by Peter Gilboy
I don’t hesitate. “That’ll be fine,” I say. Towers gives me a perplexed look. “It’ll be fine, Jodee,” I assure him. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”
Noisy motorbikes sweep past us on both sides, weaving in and out of the traffic and kicking up dust that blows through the windows with the hot air. We pass a number of beggars and vendors standing on the shoulder of the road staring at the car. After a few minutes the traffic slows and then backs up.
I ask Towers, “What do you think of Vietnam?”
“It’s not what I expected, sir. I thought it would be more…” He can’t find the word.
“Backward,” the driver volunteers from the front.
“Yeah, I guess,” Towers says, embarrassed. “Jungles, water buffaloes, things like that.”
“You should get out more,” I tell him.
The driver smiles into the mirror again. “But you’re right. The communists are backward. Communism stinks…or now you say ‘sucks.’ It’s not for us. Communists are cruel and stupid. They don’t know.”
“Your English is very good,” I say. “And you’re too young to have known the Americans who were here.”
“I’ve had good training,” she says evasively, then adds playfully, “What does ‘sucks’ mean?”
I can see her laughing eyes in the mirror. “What’s your name?” I ask.
“Call me Tammy. It’s a nice name, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Who do you work for?”
“For myself.”
“You mean that you work for the highest bidder.”
“Of course. Capitalism is alive and well in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. It never left.”
“Pretty expensive cab,” I observe.
“I’m what you call a ‘minder.’ I take care of people.”
“Does that mean you use your charm to take advantage of people?”
“You’re thinking of the patriotic Viet Cong girls who lured the Americans and then killed them.”
“Exactly.”
She giggles. “No patriotism here. I’m in it for myself. So, what does ‘sucks’ mean?” she asks again.
“It means you’re in it for yourself,” I tell her.
We enter Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, on Cong Ly Avenue.
“Do you see that sign?” Tammy asks. She’s pointing to a billboard on our right. “It says, ‘This city is rich, beautiful, civilized and modern, worthy to be named after Uncle Ho.’”
What I see are beggars on both sides of the avenue, staring at the cars from the airport, waving to get their attention.
“Uncle Ho would be proud,” I say.
Ahead, some of the European-style buildings grow to seven and eight stories, now with a socialist dreariness about them. There are a few cars on the street, but a lot of small motorbikes that swarm like insects in both directions. The air is thick with exhaust. I hear the ringing of bicycle bells.
We reach Hong Tap Tu Street, and Tammy points vaguely to a building on our right. “That was Big Minh’s residence,” she says. “You know who he was?”
“The last leader before Saigon fell,” I answer.
“Yes, right before the liberation.” She laughs. “It’s so nice to be liberated.”
“I’ll bet,” I say.
We go around another corner and I somehow recognize the old Tu Do Street, complete with signs for small shops and services. Cigarette and bread vendors wait on the corners. Even in the morning, prostitutes are out cruising the street in open pedicabs. Children sit on street corners, and I know they may have been there all night. Socialism. One child has a dark blue ball cap with Dodgers stenciled in curling white script. Tu Do Street still seems strange and wild. Despite the poverty, it’s somehow enlivening.
I try to force my thoughts to Patricia Pavlik and the tasks at hand, but my mind immediately returns here, to Tu Do Street’s edginess and passion. A few blocks on, I see the Saigon River. At the next corner Tammy pulls to a halt in front of a huge, European-looking art deco building, obviously a French remnant. Shoeless and shirtless children are waiting for us. They press against the car windows, staring in.
“Here we are, Mac,” Tammy says. “You sure you don’t want the Apocalypse Now nightclub?”
“This the Majestic?” I ask.
“Right on, brother. I’ll wait until you get out,” she says, “and then open the trunk from in here. Watch out for the little urchins.”
“How much do we owe you?”
“Taken care of,” she answers with a smile.
“By the highest bidder?”
Tammy laughs. “Got that right, Mac.”
“Is he inside?” I ask her.
“He’s got your rooms too. Don’t forget your bags.”
