Old Man

by David A. Poulsen

  I could have just cut and pasted something from Wikipedia or some other site, but I wanted to write it out in my own words. This is My Lai …

  March 16, 1968.

  American soldiers went into two small villages — one was called My Lai, pronounced Me Lie. The soldiers killed over four hundred people — unarmed men, and women, and children. They herded them together and machine gunned them, bayoneted them, even killed the animals that lived in the villages. There were pictures of groups of women holding their little children and babies just a few minutes before they were all shot. One old man was thrown into a well and then shot after he was down there. Some soldiers refused to kill innocent civilians, but most didn’t. When the world found out what had happened there that day, twenty-six American soldiers were tried for murder and other war crimes. One was convicted.

  I was still sitting at the computer looking at one of the pictures — it was these people, all women and little kids dead in this ditch — when the old man came down to get me. I minimized before he saw what I was looking at.

  “We’re ready to go. Come on up and help us with the stuff.”

  I shut off the computer, stood up, and followed him to the stairs. I was having trouble getting the pictures I’d seen from My Lai out of my head.

  When we were back in the room, I saw that Mr. Vinh had one of the duffel bags over his shoulder and was just reaching for the other one.

  The old man and I both said “I’ll take that” at about the same time. The old man got there first and took the duffel bag. I offered to take the one Mr. Vinh had slung over what there was of his shoulder, but he shook his head and made for the door.

  The old man pointed to a briefcase-looking thing on the bed. “You can bring that. Don’t set it down, and don’t lose it.” It was one of those old-style ones, rectangle shape, and there was masking tape wrapped around it a few times to keep it together.

  Great. I get to look like a total nerd out there.

  “And leave your cellphone here. Where we’re going you won’t need it, and you could lose it.”

  I tucked the phone into my duffel bag, which wasn’t making the trip, and shoved the duffel bag in a corner, not hidden but not totally out in the open. My style of security.

  I pulled my backpack on, picked up the briefcase, and followed Mr. Vinh down the hotel stairs. The old man came down behind me.

  Don’t set it down, and don’t lose it. So it’s either a bomb, or drugs, or money. And I’m carrying it. Lovely.

  5

  I know now why the iPod was invented. It’s for driving through Vietnam in a Land Rover that looks like it could quit at any moment and never ever go again with two guys, one who doesn’t speak English and the other who doesn’t feel like talking. In any language.

  For a couple of hours I looked out the window, especially when we passed through some village. The brief case was at my feet, which didn’t leave a lot of room for actual feet, but god forbid I should lose our drug stash.

  Ever play that game where you count horses while you’re driving? I played that same game except with pagodas. Since I was the only one playing, I won twenty-six to nothing.

  Then I fell asleep. When I woke up, I discovered something else about the Land Rover. It didn’t have air conditioning. It was the hottest day since we’d arrived — as in freaking hot — and after I sat there soaking in my own sweat for a while, I pulled off my T-shirt and stashed it in my backpack. Went with the bare chest look. That helped a little.

  We seemed to be driving along or near a coast. I could see water … sometimes in the distance, sometimes right alongside us. I had decided I wouldn’t ask the old man where we were going or how long it would take to get there. I figured he wouldn’t answer anyway and if he did, it would be one of those answers that didn’t make any sense.

  He was like he’d been that first night in Saigon. Looking at everything as we drove, his ass on barbecue coals — big-time intense.

  More iPod music. We passed rice paddies, and little villages, (the huts at last), and fields of crops that I didn’t recognize. And, of course, we went through jungle — although most of that was just on the edges, so it didn’t look like much more than a big forest. Which, come to think of it, is what jungle is, right?

  We were on something called the AH 1 — the old man did tell me that much. A main highway in Vietnam. We were on that road for about five hours — two stops — one for a pee break, the other for coffee that had the colour of a urine sample and a taste that didn’t convince me it wasn’t.

