corner of Camp Casey. A ten-foot-high cement-block wall on our right, topped with concertina wire, stretched along the sidewalk all the way to the main gate. Ernie and I walked it quietly, both lost in our own thoughts.
Me, I was thinking about Jeannie. She was a slender woman, and tall for a Korean, but sweet and gentle and considerate. I’d had some good times since I’d been in country but last night had been one of the best.
Ernie heard it first.
“What the hell’s that?” he asked.
It was the typical shouted cadence of a military unit doing its morning physical-training run. The sergeant shouted something out and the men answered as if in one voice, almost like singing. But this sound was close and loud and garbled. Ernie and I glanced around, unable to figure where the noise was coming from.
It couldn’t be the combat engineer unit. They’d run off in the other direction.
And then I understood. It came from the narrow alleyway we’d just walked out of. It had been barely wide enough for Ernie and me to walk abreast, certainly not big enough for a company formation four-squads wide. But that’s where the sound was coming from, and that’s why Ernie and I were having trouble locating it. The narrow alley concentrated the sound, causing it to reverberate between its brick walls. And then the sound erupted onto the MSR and spread out every which way.
“Why in hell did they go down there?” Ernie asked.
“They came out of the main gate,” I said. “We know that. Then they must’ve entered the village and taken a left down the road running along the railroad tracks.”
“So close to the ville?”
Ernie meant that there’d be a lot of civilians woken up by their shouting and the pounding of their feet. In the States, that’s never allowed. Even in Seoul, it’s frowned upon.
Now it was my turn to shrug. “This is Division.”
“But why turn up that narrow alleyway?” Ernie asked. “They’ve hardly run a half mile.”
I didn’t know. But the question was answered almost as soon as it was out of Ernie’s mouth. The guide-on of the unit, holding the unit flag at port arms, emerged from the mouth of the alley. He wore a green cap pulled down low over his ears, the same gray sweat pants, same gray sweat shirt, same cheap sneakers. But the realization of the meaning of the designation on the flag fluttering in the breeze smacked Ernie and me at the same time. Right across the chops.
Crossed pistols.
The unit emerging out of the narrow alley-the men stumbling into one another, packed like sardines, and now redeploying on the wide expanse of the MSR-was none other than Headquarters Company of the 2nd Infantry Division Military Police.
“They’ve been hunting us,” Ernie said.
I didn’t want to believe it. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “They’re doing their morning exercise.”
But even as I spoke, I realized Ernie was right. They had to be hunting us. Why else would they squeeze through the ville, run down dangerous railroad tracks, and then turn up an alley too narrow to hold them?
The MP company emerged from the gap in the dark red wall, all wearing bright green caps pulled down low over their ears, looking like a giant reptile slithering out of a cave. And then, without anyone barking orders, they re-formed into four columns behind the guide-on. The sergeant was shouting out the cadence now and the unit started its relentless trot, heading down the MSR toward the main gate. Heading directly toward us.
“Just keep walking,” Ernie said. “We’re not going to run.”
He shoved his fists into the pockets of his jacket, hunched his shoulders, and continued to march resolutely down the sidewalk. We had more than a quarter of a mile to go. The arch of the main gate of Camp Casey loomed in front of us. Above us, the glassy-eyed MP statue stared impassively at our dilemma. We’d never make it. The MP formation was already bearing down on us. The sergeant leading the formation had spotted us and he was shouting a new song:
“On your right!”
“On your right!” the MPs repeated.
“On your right!”
As if to get our attention.
“Sick call!”
There’s nothing lower than a GI who shirks his duty by riding the sick list.
“Sick call!” the MPs repeated. And repeated again. “Sick call! Sick call!”
The sound was thunderous and getting louder. Still, neither Ernie nor I looked back. Here it comes, I thought.
Feet trod on cold cement. Big feet. Dozens of them, breaking away from the formation, cantering toward us.
4
B efore I dropped out of high school to join the army, I played some football. Being as big as I am made me an anomaly among the Chicanos of Lincoln High School in East L.A. The coach wasn’t sure what to do with me so, of course, he put me on the line. Right tackle, but then he moved me to guard. Although I was too tall to play guard-in the usual way these things are looked at-the coach saw that I could pull off the line quickly. As soon as the ball was snapped, I moved to my right or my left, behind my other teammates on the line who were lunging forward. My job was to hit some defender, when he was least expecting it, and knock open a hole for the ball carrier to plunge through. That was the theory.