I open the door, and the children are awed by my size as I unfold to my full height. They jump back, then point and shout something to each other. I see that one of the boys has sandy-colored hair, probably the second-generation offspring of an American soldier’s embrace. Then one of them notices Towers’s red hair and shouts as he rushes to him. Another boy, almost as dark as I am, stares up at me.
“Hey, Soul,” he says. “You me same.”
I smile at him and feel his hair. It’s like mine. “Where’d you get your color, Soul-kid?”
“You my papa,” the boy says, pulling on my shirt.
“How old are you?” I ask.
“You want good-time girl? You want massage? You want crack? I take you. No sweat. I take you number one places, crazy places you like. Okay?”
I shake my head. “No, thanks, Soul-kid. Sorry. Gotta go.”
Tammy releases the trunk and the children move quickly toward the bags. “We got them,” I say, reaching past them and yanking the bags out.
“You sure, Papa? I take you boom-boom girl get short time. Check it out. I take you Cu Chi tunnels. Go My Lai too, okay, okay?”
“Thanks, but another time,” I tell him.
“What happen your nose, Soul Man?”
“Nothing.” I reach in my pocket for some money and hand it to him, about a hundred dollars American.
He grabs it and starts running. The other children race after him.
Tammy waves as she pulls away.
Towers and I start up the steps to the Majestic Hotel.
52
THE MAJESTIC
JANUARY 20, 2006
I GLANCE OVER AT Eddie, who is listening to Tommy Colome. Our backs are against the slope of the ditch, our M16s resting on our stomachs. It’s dark as we wait for them to come. The star is still right there, and when I glance over I can see Eddie’s eyes and his teeth that are leaning this way and that. He’s smiling at Tommy Colome, who’s just announced he’s going to be a doctor when he gets back. Says he’s already seen a liver up close, and a lung, and exploded intestines. Said he’s seen kneecaps and a whole thigh bone and once saw an eyeball floating in a puddle. What else you got to know? he says. Geltz tells him there’s a lot of study to be a doctor, and besides, Colome will first have to finish tenth grade. We laugh at that, Eddie too. But Colome doesn’t laugh. He’s thinking. I mean, how much more is there to it? he asks. Huh? How much more? A body is a body, you know? Same pieces. Same parts. They ought to be interchangeable, you know. Take a leg from this guy and a jaw from that guy and stick ’em on a new guy. You know what I’m talking about? Interchangeable. You understand? Yeah, we say. We understand.
You haven’t seen majestic until you’ve seen the Majestic Hotel. The lobby isn’t just plush. Or lavish. Opulent is the right word. Or something meaning even more opulent than opulent. The lobby is a huge rectangular space with high stained-glass windows, Persian rugs, and a finely engraved wood counter that runs almost the length of the room. French chandeliers. Intricately inlaid ceiling. A small sign declares six restaurants, six bars, nearly two hundred rooms.
Capitalism. Can’t beat it.
There are four clerks behind the long counter. A tiny clerk at one end of the counter lo
oks up immediately and waves to me. “Mr. Ames?”
“That’s me,” I say, going over to him and setting down my bags. “You’ve been waiting for me?”
“Yes, sir,” he says, smiling. “Two rooms. Adjoining. Taken care of.”
He motions to a bellhop who immediately takes our bags and nods for us to follow.
As we head to the elevator, I glance into a side lounge. French paintings and a Middle Eastern tapestry. A little farther on I look down some steps to a terrace that looks out over the river. Though it’s still early morning, three Japanese men stand by the brass railing with drinks in their hands, smiling and gesturing toward the river. I also see the back of another man, obviously a Westerner, facing out over the river in a high-back wicker chair. Even from the back I recognize him. It’s the highest bidder.
The room is, well, it’s opulent. Julia should see it. And Ma. They would be as stunned as I am. King-size bed, silk sheets, and down pillows. A mahogany desk sits in the corner with a set of crystal champagne glasses. Gold-plated lamps. A four-foot flat-screen TV. The place smells of lilacs. At the window, a giant bouquet of fresh flowers. I take my shoes off and sink my toes into the lush purple carpet. The perfect place for a honeymoon.
