Bui Doi
By
Byron Edgington
March 18th 1998, Ton Son Nhat International Airport. The seat belt chimed and Jack Kinsey unlatched, along with his fellow passengers on Malaysian Air flight 520. The transit from Kuala Lumpur had been uneventful, the airplane cruising over the azure waters of the Philippine Sea. When the 757 entered Vietnam’s airspace, Jack’s stomach tightened, and his heart rate climbed. It was the same reaction he’d had on a similar flight on an old Boeing 707 thirty years before. On that plane the flight attendants had been old enough to be his mother.
“Welcome back to frickin’ Viet-Nam,” he whispered. “Doc, I hope you’re right about this.”
The airplane taxied to the gate. The sign on the terminal sent a chill through him. ‘Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City.’ After thirty years, he was back in country. Shuffling to the front exit of the plane, determined to make himself look somber, he tried to suppress a smile. It didn’t work. The Malaysian girl in her perfectly tailored flight attendant outfit lifted her tiny hand, and cocked her head to one side, her smile an Asian sun spreading its warmth. “Thank you for flying with us today, sir.”
Jack teared up, swallowing hard to resist the glut of turmoil roiling his chest. “Thank you.”
“Sir?”
He wheeled toward the girl. “What?”
“Welcome back,” she said.
Jack stopped in the plane’s doorway. He nodded, wondering how the girl knew..? Then a passenger bumped him. “Sorry, man, sorry.”
“Hey! I mean, no problem.” Jack stepped off the plane into the afternoon heat of Vietnam. Doc Ramsay had told him what might happen. “….be surprised, Jack,” he said. “The trip back could be therapeutic. You might discover things about yourself you never imagined.”
Jack didn’t know how to respond. It all sounded so airey-fairey, the whole idea of returning to a place he couldn’t wait to leave all those years ago. Then the diagnosis, the bucket list, and Sandy’s demand that he go ahead with what Ramsay had prescribed. “I’ve never told you what to do, Jack, but… Call it doctor’s orders”
“Medicare should cover it, then.”
“Not like we can’t afford it, Jack. You can’t afford not to go back.”
His wife was right. He had demons to banish, ancient wounds that needed to be healed. “Hell, it can’t hurt. Maybe they’ve cleaned the mess up. Always be a bunch of commies, though.” He’d taken Doc Ramsay’s advice, and Sandy’s and called an agency. Once he’d made arrangements, he even called Ramsay to tell him. “Better be right, Doc, I don’t have a lot of time, according to your so called specialists.”
“You owe it to yourself, Jack.”
“You think it’ll help, I’ll go.”
“Can’t hurt. You’ve been pretty angry for a lot of years.”
“They stole my youth, Doc.”
“So go reclaim it,” Ramsay said. “And good luck to you.”
Jack stood at the top of the offloading ramp, sniffing the air, soaking in the view from the airport as fellow travelers bumped and barged past him. He could hardly believe what he saw. It was a scene frozen in amber, as if he’d never left. Wet, perfumed air bathed him, its thick scent a mixture too rich to name. Palm trees heavy with coconuts, their serrated branches danced in the wind. Swarms of bicycles weaved in and out, mixing with the throng, a chaotic choreography.
Then he looked though younger eyes and his heart raced. His brand new fatigues chafed in the searing heat. Fear shivered through him as fellow GIs trooped down the ramp with him. Tactical jets screamed overhead. Distant thunder in a clear blue sky had confused him. The stink of burning shit stung his nose, gagging him. Buses with barred windows awaited his flight, their drivers leaning against them with M-16s on their shoulders.
Jack blinked and the vision changed. The little flight attendant called to him again. “Okay, sir?”
“Huh? Oh, yes, thank you.” He looked out at the scene again. Hunchbacked old women plodded under sagging loads, balancing baskets under poles on bony shoulders. Smoke-sputtering motorbikes puttered along, sandaled young men threading them through the crowd. Skinny girls in pink and green ao dais rode sideways behind the daring boys, holding their conical hats with slender hands. A mud-gray water buffalo lumbered along, a child prodding it with a fragile stick.
Jack inhaled, the steamy Asian air filling his lungs. An odd wave of relief washed over him. “Maybe it’s working, Doc.” He left the terminal and entered the crowd.
“Dollah for Coke, GI?”
“Cheap smoke, GI?”
“You pay dollah, GI?”
“America good, GI, you want buy?
The crowd of kids massed around. Eight, then twelve, then twenty of them swarmed around him, tiny arms thrust up, a sea of kids holding cigarettes, warm Coke, Zippo lighters engraved with unit designations, helicopters, army helmets. Kids shoved forward, round faces, black, bowl cut hair, most of them barefoot and wearing grimy, too small shirts with mismatched buttons, navels bulging from brown, swollen bellies.
