Two times in a row

It happened twice in a row, not to be redundant. This takes me back to Vietnam, the second half of my junior year abroad. I sat in the back row, nursing the battery of my Ipod, letting unruly and just plain inappropriate songs cast a soundtrack to the view. It was a combination of lush green mountains, jutting sharp limestone out of the dense jungle that clung to it. Then there were rice paddies, and swerving roads that weaved in and out, ascending and the descending elevations. We passed through rain. The driver maneuvered the bus like it was a bicycle, never moving over the line, crossing the boundaries of law of the road.

Rain came and went, but in the bursts of its lifespan, it would chuck it down. Slamming pellets of water on the bus, making it seem all to many times, that none of us, the lot of American students and three Vietnamese advisors would actually make it to our destination, a beach town hours away. 

As a teenager, I saw a woman die on a plane. I was too young to fathom her death. All I saw was an older woman stand up, walk to the bathroom and shut the door. She never came out. Eventually the young woman, who I later learned was her niece got up and knocked on the door. She became frantic when there was no answer, just the hum of the engine keeping us in the air. When several attendants came to her side, the force opened the door and out slumped her body, plopping to the ground, her head making a thump and it was the last to land on the matted carpet. Doctors were called, she was dragged into a galley away from the rest of the plane to save us the drama. All things said and done, six doctors tried to revive her, but it was no use, she had come down to Florida to die, we were all later told. Her niece sobbed, but somehow managed to recognize that she was taken at a ripe old age. The plane had landed, and so, My parents, myself and the rest of the plane were held up for thirty minutes while the paramedics removed her body. I remember the white blanket placed over her body. The authorities removing her and letting the niece follow with her. People spoke and chewed bits of pieces of what they knew. The story I had heard mulled over and over in my head, but by the baggage claim I had seemed to have forgotten everything.

Flash forward quite a few years, and here I am sitting on a bus, in the rain, in Vietnam with the battery moments away from running out, the music getting ready to leave me. Even without the soundtrack I glued my face the window, blocks of glass, the moisture of my breath slapping and sticking me, transfixed at the landscape. We turned a corner and the bus slowed down, it didn't stopped but it changed to a snail's pace. It was over on my left, a large group of people. Their were several police officers on the scene and bystanders had encircled the object of fascination in a crescent formation, leaving a whole area of viewing for those of us on the bus. The speed picked up and as we went by what everyone was staring at, we were not crawling, certainly not speeding but moving. On the ground lay a human being, a young man. His age I could not guess. His body was tan, he had a dark shirt on and what looked to be shorts. His eyes were closed and his mouth open, blood around his head. His leg was twisted almost the point were it was resting on his face, and he was clearly dead. No one touched him, and the police seemed to be surmising what could have happened to this person. I didn't know either, I was just a fool on the bus, surrounded by a lot more metal than he must have been. His moped was feet away from him, also a spectacle that was gathering onlookers. Its smashed headlight and oil also signifying that it to died along with its driver. The blood was so dark. The faces of the officers were so serious, and yet this moment seemed to just pass. On the bus their was the silences stifled by the occasional, "oh my god, that's terrible", all in all the silence seemed to be the option that most went for, including myself. I was so many seats behind everyone else, in the back of the bus, we were all resting, and a dead man had just come into our midst and escaped like that, I am sure that hours from them he was the last person I was thinking about.

Nha Trang was a beautiful place. The beaches were splendor. The water was crystal clear and the restaurants were abundant with delicious fare that all could enjoy. It was a vacation spot for the rich and the Austrailians, Swedes, and other foreigners who like to see Vietnam. We spent nights at the bars, our days on the beach and long spans of time for us to do whatever we wanted. Some of these activities included massages, all kosher I assure you. Taking a mud bath with two friends, not as nice as I thought it would be, but still a good time. The last time I had taken a mud bath was when I was close to the age of ten. 

With flimsy helmets, we rented mopeds and set off, stopping and taking pictures, eating delicious soups with hundreds of different parts of the pig shoved in them. We would look in music shops, stop at cafes, and point out things we should do later. I even remember stopping at an abandoned fort, and taking a picture, one of my close friends looking like Hunter S. Thompson. I felt like a rogue journalist, with my photographer and international wise guy. I think we were all stealing that dream from one another's heads. The truth of the matter that we were only catering ourselves to the usual tourist attractions, a mudbath, massages, and then restaurants, were we dined upon international cuisine.

