Out of North Korea

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4

Lessons learned from my first two days in North Korea:

1) Officer Grumpy doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.

2) Neither do any of the other guards here.

I’ve been standing in the corner since breakfast. Guy Smiley wasn’t too impressed with my second attempt at a report, either. I swear, that man’s more difficult to write for than my sophomore year journalism professor. She hated me because I happen to be a white male (if you hadn’t noticed), and unfortunately I never got the memo warning guys like me to stay away from her class. This guy here at the jail, I don’t know what his deal is. But I’m back in the corner.

Again.

Good news though.

Turns out I must have totally cut off blood supply to my nerves or something because my shoulders don’t feel a thing. I’ve got to tell my chiropractor back in the States about this. Persistent shoulder pain? Try standing with your hands cuffed behind your back for a few hours! If she ever publishes that in a professional journal, I’m going to make sure she cites me as her main source.

Sun’s about to go down. I’m keeping my mind alert by trying to figure out what time it must be in Washington, back where Grandma Lucy is praying for me. Because there’s only one thing that woman loves just as much as her talk-with-Jesus times, and that’s her afternoon nap. So I figure that there’s going to be an hour at some point in what ends up being my early morning where she’s settling down for her nap the day before (three cheers for the International Date Line), and that’s the one hour of the day I’m going to allow myself to freak out. Other than that, it’s all good.

What about when Grandma Lucy sleeps at night, you might wonder? Well, don’t worry about that. She always jokes that she sleeps like a baby. By which she means she wakes up every couple hours, prays in bed, and goes back for another little snooze. And seriously, I’ve even heard her praying in her sleep. You might think I’m joking, but I’m not.

So I’m covered.

Literally (if you’re the kind of person who likes the idea of prayers actually covering you).

And agnostic as I am — you’ve heard the saying, I’m sure, that we gingers lack souls — still the thought makes me feel pretty good.

It’s still at least ten hours or more before morning, before that tiny bit of my day that I’ve allotted for freaking out. So I have to pace myself until then. Sometimes I start to worry about all the terrible things they might do to me (you know, like if they decide it’s time to put an end to the corner-standing and instead force me into a dunce hat or something). I’m distracting myself by thinking of what I’ll write about my time here. I just wish I had my camera too so I could record everything I’ve seen. When I’m not imagining the exact angle I’d use to get the right shot, I come up with names for the chapters of my unwritten memoir.

Listen to this. The ridiculous write-out-my-confessions-as-an-essay thing? I’m going to call it And I Thought Sixth Grade was a Pain in the Butt.

And then I figure I can do a whole chapter about the handcuffs. I’m thinking of something with a little double entendre because, you know. Handcuffs. Or if that’s too risqué, I could simply call it With Apologies to my Chiropractor.

So far, there hasn’t been any sign of torture devices, but isn’t that the first thing most people will think of when they hear there’s an American imprisoned in North Korea? So if the punishment does happen to fall into the cruel and unusual category and I live to tell about it in my New York Times bestselling exposé memoir, I’ll call that chapter Why I’ll Never Go to the Dentist Again.

Other than that, I’m working my way up toward Compliant Prisoner instead of Naughty Boy in the Corner. I really am trying to decide what I’m supposed to say because we all know what’s going to happen next. Old Principal Jailer’s going to march in here, order me in that chair again, shove his college-ruled notebook paper in front of me, and expect me to write out my five-hundred words in #2 pencil.

It’s already become pretty clear he wants something besides the truth. If only I can figure out what that is, we can get past this purgatory stage. Yes, I’m making a Catholic reference. Forgive me, Grandma Lucy, for I have sinned ...

No, that one wouldn’t go over well with her either.

But I have decided that purgatory is exactly where I am. Think about it. Take everything you know about this place, including the very few stories of Americans like me who have been fortunate enough to be invited to see the insides of the North Korean justice system, and picture what you think my biggest worries should be.

We’re talking torture, hard labor, starvation, the works, right? Let’s just go ahead and say it. Not like I can get even more freaked out, you know. So, since I was taught from my earliest days as a journalism student not to mince words, let’s just call it what it is.

Hell.

If they prosecute me here, it’s going to be hell.

The other option is they’ll decide they’ve made some horrible, terrible mistake, and they’ll fly me back to America with a box of chocolates to pass along to the Secretary of State with their heartfelt apologies for this little international misunderstanding. And as disgruntled as I may be with the current administration, standing in front of Secretary Hamilton and offering her Pyongyang’s finest delicacies (preferably after I’ve had a chance to take a scalding hot shower and change out of these stupid boxers) is about as close to heaven as a man in my situation can hope for right about now.

So — not to insult your intelligence but to carry my metaphor out to its final destination — hopefully by now it’s crystal clear why I chose to call my current situation purgatory. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be capitalized because it’s the name of a place. Hmm. Wonder what the Chicago Manual would have to say about that. Good thing by the time it comes to write my New York Times bestseller I’ll have a publisher and a slew of editors to look up that stuff on my behalf.

I don’t know a ton about Catholicism. If you were to talk to most of the folks at Grandma Lucy’s church, being Catholic is about as serious a crime as being — cue gasps and involuntary shudders — a liberal. But somewhere in the back of my head is this idea that purgatory’s quicker for some people than others. And I know that if I were in your shoes and was listening to me whine, I’d be thinking, Wow, at least he’s not getting tortured or anything. That lucky dog should hope he stays so fortunate.

But now that I’m here, standing in the corner with nothing to do but fear the unknown and try to hold off my panic attack until sometime tomorrow morning, I have to wonder if that’s all wrong. What if the psychological torment of uncertainty, the fear of torture, is just as bad or even worse than the suffering itself?

In other words, what if purgatory really is nothing but a different kind of hell?

On that happy note, I adjust my weight and try to stretch my shoulders (did I mention they’re completely numb?), and a staticky voice from some speaker barks at me in Korean what I assume either means hold still and stop fidgeting or your mama’s so fat her belt size is the equator. Not quite sure. I’ve never been all that great with languages other than my own.

I think about studies way back from my Psych 101 days, how a dog would rather be beaten than neglected. (Don’t ask me how any publication could get away with citing a research project like that. I didn’t take my first ethics class until I was a junior.) The point of the morally questionable study was simple enough for a first-year to grasp: Even torture is better than solitary confinement.

I adjust my legs one more time and smile slightly at the wall when my radio friend yells at me again. The next time I’m preparing for imprisonment inside of North Korea I’ll have to ask someone to teach me a few Korean jokes so I can interact better with my captors.

For now, the radio yelling means I’m not totally alone after all.

And I hate to admit how twisted it sounds, but that’s comforting to know at a time and place like this.