Original subtitles

They start pulling out slabs of hashish. You got it in the Philippines?

I'd like to buy a kilo, if you have it.

No problem.

You're insane.

Now I'm starting to feel the danger involved in this.

I need more.

It was disturbing.

I wanted to see the scene.

Just fueled myself then for the last bit.

Later, I would find out that the Philippine has a death sentence for drug

smuggling.

It's a painful reckoning to look back on how stupid, you know, one can be.

just out of university, and I had a degree but wasn't using it. Apparently I

don't know how to pour pints.

My friends and I in New York were sort of doing the same thing over and over.

I wanted to break out of the mold, go abroad, have the experience of a new

country.

I wanted to travel.

Rocket was my girlfriend from college.

She was informed by a similar spirit.

And we were not ready to have families or surrender, as we saw it, to a 9 -to

-5. We wanted something beyond that.

I got the idea of going to Korea from the New York Times.

The money was quite good, $2 ,000 a month. They pay for your airfare. You

get medical insurance.

I pulled the trigger. I said to Rocket, this is it.

Time to go.

At the time, I knew nothing of Korea. And my ignorance of it now, you know, I

can only laugh at.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Cullen.

I was teaching eight or nine hours a day.

Hobbies. Everyone know what hobby?

My favorite hobbies are to write. I'd like to write a novel.

I felt stifled. Thank you. Bye -bye.

This was nothing close to the kind of dreams of adventure that I had.

In the traditional inn where Rocket and I had stayed, there was a pair of

American girls.

One of the girls said to Rocket and I, Hey, we have a friend who's been

traveling and sending us something special.

Raka and I not knowing exactly what this was all about.

What is this? What do you have? You know, what's the big deal?

Hey, guy, come on in. The day came that we walked to her back room.

What's in the box?

Remember that package we were talking about? Yeah.

She opens up a box full of those little styrofoam padded.

And she lifts out two coffee tins.

And she pops open the lids and starts pulling out slabs of

hashish.

Just went wide She

explained

that their friend who called himself Tocqueville he had sent this to the

from the Philippines They were selling it to other foreigners

My guess was that they could probably make between 10 and 15 ,000 US dollars.

I just remember thinking that if they can do this,

then why can't I?

I met the Tocqueville very briefly.

He told me the name of the town in the mountain province of the Philippines

where he had gotten the hashish.

Sagada.

Sagada.

Even the names sort of have this magnetic pull. It became mythologized in

head.

Think about the money, Rock. I mean, think about how much you can travel.

I don't want any part of it.

I think I kind of just overruled her, frankly.

Even if she had fought me tooth and nail,

I would have done it anyway.

I needed a third party to pick up the package.

Jack was a logical choice.

He was a freewheeling character.

I knew that this was sort of a match.

I said to him, would you go to the central post office and go pick up the

package?

Obviously, you'll be taking some kind of risk, but we'll split the profits

accordingly.

He was persuaded.

That's what I mean.

It's not part of the culture.

Leaving winter Korea on our way to the Philippines, we were on top of the

I had never been to the tropics before, nor had Rocket. It was all so exciting

to me.

I got two big juicy coconuts with your name on them.

Here.

Cheers.

The palms, the ocean, the sunsets, the weather. We had left Korea's winter.

This was extremely welcome.

One afternoon, looking out on Manila Bay, I said, you see, this is the

auspicious start. You know, it all bodes well.

You think you're on holiday, but you are, uh, you're basically walking

into trouble.

After a week in Manila, Rock and I boarded a bus for Tagada.

It was quite a journey. It was a remote place.

The scenery was stunning.

Gorgeous rice terraces.

The color of the fields and the trees, it's the most vibrant green I had ever

seen before.

It was absolutely the adventure we had been looking for.

Our first day in Sagada, we go to a cafe.

There was a group of Filipino guys around our age who were playing cards

drinking beers.

One of the guys needs to taste smoke.

How much?

And he shows me this slab of hashish I can see.

I said, how much?

Which was dirt cheap for what he was holding.

He gestures to me, you know, come with me.

Step outside.

Try it. The best in the Philippines can make you

fly.

Come on.

I said, I'd like to buy, you know, a quantity of this, if you have it.

A kilo?

He didn't bat an eye. He said, no problem. He would bring me the kilo the

day.

It's too easy. All too easy.

