The All-American by Joe Milan Jr

Author:Joe Milan Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2023-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

35

THE SUN’S NOT EVEN RISEN WHEN WE PULL UP TO A WHITE ARCH IN spotlights with a bunch of Korean, and then NOONSAN ARMY BASE in English. The letters have black moss stains dripping down.

Arches frown.

Letters cry black streaks.

Be all you can be.

They take us off the bus. One soldier—an officer?—walks down the line with a clipboard, stops in front of each of us, and asks a question in Korean. What’s your name?

Yes. That’s what it has got to be.

Eedum? he asks. That’s, “Name?”

He kicks my shin. He barks in Korean and squares up on me like skinny guys always do, like how drill sergeants always do in the movies.

“My name is,” I say, and point at myself, “Beyonghak Yi.”

It’s quiet again.

All eyes locked on me.

I feel proud. He asked me a question and I had an answer, in Korean. Language has got to be like learning sideline signals for plays. I’m not just a body. I am a body that can be asked its name in another language and respond. A body with a name.

The man looks up from his clipboard. He smiles. Then he says something soft and sincere. Then he raises his hand toward me, almost like he is going to tap me on the head and say, Good boy. Instead, there’s a loud thwack that I hear before I feel.

He flicked his middle finger against my forehead. It stings and I take a step back. Soldiers laugh at me and the officer calmly marks something on his clipboard and moves on. Before I can even think, another soldier is yelling and pushing us toward a table where they box clothes, wallets, watches, everything we brought with us. I smell smoke. Things are burning.

—

They buzz my head too close. They give paper tests I can’t take because it’s all in Korean except for math, which I hate because I suck at it. Whenever math teachers handed back grades to me, they’d stink-eye me like I was kidding.

Sheryl said I needed to get good grades in math. “Math is money, Bucky. It’s the language spoken around the world. If aliens come, we’ll be talking to them with math.” Sheryl used to sit down and try to help me with my math homework. She was good at it. I guess that’s why she didn’t mind being a cashier at the 24–7.

—

After the tests and medical exams, they line us up in four rows and five lines on a wet field and Mr. Shotgun appears out of nowhere and pulls me aside.

“You are Ee sodae,” Mr. Shotgun says.

“What did you call me?” I say.

“Listen, you stupid twit, this trolly isn’t slowing down for some wanker who can’t speak Korean. You’re in Ee sodae. That means second platoon. This row is your platoon. Your number is Twenty-Two. Ee-Ship-Ee. Understood?”

We do jumping jacks. We run. The last line of the day leads to one of a group of Twinkie-shaped buildings, where they divide us into squads—I guess—and walk us into these small rooms with knee-high-lifted floors on both sides of a concrete path leading to the outer door.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.