As before, Jae didn’t take the police barricade seriously, but as he approached Seongsu Bridge from the south, he saw that this one was different. It was the first time the police were using the steel-spiked barricade on the motorcycle gangs. Jae had never seen or heard of it—one of the limitations of being an eighteen-year-old leader.
I tried to stop Jae. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to cross.”
“Why?”
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
“I can hear it,” Jae said, as if he had spoken to an oracle.
“What?”
“What the bridge is thinking. And what the river’s saying to me.”
“What’s it saying?”
“They’re calling me,” Jae said. “They’re telling me it’s where I have to go.”
He suddenly frowned and clutched his chest.
Mokran asked, “What’s wrong?”
He took deep breaths and leaned against the handlebars until his forehead nearly rested against the dashboard. The pain seemed to be worsening.
“Are you hurt?” Mokran asked. She began approaching him, but Jae raised his hand and stopped her. He straightened up.
“I’m better. It happens now and then.”
Jae glanced back at the motorcycle rally he was leading. He frowned as if he was still feeling pain, but he grabbed the handlebars, his mind made up. Jae rode up the bridge with the front guard. Mokran followed. The patrol car’s high beams were aimed at Jae and bathed him in light so strong, it was difficult to open your eyes, but Jae didn’t retreat. Police holding megaphones shouted warnings that if he didn’t stop, he would be arrested. The conscripted police came in one line at Jae, their batons raised.
Nearly halfway across Seongsu Bridge, a spike punctured his motorcycle tire. The bike wobbled and skidded to the road like a rolling coin that had lost momentum, then teetered. Jae’s Honda hit the concrete median strip, flew into the bridge railing, and then his body soared over the water like a balloon a child had let go.
Jae spun in the air. The mouth of the wide, black river, the brightly lit bridges, the police car lights, and the red brake lights all entered his eyes. His spirit was escaping his body, and it felt different from anything he had ever known. He sensed that he could be gone for a very long time, wandering restlessly without settling, and be transformed into a completely new being.
He no longer felt the force of gravity. There was no velocity to the fall, no cold water, no fear of suffocation. He was slowly rising. Looking down, he saw the bridge below. The dozens of motorcycles that had followed him charged the police barriers and skidded with flat tires to the ground. Mokran, Gas Tank, and Seesaw Eyes fell too. Mokran’s face was soaked in blood and she writhed in pain on the asphalt. She tried reaching out, but her body wasn’t listening. It was as if her physical self no longer existed. The motorcycle rally, with its advance blocked, turned southward. It resembled a twitching worm covered in salt. Now greedy for victory, the police forced their way across the bridge. When I turned, in the distance I saw the Express Bus Terminal where Jae had been born. The buses ready to leave at daybreak sounded so close by, it was as if their engines were idling next to me. I thought then that maybe Jae’s soul would lie down and finally find peace at the terminal.