“You buy, GI?” “Coke one dollah, GI.” “Smoke cheap, GI!” “America numbah one GI, you buy?”
Jack shook his head, waved them away. “Not today,” he said. “No smoke, no Coke.” He waded through the knot of kids, pressing toward a line of waiting taxis by the airport entrance. “Numbah ten, GI.” “Why no buy?” “Only dollah, GI!” Shrill young voices rang in his ears as he climbed into the car and shut the door. “Little Saigon Hotel, please.”
The driver jammed the shift into drive and eyed his mirror. “Little Saigon, yes?”
“Yes, sir, please. Good hotel?”
“Yes, good hotel, you see.”
Like a school of fish, the kids flowed together in synch beside the taxi, a mass of baby faces at the window as the vehicle eased from the curb. “Kids,” he said.
The driver eyed his rearview again. “Bui doi,” he said.
Jack leaned back in the seat, his carry on bag between his knees. “Bui doi.”
“Bui doi,” the driver repeated. “Dust of life.”
Just as he said it a face flashed past, a young fellow propelling a bicycle through the knot of people hugging the curb. The boy zipped by, glanced at Jack and bared his teeth. Legs pumping the bike, the boy zigged right, lurched ahead of the cab and vanished. “Bui doi,” Jack said.
“Sir?”
“Nothing. Just…nothing.”
The driver left the airport, cruising down the Truong Chin road. The thoroughfare was an ocean of taxis, Vespas, ancient rickshaws and bicycles seething past. Garish red and green banners skirled from light poles. Traffic signals blinked, drivers ignoring them. Top-heavy buses swayed side to side stacked with riders, suitcases, bags of rice and assorted small appliances. A young couple zipped by his window, barely missing the taxi’s mirror. The driver’s T-shirt read: ‘I survived Saigon.’
Jack stared at the mass of humanity teeming around him. “Just the same,” he said.
“You come back, GI?” The driver’s eyes filled the mirror again.
“Yes. Yes, I did. I was here…”
“Soldier in American war?”
“Uh, yes, sir, I sure was.” Jack tried to puzzle out the man’s age, wondering if..? No, too young, maybe thirty, no more than that. He hesitated. “Did your..? Where did you..?”
“My father part of ARVN, not stay alive. He go away, not come back. Sister say he not alive any more.”
“I’m sorry.” Jack felt the tears again, the feelings he’d tried to tame but couldn’t, the reason—he knew damn well—that he’d put off this trip for so long. “Damn you, Ramsay, I should never have…”
“Sorry, sir? You okay?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Sin loi.”
The man eyed the mirror once more. “No sin loi,” he said. “Vietnam and America friends now. We okay, yes?”
“Yes…I hope we…I hope we can be friends.”
The driver entered Le Loi Street and angled along, dodging more bikes and cyclos. Jack saw the sign ahead. ‘Little Sai Gon Hotel.’ The driver pulled left against traffic, easing into a slot in front. He slipped the car in park and jumped out. “Little Saigon, sir,” he said. “Good hotel, you see.”
Jack climbed from the cab and joined the man who had already retrieved his carry on, and was waiting by the hotel’s entrance. “Thank you.” Jack peeled off a wad of piasters. “I appreciate the ride. Friends, okay?”
They shook hands. The man took the bills, grinned, and turned away. “Friends okay?” he called to Jack as he slammed the taxi door and disappeared into traffic.
Jack stood at the entrance of the hotel, mesmerized. He couldn’t force himself to go inside. Not yet. He looked up and down Le Loi Street, across to the Saigon River where dozens of sampans drifted along. Kids fished with cane poles. Old women slapped shirts and pants against the water, wrung them out, strung them up on nearby rickety racks. He took a deep breath, sucked in smells of salty fish, bubbling brown rice and the sweetish-sour aroma of Asian food from smoky stalls clustered on the nearby sidewalk. Then he looked south, down Le Loi Street toward Cong Vien Park. Something moved him that way, a push he knew not to resist. It was the boy again, that face, those teeth and those clear, haunting eyes. Hypnotic. Irresistible. “Who is..?” The bike vanished again, its rider pumping the pedals, as if trying to outrace time itself. Jack blinked the image gone. “Never could sleep on an airplane,” he muttered. “I should check in, get some rest.” But his feet marched forward, toward the park. Dragging the bag behind him, Jack started walking, back the direction he’d just come, something powerful pulling him, forcing him toward the green patch ahead, a tiny haven of calm in the sea of disruption.
