That Time I Held a Sports Day in South America (2)
After a humiliating defeat to the gang team in the opening event — soccer — the civil servant team's mood was a funeral.
"If we fold here, it's over."
"There goes our vacation."
"Would you all get your heads in the game?!"
The gang team, sitting on their first win, was riding high. Shirts off, tattoos on full display, they snickered among themselves.
"Hey — a real fight ain't the same as training. Every day was a war for us. Can't say the same for you lot."
"You'd have to actually do it to know. Heh heh heh."
"The hell did you just say?!"
"You bastards... just you wait."
Most of the civil servants were discharged soldiers who'd spent the years since behind desks. On raw physique alone, the gangs had them beat.
Preparations for the next match wrapped up. The second event was tug-of-war.
"Ready!"
At the referee's call, both teams seized the thick rope.
A whistle shrieked.
"Heave! Heave!"
The instant it started, the gang team roared and hauled. Under that overwhelming force, the civil servant line lurched forward in a heap.
"Wh— we're getting dragged!"
It looked ready to end that cheaply — and then:
"AAARGH!!!"
At the very back of the civil servant team, the man serving as captain let out a scream from the pit of his gut. A former Army Master Sergeant, veins standing out on his neck.
"HOLD!"
In that instant, the civil servants' eyes changed.
"UAAAAAH!"
On the count, they all threw themselves backward at once. They held like that for a beat — and then:
"PULL! One, two! One, two!"
Hundreds of men began applying force in time with the cadence.
"Heave! Heave!"
The rhythm was perfect. After countless formation drills in the service, locking in as a team was nothing. Soon their weight-loaded movement became a single enormous wave.
"H-hey? Pull! I said pull!"
The gang team, by contrast, was chaos. Some hauled, some braced, nobody matching the count — their strength scattered in every direction.
"Urrrgh...!"
And then, helplessly, they began to slide.
The whistle cut the air.
"Victory: Civil Servant Team!"
A victory of rules and discipline.
Just like that, the contest was back to square one.
The third event was the fertilizer-sack carry. The rules were simple: instead of a baton, you slung a forty-kilogram sack of corn fertilizer over your shoulder and ran a lap of the field. They had borrowed the shape of a relay — five men handing the sack off like a baton and running it in.
A pistol cracked skyward. The guard serving as referee had fired into the air, and the runners exploded off the line.
"Out of the way, you bastard!"
The relay that followed was, in a word, a complete mess. They hooked ankles and sent men sprawling, then ran right over the ones who'd gone down. Dust boiled up so thick you couldn't see an inch ahead — a melee, a brawl in motion.
At last the sack reached the final runners. The gang team's anchor was a former gang boss. The civil servant team's was a former special forces staff sergeant.
"GRAAAAH!"
The gang boss surged ahead with a speed that had no business belonging to a man that size. The civil servant clenched his teeth and hung on, but closing the gap was no easy thing.
"Hah... hah...!"
Then, with fifty meters to the finish, a variable. The Bear, who had spent too much too early, began to stagger as his stamina gave out. The sack's weight won. His legs went from under him.
"N-now! Run!"
The civil servant tried to pour on a last burst of speed — and then:
"Ack!"
He went tumbling too. Extreme overpacing had cramped his leg. Groans erupted from every side. Both men down. A desperate, do-or-die moment.
But the civil servant team's last runner did not give up. He gathered the fertilizer sack into his arms the way you would an infant, and started crawling on all fours like a beast.
"Vacation... one week... vacation...!"
Madness burned in his eyes.
"No! Get up!"
The gang team screamed, but their runner was already spent, foaming at the mouth. The Viper crawled on, driving his bleeding knees into the dirt.
A heavy thud.
He had broken the finish-line tape with his head.
"WAAAAAH!!!"
"We're free! We're gonna live!"
The victorious civil servants clutched each other and wept. Like comrades who had come home from a war, they pounded one another's sweat-soaked backs and roared.
The defeated gang team, meanwhile, wailed and pounded the earth.
That was when it happened.
"Hold on. Look over here a moment."
Someone stepped forward from among the cheering civil servants. It was Bruno Alves, the former Vice Minister of National Defense, who had spectacularly flunked the Civil Service Competency Evaluation and been transferred to Tortilla Farm. An elite who had retired from command of an infantry division with his sights set on a ministerial chair — but now, with a face tanned pitch-black and eyes burning bright, he was every inch a farmer.
