Martin Limon: Ping-Pong Heart

We heard footsteps and muffled voices behind the gate, but no one came to open it. Ernie pounded again. Doors shut, and the noise faded into silence. He turned to me.

“Hoist,” he said.

We’d done this before. I was bigger than Ernie, about three inches taller and easily twenty pounds heavier, so I pulled the hoisting duties. I crouched and cupped my hands in front of my crotch. Ernie stepped up with his right foot, and as he did so, I lifted in one sweeping motion as he reached for the top of the stone wall. Shards of glass were embedded in the mortar, a low-budget security system used all over Seoul. Ernie found a handhold between the razor-like protuberances and I pushed him up higher until his left foot was planted firmly atop the wall. He boosted himself up, rose to his full height and leapt gracefully over the fence. Inside, I heard feet slam on cement, a grunt and then a roll.

The gate creaked open. Slapping dirt off his jacket, Ernie waved me in.

I hesitated a moment, letting my eyes adjust. A flagstone walkway led into an open courtyard. In the center, a rusted iron pump dripped resolutely into a huge plastic pan. A soot-smeared floodlight weakly illuminated a row of earthen kimchi jars along one side of the courtyard. On the other side, an L-shaped wooden porch fronted a half-dozen oil-papered doors.

A couple of the doors rattled and slid open. Faces peered out, sitting or kneeling on vinyl-covered floors. None of them were Miss Jo’s. Ernie pointed. The only closed door was the one on the far right. The light was off.

Ernie cocked his head. “ Coitus interruptus ,” he said.

He found nothing more enjoyable than breaking and entering, especially if he might catch someone in a partial state of undress. We stepped up on the porch. Ernie grabbed a handhold and ripped the door open.

As Ernie peered in, the young GI Miss Jo called Johnny leapt out of the dark. He was wielding a short-bladed knife, and before Ernie could react, he’d grabbed Ernie by the back of the neck and shoved the blade point at his throat. Ernie held his hands out to his side and froze.

The GI was sweating, nostrils flared. “Why are you following me?” he shouted.

Ernie didn’t speak.

“Easy, Johnny,” I told him. “We’re not following you.” I suddenly wished I’d brought my .45. But I seldom checked out a weapon from the arms room, mainly because I didn’t want to be tempted to use it. Better to use my wits to solve problems than take the easy way out and settle every dispute with a spray of hot lead. Less paperwork, too.

I cleared my throat and continued. “This has nothing to do with you, Johnny. It’s all about the young lady.”

Johnny glared at Ernie, then turned and caught a glimpse of me. I stood with my hands out to my side, showing him, I hoped, that he was in no danger. He pressed the tip of the blade a little harder into Ernie’s skin. A red drop formed and a miniscule trickle of blood started to flow.

“Easy, pal,” I told him. “No need to do something you’ll regret.”

“This isn’t about the motor pool?” Johnny asked.

“No,” I replied. “Nothing about the motor pool. We just want to talk to the young lady. Ask her a few questions.”

A lot of pilfering went on at the 21st Transportation Company (Car) motor pool, also known as “Twenty-One T Car.” GIs sold gasoline to illegal Korean vendors, cases of motor oil disappeared, tires rolled their way into resale warehouses; occasionally, entire vehicles went missing. But we weren’t here to fix that.

An interior bulb switched on and Miss Jo Kyong-ja stepped out from her hooch. She was still fully clothed. Instead of berating Johnny for holding a knife to Ernie’s neck, she turned toward me.

“Whatsamatta you!” she shrieked. “No have education?”

I flashed my badge. “CID,” I said. “We have a few questions for you. And you, Johnny, will need to put that knife down.”

“Will I be able to leave?”

“Yes. We don’t have a beef with you, but put down the knife. Now .”

Johnny glanced back and forth between Ernie and me. I held the badge out toward him and took a step forward so he could see it more easily. As he studied it, Ernie made his move. With one deft motion, he twisted his entire body, pulling his neck away from the knife, and simultaneously snapped a vicious left hook into Johnny’s ribs. Hot breath and saliva exploded from Johnny’s mouth as Ernie grabbed the young soldier by his collar. Then he flung him around in a broad circle and slammed him up against the dirty stone wall.

The knife clattered on flagstone.

Ernie held him, pushing him hard up against the exterior wall, his breath coming fast.

“You said I could leave ,” Johnny shrieked.

“Oh, yeah,” Ernie replied. “You can leave.” He slapped Johnny once, twice, hard across the back of his head and then he held out his open palm.

“The blade,” he said.

Ernie loosened his grip just enough to allow Johnny to bend down and pick it up, pausing just a second to give Johnny a chance to use it again, if he dared. He didn’t. Ernie snatched the knife out of his hand, then slapped Johnny a couple of more times. He stepped back and tilted the open blade on the ground against a brick. Then he stomped on it. The metal snapped. Leaving it there, Ernie returned to Johnny.

He snarled, “You run your sorry ass back to Twenty-One T Car, and don’t let me see you out here in the village again. Ever! You got that? Itaewon is off limits to you.”

“On whose authority?” Johnny asked.

“On my authority,” Ernie replied, jamming his thumb into his chest.

Johnny studied him for a minute, turned his head away and nodded. Then he stood up and straightened his jacket. As if he couldn’t resist the temptation, Ernie slapped him again. Johnny grabbed the side of his face and, with a resentful pout, walked toward the gate, keeping his eye on Ernie. Ernie hopped forward and planted a roundhouse kick on Johnny’s butt. Ernie shouted, “Move!”

Johnny did, hustling toward the gate and ducking quickly out the front door.

Miss Jo groaned.

Ernie dabbed at the blood on his neck, stared at his moist fingertips for a moment, and then wiped the gore on the side of his blue jeans. He repeated the process a couple of times until the tiny cut was pretty well stanched. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a fresh stick of ginseng gum. Looking completely relaxed, he took a seat on the porch.

I turned to Miss Jo. “Can we go in?” I asked, nodding toward her hooch.

“Hell no. You takey my money go, now you wanna come in my hooch? Never hachi .” Slang for never happen.

I stood in front of the three-foot-wide porch; she stood resolutely in her doorway, arms crossed.

“Last night,” I said, “you brought a GI here.”

She rolled her eyes. “ Him .”

“Yes, him. He says you took his money. Fifty dollars.”

“Took his money ? You dingy dingy ?” She twirled her forefinger in a circle around her ear. “He pay me money, I do for him. Supposed to.”

“What’d you do for him?” Ernie asked.

She placed her right hand on her waist and canted her hip. “What you think I do, GI?”

“He says you took his money and ran away.”

“He tell you that? Never hachi . I do anything for him. But he got, how you say, gochangi nasso-yo .”

“Broken.”

“Yeah. Broken. His jaji no work. It broken.”

Jaji refers to an infant’s penis. She wasn’t being too generous to Major Schultz.

“So it wouldn’t work,” Ernie said, enjoying himself now. “What happened then?”

“He taaksan angry. Say I do something wrong.” She pointed at her nose. “But I no do nothing wrong. It don’t work, that his problem. Not mine. So he say he want his money back. I say ‘never hachi .’ He taaksan kullasso-yo .” Very angry.