Hello.

Hi, guys. How's it going?

Hi.

Two days after first meeting, they came and found Rocket and me.

We went back to my room.

And he took out of his bag a kilo of

hashish.

The quantity of it, it was

smaller than I had imagined.

I thought, that's workable.

I gave Ruth the money, and that was it.

We just went back outside. Thank you.

All right, should we go have a smoke, I guess?

Okay.

I felt invincible, you know, as if I could do whatever I wanted and the world

was not going to encroach on it.

One day I was looking out at the pretty village and

thought, why not make another $10 ,000?

I'm going to get another kilo.

I'm not going to share this with Zach.

I'm going to handle this all by myself.

It was greed, plain and simple.

A few days after the first kilo exchange, I mentioned to Bruce and John

wanted more, and could they get me more?

They said yes, but they were more hesitant.

We'll talk later, I guess.

It didn't go over as well.

See you later.

Days went by, and I would see Bruce and John, but they didn't come forward and

find me as much.

And a lot of different thoughts were going through my head.

Were they being honest, maybe, and they really didn't have another kilo ready?

We were really at their mercy.

Were they sizing us up for something more diabolical?

They could have done anything they wanted with us.

I wanted to just get this second deal done, to get this other kilo, and

then just be gone, to get out of there.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity... Hey, man.

One of the guys finally found me one evening, and he said, I've got it.

Same deal. We march back to my room.

I remember hearing

the booming of the insects.

My senses were kind of just brought alive, maybe just by the fear, by the

adrenaline of it.

I paid him.

Say a thousand.

Same as last time, right?

He asked for more money.

And I remember pausing there in front of him.

He's fleecing me, basically.

Okay.

What happens if I tell him no?

I remember thinking, no is probably not the right answer.

So, all right, I paid him. He thanked me.

We got it done.

Ironic to recall how Bruce had turned and said to me, you know, be careful

taking it down to Manila.

Because your eyes will give you away.

It filled me with fear because everyone knew that people who go to a place like

Sagada are smuggling drugs.

I wanted to flee the scene.

We arrived back in Manila, and I had to make a package and unload this first

kilo.

And I had written fictitious names as both sender and recipient.

Rocket was participating, but really it was my plan to see through.

There was almost a little bit of a sort of selfishness to it.

This is my deal.

I remember thinking like, well, nobody has any idea what I'm doing. There was

some kind of perverse thrill in that.

And then there was a building sense of dread.

What if something goes wrong?

There were a couple of people online, so I waited.

My heart is racing.

I'm thinking, you know, trying to calm myself down. You know, be calm, be calm.

Okay, thank you. Hi.

Yes, good morning.

I go up to the window. The window had mesh grating over it.

Yeah,

I just want to send it to Korea.

It was a very friendly Filipino at the counter.

Really nervous at this point.

I didn't want to linger or really do anything

other than just get this out of my hands.

Then he began a conversation that sort of set me off guard.

He thought I was British, I think.

He started pantomime throwing punches.

And I was so caught off guard that at first I kind of had to replay what he

said in my head before I responded.

And finally, I guess I responded fast enough that he didn't think it was

anything out of the ordinary.

Finally, he said, OK, one thousand two hundred three, please. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you.

And, you know, I turned around and walked out.

Then I started that same resurgence of feeling like I'm on top of the world.

I'm back, Zach.

The package coming.

Zach sent the fax back and he simply said, got your package.

There you go.

This is all coming together. This elaborate international plan, you know,

countries. And here it is. It's all going well.

There was no concept of being caught. It was a real youthful arrogance of

invincibility.

Now here we were, faced with this, another kilo.

This one was different.

I didn't have a jack on the other side who was going to pick this up.

This was going to be all my own operation.

I thought about just throwing it out.

So simple, and yet it was almost like I was possessed.

I couldn't do it.

I simply took the thing and stuffed it down into the middle of a little

bag.

I had Brockett write these fake names, thinking that if they do arrest me,

be someone else's handwriting.

That's how poor the thinking was.

My intuition was telling me,

I don't like the size of this box.

But, again,

just, you know, see the plan through.

The next morning, we went off to the post office.

I think I was actually now kind of shaking with nervousness.

And Rocket was also just distraught.

We climbed the steps. We're standing there between the pillars.