However, we did make one trip out of the way. It was the side area, were much of the population of the city actually resided. It was past the old airport, and it roads became slick with mud. The houses grew closer together and people seemed a little more surprised for three Americans to be walking around in an area like this. We took a lot of pictures, smiled at alot of children. The faces of so many beautiful people hit in an SD frame, digital, or the classic snap camera, thirty two shots, one of which might look decent.

We came back out and finally hit the asphalt again. As we passed the bus station, we were stopped by a crowd. A large group of people gathering on the road can mean only one thing, an accident. As we slowly eased our moped to the scene, all that was left on the road, was a large, thick pool of bright red blood and a small rubber shoe.  A child had been hit, her body dragged over to the side of the road. It was lifeless in a blue dress. I did not see anyone crying, it was till just at the moment were people couldn't believe that someone was alive, and then the next moment that simply ceased to be. I could see that the automobile that did it, did not stay around, as the police were en route to find whoever hit the small child. We drove our mopeds away, the pool of blood lingering behind, I could only be left to wonder how long they waited until it would be cleaned up, and the population could continue with the rest of our day. 

All in all the time taken away from my life must have equalled around five minutes of delay. Yet these two people, these beings had all their time taken away. What it means to be a glimpse to someone you don't know when you are dying. If perhaps the young man was at his last breath and the bus drove by, would he have wished that he were on it, safe, or to have been in the safety of the crowd, or just dreamed that his bike was still moving, miles ahead of any bus, glass no longer shattered.

The young girl, I can't imagine what it must have been like for her parents. To be told through the grapevine, eventually reaching their home, that a large vehicle has collided with such a sweet beauty and now she was permanently asleep. If they arrived shortly after I had left to see the pool of blood, and the shoe, the only indications that she once stood, trying to cross the street. 

I am brought back to this day quite often. I went back to Nha Trang once after that, and nobody died. I do remember sitting on a large bus once again, looking at the window, and reminiscing to my friend about the horrible memory. I can imagine the other interior monologues, seeing the sweet child and the kind young man passed away, the bodies mutated by extreme physical forces, viscera that should have stayed inside. I even rode a moped past it once again, and counted my blessings as I am sure everyone else did. I wonder though, if it has been me, would my blood have formed a pool as large, would I have been dragged away, and would anyone from my group have cried? I have to make myself snap out of selfish moments like that. I was not dead, I was and am very much alive. I just try to remember them, try to see those pools and pretend that now, they see the landscape, that they are in my shoes.

Grand Marnier, Cranberry Juice, and the Heatstroke in the Ohio Sunshine.

As is clear by now, I am not a good writer, and feedback has never come in any format to tell me otherwise, but somehow, I have always aimed to be a little bit better at it over time. Improving. Something I do not usually do. Writing pulls a lot out of me. Hard cold metal hooks grapple the inner recesses of my brain, massive muddied trucks pulling in reverse to help reveal a memory, usually killed by excessive drinking or general brain deterioration from television.

I graduated from college. I had spent my time, three years in, one year out, and was finally able to leave to standard liberal arts college. A school with one hill, one Carnegie hall, a dorm that looked like a low income housing construction and the new dorm that is completed just as you are leaving with the plasma screen televisions and the air conditioning and heating that actually works. This was all I was leaving behind, beside the usual repressed memories of being hazed through fraternal ritual and the momentary glory of being inducted into a secret society that is protecting and harboring no more than a private underwear party and a steaming pile of refuse idealistic exclusive bullshit.

So needless to say this was the end of the line for me. My parents, siblings, and/or grandmother arrived on the seen to watch their fortune be culminated with a piece of paper and a burnt red nose. I wore flip flops, cliche, and in addition a pair of dark Persol sunglasses. I awaited the end, where my name would be called, a couple of people would clap and I would sit down, ultimately wishing that I was somewhere else, asleep, drunk, or inside the cool confines of a movie theater, laughing or feeling a little bit better than I usually would sitting in a ridiculous, "hollow" that rested adjacent to the Carnegie hall where I had my final classes.  

