Lark and Termite Read Online Free PDF Page B

“fuck your brothers and nothing to it.”
    “Yeah, sure,” she said, “and I’ve got one leg shorter than the other, and no one in West Virginia has ever stood on level ground or worn shoes.”
    “Nobody’s your brother,” he told her. He moved her under him, looked at her, licked her eyes, touched her hairline with his tongue. “Nobody, remember it.”
    “You’re my brother,” she’d answered, breathing. “You’re the first and the last. After you, there’s no one.”
    He believed her. He didn’t ask if Coral Gables was a reunification fantasy, divided factions drawn together beside the sea. Coral Gables was a beach town near Miami, Tompkins said, near Hialeah, where the horses ran. If Leavitt can get out of Korea, a daughter is fine with him. In Florida, he’d know her name.
    Rural hamlets here are derivations of one another, dirt track villages of shabby wooden buildings. Leavitt has scribbled the similar romanized names of the villages emptied today in his dirty, palm-sized notebook: Chu Gok Ri, No Gun Ri, Im Ke Ri. No plumbing, no electricity. What did the refugees carry in those bundles on their backs and heads, what did they gather up when the soldiers appeared, rousting them out before the North Koreans swept through? Intelligence warned some carried ordnance and mortars to North Korean units. If they did, Leavitt thought, they were North Korean infiltrators. He’d heard South Koreans speak among themselves and understood enough to know that most of them hated the North. Whole villages emptied at news the NKPA were closing in; they were considered bloodthirsty puppets of the Red Chinese, and their readiness to slaughter civilians was legendary. Remaining ROK units couldn’t be trusted with the few North Korean prisoners they’d taken; they shot them outright. Still, both sides took advantage of the American inability to tell them apart unless they were uniformed. Leavitt takes off his helmet, wipes the sweat from his face without breaking stride. Ijjokuro, he calls to the Koreans, this way.
    Leavitt turns to sight Tompkins far to the rear. They’re reunited, Tompkins says, together in hell. Now Leavitt wonders if they’re meant to die together. Or if Tompkins will survive and be the one to find him. He made Tompkins take Lola’s address and a letter for her; Tompkins didn’t reciprocate. There was no one but his mother, he said, and notification plans were bad luck. Death was dead, not a good way to get out. Getting out was good though; they needed to get out. “Keep your ass in my sights,” Tompkins liked to tell him, “I’ll get you out.” He said he’d know Leavitt’s ass anywhere, and he’d haul out whatever was left of it or die trying. Then he’d wink. “Feel like getting out?” he’d ask. Where were the girls from Tompkins’ preferred brothel now? Dead or running. Running, Tompkins said, they’d got out. No doubt, the girls were way south, waiting for Tompkins to catch up. But he couldn’t, not yet. “She whaled me good,” he reminisced sadly of his favorite, “my lucky star.”
    This morning at dawn, Tompkins had been matter-of-fact. “Definitely,” he intoned, “gonna get out today. Wanna talk about it?”
    Leavitt deadpanned his stock response: “We can talk about it.” Like a charm, a set dialogue.
    “Ain’t no talk,” Tompkins insisted. “Out we go. Today’s the day.”
    The double railroad overpass is closer now; Leavitt can see that the tunnels below are slightly curved and relatively deep; he can’t see through them. The dirt road moves through one into dark shade, the stream through the other. They’re stone or concrete, bunkerlike, arched, like two deep eyes angled slightly askance. He’ll keep the Koreans on the tracks as long as possible, then direct them down the grassy incline to rest in the shade of the tunnels while Tompkins radios command. They’ll advise the refugees to proceed south on their own, circle the men back to regroup, reduce