I suppose this is what we fought for, Eddie and me and the others in our squad. I look around. Eddie seems to have disappeared. He’ll be back.
I pick up the phone, remembering that my own cell is back at the hotel in San Diego. “I need to make a call,” I tell the hotel operator, and I ask for an international operator. The person at the desk says it’s not necessary and that she can connect me. I give her Julia’s number. After a minute a nasal mechanical voice says: The person you are trying to reach is not accepting calls at this time.
Great.
I knock on the door between our rooms, and Towers opens it.
“How about a drink,” I say.
“It’s morning, sir.”
“Not in the States, son.”
“I’m really tired, sir.”
“We’ll find a bar. I think we’ve got a meeting.”
“But who knows we’re here, sir?”
“Meet me in the hallway,” I tell him, and close the door.
53
HO CHI MINH CITY
JANUARY 20, 2006
THEN IT’S JUST EDDIE and me. I can just make out Geltz and Greene and Tommy Colome all motionless. Leroy Williams and Bump Rogers too. Black flies cover them. They look like a blur. No way we could have gotten to them. Bob Wilcox stopped flapping some time ago. I look around. It isn’t surreal. There’s nothing dreamlike about this. It’s brittle reality pressing in on all sides; the vast universe funneling down to this spot with Eddie and me in the ditch in the rain, right here, now. Eddie hauls Bob’s leg around. He brushes the flies away, then flicks off some maggots that have already formed. He places the barrel of his rifle in the groove of Bob’s ankle. It’s quiet for some time, a sound loop of quiet except for the bugs and the leaves. Hours pass, and then Eddie turns to me, saying something. His teeth glint in the faint starlight. I move closer to hear.
With Towers following, I push open the huge door of the Majestic Hotel and step down to the sidewalk. The sunlight is blinding. I have to shield my eyes. I see that Tu Do Street is busy, as congested as I remember it. There’s a steady flow of bicycles and sputtering motorbikes, along with a few American and Japanese cars, all trying to get around a lumbering bus. Arms of bus passengers protrude from the bus windows, and riders cling to the door and even stand on the rear bumper. Dust and grit come toward us. We’re the only ones who seem to notice it.
I feel a buzzing in my head. It’s the past colliding with the present; both are trying to occupy the same space in my mind.
I shake it off and motion to Towers, and we move down the sidewalk toward the river. At the corner, two street vendors rush to us with their baskets. I smile and shake my head no at them. When we come to Bach Dan Street, Towers spots three Westerners with their backs to us, strolling along the walkway by the river. They’re wearing old Army fatigue shirts.
“I don’t get it, sir—”
“Quintyn.”
“I don’t get it, Quintyn. I thought everybody was trying to put it behind them. Why do they come back?”
“Maybe it’s soldier’s heart,” I tell him.
“Sir?”
“We’re drawn to places where we almost died, Jodee. We want to know if we really made it. And why. It’s like returning to the scene of the crime.”
“You too, Quintyn?”
“Everyone,” I tell him.
I have the urge to turn around and see if we’re being followed. But we keep going. We pass a restaurant that is just opening. A waiter is carrying a chair to the sidewalk for a European-style sitting with a river view. Just ten feet away a beggar in a battered sailor’s hat urinates against the side of the building.
We turn down an alleyway of dilapidated shops made from boards and shingles. The alley is littered with debris, and the air is filled with the smell of fresh fish and sour human odors. We pass a crowded soup stall, then a busy grocery stand, and then a man squatting on a mat carving sandals out of worn tire treads. A bicycle wobbles past us.
The alleyway seems to darken as we get farther from the main street. We pass a stall that is a video arcade, and then a barbershop stall. The people inside the barbershop are older, my age, probably, and nod to me as if they recognize me. I nod back. What we’re each seeing is a time long gone.
