A New Beginning (3)
A month had passed since I'd been living like a dog. At first I'd been sharp enough to look up the Korean Constitution, but now my mind had grown simple. On the last day of the third week they finally gave me real food, and it tasted incredible. The first and second weeks had been nothing but water and some kind of powder; I couldn't even taste it. Why? Because they fed it to me as a form of torture. In the third week they at least allowed a short meal time—five minutes. On the final day of that week they gave me something special: thin-skinned meat and vegetables wrapped together. Still only five minutes, of course.
After a month of being treated like livestock and trained for twenty hours a day, a person becomes simple and direct. The week before last I was finally taken outside the village—outside the building—for the first time. Why? To climb mountains. Mexico has plenty of them; even the capital, Mexico City, sits at 2,240 meters. They call the climate "eternal spring," meaning spring-like air all year round. Anyway, I tested my limits. I started running with nothing but my own body. One man would run ahead and I would follow. Then two more joined behind me. If I slowed down or if the man in front disappeared from view, they beat me. When the two behind me blew their whistles, it meant I was about to get hit—because the man ahead had vanished. Then the front man would stop, and the two behind would beat me. Fuck.
That was how the final week of the month went: climbing mountains. The next week? More mountains. The only difference was that each day they added one piece of equipment. First a military backpack, then gaiters, a helmet—full combat load. Once I adapted to that, they shackled iron weights to my ankles. I climbed mountains for another month like that. Every time they added something new, I got beaten because my body couldn't keep up. Even a difference of one or two kilograms felt enormous. After one more week of mountain runs, on the final day they gave me an entire pizza. I was so happy I could have cried.
The seventh week compressed everything we'd done before into shorter, more intense sessions. Morning drills, afternoon mountain runs, evening study. People really are treacherous. Once the beatings stopped, I only gained weight. I moved quickly, kept my eyes gentle, and they stopped hitting me. So I thought to myself: This isn't so bad. On the last day of the seventh week they gave me a single can of beer—Korean beer. I thought I'd gone to heaven.
The moment the eighth week began, I regretted thinking it was manageable. Expecting another round of formation drills, I strolled out to the parade ground only to be handed a forty-centimeter wooden sword. When the instructor gestured for me to attack, I just stared, unsure what was happening—until I got hit. I'd been trained too well; the thought of actually attacking never even occurred to me. One of the training trio sighed and showed me a few basic stances. I copied them without thinking. Experience had taught me that hesitation only earned more beatings. That day I learned eighteen movements and still had to study in the evening. Did they skip the beating? Of course not. They said they weren't satisfied. What wasn't satisfying?
That night I was reviewing the day's movements on the tablet when something struck me: martial arts usually have names—taekwondo, muay thai, something. Here there was no title, just the same eighteen movements repeated over and over. The next day I passed out. It had been a while. The youngest of the trio—the one who always stepped forward first and worked the hardest—seemed like the maknae, so I gave him that name in my head. During sparring I took the third movement, saw up to the seventh, then everything went black. When I woke up it was already lunchtime. Time really flies when you're unconscious. After getting knocked out a few times I seemed to have built up a tolerance; it didn't bother me much anymore. The first week had been the worst.
In the afternoon I sparred with the middle brother. I took quite a few hits. His power control was better than the youngest's. He also seemed to have a talent for teaching. The eldest—the big boss—did all the talking; the other two never spoke. Through the language of the body, I was starting to understand what they wanted to say. Mix it up. That was the message. And I learned it with my body.
On the fifth day of the eighth week I finally landed a hit on the middle brother. Then I blacked out. Right before I lost consciousness I thought I saw the youngest smile, but maybe I imagined it. That was how the eighth week ended. On the final day they were smiling like they had something planned, when suddenly the village went into emergency mode. Every light went out and the place fell deathly quiet. Distant gunfire echoed in the distance, but I couldn't even ask for food.
