The Korean Bargain (April 24, 2009. New Moon. Issue 4)

Driving back from the supply depot in Seoul on a hot August afternoon, we pick up a nail almost as soon as we turn off the highway onto the red-dirt road that leads back to Camp Humphreys.

I strip off my fatigue shirt and help change the massive tire, crawling in the fine powdered dirt to set the jack under the rear axle, then wrestling the wheel off the hub. It takes both of us to lift the useless thing into the back of the deuce-and-a-half.

Sweaty and filthy, we drive off again through the rice paddies that flank either side of the narrow road. The heat drips down my sides and swims in my head. I bend forward to clear it but engine fumes force me upright again.

The war has been over for a decade, and out here in the boonies, we could be in the 15th century. A thatched hut stands in front of a line of trees on the far side of the flat field. In the big side mirror I can see a plume of red dust, higher than the truck, roiling up behind us.

We pass two farmers stooped amid green shoots in a diked paddy, mud-red water halfway up their calves. They don't look up. McGill takes one hand off the wheel, points it like a pistol at the farmers, and makes little shooting noises.

"Fucking gooks," he says. "What are we protecting these slope-headed fuckers from? They're already back in the stone age." No answer is wanted or given.

We rock on down the empty road under a blue bowl of sky until we come upon a two-wheel cart a couple hundred yards ahead. An old papa-san, his back to us, rides in the seat behind a plodding ox.

McGill hits the gas. "Watch this," he says. The truck slips to the right and roars toward the cart. The old man and his ox turn their heads toward the noise behind them.

"Don't do it," I yell, bracing myself.

The truck has a vertical rebar rod welded to the right edge of its steel front bumper to help the driver miss close objects. As we speed by, Papa-san leaps from his cart into the ditch. The ox, standing still, turns its head slowly back to the front, just enough for the rebar to miss it.

McGill cackles as we leave them in the choking dust. "Did you see that fucker move?" He pounds the steering wheel, throws back his head, and howls at the canvas roof. "God, I hate this fucking place."

A few minutes later we stop in the cramped village of maybe a hundred jumbled huts outside our camp's main gate and find a Korean who fixes flats. To repair one the size of ours costs three dollars in colorful Army scrip or two dollars in greenbacks, which are illegal for us to possess and we never have anyway. While two helpers struggle to get the tire off the rim, their boss hands me a pink five dollar bill.

"Good?" he asks.

The fiver is from a Monopoly game--real GI ingenuity. I shake my head. "Number ten," I say. "Oopso." The tire man takes the bill and stuffs it back in his pocket. His expression never changes.

We pay for our repair in real scrip, though that is illegal, too. We're not supposed to deal with Koreans except in their own currency, the Won, but it's a restriction no one pays any attention to. This forces the Army to change scrip periodically without warning. When that happens, mama-sans bring saved bundles of old scrip to the compound fence and beg soldiers to change it for them at pennies on the dollar. They are clearly no match for us. We hate them and they put up with it to survive.

Back on post, I drop my clothes on my bunk and, wearing only shower clogs and a towel, follow the perforated steel walkway to the latrine Quanset and stand under the hot water for a long while, thinking about my short-timer's calendar. Still 214 days and a wake up to cross off.

Then I dress in clean fatigues and walk over to ten-cent night at the club for our weekly drinking contest. Later, if I can still stand up, I will head for the village and try to find some sort of comfort there, paying as I always do, in real scrip.