Between the stalls and makeshift shops are even dimmer spaces that nevertheless seem to rustle and stir. I check Towers. He’s gazing into one of those spaces, finding a half dozen of Ho Chi Minh City’s homeless. Some of them are on straw mats and staring out into the brighter alleyway. Others are covering themselves with the mats to keep the flies away. Towers looks to me questioningly.
“They’re probably the ones let out of the reeducation camps,” I explain. “But even now they won’t give them permits to work.” I nod in their direction. “This is the rest of their sentence.”
Towers looks perplexed. “But this is socialism,” he says. “What about welfare?”
“You don’t need welfare,” I tell him, “when everyone is so well off.”
We continue on until a toothless man scrambles from between two stalls and steps in front of us. He puts his fingers to his mouth as if holding a cigarette. I shake my head and start to push past him, but Towers is already reaching in his pocket. He puts some wrinkled bills into the man’s hands. The man nods and smiles a gummy smile. Others rush forward then, and I have to motion to Towers to move along.
We cross an intersection with another alley and keep going. I’m sure Towers is imagining an endless maze of alleyways.
“Where are we going, er, Quintyn? I thought we had a meeting.”
“We do,” I tell him.
“Where?”
“Wherever we stop. Let’s find a quiet place.”
“Do you know where we are, sir?”
“No idea.”
“I don’t understand.”
We come to another intersection of alleyways and I hear music, a recording of a female voice in a whining sing-song pitch. Above the door is a blinking sign: Las Vegas Bar. I point and push through the curtained doorway and past the strings of beads hanging behind it. I look back to make sure Towers is following. Then I check the room.
I feel like I’ve been here before. But of course, I haven’t. It’s just so familiar is all. A dim and cavernous room, upswept floor, crimson sashes covering the windows, booths against the walls and unlit candles on the tables. No air conditioning, but the air is slightly cooler than outside. At a table in a corner are two Japanese men, each with both arms draped around women.
I look toward the bar. Below the mirror, bottles of Old Crow line the entire shelf. A low-watt bulb hangs inside a red lantern, seeming to cast more shadows than light. At the end of the bar three girls are watching us intently. An older, fat woman with multiple
chins and a scowl whisks her hand through the air, urging the girls toward us. They move hesitantly, with practiced smiles. The first two are dressed in T-shirts and white shorts. One T-shirt is bright yellow and reads Check It Out in tall, black letters. The other T-shirt is blue and has U.S. Army blazoned across it. The third girl is wearing the more traditional ao dai, a slim, flowing gown. They are slender girls, so tiny. And young. They smile broadly, but it’s not hard to see that it’s a show for the mama-san. The smiles fade as they get closer to us. They are timid girls. They are afraid of us, what we might do to them. They should be at home or in school.
The Check It Out girl stops in front of me, looks up. I can’t help but check her out as she stands in a practiced way, her weight on one hip, her pelvis thrust out. Her tiny breasts are pushing through the stretched fabric.
I think of Julia. If she were here she’d tear the mama-san in two.
The Check It Out girl is half my size, and trembling. “What you name, Jack?” she asks, just above the sing-song of the recording.
“Jack,” I tell her.
She looks back at the mama-san. Then to me again. “How about him?” She points to Towers. “What his name?”
“He’s Jack too,” I say. “How about getting us a quiet booth?”
She points to Towers’s red hair, genuinely in awe. “I never see before,” she says.
She reaches up, and Towers bends so she can touch his hair. She’s fascinated but finally withdraws her hand and takes his arm and nestles close to him. “Come on, Jack,” she says, forcing another smile. She leads us to a rear booth. Before Towers can slide in, the girl in the blue U.S. Army shirt glides in first and pats the side of her hips for Towers to come close. He does. The girl in the ao dai slides in on his other side. The Check It Out girl slides in beside me. They’re still in awe of Towers’s hair.
The Check It Out girl says, “What you real name, Jack?”
“Quintyn,” I say, above the sound of the singing. She points to Towers as if to ask about his name. “Ask him,” I tell her. “He can speak for himself.”