Dukkha Reverb. Loren W. Christensen
is a herd of butterflies having a shit- kickin’ barn dance in my gut. It’s the unknown that’s bothering me. I haven’t a clue what to expect in Saigon: the culture, people, Samuel, Mai, Kim. The ongoing problem with Lai Van Tan.
Mai. I think it was love at first sight with us, though neither of us has said it in so many words. I can feel it, though, in our phone conversations, emails, and webcam chats. Man, the way she looks at me through the screen. The big question is will it continue now that things are more normal than they were in Portland? Sometimes distance can end a relationship and sometimes it can distort feelings, making one think that there is more to it than there is. When we actually see each other in the flesh again, might it dawn on us that there is nothing more between us than that initial crush we had in Portland?
The plane touches down with a bump and a jolt and a screech of rubber. Is that long beige building at the end of the runway the terminal? Samuel won’t be meeting me because he had an emergency to take care of. Mai told me that yesterday on the phone—or maybe it was two days ago. Time is upside right now. It’s either noon or early evening today, or it’s some unknown time tomorrow.
The laughter and chattering in the cabin is quite loud now, the energy palpable. The thrill of coming home, I guess. That butterfly hoedown in my gut is now a bare-knuckle brawl. I can’t tell if it’s excitement, fear, happiness, anxiety, or dread. Dread?
Bobby and I stuff our things into our backpacks as the plane taxis to the gate and a female attendant’s voice gives us the welcome message, first in Vietnamese and then in English. English last. Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. It’s three-thirty in the afternoon, she says.
“Here,” I say, handing Bobby a slip of paper. “My cell phone number and the cell number of Mai Nguyen, the friend I will be visiting here. Maybe we can have a Coke or something one day.”
“Okay,” he says distractedly, looking through the window at the working ground crew. A moment later, he looks at me as if he just realized what I said. “Oh. Cool.” He takes my number, stuffs it into his pants pocket, and looks back out the window. “Thanks.”
The aisle is jammed with people pulling things from the overheads. “Let me ask you the same question, Bobby. You nervous?”
“Nervous?” He’s still looking out the window at the ground crew.
“You seem nervous. Just wondering.”
“No.” He looks at me and back out the window. “Yeah, maybe a little.”
Don’t know where his head is so I’ll leave him alone.
I’m told that we go to Immigration first, Baggage Claims, and then to Customs. Mai and Samuel both said it’s a fairly smooth hour-long process, sometimes less. That’s going to be one long hour knowing that Mai is waiting for me on the other side of it.
We’re jostling down the aisle now, Bobby in front. He’s carrying a large backpack, so big that I’m surprised they let him carry it on board.
“No hassle about your pack, huh?”
“Almost, just barely made the size limit,” he says over his shoulder. “They really hassle American Vietnamese in Customs, especially if you got a lot of luggage. They want you to pay them something. So all I have is this.”
No luggage. Hmm.
Five minutes later, we’re out of the plane and walking through a jetway to the terminal. My God! The heat is overwhelming in this thing and the breathable air is negligible. My clothes are already sticking to me and my face is dripping. A half dozen people rush by, bumping and jostling us without apology and without slowing. Those crowding in front and those pressing in on us from behind are raising the heat and humidity into the death zone. Plus I’m starting to feel a whole lot claustrophobic. Just when I start to think that there is no end to this hellish tube, and that I just might freak out and start swimming over the top of everyone, I see people bunching up at what must be the exit point.
A minute later we’re regurgitated out into a modern-looking terminal, where the heat is happily a few degrees lower than in that tube. Didn’t expect shiny tile floors, massive cement pillars, chrome and steel all about, and everything as clean as a whistle. This isn’t the same Tan Son Nhat Airport I saw in the documentary.
“We need to go over there,” Bobby says, pointing toward a series of counters. “Immigration.”
Glad I’m with him. The heat, the rush of people, and all the instructional signs in Vietnamese is a bit much.
“There aren’t many people right now,” he says, “so we should get through without a problem.” He leads the way, jerking his head right and left like my cat does on a windy day. Looking for what?
After about thirty minutes of working our way to the front of the line, two stern-faced officials light upon Bobby. The one wearing impossibly thick Coke-bottle glasses looks over his passport as if searching for microscopic flaws in the paper. Satisfied, but looking unhappy about it, he hands it to the younger man who examines it even more closely. I’m assuming the scrutiny is because the boy is young and traveling alone. After responding to several sharply worded questions, Bobby retrieves a folded sheet of typing paper and hands it to Coke-Bottle Glasses. The man looks under the top fold, then wads whatever is underneath—I’m guessing money—into his palm and quickly stuffs it into his trouser pocket. Both men speak sharply to the boy, all the while he responds with several quick head bows. The younger officer slaps the passport onto the counter top, dismissing him with a jerk of his head.
“I’ll wait for you over there,” Bobby says tightly. “It shouldn’t take you long.”
I start to ask him if everything is okay but Coke-Bottle Glasses asks me in English to step up to the counter. He thumbs through my passport, checks my ID, asks why I’m in Saigon, and how long I will be. I tell him that I’m visiting friends, skipping the part that one is my father and the other is kind of a girlfriend— I think, I hope. He nods, stamps the pages and hands the passport back to me. “Go get bags now and go Customs.”
“It’s easier when you’re white,” Bobby says bitterly as I walk over.
“Hey, look around, dude. I’m the minority here. It’s probably because you’re a kid traveling alone.”
He shrugs and flips his backpack over his shoulder. “Come on. I’ll show you where you get your luggage. You’re getting picked up, right?”
I shoulder my pack. “Yes.” Did I tell him that? “Your parents picking you up?”
He nods distractedly as he leads me into a throng of people, past a food court with a myriad of smells, and finally to a carousel where I spot my two burgundy bags on the floor. He picks up one to carry for me.
“Please call me,” I say, as we jostle our way through another crowd of sweating people. “I’ll buy you a bubble tea.”
He makes a face. “I hate that stuff. Don’t worry, I will call. But for phở.”
I look around waiting for the Boogey Man to jump out from behind one of these giant pillars. Maybe I shouldn’t have watched those war documentaries before I came over. Or maybe Bobby is making me paranoid: sitting next to me on the plane, no luggage, odd behavior. And the way he’s been looking around since we debarked, like he, too, is expecting the Boogey Man to leap out. Or Lai Van Tan.
“phở it is,” I say.
It takes a couple of minutes for us to snake through the throng before the boy points at a sign ahead of us. “Okay, there’s Customs. Hopefully, it will be easy for me this time.”
We wait in line for another thirty minutes in which I drop four, maybe five pounds from sweating. It’s so damn hot and humid it’s funny. Actually, it’s not funny; it’s miserable. Bobby goes first again, and this time he breezes through. My trip through is uneventful as well, though it was a little embarrassing when the pretty girl smiled at my underwear, new stuff I purchased before