In preparation of this final day, I was required to write a thesis, something that demonstrated what I had learned throughout my years. Since I learned very little besides how big of an asshole I was in Ohio, I wrote about my time in the Czech Republic and Vietnam. It was to be a memoir, and the night before it was due I wasn't close to finish. To tell the truth I did not start late on it, but I poured into it for hours, typing and typing. I sat up late at night, drinking coffee, chewing adderall, and eating cold dried up pieces of spaghetti to fuel the moments of this exhausting ritual that most have to endure whether it be at Witt(shit)enberg,  Denison, or Kenyon. 

The Sunday that it was due I went to the local coffee shop, took the pill to keep me awake and then drank tons of coffee. The shop had one side that was a bar and the other side was a coffee shop, the one I sat in at the beginning, typing furiously without a clue of what I was actually saying to anybody about anything, but it seemed like a mess, a coherent mess if there is such a thing. I ended up finishing the remainder of it on the bar side, going home around 1 am to edit the pages. It totalled around 152 by the end, I eventually got it down to 147 when all was said and done.

The editing process consisted of me sitting in a chair reading the whole thing out loud. I read, my voice grew hoarse, and I watched that with each new cup of coffee I would add a little more than a shot of hazelnut syrup, till eventually it seemed that the viscous fluid was being poured down my mouth. Molecules of sugar bursting, igniting any kind of energy just to finish the hulking mass. When I finished editing around nine in the am, I worked on printing it out at the local kinkos. Smelling of last night and worse I printed out the work and put it into four different binders for four different people. Three professors and one administrative. I then drove a rental car; my jeep was in the shop. Through the cold snow I delivered the package to all involved. It was received with canned laughter and all of the pages. Few joked that they would not even bother to read it. I couldn't have been more r when this joke turned true.

The sum of my college career, the only thing, good or not, I had put love into only to see it as kindling for the fires of tweed jackets. I waited for some sort of confirmation. Not of it being good, not of it being bad, but simply just being acknowledged. That day never came, I heard once from the administrative side saying it looked exciting and long. I did not reply to this email and waited further from the professors. Nothing, no defense and this was in February. I waited and nothing, and eventually we were at the beginning of the story in Ohio and the sun blasting with relatives sitting somewhere I could not see.

I sat next to people I did not know, and realized I was leaving school with maybe only a small handful or friends and the majority of the rest angry with me for various mistakes I had made over time. I was aware that I was also leaving for Budapest shortly after so my interest was in after the graduation, the parties or the dinner that was planned where we would eat courtesy of a chef that had study with an Michelin rated technique. 

They called my name, I sat back down. The president of the school spoke. It was a combination of a third grade book report and the Spiderman 2 script. Our guest speaker made a muffin metaphor and the bridge of my nose sizzled red. I looked around at people I didn't know. One couple proposed marriage and it felt quite sitcom. However they defied everyone by making their marriage contract kiss last for what seemed to be five whole minutes, the other stuffing the opposites head inside their mouth. Then their was clapping, then caps were tossed, then I looked for my parents.

The Dr. presiding over my thesis met me in a hurried frenzy to see all the students who wanted a picture. He then told me he had not read my thesis, he had just given me an "A" because that seemed easier, but he had scanned the first five pages briefly.

"What did you think?" I asked him.

"Eh" He shrugged.

 147 pages, and he shrugged. Just tell me it was bad, horrible, like looking at a fetid wound or a masterpiece, which I doubt was the case. Eh,  a shrug, with obviously had a negative connotation, I just wanted to know why it was a shrug? These were my friends, odd delicacies, and the mass graves of thousands of Cambodians who he was just shrugging off. I needed to know whether I represented and respected them at least half decently.

I never did find out, there were other students who needed a picture. Other fathers to take a picture of a check book, the humor of the senseless amounts of money that well to do families spend on an education. I rolled down to the one graduation party I was invited too and ate a hearty mound of potato salad. I smeared it against two pieces of a potato bread bun and chewed it, thinking of what the fuck was I doing here. I neglected to notice that I had friends from South America and Asia, and Cincinnati all in one place, living and eating in peace under one roof. 

