My Seoul Man

Chapter 28

Young Billy shot a look at the grizzled grumbler at the far end of the bar and said, "Take it outside, Lloyd. Nobody wants to hear that shit."

Lloyd was a sinewy little man with a shrimp back from hunching over his drinks at some bar all day long, probably. Wispy white hair standing up all over his head like the ghost of a fright wig and a patchy, stubbly salt and pepper colored beard almost as sparse as his hair.

Nobody else in the bar looked like they gave a shit about the shit he was talking. Except this one bear of a Black man who rose up to full height to bellow, "You gon' make me act out on a Sunday, old man?"

That's when Ronnie raised the beer he'd chased the tequila with to show me the yellowing sign beneath that Rebel flag. It was handwritten in chunky block letters next to a picture of a stately looking Black cavalry soldier, and read:

Snatched from the horse of the dead Confederate soldier who shot and wounded my grandfather, Corporal Russell "Rusty" Billings, one of the original Buffalo Soldiers sent West to establish and maintain law and order. Billings Family exhibit out back.

And just as I got to the exhibit part, the Black man who'd bawled out Lloyd put a hand on AJ's shoulder and said, "Y'all's drinks are on me today, son. I'm Rusty, by the way."

"You put that flag up there?" Ronnie frowned.

"That's family history," Rusty told us, chest all puffed up with pride. "Like that old cook shed out back we built to feed the people travelin' west durin' the great expansion. Wun nothin' else out here for miles and miles back in them days. Got a free exhibit about them and the little town got wiped out by the highway went through before the big one out there now. Got a whole history lesson out there—go check it out before you leave."

Ronnie gave him a playful little glare and said, "Buffalo Soldier, huh?"

"Never chased no Indians, though," Rusty said, just as proudly. "Fed some Indians up on the Hopi rez. There was some kinda real awful sickness that—"

"Oh, wow," Yoli said. "My great-grandmother talked about that all the time. Almost wiped us out, whatever it was. We were down to only a few hundred they say—honest to God, it was that bad. And all these other tribes were raiding our fields and taking our horses and whatnot, but when the white soldiers didn't wanna die of whatever was killing us they sent the Black soldiers up there to deal with it because they were, like...well..."

"Expendable," I said.

And Rusty said, "There's a picture of a Buffalo Soldier with a bunch of little Apache kids on his lap in a little museum over in Whiteriver. But don't nobody know his name."

He looked at AJ then. "Used to be a Chinese settlement up this way, too, for a little while. Ones they imported to help blow holes through the mountains so the trains could cut straight across the country. But when they tried to stay on--"

"They kicked 'em out of the country," AJ said. "I mean, we're Korean, but it didn't matter what kind of Asian you were. Just like now."

"Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882," Rusty said. "That's in the exhibit, too. Lured 'em over here with all kinda promises 'cause they were supposed to be small enough to fit in the big bucket things they'd dangle over the sides of the cliffs. Lot of 'em got blown to bits but hey--"

"Expendable," AJ said.

And the look in his eyes reminded me that he was the son of survivors, too. Of two wars back in Korea and racism over here...

Rusty nodded and said, "I put that flag up there so people could get all indignant about it. Let's me tell 'em what I told you. Or one o' the bartenders will send 'em back to that museum that says it for me."