Jade Lady Burning

by Martin Limon

  The police on both ends of the roadway started to close in. There was a small alleyway between a produce stall and a fish market. I ran down it and, as if to illustrate a point out of the CID training manual, it was a dead-end.

  There was an eight-foot-high brick wall at the end and no doors on the tall buildings on either side. I ran for the wall and spotted a wooden crate at its base. I hit the crate running and bounded up, pulling myself up with my hands and kicking my right foot over the wall. It’s amazing how much more acrobatic a person can become with a little incentive.

  I stayed up on top of the wall for a couple of seconds, looking at the shards of glass under my hands and my legs. With a sick feeling, I rolled over, onto the far side of the wall, and fell—crashing— into a bush below.

  It was somebody’s back yard. A little fluffy white dog was barking his head off. I got up, moved away from the wall, and saw a gate. The dog bared his teeth and growled. I was in no mood to play with him and I think he could tell. He backed off.

  Someone slid their door open and light spilled out into the small courtyard. A man in pajama bottoms and a sleeveless T-shirt gazed out the door. I waved and smiled and stepped through the gate out into a quiet residential street.

  I decided not to wave anymore. Blood was running down my wrist.

  I started running again but when I got back out to the large streets, there were too many pedestrians to go fast, so I slowed to a walk. I didn’t want to attract too much attention to myself. The whistles were growing fainter behind me. I kept moving.

  I checked my hands. The right was okay but the left had a pretty nasty cut. The flow of blood had slowed, no artery had been hit, but it was still pretty messy. I figured I’d need seven or eight stitches and I’d have a scar to jog my memory about this evening for the rest of my life—although I doubted I’d need the prompting.

  I take long strides when I’m in a hurry, and I can walk as fast as some people can run, at least for sustained distances. I would stay off the main roads, if I could. If I ran into any police, they would most likely be walking patrols and I’d have a better chance. Then again, there would be fewer civilians to run interference for me.

  I came to the MSR and the pedestrian traffic increased. The Koreans are an industrious people. Many of them were just coming home from work although it must have been past seven in the evening. Carts and trucks and vendors and people on urgent missions were everywhere. The Korean workday had not yet wound down.

  I tried to hide my bloody hand by keeping it stiffly at my side. That probably just made it more conspicuous. I trotted across the street at a corner. That wasn’t unusual. Everyone had to run to avoid getting hit by the speeding traffic. I disappeared down another alley. At empty lots or any break in the crowded skyline, I could see the lights of the helicopter compound that sat just about a half mile from the post. Then a chopper dropping lazily to land.

  I picked up a handful of snow and wiped off the blood. A walking patrol approached at a stoplight and I held my breath. There were two MPs in the patrol, one American and the other ROK Army, and a Korean National Policeman. But they weren’t looking for me, they were just on routine patrol.

  “Just part of the scenery,” I said to myself when they had passed.

  The sweat was beginning to dry on my body and I shuddered from the cold. I was still in Korea.

  My hand had stopped bleeding as long as I didn’t move it. It was beginning to ache, a steady throb of pain running up my arm. No blood dripped down my pants legs. My shins must have been only scratched but I didn’t have time to stop and take a look.

  When I reached the walls of a factory compound I had no choice but to come out onto the main road. I put my hands in my jacket pockets and walked casually but with long strides down the road. There were Korean shops and restaurants blaring out their advertisements with music and light on either side of the trafficclogged street. It was a long straightaway.

  At first everything was written in Korean but gradually more and more signs appeared in English. chicken house, draft beer, the manhattan tailor shop—all the things to entice a young GI into their places of business. I just wanted to make it to the bar district and blend into the crowd of off-duty soldiers.

  Up ahead four streets ran off at odd angles. I took the road to the right. A half mile along, I hit downtown Itaewon.

  The first thing I did was stop for a beer.