My parents left. I bought alcohol, Grand Marnier, and I began to mix that with Cranberry Juice, my empty stomach ( I had since passed the starchy mass of P. Salad) giving the go ahead into being just plain drunk. This seemingly making it easier to be on campus. I put in some phone calls, ended up at a bar, talking to people I had never met. I watched my friends fuse with the blurry mass of hairy heads, some hairlines receding including mine. I saw it was over, and I was indifferent. I hated this place but it gave me no reason to blast off back to my hideaway in the capitol.

I seeped into a drunker state, passed out phone numbers and ended up in a foreign bed. I woke up at eleven, said goodbye to someone I didn't know, and she smiled, the last person I saw at school, I don't know you and you didn't know me, but I sure enjoyed our conversation and what followed after.

I got into my car, turned the ignition, put the roof done, bought my mother a mother's day present with her own money from her credit card. I got a phone call for a favor and I blew it off. I filled up my car with gasoline and drove back to the capitol to meet up for the mother's day lunch. Grand Marnier slowing my thoughts from the night before, I had completely forgotten all that time I had spent jotting down things that made me happy, moments I had remembered.

I just didn't know, and as it got easier to accelerate from a state road to a highway, I left without knowing whether to hate myself or to keep blaming everyone else for my own decisions. Not knowing made it easier to tell the final part the foreign bed as the only moment I tell my friends about now, they think its cool. A good story of a final hoorah. However, the moments after and before seemed to be dropped. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

The Bulgarian conflict

Hypocrite. This is what I became this past summer, in a multitude of ways. In Budapest I held airs of being someone who was well versed in travel, in understanding other cultures, until it tested my nerves. She was tall with curly black hair and I almost hated her immediately. She talked a lot more than I did, and the snap judgement just slammed onto the table. The fatty tuna on the chopping block so to speak.

She just had confidence, and I despised that about her. She would get on her phone, pretend the person on the other line was more important than the people she was with. Or so I thought. All the notions flying through my head had nothing to do with her but with my own insecurity, could my roommate see it, could the other girl from Germany detect my sadomasochistic personality shining through as my enmity for the Bulgarian girl grew. We started to talk, the situation worsened to a spectacular degree. I told her I went to school in Ohio, she told me that was boring. I was furious. She was right though, yet it felt good to posess that anger. It seemed visceral, but most of all it appeared legitimate and important, which gave me a little bit of a spot in life to have made my mark. The handprints on hollywood. She made a couple more jokes, most of them pertaining to the travel I had done. She then told me she had gone to school in Tennesse. Well how the fuck was that any better than the heart of the midwest where I attended school. Passing through the ventricle of Columbus and into the fatty tissue and clogged arteries of Springfield OHIO. My roommate could see the uncomfortable situation. I was caught with my fly down, my limp drooping self-loathing being ignited by this girls confidence. I then went on to smatter her everywhere I went. Any person who would listen, I would regale them with my banal story of deceit, betrayal, and the vindictive personalities of all Bulgarians.

Needless to say, time went by. My story of HATE had matastisized into the perfect form of making this girl take on the pedestal of heinous bitches. I had this smooth polished story. It made people laugh, cry, and all the above. During this time I continued to let her be my punching bag. You see, I had no plumbing in my apartment. Our toilet had broken down and my roommate and I were suffering the affliction of not being able to pass a decent stool in peace. This is what I did. I would go to the bathtub. A huge adobe colored tub that I bathed in often. Like a lesser being I would place a plastic trash bag at the basin of my asshole. I would then push the hard,soft stool or the worst case, diarrhea and just hope for the best. Usually it would land with a thump, but I would feel no satisfaction. I do not want to digress too much but you need to know that in our apartment the toilet had sort of a viewing plateau for poop. I cannot be sure whether this is the norm of all apartments but it certainly held true to our humble abode. We would be able to see the poop, resting softly and a nice thirty second time frame was allowed to judge our poop. To feel the paternal/maternal love of seeing your creation in its form, before drowning it in water. Now this whole beautiful act of god being stolen from me, I wanted revenge so she became the bane of my existence. Until the eighties dance party.

