maybe just being alive. I get enthusiastic about books and things, or a particularly knotty investigation, or just getting laid.
Definitely not her type.
Not that I hold any grudges. There are plenty of other girls in Itaewon. Like Miss Oh, the cocktail waitress who works at the King Club.
She was a big help to me on my last investigation, after she got tired of bonging me on the head with her cocktail tray. She’s tall, slender, with flowing black hair, and a figure than can make grown men cry. At least she’s brought me to tears a couple of times.
I try not to push her too hard. I know she’s got something going with one or two of the guys who run the local Club Owners’ Association here. Got to pay her dues. So I just see her occasionally, when we both have time. If I wander into the King Club, have a drink, and she’s a little brusque with me, I get the message. If she lingers at my table and asks me to buy her a drink, then I know I’m in. But Miss Oh would have to wait until at least nightfall.
There would be nothing for us until then so Ernie and I decided to take advantage of the first sergeant’s loose reins. Ernie went over to South Post to do some jogging, and I rolled up my gi and made it to the twelve o’clock tae kwon do class.
Mr. Chong, our instructor, had been holding classes at the main gym on Yongsan Compound for the last couple of years, ever since he’d won the Korean national title in the tae kwon do middleweight division.
It’s the most competitive division, mainly because almost everyone in the country is a middleweight. He’s a calm man, with a sculpted body, extremely precise in his movements, and as quick as a cobra when he wants to be.
I’d no more want to meet him in a dark alley than walk through an impact area during a Second Infantry Division field exercise.
“You’re late again, George.”
We were in the locker room, changing into our white outfits.
“Yes, I’m sorry. They had me working.”
Mr. Chong finished tying his long black belt around his trim waist and walked over to me slowly, shuffling his plastic slippers.
“You could be a very good student, one of my best, if you’d only work harder.”
“1 will try,” I said. “It’s this job…”
The worst part about every tae kwon do workout is the stretching exercises at the beginning. My skeleton had set into a brittle knot years before I ever thought about taking up this stuff, and to get my head to my knees or my ankles behind my neck was perfect torture.
We had a couple of American girls in the class, mainly there to ogle Mr. Chong, and they went through the stretching exercises like eels through a net.
Later, when we finally got back on our feet and into the endless repetitions of our kicking and punching routines, I felt a lot better; the sweat flowing, air coming hard. And then the solid feeling of knuckle and instep smacking against the swinging heavy bag.
It was during the free fighting that Mr. Chong always got me.
“You defend yourself too much, George. You must open up. You must attack.”
That was difficult for me to do since I’d always thought that the best offense was a good defense. And I was about twice the size of most of the people in the class. How can you open up when you don’t really intend to hurt anyone?
After the cool-down exercises, more stretching and bending, we bowed to Mr. Chong, in unison, and were dismissed. I walked over to the weight room and, still in my gi, pumped iron for a couple of hours.
In the sauna room I thought about Miss Pak and her short career.
A lot of GIs, especially those just in from the States, are always hung up on whether a girl is a professional or not. As if there’s some sort of clear-cut, fluorescent line between a person who is evil and one who isn’t. I’ve done enough things in my life to be ashamed of that I don’t have much problem with a girl who lives alone in a drafty hovel, works for a salary of thirty dollars a month, sees a couple of boyfriends, and then asks me for a few bucks the morning after.
I’m a Gl. I clear almost five hundred dollars-cash-a month. And I’ve got a free place to live and free food to eat. Not to mention medical care if I get sick. I’m like a millionaire compared to Miss Oh.
To be honest, there are some totally straight girls around, ones who aren’t as desperate as Miss Oh. It’s sort of hard for a G1 to meet then, though, especially if you’re like me and Ernie and spend all of your free time in the village of Itaewon.
I did once.
Ernie and I were pulling security, along with about eight thousand other guys for some big mucketymuck from the U.S. government who was visiting the Israeli Embassy in Seoul. Ernie was driving a big unmarked sedan and I rode shotgun. We spotted her leaving the embassy, walking towards the bus stop, so we slowed down and offered her a ride. At first she didn’t understand me but then I spoke Korean to her and everything was all right.
I took her to lunch at the Naija R amp;R Center downtown and then on a date where we walked through Duksoo Palace, and one afternoon I even went home and met her oldest sister. I don’t know what came over me. Just going along out of curiosity, I guess. Anyway, I took her to the Frontier Club after that on Yongsan South Post, let her listen to the live band, and bought her a Brandy Alexander. We spent the night together in a little yoguan I know in Samgakji. It was the first night she ever spent with a man.
I saw her a couple of times after that but then I got tired of it and I stood her up once and then I wouldn’t return her calls. Her brother-in-law, a Korean man of about forty, called me and in faltering English told me I couldn’t do that to her. I was hung over, in a bad mood, and I told him to go screw himself.
I’ve never seen her again. I’d be afraid to now. It’s things like that that have piled up in my life, that keep me aware that I’m no better than Miss Oh or any of the girls in Itaewon like her.
However, I’m not completely nonjudgmental and there is one thing I’m sure of-I’m better than that son of a bitch who did Miss Pak Ok-suk.
3
At the Lucky Seven Club we shoved some stools out of the way, leaned up against the bar, and ordered a couple of beers. We were the first customers in the joint. Most of the GIs had just gotten off work and hadn’t yet had time to eat chow, shower, shave, and get on down to the ville.
A couple of business girls scurried in and out, playing grab-ass, and only three or four of the waitresses were yet on duty. Ernie hit up the barmaid first.
“Where’s Kimiko?”
“Kimiko?”
“Yeah. Old woman. Long hair. Big jecjee’s.” He cupped two hands in front of his chest.
“You mean Ok-suk onni.” The barmaid thought about it for a minute and then shook her head and got back to washing glassware. “I no see her for a long time.”
Ok-suk onni meant the older sister of Ok-suk. If that’s what everyone called Kimiko, they must have been close.
The barmaid was a nice-looking gal, sturdy and squat, like maybe her ancestors had ridden in from the central plains of Asia, but she was shapely in all the right places. Her long black hair sat atop her round head, knotted by a single polished chopstick.
I waited until she finished her glasses and then I asked her name.
She looked up at me, surprised, the drying towel still in her hands.
“Mangnei,” she said, which wasn’t an answer because inangnei just means little sister. GIs wouldn’t know the difference, though.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Opa,” I said, which wasn’t an answer either because opa just means older brother.