A young woman in a white ao dai, wearing a ‘Little Saigon Hotel’ tab rushed up behind him, yelling. “Sir, you stay Little Saigon, yes?”
He turned. “Uh…yes…but first…” He pointed at the park, turned back around and marched away, the girl waving at him to stop. “We take baggage, sir? You check in bag, yes?”
“Why does everyone want to take..?” Jack held onto the bag and waved at her. “Sin loi. Back soon,” he yelled. “Jesus, Kinsey, relax, the girl’s just trying to help.” Then he continued on, eyes focused on Cong Vien Park a block away, where he thought the boy had gone. He scurried across the street, dodging bikes and Vespas, nearly tripping on an old man’s push cart. “Sorry, sin loi, sin loi.” The man smiled, black teeth framed by a wispy mustache. “Sin loi, okay?” The fellow wandered off.
He wished he’d given the girl the baggage. It was just a carry on, but it was holding him back. Dragging it, he pressed on, the serenity of the green spot ahead pulling him, beckoning him like a siren call. Then he saw the boy again. The vision flashed past, lightning at midnight bursting into view and then gone. He was perhaps twenty years old. Twenty-five tops. Caucasian, or mostly so. Hair blonde. Eyes green? Hazel? A white shirt with a button-down collar, just like his old Peoria High uniform. “Damn, where did you go?” He’d pay more attention next time, try to see the boy better. Jack’s arms tingled. The hair on his back shivered. He scanned the bustling crowd, eyes darting here and there, trying to find the boy again. Jack’s mind reeled. He’d looked in a mirror, and seen himself. “Jesus, I need to get some sleep.”
The next thing he knew a kid tugged at his carry on. “Take bag, GI?” Jack wrestled the bag away. “Leave it alone, you little…”
“Help with bag, GI, take hotel? Take Little Saigon?”
“Get away from me, you little creep, I’ll carry my own damn bag…” Jack’s
chest swarmed.
Frowning, the kid backed off, staring at Jack through slitted eyes. “Okay, GI,” he said. “Sin loi.”
“Bui doi,” Jack said. He scoured the crowd of people milling around Cong Vien Park. A couple had spread a blanket and arranged food on it, chopsticks jutting from each white box. Laughing schoolgirls touched each other’s shoulders and arms, their hair whipping in the wind. A toddler took three steps, then stumbled and fell and a young mother clapped for him. A cop paraded nearby, his crisscrossed bandolier an ‘X’ on his chest. “White mice,” Jack whispered. “Jesus, nothing’s changed. And everything has.”
The vision of the sentry took him back again: March 1969. The bus with barred windows lumbered into the compound at Bien Hoa, the 90th repo-depot. Jack slogged off with fifty other GIs, duffel bags banging seatbacks, a sergeant yelling, “Didi,mao, war’s gone’ be over ‘fore y’all get there!” That night, huddled against the flimsy wall of the hooch he heard concussive thumps, too many to count, his arms tingling in terror at not knowing: Outgoing? Incoming? The next day he woke to the smell of burning shit, thick black smoke erupting into the Asian sky as an old papasan tossed diesel fuel on the festering mess, and flames jiggered up. At the sandbagged mess hall he hunkered over sloppy scrambled eggs, a tasteless muffin and bacon swimming in grease. Then he climbed aboard the deuce-and-a-half to deploy to his unit.
On the ride to Vung Tau he watched the beautifully hostile countryside roll by, only four men with M-16s protecting thirty FNGs, including him, a scared kid who’d managed to get his ass drafted and sent here from Peoria, his grades at Bradley dropping too far, and too fast. As the truck rumbled along the highway, ARVN soldiers passed, heading back toward Saigon. The panorama of Vietnam flashed by—rice paddies shimmering, a water buffalo mangling its cud, women calf deep in paddie water, their black pants rolled up, bent over new rice. He held his steel pot on tight, watched his fellow new guys for signs of fear, watched veterans for signs, of what he didn’t know, and he started counting the days.
A year later, when it was over and he stepped aboard the freedom bird, he didn’t recognize the man in the mirror when he’d shaved that last morning. March 1970, and he’d survived, at least physically. Within twenty-four hours he was back on Kenwood Avenue in Peoria. His best pal, Ronnie Champlin threw a party for him at their favorite place, Hotties near the Bradley campus. Kate Sherman was there, the girl who’d taken his virginity, Moose Forman, his old nemesis from the Peoria High wrestling team, Lara Morris, the girl who’d written to him all those months, always signing off ‘…stay away from those Cong, you hear!’ All there to greet the Jack Kinsey they once knew.