There were two elements to this party. I had a thirty five year old woman tell me in broken english that she was newly divorced and intended to hike up a volcano in Italy the following week. She told me she would probably fall, and I tried to console her by letting her know that she could prevent that with stable climbing shoes and not drinking as much as she was doing at the bar. I then managed to avoid her only to be confronted by me demons, the Bulgarian girl looking right at me. She asked if she could please speak to me in private. I said yes and gave the look of dread to a couple of people dancing. Someone grabbed my balls and I have never figured out who. We took up roost at the side of a concrete railing. The whole building was constructed to the stunted vision of the Soviet Union and there incredibly dull architecture. But, thanks to them they were now supplying us the dance floor to listen to Chris Isaak and other favorites. When we took up a conversation she immediately asked me the question of hate. She was told by numerous source that I found her incredulous and just all around a person who sucked total dilz. I tried to not make eye contact, I thought about scaling the side of the concrete railing and jumping to the fertile ground below and catching the tram back over to the PEST side of the city. Did I mention I was in Budapest, I dont know. I wont look back so I now it is established. I would escape her, have a falafel and go to sleep rest assured that I would never have to answer to her queries again. Something was feeling different. She was talking and I was actually listening to her. All these accusations of snap judgements. Me always having the moral highground saying I never snap judge. My god, this loathing, the abhorence had nothing to do with her. It was me. I hated myself, and then I was back at square one. Here I thought I was a savvy traveler, yet I was what I had always feared. A dumb American. With that said I promised myself a new life, a new perspective and that I would always remember that conversation and use it to make sure I didn't act like a dunce in the future henceforth. I actually felt different. I wanted this to be a model conversation that I would tell people. When this young man learned an important lesson. I felt renewed. I told everyone who asked about our convo, how positive it was. I danced to flock of seagulls with a new fervor. I drank gingerale and Jack with a new slake of thirst. I really moved my hips and thought about my receding hairline with reckless abandon. When the night was over, my roommate, the German young lady and the Bulgarian professor moved towards the night bus, back to our quarters for rest and water consumption to avoid post party syndrome.

As we left a horrible action occured. Some homely fucker stole my Roommates sweater. A cashmere cardigan. An exquisite piece of clothing. I felt bad. I looked for it, the German girl also did her fair share of scouring. As we had to call off the search with the conclusion that someone had stolen it, we made our way home with empty hearts. As we tried to console my friend on his loss, the Bulgarian woman's vocal chords made sounds, it sounded like this, "It's okay you're a rich American you can buy another one." My friend was puzzled by the cutting remark. My brain chemicals were swashbuckled. A new thought had entered in my head, in my mind I remember it clearly,


The words of wisdom, "What a bitch." >

Patch Madras & Soiled Souls

It all started in Phu Quoc. Forgive me for missing the accents if there were any. I have to say that right of the bat my Vietnamese language skills leave something to be desired. the arduous task of making my words have a downward tone as opposed to sounding excited, my classmates accosting me on the proper pronunciation. I learned to be bitter in Hanoi, but I also learned to love. Love I did, and I performed this arduous task of the heart on the island I mentioned a few sentences earlier, Phu Quoc. Located only a small distance of the coast of Cambodia, it is here that much history went down, and much fish sauce, nuoc mam was created. The pungent smell of the fermented fish, the bark of the wild and native dog of the island filled my nostrils and my ears as the fokker landed. Immediately we picked up our bags. By we I mean myself and several other students. I think at the time our sexual frustration with the situation has caused us all to seek out our own fun. The relentless pursuit of Orgasm in alternative form. Some read Kafka, some read Cussler. I however rented a motorcycle. With my long (receding) hair I cast off onto the dirt roads looking for adventure in all the right places, or so it seemed at the time. My bike skidded of the dirt with the same fury as a water buffalo in escape of a crocodile. The wind hitting my face, along with smal rocks, I felt the engine could be pushed. Push it I did. All the way to the speed of 40 mph. I flew down the mud roads. Slipping and sliding as driving rain urged me to turn back,to give up and make my way to the couch with a Sagan or a Grisham. I would not be moved. I would be slighted. I decided to ostensibly screw the idea of returning home by pressing onto the only road Phu Quoc was going north on the west coast of the island. It almost looks like Isla Nublar, where Dinosaurs attacked and nearly killed Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neil during the frightening and harrowing Jurassic Park. I knew without the risk of a Pachycephalosaurus attack to either of my flanks I knew I could survive.

