Authors: Martin Limón
“Any place to get beer around here?”
“There’s a Class VI store back by the Officers’ Club.”
Before we could decide whether one of us should walk over there or if we should take the jeep, Lindbaugh left his quarters. He wore a pullover golf shirt that fit him like Saran Wrap. His blue jeans were baggy and faded and his white sneakers scuffed. Just a regular guy kicking around the neighborhood. He drove off. We followed.
“He can’t be going to the village dressed like that.”
“No way,” I said. “Got to be a local run.”
We followed him down a narrow lane that led up around the rear of the Officers’ Club to a small back parking lot where most of the food and beverage deliveries were made. Off to the side was the Class VI store, a PX Shopette, and the Steam and Cream.
The Steam and Cream was known officially as the Army and Air Force Exchange Service Steam Bath and Massage Center. Lindbaugh parked out front, popped from his car, and ambled through the door as if he’d been there a million times.
Ernie parked the jeep between some other cars in the lot.
“Now I know it’s going to take a while.”
“Five dollars for thirty minutes or seven-fifty for an hour.”
“At least he brought us to the Class VI.”
Ernie got out of the jeep and came back in a few minutes with a six-pack of cold beer. We popped open a couple of wets and waited.
In the Army you get used to things like this: not really being in charge of an investigation, not knowing all of what’s going on, just being told to watch somebody and report back. People think of the Army as being demeaning. In a lot of ways it is. Though I think many civilian jobs have the same demands: don’t ask questions, just do it.
The one thing the Army has going for it is that you can’t be fired. Not easily, anyway. You have to do something wrong, almost commit a crime. Of course the Army’s standards for what constitutes a crime are a little less stringent than those of the civilian world. For instance, being late for a formation or not showing up for work—in the Army those are crimes. But if you avoid the obvious stuff, the things they can nail you for under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, then you have a lot of latitude. If your boss doesn’t like you, he can make your life miserable but he can’t fire you. Not without specific charges. And being a smartass isn’t good enough. In fact, if he brings it to the attention of his higherups, they’ll probably wonder why he isn’t capable of handling the situation himself.
So in a lot of ways the Army offers more freedom than the civilian world. I don’t have to worry about whether or not the company I work for is making a profit or if the wife of the boss doesn’t like the way I look. I can mostly count on having a job as long as I don’t get stupid.
Besides, who else would send me to Korea and pay me to drink beer outside of a Steam and Cream?
We had gone through the entire six-pack and both taken a leak in the bushes behind the parking lot by the time Lindbaugh came out. A young lady in a blue steam bath uniform held the door open for him and waved goodbye. He looked like a pink new baby—pampered, powdered, and now patted on the butt on the way out. He walked next door to the PX Shopette and emerged again with a shopping bag full of groceries and a magazine wrapped in cellophane. Then he drove back to his hooch. Ernie and I parked outside for a conference.
“He ain’t going nowhere.” Ernie said.
“Naw. Tomorrow’s a workday. He’s had his fun.” I checked my watch. It was still early. Nineteen thirty. “Time to head out to the ville.”
“You got that right.”
When Kimiko spotted us she strutted across the King Club, brown OB beer bottle in hand, and reached for my crotch. I jumped back spasmodically, barely avoiding her grasp.
“How’s it hanging, GI?” she said.
“It’s hanging just fine, Kimiko,” I said, “all by itself.”
“You buy me drink?”
“Hell no. You’re supposed to buy us a drink, for saving your
kundingi.”
The same beige dress she had had on this morning was now washed and pressed and her long black hair had been shampooed and combed. She had scrounged some makeup from somewhere. The oldest business girl in Itaewon was back in town.
She considered my proposal about the drinks. “Okay,” she said. “I buy, you pay.”
Ernie and I elbowed our way to the bar. I ordered three OBs and ceremoniously handed one to Kimiko. She curtsied, her knobby knees flared slightly to the side.
The joint was busy, as usual for this time of night, and Miss Oh hadn’t noticed our entrance yet. She served a tray of drinks and was heading right for us when Kimiko, with that incredible sense of timing that women have, threw her arms around my waist and buried her face in my shirt.
I tried to pull her off but she had a tight grip and Miss Oh walked by, increasing her speed as she passed, glowering at me for the loss of face I was causing her.