  No one noticed me as I walked in despite my disheveled appearance. Huge, unkempt GIs were the norm around here. I walked past the pool players and the girls displaying their legs and bosoms at the cocktail tables to the one open seat at the bar. The attractive young barmaid poured the beer into a frosted mug. I made some inane but pleasant remark and tilted the mug to my lips, pushing past the white froth to the life-restoring fluid beneath. It was cold and wonderful.

  The barmaid thought she knew me but she wasn’t sure. She decided to play it safe and confided in me that she was on the rag, “men-suh,” she called it, and that was why she had to work behind the bar tonight. I patted her hand gently with my one good one and assured her that I understood. She took another long look at me, I think realizing that I wasn’t the guy she thought I was, and then shrugged and walked away.

  The place was bright and bubbled with music and colored lights that flashed and bounced off the walls at crazy, repetitive angles. I felt like I was in a pinball machine.

  It was only a one-room club, bar along the back wall, the latrine to the right, and a door to a flight of stairs, apparently to the girls’ rooms upstairs.

  Besides the adolescent ambiance, the club’s other attraction was the girls. Taking their cue from the decor, they were dressed like a bunch of wild women: miniskirts, hot pants, halter tops, see-through blouses all surrounded by nyloned legs below and flamboyant, explosive hairdos above.

  The music punched at my eardrums and the beer was served in frosted mugs. What more could anyone ask? I was starting to feel good again. Ernie would probably put this place off-limits. Not cave-like enough for him.

  One of the girls approached me and I let her and before long she was massaging the knotted muscles of my neck and cooing to me about going upstairs. I had another beer and reveled in the attention. Her short blouse hung loosely over her pert breasts and stopped short of her midriff. She swiveled me around on the bar stool, turned herself around, and pushed her butt as close as she could get it. She looked triumphantly around the club, with a little half smile on her face, all the while wiggling her can up against her trophy. Then she took my good hand and placed it underneath her blouse. She wasn’t wearing a brassiere.

  The MP patrol walked in just then.

  The patrol was composed of law officers from three jurisdictions. Their job was to police the bars and the red-light districts near the U.S. Army bases, to make sure Korean-American relations didn’t get out of hand.

  The young ROK Army MP struggled valiantly to keep the disgust he felt from crawling onto his face. It wasn’t working. The American MP adjusted his shiny helmet and shifted his hands from his pistol belt to his holster, then back to his pistol belt again.

  One of the girls scurried up to him and thrust out her hips. “Hi, Freddy,” she said. “What time you gonna catch me tonight?”

  Birdlike hoots rose from the gaggle of girls. The MP’s face flushed and the lower half of his face grinned while his eyes darted around. He walked around the girl, leaving his Korean partner to stand guard, while he checked inside the bathroom. Standard procedure.

  The one I was worried about was the KNP, a man older than the two MPs. He was a seasoned veteran of the Korean National Police. He ignored the antics of the girls and seemed to be searching for something. I stifled the urge to run and turned against the bar to hide the blood on the side of my jacket. As I did, I pulled my newfound paramour along, my hand pushing even further up into her blouse. I grabbed both her breasts with one hand. She giggled and bounced compliantly until she had resituated herself in my lap.
I started kissing her neck. She laughed, grabbed hold of my forearm and pressed my groping palm even more firmly against her.

  I kept my blood-soaked left hand deep inside my jacket. The KNP made a slow circle around the club, looking closely at all the GIs. I whispered in my girl’s ear, “We most tick go short time, can do?”

  She leaned back a little and turned her head slightly. “No sweat,” she said. “Can do easy.”

  The KNP was watching us now.

  I whispered again, “How much money mama-san need?”

  “Ten dollar, can do.” She reached back and grabbed my joint.

  “Ten dollar too much,” I said. The KNP loomed over us. We ignored him.

  “Ten dollar skoshi money.” She let go of my privates and held up her hand, thumb and forefinger held parallel about a quarterinch apart, to indicate how little money ten dollars really was. And then she said, “Number hana short time. Everything can do.”

  I said, “Five dollars.”

  The KNP walked away.

