Martin Limon - Joy Brigade

The cart rolled into the night. There were no springs on it, so at each rock and pothole I was jarred so roughly that my molars knocked together.

It was a good half-mile to the first checkpoint. As Moon Chaser pushed the cart, he started to sing some ancient Korean song that was indecipherable to me. It seemed to make him happy though. As he marched, his voice rose and gradually became more lusty. The soju bottles packed above me rattled.

Finally, someone shouted, “Shikuro!” Shut up.

The cart rolled to a halt.

“Don’t we have enough trouble,” the voice said, “without having to listen to your shrieking, old man?”

It was the voice of a young man, one of the guards at the first checkpoint. In my mind, I saw Moon Chaser smiling and bowing, his omnipresent A-frame still strapped to his back.

“You don’t appreciate fine culture,” Moon Chaser replied. “My voice was trained in the People’s Music Institute in Pyongyang, overseen by the Great Leader himself!”

“ Bah. Shut up, old man. Do you expect anyone to believe your drivel?”

“Ah, but the truth is hard to swallow. Maybe this would better meet with your approval?”

Moon Chaser slid the door of the cart halfway open. Yellow light flooded in, blinding me. His hand reached in and pulled out a bottle of soju and the door quickly slammed shut, returning me to darkness.

“Only two won,” he said. “The perfect way to warm this long evening.”

“Two won?” The young man was incredulous. “Beggar Ryu charges us half that.”

“Ah, but Beggar Ryu doesn’t buy from the finest distillery in the capital city itself.”

“Nonsense. His soju has a picture of the Great Leader on it, just like this one.”

“Counterfeit!” Moon Chaser said with assurance. “Any thief can print a label.”

They haggled like this back and forth for what seemed a long time. The young man on guard duty and the three or four voices I occasionally heard behind him weren’t going anywhere and had nothing better to do than haggle with an itinerant merchant. Finally, after enduring an elaborate string of insults, Moon Chaser came to the point.

“I have a sick mother in the village of Oh-mok,” he told the guard. “If she dies before I get there, I would never forgive myself, but if I walk north to Unification Road, it will take me two days.” He offered the guard a bottle of soju and two packs of cigarettes if they’d let him venture across the dam. “I’ll save a full day from my journey,” he told them.

The men conferred amongst themselves and finally a price of two bottles of soju and three packs of cigarettes was decided upon. “But watch out for those thieves at guard post number three,” Moon Chaser was told. All the guards laughed. “They’ll steal your last bottle of soju.”

Moon Chaser pushed the cart across the bridge.

Still curled up into a tiny knot, I sweated inside the cart. The wood was old and splintery but solid, probably an inch thick. Because I willed myself not to think about cramps, cramps were, of course, all I could think about. I felt the big muscle in the back of my right thigh start to tighten. Desperately, I willed it to relax. It did. By now, although it was desperately cold outside, sweat was pouring off my forehead and puddling in my armpits, flowing down my ribcage. Moon Chaser had pushed me a long way, clattering along the wood-slat road, but still we hadn’t reached the end of the dam. The men at the final guard post must have been watching him approach. Did they notice the cart sitting low on the wheels? Thinking about that terrified me enough that, for a moment, I stopped thinking about the quivering muscles in my legs.

Finally, the cart rolled to a halt.

“Comrades,” Moon Chaser said. “The men at the first guard post hold you in high esteem. They say you are men of discernment who appreciate the finest gifts from our Great Leader.”

This time, I didn’t hear any laughter.

Moon Chaser slid back the door, reached in, and grabbed two liter bottles of soju.

As he talked, the muscles in the back of my right leg tightened like a clutch of snakes. I tried to straighten my bent leg, but it had nowhere to go. My foot pressed hard against the wood, my mouth open in a silent scream. I waited for the muscles to loosen, for the pain to stop, but it just got worse.

A gruff voice snarled at Moon Chaser. “No one’s allowed on the bridge, least of all a blood-sucking capitalist. Why did those bastards at guard post number one let you cross?”

Although I couldn’t see him, I imagined Moon Chaser smiling and bowing and I heard his apologetic voice. He explained at length about his sick mother in the village of Oh-mok and how if he didn’t cut across the river here, he might not reach her before she breathed her last. He explained how she’d been a long and faithful follower of the Great Leader.

“She fought with him against the Japanese imperialists,” he said finally.

Apparently, this explanation had some effect on the snarling man. He said, “What about the Great War of Liberation? Did she fight the Yankees?”

“Oh, yes,” Moon Chaser said. “She hates the Yankee dogs. Killed three of them with her kitchen chopping knife.”

I couldn’t control my leg now. The spasm was so strong that I had no choice but to try and straighten it. My foot thumped against the wall, pushing with all its might, and if this cart hadn’t been fastened by interlocking bolts, I believe I would’ve kicked it apart.

Moon Chaser seemed to be aware that something was wrong inside the cart. He opened and banged the door loudly and it sounded as if bottles were being tossed and then caught in rough hands. Feet shuffled and I heard the guards cursing and Moon Chaser telling them that his price was only two won per bottle.

“You would charge us?” the snarling man said. “We who protect you from the bloodthirsty imperialists to the south?” There was incredulity in his voice. “You would come here in the middle of the night and ask us for money? For something as worthless as this cheap soju?”

Self-righteously, Moon Chaser defended the quality of his soju. The banter went back and forth for what was probably only a minute or two, but flush in the agony of muscle spasms, it seemed like years. In the last few days, my back and arms and chest and legs had been driven beyond their capacity. Exhausted and dehydrated, the quivering tissues screamed for relief. Finally, Moon Chaser reluctantly agreed to allow the soldiers to keep the soju free of charge-in honor, he said, of his ill mother.

With a note of triumph in his voice, the snarling soldier assured Moon Chaser that his service to the defenders of the country would bring good luck to his ailing mother. We were rolling.

I tried. God knows I tried. But every joint in my body was knotting in sympathetic response to my thigh muscles, which were now clumps of pain. I screamed, clasping my hand over my mouth as I did so in a vain effort to muffle the noise. Moon Chaser must’ve heard me because he shoved the cart forward faster, trotting now, but it was too late. I lost control.

Without even realizing what I was doing, I slid open the door of the cart and my right leg kicked out of its own volition, straightening until my foot dangled in the cold air. Moon Chaser cursed. The cart was rolling faster than ever.

Behind us, someone shouted. Moon Chaser was now pushing the cart forward at a flat-out run and it was clear that the angle of decline had increased. We were heading downhill.

A shot rang out.

Moon Chaser gave the cart one final nudge and then I felt the thud of his weight on it. We were rolling now, picking up speed. Another shot was fired.

The blacktop and gravel and rocks by the side of the road whizzed by at a tremendous speed. The cart was nothing more than a heavy square box with two bicycle wheels supporting it. There was no steering mechanism and no brakes. At this speed, we were sure to veer off the side of the road, but somehow we didn’t. I felt little jerks, first to our left and then to our right. Something was steering the cart.