If she didn’t have time to see me, because she had to party with a bunch of big-shot Koreans, did I get mad? No. But some old broad throws her arms around me, without invitation, and she acts as if I’ve just broken a sacred vow.
I pried Kimiko’s biceps away from my ribs. She looked up at me, her face clouding.
“Whatsamatta you? You no like Kimiko?”
“Yeah, I like,” I said. “Just don’t break my back, okay?”
She pouted and lifted her beer bottle to her lips. Tilting it straight up, she let the bubbling hops gurgle and swirl down her pulsating throat. My kind of chick. Then she burped. Me and Ernie too. Three-part harmony.
Miss Oh was snapping quick looks at me from the waitress station. Hell with it, I thought. Ernie had commandeered a bar stool and sat down, his back to the bar, knees pointing towards the crowd. He was chortling. I said, “Pretty hilarious, eh, pal?”
“You’re a riot, George. Better than Dobie Gillis.”
We decided to get into some serious drinking and ordered shots and another round of beer. When we had finished, the three of us paraded out into the streets of Itaewon, not really sure where we were going, letting the surging pedestrian masses lead us. Shortly, we found ourselves in front of the American Club. Ernie dragged us in. I was worried about running into Miss Lim but the lust for more booze kept my feet moving.
Ginger saw us and her face brightened. She started her charge down the planks behind the bar when she saw Kimiko and, slowly, her face hardened. She sauntered down to us at the open bar stool we had found. Kimiko jumped up on it and Ernie and I wedged ourselves close to the railing on either side of her. Ginger filled our order and gave us our change without saying anything. I hadn’t spotted Miss Lim. Then I noticed Ginger on the phone, face grim.
Some of the old retirees at the bar knew Kimiko, and soon she was glad-handing around as if she were running for mayor.
Ernie and I leaned into the drinks heavy—who knew when the stuff could run out?—and then the C&W band started and all of my thought processes stopped. During a particularly hideous cowboy lament, Kimiko returned and at the same time Miss Lim walked in the door. Kimiko’s beer bottle was empty and she tried to get me to refill it for her. Miss Lim sashayed past without looking at me and joined one of the more presentable retirees at the end of the bar. He smiled so broadly I thought his cheeks were going to pop. Then he stood up and offered her his bar stool. Offering someone a bar stool is the greatest sacrificial gesture a retiree can make.
Miss Lim took off her coat, assisted by the ex-lifer, sat down primly, and ordered a drink from the concerned and attentive Ginger. When the drink appeared, she
dupshida-ed
with the guy, took a sip, and glanced at me.
Yeah, I was riveted to her every move. And kept trying to brush Kimiko off. Finally, Kimiko realized what was going on, stared for a while at Miss Lim, and then turned back to me.
“She married. Why you mess around with married woman?”
I didn’t answer, just ordered another round of straight shots. Morality lectures from Kimiko, yet.
After a while Ernie and I both got tired of standing so we took a tiny table and Kimiko followed us. We were working our way through Ginger’s liquor storehouse at a pretty steady clip; the table started to pile up with empty beer bottles.
Kimiko turned her attention towards Ernie since I was beginning to slow down on the generosity angle. They were warming up to a major public display when a woman materialized from the crowd. I didn’t recognize her at first but when I realized it was the Nurse, I knew this just wasn’t our night.
The Nurse wore soft-soled shoes, blue jeans, a black turtleneck, and a black bandana around her forehead. Her small knotted fist brandished a four-foot-long cudgel. Actually, I think it was a broom handle but at the moment it looked like a cudgel.
She floated towards us, taking small steps, arms raised high, and then she whacked the broom handle across our small cocktail table. Beer and shattered glass flew everywhere. The crash stopped the band and the talking. The only sound was me and Ernie scuffling back our chairs, and then she was advancing, jabbing the stick at Ernie, screaming at him in incoherent Korean.
Kimiko salvaged a full bottle and scuttled off to the side, hiding herself in the crowd.
Ernie twisted and dodged, hands outstretched, trying to ward off the stick, stumbling backwards over chairs and tables as people jumped out of the way, drinks and glassware smashing. Finally he crashed into the amps of the band on stage. Ernie grabbed the broom handle, trying to pull it out of the Nurse’s grasp. They grunted and cursed at each other. She let go of the stick with one hand and clawed at his face, screaming.