At any rate, under his lead the civil servant team argued back and forth, then approached Eugene.
"Your Excellency... I trust you've been well."
"Ah, Vice Minister Bruno. Fancy running into you here!"
Eugene greeted him warmly, and Bruno let out a sigh of relief.
"So. Managing all right?"
"...Yes. Thanks to you, I'm doing very well. My body's gotten this healthy, too."
"Well, that's a relief."
Bruno hesitated, then stepped closer.
"About... the prize. The one-week vacation."
He swallowed, glancing sideways at the defeated gang team.
"It wouldn't sit right with us to rest while they don't. Would it be possible to give everyone three days of leave, regardless of who won?"
Eugene stared.
The last man on earth he would have expected had just offered the most considerate idea in the room.
"Vice Minister Bruno."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
"That camaraderie — looking after your comrades. It's outstanding."
Eugene was moved. He had never imagined that a man like Bruno, who used to think of no one but himself and spend his days flattering, could change this much.
Working out in the middle of nature must have healed both his body and his mind.
Eugene nodded, thinking once again that the power of the great outdoors was truly something.
"Very well. I'll accept Foreman Bruno's proposal. Regardless of who won or lost, everyone gets a week of leave."
The men around him froze.
"Warden, you heard that?"
"Yes, Your Excellency!"
"Please inform everyone. However, don't have them all leave at once — organize them into groups so they rest in rotation."
"Understood, Your Excellency!"
Soon the news of the vacation spread, and a roar went up that seemed ready to shake the Central Mountain Range itself. In that moment, Eugene was their god.
And that evening, Tortilla Farm was a cauldron of celebration. Beef sizzled on grills made from steel drums cut in half, and beers chilled in ice water were passed around without pause. In the thick charcoal smoke, the line between gang and civil servant vanished.
"Hey, pal — that tackle earlier was killer. Where'd you serve?"
"Special forces... you've got some serious scrap in you too. Damn good technique."
"Heh heh. I knocked around a bit on the outside. How old are you, anyway?"
"Forty-two. You?"
"Ah, I'm way younger. I'll be looking up to you from here on."
The contest that had been spilling blood vanished like snow in the sun with a single piece of meat and a glass of drink.
Eugene, watching this beautiful scene of grand reconciliation with open satisfaction, spoke to Isabella beside him.
"Look at that. Isn't it wonderful? So human. So alive."
But Isabella's expression remained dark. Watching the workers enjoy themselves, she asked in a voice laced with concern.
"Your Excellency... but if you give them a full week of leave and they fail to return, what do you intend to do..."
If this many people went out into society and even a few of them ran, it would be a disaster. Farm operations would be disrupted — and there could be public security problems as well.
Eugene gave a leisurely little laugh and took a sip of beer.
"That won't happen."
He pointed with his chin at the workers happily tearing into their meat.
"I trust those people."
He meant it. Where in San Marcos would you find a job that fed you this well and deposited four hundred dollars into your account every single month, that you'd run away from it? There was nothing waiting for them out there except maybe a day-labor pit.
"And if they don't come back..."
Eugene shrugged.
"I'll just give them another job. There's no shortage of places to work."
His meaning was simple. Isabella recoiled a step in horror. Her gaze swept past the heavily armed soldiers and the machine-gun nests guarding the farm's perimeter. A place you could enter but never leave. A place where those who fled waited only for punishment without mercy.
If they don't return... he's saying he'll send them to the coal mines...!
Perhaps it was thanks to that misunderstanding of hers. Eugene's words passed through Isabella to the warden, then spread among the workers of Tortilla Farm — and not a single person on leave failed to return.
San Marcos's clock hands spun fast. The murderous heat of summer passed, the corn stalks at Tortilla Farm yellowed into autumn, and before anyone knew it, it was the tail end of December, when a cool wind made you pull your collar tight.
The grand conference room of the Presidential Palace. A strange silence hung over a place that would normally have been roaring with debate. Today was the day of the final accounting for the administration that had operated under an acting presidency.
"We will now begin the three-year settlement report of the current administration."
Isabella, in an immaculate suit, brought up the screen and began her briefing.
"The past three years have been the most turbulent — and the greatest — in the history of San Marcos."
With her calm voice, large letters appeared on the screen.
"The gangs that had been operating in the shadows were rehabilitated, and our chaotic public security was brought fully under control. This is now a country where you can walk the streets at night without worrying about gunfire."