Home by ten that night, he’d seen them finish their LaBatts and drift away, one by one, heads shaking, whispering to each other. Moose had been the only one who’d stuck around, and how odd was that? Did he say something wrong? Offend them somehow? Was it his lack of enthusiasm for what they talked about? Did he not care that Peoria High was headed for the semi-finals? That Angie Ward made it all the way to state at Miss Illinois? Didn’t he care about Chuck Waterman’s blue ribbon with the FFA at the state fair last fall? And why was his mom so quiet? Dad had been gone six years, it wasn’t that. Wasn’t she glad to see him? To know he’d survived the war?
The first year back had been filled with odd yearnings, restless boredom and the strangest urge to go back. He saw an ad in the Peoria Journal-Star about a company looking for Vietnam vets to travel to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia to represent them: ‘Exciting opportunities in South Asia,’ the ad said. He read it twice, clipped it out, even put a resume’ together, but never sent it. He awoke every day before sunrise, ate very little, shunned old friends, an easy thing since they’d drifted away from him. He answered the doorbell one afternoon, late August, and saw Ronnie Champlin waiting outside, ball and glove on his arm. He ignored the rapping, crept to the basement and waited for his best pal to leave.
His mom mentioned help, getting back in touch, reaching out. “People love you, Jack, they want to be with you.”
“Just let me figure it out, mom, okay? Lighten up.”
She’d hugged herself, backed from his room. “Just trying to help.”
When he shaved in the morning he had to look away, or close his eyes, run the razor by feel. It took years, but Doc Ramsay finally talked him into going back, after his divorce from Lara, and after she’d left for Rock Island with the kids. “Gotta figure it out, Jack,” Ramsay said. “….be surprised what you may find there.”
Entering Cong Vien Park, he shook off the vision. “Long time ago, Jack,” he muttered to himself. “Jesus, I should’a never…” Then he saw the boy again, the quick, easy smile, the flashing teeth, the vision racing by and then gone. Jack startled, and stared. He scanned the crowd again. “C’mon, who are you? Come back, dammit!” The boy was gone. But that face. Those features. Jack had looked in a mirror and seen himself, the young, carefree kid he’d been before he stepped off the plane at Ton Son Nhat all those years ago. “God dammit, where’d you go?”
His arms chilled. He saw his last night in Vietnam, the night before his DEROS. What was that guy’s name? Larry Farber, that’s it. A spec four he’d palled around with, one of the cannon cockers from divarty, down near Vung Tau. Farber had taken him into Saigon his last night in Vietnam. “C’mon, Kinsey, let’s get you some Asian tail before you go back to the world.” Jack had begged off. “No way, Farber, I got a seat on the freedom bird tomorrow, I’m rackin’ out early.”
“Bullshit, c’mon!” Farber had dragged him to the jeep, and the two headed for Tu Do Street. He’d hit three bars, and then he met her, the tiny girl outside the last one called ‘Hula Hoops,’ where the garish sign read, ‘Happiness & Wonderful.’ Jack couldn’t get away from the girl. She grabbed his sleeve, pulled him along dodging motos, bicycles, taxis as he reeled, too drunk to resist. She banged open a dingy door, and propelled him into a dim back room. She was out of her clothes in seconds, her tiny features aglow in the dark, a bare mattress on the floor. She crawled onto it, and motioned for him. It was over in two minutes. Jack tossed a handful of piasters at the girl, crammed himself into his fatigues and barged out the door onto Tu Do Street. Waiting for him there, Farber had slapped his back. “Feel better now, GI?”
Jack crossed Cong Vien Park, scouring the crowd, looking for the boy. He was nowhere to be found. “Can’t be,” he whispered. “That was thirty years ago. No way…he’s twenty-five, max. No way.” He dragged his baggage out of the park, and headed back on Le Loi Street to the Little Saigon Hotel.
Five days in Ho City and he was ready to go home. Watching from the taxi window, the stream of motos, Vespas, mingling, mixing, massing humanity on the road to Tan Son Nhat, he looked everywhere, trying to find the boy, his mirror image. Jack Kinsey never expected to be sad to leave Vietnam. Never anticipated the depth of sorrow that swarmed in his heart when the driver pulled to the curb at International Departures.
“Home in America, GI?”
“Uh…yes, I’m going to America.”
“Come back Vietnam again?”
“Maybe…I don’t know…”
“Hope you found good time, GI.”
“Yes, I did, I found a very good time. Cám ơn… thank you.”
“Cám ơn, sir, come back Vietnam someday!”
Jack eased from the taxi. He emptied his wallet of piasters, and gave all the bills to the smiling driver. The man bowed, hands together. “Cám ơn, sir! Thank you.” Then he waved and drove off. Jack looked across the crowd again. The boy was gone. And he would never see him again.