  “Aigu!” She slapped me on the thigh. “Whatsamatta you? You Cheap Charlie?”

  “Tone oopso,” I said. No money.

  She looked at me like I was out of my mind, yanked my hand from under her blouse, and threw it down so hard it banged against the side of the bar. Her little buns quivered as she clatterd across the club on her three-inch-high heels.

  The MP patrol was on its way out, but before the swinging door could shut completely, I saw the KNP look back at me. I swiveled around on the bar stool and watched him in the large mirror behind the bar.

  They were gone. My former girlfriend was sitting on a chair, her arms crossed over her small bosom, nylon-sheathed legs balanced one over the other. She was talking indignantly to her friends, occasionally shooting a withering look my way. I finished my beer and crossed to the latrine.

  There was only a commode and a small sink clinging to the wall. The mirror had been torn off ages ago. I took off my jacket, placed it atop the commode, and tried to turn on the water faucet. All I got was a dry hiss. I turned back to the commode. The water looked clean. What the hell.

  I flushed the commode and, when it refilled, I leaned down and washed my bloody hand. The blood was caked over the torn areas but there didn’t seem to be any glass inside. As I washed, the wound started to bleed a little. I let it drain and continued to ladle water until the contents of the little toilet turned the color of beets.

  A blast of music hit me, followed by cold air, as a GI walked in.

  He stood at the door with his mouth open.

  I looked up and smiled. “I’ll be finished in just a minute,” I said.

  He backed out of the room and shut the door.

  I flushed the toilet again and rinsed off the hand one last time. When I had finished, I stood there letting it drip dry. There were no towels.

  I managed to get my comb out of my left hip pocket with my right hand and ran it a few times through my short hair. Then I flushed the toilet once more and rubbed a splash of the fresh water on my face. What with the beer and a little freshening up, I was starting to feel okay again.

  My hand was dry and no longer bled. It looked a little bit better. I still needed an aid station and some stitches, but I wasn’t anxious to go on an Army compound at the moment.

  Carefully, I put my jacket back on and tucked in my shirt. When I turned to check myself in the mirror all I saw was a blank wall.

  Back in the club, my girl was still sitting in the same chair, same position, and still pouting. I winked at her and gave her a big smile on the way out. She turned her head and gave a little snort.

  There were business girls and GIs and neon lights and little old ladies in front of wooden pushcarts full of snacks and gum and sundry items, but no patrol visible anywhere on the street. I turned away from the large street and headed toward the darkened alleys.

  In a few blocks I was in a residential area again. There were older children, some with packs, heading purposefully toward home.

  The number of clubs and GIs faded. I was getting a little lost but finally came out onto a larger road and saw a neon sign: the Rose Club. I trotted out into the traffic and dodged the careening kimchi cabs. Just as I got past the glare of the Rose Club’s neon, two white Korean National Police jeeps pulled up to a screeching halt out front. Policemen jumped out of the first and the other jeep pulled up alongside. I heard shouted instructions but couldn’t make them out, and then the second jeep peeled off down the road.

  A small neon sign up ahead had an arrow pointing down a narrow alley. The sign said “the key club.” Some of the KNPs looked over the GIs walking into and out of the Rose Club but they didn’t go into the club itself. It was an unwritten law—KNPs didn’t go into GI clubs without MPs along with them.

  Two of the policemen had left the group and were coming in my direction, trotting. As soon as I got into the shadows of the narrow alley, I ran. The surface of the alleyway was uneven and I had to be careful not to twist my ankle. The alley wound around at weird angles and then took a sharp left. I was in front of the brightly lit back door of the Key Club and slowed to a walk to get my breath back before entering.

  Something leapt out of the shadows and grabbed me.

  “Jesus!”

  “Yoboseiyo,” it said. A young girl. She couldn’t have been over eighteen, heavily made-up with mascara and powder, and rouge rubbed all over her cherubic face.

