Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

“Constantly,” Jun Do told her. He clicked the light on and cupped his hand over the beam to measure its brightness. “The Americans use lights in tunnel combat?”

“How could you not use lights?” she asked.

“Doesn’t your army have goggles that see in the dark?”

“Honestly,” she said, “I don’t think Americans have done that kind of fighting since Vietnam. My uncle was one of them, a tunnel rat. These days, if there was a situation underground, they’d send a bot.”

“A bot?”

“You know, a robot, remote controlled,” she said. “They’ve got some beauties.”

The Minister’s pole bent as a fish ran with the lure. The Minister kicked his shoes off and stepped ankle-deep into the water. It put up a tremendous struggle, the pole moving this way and that, and Jun Do thought there must be a more placid variety of fish to stock a pond with. The Minister’s shirt was soaked with sweat when he finally reeled the fish close. Tommy landed it, a fat, white thing. Tommy removed the hook, and then held it high, for everyone to see, a finger in its gaping mouth to demonstrate the jaws. Then Tommy released the fish back into the pond.

“My fish!” the Minister shouted. He took a step forward in anger.

“Minister,” Dr. Song called and rushed over. He placed his hands on the Minister’s shoulders, which were rising and falling. “Minister,” Dr. Song said more softly.

“Why don’t we move right along to target practice,” the Senator suggested.

They walked a short pace through the desert. Dr. Song had a difficult time taking the uneven terrain in his dress shoes, though he would accept no help.

The Minister spoke, and Jun Do translated: “The Minister has heard that Texas is home to a most poisonous snake. He desires to shoot one, so that he might see if it is more powerful than our country’s dreaded rock mamushi.”

“In the middle of the day,” the Senator said, “rattlesnakes are down in their holes, where it’s cool. In the morning, that’s when they’re out and about.”

Jun Do relayed this to the Minister, who said, “Tell the American Senator to have his black helper pour water down the snake’s hole, and I will shoot the specimen when it emerges.”

Hearing the answer, the Senator smiled, shook his head. “The problem is the rattlesnake’s protected.”

Jun Do translated, yet the Minister was confused. “Protected from what?” he wanted to know.

Jun Do asked the Senator, “From what is the snake protected?”

“From the people,” the Senator said. “The law protects them.”

This was found most humorous by the Minister, that a vicious, man-killing snake would be protected from its victims.

They came to a shooting bench with several Wild West revolvers lined up. Various cans had been placed at a distance as a shooting gallery. The .45 caliber revolvers were heavy and worn and, the Senator assured them, had all revoked the lives of men. His great-grandfather had been a sheriff in this county, and these pistols had been taken as evidence in murder cases.

Dr. Song declined to shoot. “I do not trust my hands,” he said, and sat in the shade.

The Senator said that his shooting days were behind him, too.

Tommy began loading the weapons. “We got plenty of pistols,” he told Wanda. “You going to give us a demonstration?”

She was refastening her ponytail. “Who, me?” she asked. “I don’t think so. The Senator would be mad if I embarrassed our guests.”

The Minister, however, was in his element. He set about wielding the pistols as if he’d spent his days smoking and conversing and firing at things propped in the distance by his servants, rather than parked at a curb reading the daily Rodong Sinmun , waiting for his boss Dr. Song to finish with his meetings.

“Korea,” Dr. Song said, “is a land of mountains. Gunshots bring swift responses from the canyon walls. Here, the bang goes off into the distance, never to return.”

Jun Do agreed. It was a truly lonesome thing to have such a commotion be swallowed by the landscape, to have the sound of fire make no echo.

The Minister was surprisingly accurate, and soon he was feigning quick draws and attempting trick shots as Tommy reloaded for him. They all watched the Minister go through boxes of ammo, firing with two hands, a cigarette in his lips, the cans popping and leaping. Today, he was the minister, people drove him around, he pulled the trigger.

The Minister turned to them. He addressed them in English. “The Good,” he said, blowing smoke from the barrel, “the Bad, and the Ugly.”

The ranch house was single-level and half hidden by trees, deceptively sprawling. A nearby corral contained picnic tables and a “chuckwagon” grill, where several people were lined up for lunch. The cicadas were active, and Jun Do could smell the cooking coals. A midday breeze stirred, heading for anvil clouds too distant to promise rain. Free-roaming dogs leaped in and out of the corral’s fencing. At one point the dogs noticed something moving in a distant bush. They stood at attention, bristling. Walking past, the Senator said, “Hunt,” and at the command, the dogs raced off to flush a group of small birds that ran quickly through the brush.

When the dogs returned, the Senator gave them treats from his pocket, and Jun Do understood that in communism, you’d threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.

The food line favored no rank or privilege—standing together were the Senator, the ranch hands, the house servants, the security agents in their black suits, the wives of Texas officials. While the Minister took a seat at a picnic table and was brought his food by the Senator’s wife, Dr. Song and Jun Do lined up with plates made from paper. The young man next to Jun Do and Dr. Song introduced himself as a PhD candidate from the university. He was writing a dissertation on the North Korean nuclear program. He leaned in close and said, quietly, “You know the South won the war, right?”

They were served beef ribs, corn grilled in the husk, marinated tomatoes, and a scoop of macaroni. Dr. Song and Jun Do made their way to where the Minister ate with the Senator and his wife. Dogs followed them.

Dr. Song sat with them. “Please, join us,” he said to Jun Do. “There is plenty of room, no?”

“I’m sorry,” Jun Do told them. “I’m sure you have important matters to discuss.”

He sat alone at a wooden picnic table that had been vandalized with people’s initials. The meat was both sweet and spicy, the tomatoes tangy, but the corn and noodles were made most foul by butter and cheese, substances he knew only from dialogs they’d heard recited over tapes in his language school. I would like to buy some cheese. Please pass the butter .

A large bird circled above. He didn’t know its variety.

Wanda joined him. She was licking a white plastic spoon.

“Jesus,” she said. “Don’t miss out on the pecan pie.”

He had just finished eating a rib and his hands were covered with sauce.

She nodded to the end of the table, where a dog sat patiently, staring. Its eyes were cloudy blue, and its coat was marbled gray and brindle. How could a dog, obviously well fed, capture the exact look of an orphan boy, relegated to the end of the line?

“Go ahead,” Wanda said. “Why not?”

He threw the bone, which was snapped from the air.

“That’s a Catahoula dog,” she said. “A gift from the governor of Louisiana for helping out after the hurricane.”

Jun Do lifted another rib. He couldn’t stop eating them, even when it felt as if the meat was backing up in his throat.