And then I had the idea, you know, Rocket, can you go in there

and do this?

They're going to somehow be less...

suspicious of a woman.

You know, she was afraid.

She decided, you know, let's just do

this.

She took the box from me and she marched inside.

Later, I would find out that the Philippines

as a death sentence for drug smuggling.

It's a painful reckoning to look back on just how stupid,

you know, one can be.

I just sat there fidgeting on the front steps.

The time warp, it feels like a minute to stretch into hours.

I was wondering what was taking her so long.

I was begging the universe to not have me learn this lesson this

way.

After what seemed like an eternity, she came back outside.

So is it done?

She said, let's go. I did it. I sent it. I sent it express.

You sent it express?

They made me do it. They said that the box was too big and that I had to send

as an express package and register it. I started to get angry, thinking that

that can't help. That would alert more security or surveillance or x -ray

somehow.

What was to do?

I didn't want to go in the first place.

Let's just go, okay? Let's go.

I finally said, you know what? Okay, whatever, it's fine.

And it was an enormous relief to have it out of our hands.

Not holding a box with this thing in it. It was an enormous weight off our

shoulders.

Zach volunteered, uh...

a room in his apartment.

We could stay with him.

I remember Zach kind of shaking his head and, you know, looking at me

admiringly like, wow, you know, I got to hand it to you. You said you were going

to do it and you did it.

And there was, you know, that perverse pride in that.

It's real.

He brought out, you know, several thousand dollars.

I had never made money that easily in my life.

And I still had this whole other kilo that Zach didn't know about at all.

I was in no rush to get teaching work again.

I was kind of readying myself to enter that lifestyle of being actually a full

-time dealer.

Let's go.

We got lots of it, man.

Zach and I were drinking at night, losing it up.

Living foul.

Living without a conscience.

You know, it was all very soon to end.

I love this part.

I was delaying going to the post office to pick it up.

I remember Rocket wanted this over with.

She wanted her sleeping bag because she wanted to go away by herself because she

was disgusted by what I was doing.

Finally, I said, okay, we're going to go. Let's go. We're going to go to the

post office and see if the package is there.

I smoked from a pipe before we left.

I'm going to pick up a package with a kilo of the same stuff in it.

The level of stupidity is just, it seems mind -boggling.

I was nervous, but more than that, I think I was numb, having been high

every day for months.

On the long, broad avenue down towards the post office,

Rocket actually grabbed my arm at one point and stopped us. She said, you

we could be going into our demise.

Demise?

I liked her vocabulary. I liked her use of the word.

It made me laugh.

We don't have to do that.

Look, everything's going to be all right.

I wish I had listened to her and simply gone back to Zach's, begun teaching

again.

We arrived at the front of the post office.

Rocket's first instinct was to come inside with me.

And for whatever reason, I said, no, you wait out here.

And she did.

She had brought along Herman Melville's Moby Dick, and she sat down

on the stoop, and I went inside.

I went up to one of the counters and asked, do you know where the counter for

packages is? And she said, oh, it's upstairs.

She was happy to be using her English, and I felt like this was all going to be

okay.

Up the stairs I went.

and put my hands in my pocket and just paused there at the big glass windows

stood there looking down on Seoul.

I was thinking, why am I doing this here in Korea? I had never done this in the

States.

And there was something of that sort of abuse of someone else's home.

It's not yours, so you don't care as much.

You know, the stakes aren't as high.

Just steeled myself then for the last bit.

Go get the package.

And there were a number of Korean men sitting on couches who were drinking

coffees, reading newspapers.

My intuition just went off in my head, screaming.

Should I just walk out?

No, this is... This is fine.

Look, it was one of the most common sites in Korea.

There's no police here.

The package is probably right there waiting for me.

Be a man. See this through.

I went up to the counter and there was a list.

I

held

up the clipboard and I pointed to that name, Jay Gallagher.

The postal clerk kind of uttered a little, oh.

I just disregarded it and just stood there waiting, you know, basically, you

know, twiddling my thumbs.

It was as though I were picking up a box of socks or fruit or something from my

mom.

The clerk came back, and immediately I see that the package looks like it's

sat on.

It looks worn.

It's been crushed or something.

Again, I just, you know, no matter. There it is.

There's my old friend from the Philippines.

The clerk says, well, I need you to sign a paper. He was smiling at me with sort

of like a sly look on his face.