  “You wanna catch me?” she said. She wrapped her arms around my elbow and bicep. Bleary-eyed, eyelids half closed, she waited for her answer.

  “No,” I said and pulled away. “I go Key Club.” She stumbled after me but kept her grip on my arm.

  “Yoboseiyo,” she said again. “Yoboseiyo.” She wouldn’t let go.

  Footsteps of police were coming down the alley. I stopped. Her head lolled down on my injured arm, but her grip was still tight. There was no time to fight her off and, if I did, the KNPs would have me. I grabbed her hair and tilted her face up to mine.

  “Agashi,” I said. “We go Key Club, I buy you drink, then we go short time most tick.”

  Her face brightened. “Short time?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, as I pulled her toward the door. She nodded happily and followed, leaning into my side as we walked up into the club, never releasing my arm from her vice-like grip. I could hear the KNP coming as the swinging doors slammed shut.

  We staggered toward the bar and I realized that her death grip was making the pain in my arm a whole lot worse. There were a few GIs playing pool and about fifty girls scattered around the place. They all stared at us as we hobbled across like two survivors of the Bataan Death March.

  The women looked younger than any group I had seen before. The legal age for prostitution in Korea is eighteen. I didn’t believe that most of these girls were that old.

  I sat down at the bar. She just stood at my side, still clinging to my arm. She seemed to be struggling to stay awake. I ordered a beer for myself and a drink for her. Hers came in a cocktail glass, was colored bright red, and had no alcohol in it. The cost was three times what I paid for my beer.

  The barmaid pushed the brown OB bottle in front of me. “You want a glass?” she asked. I said yes. She seemed surprised.

  The glass had dust on it and I had to pour the beer myself. Not as much class as the Lucky Seven Club.

  I managed to get her to sit down on the stool next to me and held up my beer glass for a toast. Her eyelids opened a little bit. She was trying to figure out what I was doing. The barmaid was standing there, watching us, and said something to her in rapid Korean. The girl just leaned down and slurped some of the liquid out of the glass.

  I said, “Cheers,” smiled at the barmaid, and took a long drink.

  “I go banjo,” I said. The girl just sat there, staring at the bright red liquid in her glass. I looked at the barmaid. She nodded and I crossed the floor to the small door marked WC.

  I didn’t have to take a leak but I was c
hecking for windows. There was a small one with bars across it, but it only led to a cement wall.

  This latrine had toilet paper, the Key Club did have some things going for it. I ripped off a little and dabbed at the fresh blood seeping from my left hand. I threw that in the commode and then wadded up a bunch of toilet paper and stuffed it into my jacket pocket. Now the Key Club was out of ass wipe, too.

  I walked out and, instead of returning to the bar, headed directly for the front door. I didn’t open it, but the swinging doors were a little off center and there was a slight opening with a cold draft coming through.

  I could see a KNP standing outside. He reached toward someone, probably a partner, and traded cigarettes and matches, performing the ritual of lighting up and preparing for a long wait.

  The back door was already covered by the other policemen. I was trapped.

  I returned to my seat at the bar and woke up my girlfriend. She opened her eyes as wide as she could get them and asked reflexively, “We go short time?”

  I took another pull of my beer and looked at her for the first time. She was wearing exceedingly tight hot pants that seemed to be molded like plastic wrap to her. Her legs were bare, no nylons, and a few bruises spotted the otherwise creamy brown skin. Inscribed on her T-shirt above the nipples was an advertisement for American Express travelers’ checks. Her cheeks were a little pudgy and her straight black hair was cut short, accenting the roundness of her face.

  She was actually very cute and would have been an attractive young lady had it not been for all this.

  I didn’t answer but reached out, took her arm, and pulled it toward me to look at her wrist. She came awake immediately.

  “Whatsamatta you?” She yanked her arm back and became shrill. “You no touchey Judy, okay?” She wagged her finger at me and stood up. I half expected her to punch me. The she looked over at her cherry red drink, reached for it, and downed it in one gulp. She turned back to me, fully coherent now.