  I was bored, and I was getting stiff from the back seat of the Land Rover. We were in a sort of mountain range, so the view was pretty good for a while. The ocean, if that’s what it was, was below us now and still on our right. Endless dense, bushy looking forest to our left. As I shifted my body for the fiftieth time, I could see we were approaching a big place. Civilization. The old man turned around and looked at me for the first time since we’d left Ho Chi Minh City.

  “Da Nang. Big air base during the war.”

  That was it. He turned back and faced the front again. Yeah, thanks for the in-depth guided tour. I pretty well know everything there is to know now.

  We came down out of the mountain range and onto flatter ground. Just before we got to the edge of the city, we left the AH 1 and headed west toward some hills, more mountains and jungle terrain off in the distance. This was a shorter leg of the trip, less than an hour until we turned right into what looked like a gravel driveway except that it went for quite a ways. When we stopped, I wasn’t sure why. Then I noticed what looked like a camp tucked into some trees.

  A couple of tents, pretty big ones. A Vietnamese woman standing by a big campfire between the tents. There was a big pot over the fire, and she was looking into it. Didn’t look up at us at all.

  You ever see the play Macbeth, you know, Shakespeare? They did it at our school last year — I ran the lights for it. The woman by the fire looked like one of the witches from Macbeth. Just needed two more witches and you could have had that …

  Double, double, toil and trouble;

  Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

  It’s not like she was ugly or nasty looking; it’s just that standing there all bent over and stirring whatever was in the big pot that was sitting over the fire, well, that’s what she reminded me of. Mr. Vinh turned off the Land Rover. He and the old man climbed out.

  I pulled my earphones, put the iPod into my backpack, and followed them out into the outdoors … and what felt like a sauna. I got my T-shirt and pulled it on over my head. Modesty — there was a lady present.

  Mr. Vinh walked over and looked into the pot. Grunted. I didn’t know if the grunt meant, mmm, delicious or what is that slop? I could smell whatever it was she was cooking, and I would have said somewhere in between.

  The old man said something to Mr. Vinh, who shook his head and said something back. The old man spoke again, I think he said the same thing that he’d said before, but this time he threw in a bunch of gestures and pointing, somewhere into the brush behind the camp. Mr Vinh responded with some arm waving and pointing of his own. His pointing was at the pot. My guess was that the old man wanted to get going, and Mr. Vinh wanted to sample whatever was on the menu first.

  The lady stirred some more, but still hadn’t looked up at any of us. She said something, and that set Mr. Vinh off again with yelling and more waving.

  The old man shook his head and walked over to me. Pissed off. “Might as well sit down. He wants to eat before we go on.”

  I was with Mr. Vinh on this one — especially if what we were going to eat was edible — meaning not noodles.

  “Sit down where?” I looked around. There was a shortage of lawn chairs, picnic tables and blankets.

  “On the goddamn ground.”

  Okay, that clinched it, the old man was not a happy dude.

  I found a spot where there were maybe three blades of grass and a couple of weeds and sat. Mr. Vinh brought me a wooden
bowl and chopsticks.

  Noodles. Just kill me now.

  “What a nice surprise,” I told him.

  The old man helped himself to a bowl of the noodles, threw me a canteen of water from his duffel bag and one of our sandwiches. He sat next to me.

  “Don’t take all day eating that.”

  “You know something, you’re starting to be a pain in the ass to be around.”

  He set his bowl down, and I figured I was about to find out just how tough this sixty-some-year-old guy was. I waited to get hit.

  He shrugged. “You know something — you’re right. I’m sorry. I’m way over the top here. Sorry. Enjoy the noodles, I know they’re your favourite.” He grinned at me.

  “That Mr. Vinh’s wife?”

  He nodded, slurped noodles. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  We ate. The noodles weren’t bad. There was other stuff mixed in with them, vegetables of some kind — no bugs. The sandwiches were tomato. Kind of plain.

  “You fight around here? Some battle?”

  He nodded. “Among other places. This was the last one.”

  “Last one for you? Or of the whole war?”