The next day I went out to the parade ground alone, warmed up, and practiced the eighteen movements. I recalled every moment I'd been struck and drilled combinations—third into seventh, tenth into second. Lunchtime came; I wolfed down the powder in my room in five minutes and kept training. I trained through the evening too. For the first time, I wasn't hit. The silence felt strange. I almost expected to be beaten, almost missed arguing with the trio.
The next morning I woke at the exact right time, ate the powder, and headed to the parade ground. Thankfully the trio was there, though their faces were dark, as if they carried the weight of the world. Training began, but something felt half-hearted. Their minds were elsewhere. Even the youngest took a hit from my wooden sword during sparring. The eldest watched, then walked over and told me to practice alone while he led his brothers back inside the building.
After whatever mental training the eldest gave them, the next day everything returned to normal. Which meant I got beaten like a dog again. The day after that they handed me a wooden axe of the same length and showed me another set of eighteen movements—similar to the sword set but slightly different. I performed them in one go. By my standards, anyway. I still got hit that day. Next came a kukri-style blade like the Nepali fighters used, followed by another eighteen movements. I didn't care anymore. I got hit. The day after that they brought a simple wooden staff. The moment I received it I ran through the eighteen movements. I got hit. That was how the ninth week went—me growing familiar with weapons. On the final day of the ninth week I received an unexpected gift: a cell phone.
The second I turned it on, I nearly lost my mind wanting to know what was happening back in Korea. My first call was to my brother—the one who had sent me here. I seriously considered cursing him out, but in the end I just dialed. He didn't answer. Damn it. Next time I saw him I'd plant at least one, no, eighteen clean hits with the techniques I'd learned.
Harmon seemed to be handling Itaewon, Incheon, and Bucheon well, but there were problems. Nationwide crackdowns on drugs were still in full swing because of all the incidents. A middle-school student had grabbed a "nutritional supplement" being promoted in front of a Gangnam apartment complex, ended up in the ER, and tested positive for narcotics. The media ran huge headlines about a "war on drugs," and opposition lawmakers tore into the government during audits and parliamentary questions, accusing them of waging war on the opposition instead. So what happened? Our friends in the prosecution and police swung into action. A second storm hit. Harmon reported losing four of his own men, one of them a team-leader level. I told him it was fine, to be careful, and to take good care of the families of those who had sacrificed for the organization. Then I promoted him again—to deputy director under the 1-2-7-21 structure. When he said he only had six regular members left, I told him to promote that capable guy from Busan—the one called "Uirisan"—and form a new team. I also folded the Busan territory into Harmon's supply network.
The Vietnamese hashish business had exploded; they'd even started reverse-exporting. When I asked what that meant, he explained that the Korean government was mainly targeting Koreans, so foreigners like his crew drew less attention. As long as they avoided violent crime, business was basically the same as before. Word had spread favorably, so they distributed samples. One buyer said he'd take twenty grams back to his home country, so they sold it. Getting product in had become difficult, but getting it out was still manageable. I was worried, but told him he'd done well. When someone moves proactively like that, what boss wouldn't like it?
He also said they probably wouldn't need extra volume around Lunar New Year—they'd already overproduced. Typical. They'd pushed too hard. Lastly, Yangcho—the father of our cannabis operation—had expanded from the Taebaek Mountains' "natural man" to the West Sea's "natural man." He'd set up on an island near Shinan, bought fishing rights from the local village cooperative with cash, and was now farming abalone. Of course the abalone was just cover. Because of Yangcho's touch the abalone were growing well, and he promised to send some good ones next time. We spent about an hour catching up on business when the youngest walked in and asked for the phone back. I handed it over without complaint. Then I got hit. He said my eyes had come back to life. I was starting to understand a little Spanish now.
I still needed to contact the rest of the executives—Banzzagi, the ex-soldier, Cider, and Nakamura—but there was no time left. I had to get back to work.