“You go out every night! Play with woman! No take care of home! No take care of rent! No take care of food!”
Ernie ripped the stick from her grasp and just stood there panting, not knowing quite what to do with it. The Nurse lunged again. He dropped the stick and threw his hands up to protect his face.
She screamed and clawed and slavered, and Ernie backed closer and closer to the main door. I tried to pull her off but she elbowed me in the ribs, stomped on my foot, and went after him some more. Locked arm in arm, they went out the swinging doors of the club. A crowd gathered.
They strained against each other, muscle on muscle, and then the Nurse let go, all at once, and Ernie had to hold her up to keep her from collapsing.
She was crying, pulling away from Ernie. And Ginger was there, comforting her. Other women stepped forward to help.
Both the Americans and the Koreans in the crowd turned their attention to Ernie and me. Their comments became progressively uglier. I tugged on Ernie’s elbow. He seemed to come out of his trance and he followed me as I pushed our way through the crowd, heading for the welcome darkness of Itaewon’s back alleys. And then we were running.
Heels clicked behind us. Kimiko.
When the light from the street lamp hit her face, she stared at us. Deadpan, she said, “You buy me drink?”
Ernie looked like chalk. I stifled a laugh.
I turned back to Kimiko. “Sure. Why not?”
I dragged both of them to Milt Gorman’s place, the Roundup. Ernie went to the latrine to rearrange his ripped shirt and his scratched face. Kimiko stuck close by me while we ordered our drinks. Ernie returned. He sipped listlessly on his beer. He paid no attention to our conversation, and my efforts to cheer him up were useless. After he drained the last of his suds, and without a word, he got up and left.
Milt Gorman stopped by and asked me how the investigation was going. I told him it was over. He smiled and had one of his waitresses bring us a couple of beers. The nice-looking young woman gave us some strange looks as she poured our beer and tidied up the table. Kimiko ignored her. A lot of the GIs were giving us strange looks, too. I was a little uneasy about the attention but I ignored it.
Something made Kimiko decide to tell me her life story. I didn’t have anywhere to go so I listened.
Her father was a very rich man, rich enough to own large tracts of land in North Cholla Province, land that was worked by tenant farmers. He had a main wife and second and third wives, but Kimiko’s mother wasn’t a wife at all. Just a scullery maid. And her earliest memories were of running through the pigpens and the open fields and the orchards ripening with pears and apples. There were plenty of children to play with and most of them were related to her in some way, but as she got older and started school, her place was made clear to her. She was not a real child of a real wife and as such she would be allowed six years of schooling and then must go to work, like her mother.
There was a large household to feed, the biggest burden being the noon meal, when Kimiko’s father was obligated to feed the day laborers who were so often working in various of the fields. She and her mother packed up wooden carrying boxes with rice and bean curd soup and cabbage kimchi, and her mother would head in one direction and Kimiko in the other.
After Kimiko finished her sixth year of schooling, she noticed changes in her body and, much sooner than the other girls her age, she started to turn into a woman.
It was her breasts that caused her the most grief. They were large and pointed and she strapped them in tightly, hurting herself every morning when she put on her
chima
and
chogori,
hoping they wouldn’t get any bigger and cause her any more shame. In Korea large-breasted women were considered to be stupid, and her body seemed to be betraying her, confirming everyone’s already low opinion of her.
I asked Kimiko about her first experience with love. It must have been on a beautiful spring evening, I said, under the blooms of a cherry tree in the orchard.
She shook her head. No one touched her at her father’s house. “No can do. Not supposed to.”
As Kimiko reached her thirteenth year her mother’s health started to fade. More and more of the chores in the big kitchen fell to her, and her father would allow no new help. Finally, after months of hacking and spitting up blood, in the heart of a cruel winter, Kimiko’s mother wasted away and died. Her father buried her, without excessive ceremony. The snow was too deep and the watching eyes of the first, second, and third wives too critical to allow for much in the way of mourning. Only Kimiko grieved. And now the full weight and responsibility of the kitchen fell upon her and she threw herself into her work.