  “Last one for me. Tal was in more shit after this.”

  I’d almost forgotten about Tal.

  The old man was working the contents of his bowl pretty hard and not looking at me. I was starting to figure out his signals. He didn’t want to talk anymore. I finished the noodles, got up, and took my bowl and chopsticks to the lady, who was still busy with the pot on the fire.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Vinh. Excellent noodles.”

  She didn’t say anything, but she did look up. First time she’d done that. Grunted. That seemed to be an important part of the Vinhs’ vocabulary. I grunted back at her, hoping I was being polite.

  She went back to work. Mr. Vinh was sitting close to the fire, eating. I wondered when Mrs. Vinh ate.

  The old man came over to where I was. He looked at Mr. Vinh. “Ready to go?”

  Mr. Vinh stood up. Threw the last of his noodles on the ground. Didn’t look happy — although I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tell when either of the Vinhs were happy.

  “You might want to use the facilities before we go.” The old man pointed at the edge of the jungle out behind the tents. “And use this — generously.” He passed me a can of mosquito spray.

  “I’m fine on the bathroom thing, but I will have a shot of that.”

  I sprayed my arms, the backs of my hands, and a little around my neck, basically exposed skin. The old man grabbed the can out of my hands and started spraying me like it was bathroom spray and I was a bad smell.

  “Okay, take it easy.” I backed away. “That stuff’s toxic.”

  “So are the mosquitoes.”

  “What now?” I asked as he sprayed himself.

  “A little hike.” The old man heaved one of the duffel bags up over his shoulder. Mr. Vinh did the same thing with the other one. I noticed he had the machete-looking thing in one hand. I hoped it was for knocking down a vine or two and not for fighting off boa constrictors and stuff.

  My job was the backpack and canteens. There were three canteens. And the dorky looking briefcase. I had a little trouble getting it all sorted and hanging from various places on my body, but after a few tries I was more or less organized.

  “Let’s make a move,” the old man said, but he stepped back to let Mr. Vinh lead. Apparently, Mr. Vinh knew better than the old man where we were going.

  I fell in behind the old man, but on the way out of the camp, I looked back at Mrs. Vinh. She had stepped away from the fire and was smoking a cigarette. She looked up at me. Nodded. I waved a little wave at her and turned to follow Mr. Vinh and the old man.

  I wondered if we’d be coming back here other than to get the Land Rover. I knew there was at least one tent in one of the duffel bags so maybe not. We hadn’t gone more than a few hundred metres when I learned my next big lesson about Vietnam. There’s forest and there’s woods and there’s brush and thickets and growth and timberland. All of them together don’t make jungle. Jungle makes jungle. And five minutes out of that camp, we were up to our asses in jungle.

  Mr. Vinh was very good with the machete. No wasted motion. In fact, it didn’t look like he was working all that hard. He whacked away and carved a path where there hadn’t been one before. The machete had to have been ultra sharp. I decided not to do anything to upset Mr. Vinh.

  6

  If I’d thought Mr. Vinh’s camp felt like a sauna, I revised my opinion real quick. I figured out that back there was air-conditioned comfort. This was a sauna.

  I had to walk fast because when he wasn’t carving a hole in the jungle, Mr. Vinh had this little trotting thing he did which covered a lot of ground in a short time. The old man had a long stride so he was right behind Mr. Vinh.

  I had to haul ass to keep them in sight. And I noticed that neither of them looked back. That meant I either kept up or got lost in the jungle to be eaten by whatever creatures were making the noises I heard all around us.

  I thought that was just in the movies. But there were noises, animal and bird noises, and not one of them sounded like any animals or birds I knew. The noises died away as we got closer to whatever creatures were out there and started up again behind us as soon as we passed them. No, not behind us … behind me. I was at the back. I hoped none of the noisemakers was hungry.