I was twenty minutes in. My tire blew out. I used a lot of foul words. The only regret I have is that I was rough terrain trained enough to have made the repairs myself with my own blood and a combination of tree bark and snake skin. However, I needed to go back to a house a few miles back, which was prepared for these kinds of disasters. They invited me into their home, offered me a puppy, which I politely declined by smiling as if I had shit my pants and then oblidged them by taking a pomegranate and eating that and watching what looked to be some sort of singing contest in which young and attractive Vietnamese women were belting their hearts out.

They changed my tire for less than a dollar. I was impressed, and my wallet could be sustained for the later purchase of Marijuana from a Economics teacher that had been living in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh city for the past few years, no doubt enjoying the humidity with the nice stank of that smooth delicious sticky icky that I would enjoy later in the evening.

I needless to say ventured on. Out of hunger I purchased a sandwich made of Anchovies, Butter, and tomato sauce. I became almost instantly sick but did not let that get in the way. The rest of the story is alot of braking and accelerating, moving through the jungle and becoming more and more frightened as I noticed the light escaping me.

With my stomach in my throat I made it back. I had survived. I then convinced everyone to take the next journey with me, exploring the southern part of the island. No one knew that I had intended for all of us to completely encircle the entire island on our little motorbikes. WIth a young Brown undergrad resting behind me and a Johns Hopkins and a Wisconsin to my right and left we made our way down. We visited a prison museum, which was quite alarming. Then we made our way on a tour of the beaches. I must remind myself that this island was not a party island. Cancun in was not. Panama city was not the capitial of this little place. It was a military and navy installation, that the Khmer people had tried to take, and had failed against the firepower of the Vietnamese army. We also too had suffered a couple coldcocks from Vietnamese forces during our skirmish there way back when.

Deadset on finding a beach, I used my abyssmal skills to ask people where a beach was. There was one, as indicated in my trendy and totally independent Lonely Planet guide that a beach of mythical proportions was right at my toes. Where I could sink my feet into the clear water and know what it was like to be Leonardo Dicaprio. Except for the fact that I am not attractive and that I was not in Ko Pi Pi in Thailand.

The small map was our guiding light. To the beach at least, or the one that I thought existed. I was willing to even lie about its beauty even though at this point I had not yet seen it or even knew if it there was one. When I went to ask, I was puzzled to not see a Valet but instead a small white guard house. I had dealt with these Hampton types before. I was prepared to pay handsomely for a nice parking space, and one where I could literally spread out my towel and be right on the beach. I approached slowly a tank top rubbing against my burnt skin, Persols on my eyeballs and Patch Madras shorts handstitched by Ralph Lauren himself. The guard did not take kindly to me. He yelled, something I could not translate. I merely asked him, where the beach was, which way to the beach. Which in hindsight I was probably telling him that I masturbate with lobsters over and over again. His response was not to give me a parking space but too instead pull out a AK-47 assualt rifle and put it in my face. Poop I did not. Although it would have seemed appropriate. I did have an exchange of words with him ,as in my recollection he did not do a whole lot of speaking,

"Woah, Woah, bro....I just wanted to know where the beach is!"

Guard points gun in my face.

"Shit dude, don't point a gun in my face bro," I plead with him.

Guard continues to point the gun.

I shimmied back to my bike, which was around the corner. "What an Asshole," I told the Brown undergrad. I tried to tell her the story from my point of view. What would you have done, if some pale, lanky, fool had come asking you where the beach was. He obviously did not see me on the guest list. To this day I often wonder what he was guarding. I bet you it was a beach, and I guarantee that some celebrity far more posh than a civilian like me had rented out the whole beach and it would have cost that guy his job if I had gotten down there and spoiled whatever oscars, grammy, man booker, winning person who was done there enjoying their vacation.

Beyond all that, and as I sit here now, sipping tea, occasionally browsing YouPorn, I have failed to notice until this very moment in the present, that I called a Vietnamese solider Bro. Was I bridging the gap? No. Had I escaped my old days of Fraternal Brotherhood or was I the one thing I had always hated in my life. I was. I shrug now and wonder whether I noticed any of the other beautiful sights I saw whilst going thirty five tops in my little motorbike, a friend behind me, in a small secluded part of the world. Yet all I cared about was some trite beach. Horribly absurd.

Goodnight.

Further note: I can't spell or write.