Isabella pressed a button, and the next words appeared.
"Through the decisive measure of the Civil Service Competency Evaluation, every ministry has been made efficient. Substantial budget has been saved, and operational efficiency has improved by approximately two hundred percent."
"Through Your Excellency's brilliant strategy, the regional warlords who sought secession were suppressed, and the nation's turmoil was kept to a minimum."
"The era in which half the population suffered from hunger is over. From the sea, countless fish; from the land, corn and potatoes — food self-sufficiency has risen rapidly. Moreover, with the vast quantities of food aid received from the United States and sold at half price, the word 'starvation' in San Marcos is now something you will find only in a dictionary."
On the screen, the old plank shacks were gone. In their place stood schools painted white, and children in clean uniforms walking to class.
"Children who once wandered the streets or were driven onto labor sites have been brought into the schools. Nine years of compulsory education have been written into law, and free school meals have been implemented."
The room was silent.
"There was confusion in the early stages due to a failure in demand forecasting. But by Your Excellency's decision, the budget was concentrated, classrooms were expanded, and teachers were secured. As a result, the enrollment rate has risen vertically — from forty percent to ninety-eight percent."
"We have succeeded in developing the Northern Oil Fields, with estimated reserves of 2.6 billion barrels. Daily extraction stands at four hundred thousand barrels. At current oil prices, more than one hundred billion dollars in revenue is projected over the next eighteen years."
"Through the resident registration program, we have eliminated the blind spots in administration. Nearly four million Unregistered Outlaws have been incorporated as citizens. A great people will, in time, become the foundation of national power."
Isabella drew a breath and continued.
"Highways linking Libertad to the provinces are being driven through like blood vessels. We have also attracted Korea's major corporations, creating quality jobs, and through education reform we have given the children a future."
"The neglected countryside has been reborn through the Saemaul Undong. Roofs have been improved, roads widened, and with the successful cultivation of tobacco as a cash crop, farm incomes are projected to increase dramatically."
Then the screen filled with an image of Drumpf, President of the United States, shaking my hand — and another of me embracing the President of Korea.
"Diplomacy. We have concluded successful diplomacy with the United States, the world's foremost power, and with Korea, an economic giant. Korea in particular has designated San Marcos as an economic partner and has not stinted in supporting us with massive ODA investment."
Finished with the briefing, Isabella switched off the screen and looked around the room.
"Lastly, I will present the economic indicators that synthesize all of these achievements."
She let out a breath and began.
"National GDP, which stood at 17.3 billion dollars at the start of this administration, is projected to reach 52 billion dollars by the end of this year — an increase of approximately threefold."
They had guessed at the numbers. The actual figures still left the senior secretaries with their mouths hanging open.
"Accordingly, per capita GDP, which had been a mere 2,800 dollars, has also broken through 4,100 dollars. The unemployment rate, once at sixteen percent, has fallen into the seven-percent range, and dollar reserves are currently setting an all-time record."
Isabella closed the report and added one last thing.
"You have truly worked so hard, Your Excellency."
For a moment, silence filled the conference room.
Clap... clap... clap-clap-clap!
Someone started clapping, and it spread like wildfire.
"WAAAAAH!"
"Your Excellency! You've truly worked so hard!"
"Viva Eugene! Viva San Marcos!"
The senior secretaries rose from their seats and gave a standing ovation. Some were so moved their eyes welled up.
I felt a heat in my own chest.
...I really did work hard, didn't I.
The days I had thrashed around just to survive flashed past like a lantern show. The day I had nearly taken a bullet from Major General Tiago of the armored division. The days I had gone around hat in hand because I had no money. All of that hardship was melted into those numbers.
I cleared my throat to hide my embarrassment.
"Ahem. Everyone, please take your seats. I didn't do this alone. This is the result of the blood and sweat of Chief of Staff Isabella and everyone in this room."
When the applause subsided, I looked at Isabella again.
"Chief of Staff Isabella."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
"All that's left now is the election."
She nodded.
"Yes. That's correct. In fact, there is one proposal I would like to put forward regarding the election."
"Go ahead."
She passed me the file sitting right in front of her.
Article 1. The term of office of the President shall be seven (7) years.
Article 2. There shall be no restriction upon the number of consecutive terms a President may serve.
"It is a constitutional amendment establishing a seven-year presidential term and permitting unlimited consecutive terms. I humbly request that you grant your approval."
"...What?"