  Then things got worse. We stopped at this swamp-looking body of water that stretched out in front of us for what looked like half a football field. I finally caught up to the old man and Mr. Vinh. They were at the edge of the swamp and the old man was digging into the duffel bag he’d been carrying. Pulled out two sets of rubber boots. Rubber boots with attitude. About a metre long.

  “Hip waders,” he said. “Put them on.”

  “We’re not going in there?” I looked at him like he was nuts. Which he was if he thought I was setting foot in that … water. With or without hip waders. “It’s the colour of sewage and it doesn’t smell good and who knows what’s in there.”

  “So, what’s your point?”

  “My point is I’m not going in there.”

  “Okay, first of all, nothing bad will happen to you in there. You won’t drown, and you won’t get eaten by a great white shark.”

  “That’s because no shark in his right mind would be caught dead in that crap.”

  “Second of all, we’re crossing this, and if you decide you’re not going to, then I’ll see you back at the truck. You can leave now.”

  I looked back at the jungle we’d just come through. I thought about the noises I’d heard in there. Plus, even though there was sort of a path, I wasn’t totally positive I could find my way back to Mrs. Vinh and the campfire.

  “Are you sure there isn’t a better way? Like maybe we could go around this?”

  “There’s no better way. If Mr. Vinh says we have to cross this, then we have to cross it. Put on the damn hip waders.”

  Mr. Vinh launched into some Vietnamese lecture. Sounded like an English teacher when you don’t hand something in.

  The old man nodded. “He wants us to hurry up.”

  “Give me the damn hip waders.”

  They were too big, and I had trouble walking in them. The old man took bungee cords and wrapped them around my legs a couple of times to keep them on. He made the cords so tight they hurt.

  “You’ve cut off my circulation.”

  “Then we better get going. It’d be a bitch if your legs fell off out there in the middle.” He waved his arm in the direction of the swamp.

  I noticed Mr. Vinh didn’t have hip waders. “Is he going to cross like that?”

  The old man shrugged. “He’s tougher than us.”

  “He’s stupider than us.”

  The old man actually cracked a smile. “Let’s go.” He nodded at Mr. Vinh, who did his little trot-shuffle step up to the swamp, then stepped out into it.

  I was relieved that he didn’
t disappear straight down and out of sight. He held his arms out to the side like he was balancing, but he moved pretty fast. I was wishing the guy had more than one speed.

  The old man gathered up the duffel bag and stepped into the water, then moved off a few metres into the swamp. But this time he at least stopped and looked back to see how I was getting along. I had my canteens and backpack all arranged, but holding the briefcase up chest high meant I couldn’t use my arms to balance myself.

  “This place takes brackish to a whole other level.” I don’t think anybody heard me.

  There are earthworms that move faster than I was moving right then, and I figured it wouldn’t be long before I heard about it. But this time the old man was patient. Even said all that encouraging stuff. “Doin’ just fine, Nate…. Looking good, buddy.” That kind of stuff.

  And I was looking good until a little past the midway point of our crossing. The water was up to about the middle of my thighs. I think my foot must have slipped off a rock on the bottom, and I lost my balance. I tried like crazy to get my feet back under me, but as I was scrambling around, I tripped over something — a submerged log or something and fell backwards into the swamp.

  I was only totally in the water for like a second and a half, but I swallowed what I was sure was a lethal dose of swamp water. I scrambled and splashed my way back to my feet sputtering, choking and trying to say “Shit,” all at the same time.

  The amazing thing is I kept the briefcase from going in the water. Kept my arms up as I was falling. Could’ve drowned, probably poisoned myself, but I saved a briefcase I’d never even seen the inside of. Genius.

  “You okay?”

  I had a feeling the old man was trying to keep from laughing.

  “Just ducky,” I said.

  The rest of the way to the other side went okay considering I was feeling like I’d been slimed. The water was cool so that part had been okay. At least it got some of the sweat off me.

  By the time the old man and I got the hip waders off and back in the duffel bag, Mr. Vinh had disappeared into the jungle ahead. I hoped the old man knew where he’d gone.