Maybe I'm just misreading it, but I remember thinking, well, this guy's

weird.

I said,

sure, no problem.

Signed for it.

That was it. It was done.

Comes on me, though. So I began to walk away.

Thinking, well, this is going to be great.

It was Friday, about 3 o 'clock in the afternoon, so it was that whole kind of

happy hour feeling.

I'm going to take this home.

Jack and I are going out.

We can stay out late.

That was it. I was cooked.

That bubble I had created just dissolved.

I mean, it was nothing.

Once I was grabbed, it was like someone had turned the speed back to normal.

And suddenly, like, the sound came back on.

The

only

thing I could think then was just damage control, rocket.

I didn't know whether Rocket was still there or not. But if we look at each

other, they're going to arrest her.

One of the detectives, he's saying, that girl at the front of the post office,

she was waiting for you, wasn't she?

No,

no, no, no, no, no, no.

No, I came alone.

I mean, my heart just dropped.

Please, God.

Please, God, you know, don't let them grab Rocket.

Prosecutor Shin was in a chair across from me, and he was just a really

man.

No sense that, you know, this was a guy who was going to show me any kind of

mercy.

The detective started to go through all

my belongings.

As the detective pours out the bag, a little powdery mist is falling out.

He puts his finger in it and smells it.

He's like that's how she's He

said

this

is your package this is a very serious crime in Korea

Tell me.

Tell me what happened.

I'm saying this is not mine.

The game is well over at this point. I'm terrified.

The detective behind the desk at the computer asks me, what's your phone

in New York?

212.

555.

Hello?

And I hear my father answer the telephone.

Hello? Who's that?

The detective says, does your son, you know, Colin Thomas, does he live there?

You know, he has big problem here in Korea.

Who is that?

And my father, you know, answers. He says, well, what's wrong? What's going

What do you mean?

What's happened?

Hearing my father's voice was another really heavy reminder of just

how far I had gone.

There has to be some mistake.

My father was a decent man.

I knew he would be disgusted.

Hello, hello.

I wouldn't hear my dad's voice again for three and a half years.

They took me to the detention center.

I stepped into the cell. The guard slammed the door shut. Bang, you know,

away.

You know, the finality of that was profound.

The thought of passing years in a space that's, you know, four and a half feet

by nine feet.

The mind just rebels against it. It doesn't feel possible.

I had a breakdown. I went nuts.

I can't do this!

I was just...

Kept up nights just haunted by the idea of Rocket and what might have befallen

her and where she was.

I prayed like I've never prayed in my life for some kind of reprieve.

One day, the Korean hall worker placed an envelope with no

return address on it.

My family informed me that Rocket had returned to New York, which for me was a

gift beyond words.

After I had been arrested at the post office, Rocket ran to the U .S. Embassy.

She flew home the next day.

Thank God.

I soon met a young Colombian.

who called himself Billy the Kid, who was serving five years.

Billy's advice was that if I can convince Prosecutor Shin that the

just for my own personal use, then I could perhaps escape the selling charge.

The next time I was taken into Shin's office, I confessed to the package being

mine. It was for me only.

I had already formulated this idea that I would tell him I had put 12 grams,

for example, into one cup of coffee.

Obviously, it's an absurd amount.

Ten years, eight years, how am I going to... Someone who has knowledge of the

drug knows that's a fib.

But he bought it.

You want me to write down?

Either because he knew he was going to get a smuggling conviction and that was

enough for him, or he did not have a real expert knowledge of drugs.

I'm not sure which one it was.

I had to serve every single day of the sentence because basically there was no

parole in Korea at that time.

After roughly two years, I started to get a grip on myself.

I remembered things that Billy had told me about not letting the time use you,

but to use the time instead, make it work for you.

I started a little yoga routine I did every morning, writing in my journal.

It helped me to become one of the strong ones, and it's something that I'm proud

of, that I was able to reach that place there.

My mom wanted to know if it was all right if the family met me at the

They really weren't sure what kind of son they were being given back.

People were waiting, and my family was there.

It was just really a precious moment for me.

And I didn't break down until I hugged my mom.

And then... My

mom had...

suffered, I think, more than anyone, in

fact.

She smacked me and said, don't ever do that again.

And, you know, all I could do was smile. I mean, she was right and certainly

never will.