flash saigon: faced

by Andrew Bennett

“Tony’s hobbling over,” announced Peter, snapping shut his cell phone. Nick was just coming back from the toilet.

“What do you mean, hobbling?” he asked, reaching for his beer.

“You didn’t hear what happened?”

“What happened?”

“Tony about got himself killed, is what.” Peter took a long drink and let what he’d said hang ominously in the air.

Outside in the street the mob of angry motorbikes bristled to the sidewalks. Inside the bar Bon Jovi was wailing softly all around them. Nick waited. “You want to finish that thought?”

“Got in a wreck, is all. A week ago, crossing the bridge into Anh Phu at night. He got hit head-on by some jackass driving on the wrong side of the road — with no lights, on top of it all.”

Nick shook his head behind his beer. “Vietnamese?” he asked into his bottle.

“Sure.”

They shook their heads together and ordered another round. The bartender was Vietnamese, young, early twenties or thereabouts, and he’d only just begun working there. Nick and Peter had been coming to the place more or less weekly for the past year. They’d never seen him before. When he came over to take their empties he smiled broadly at them.

“How are you today, gentlemen?” He said this slowly, and clearly annunciated everything he could.

They didn’t respond. He smiled at one, then at the other, then at somewhere in between the two. Then he turned around and went to fetch their order.

“Thing about it is,” Peter continued, once the barman was away, “the wreck itself hardly did a thing to him. I don’t think he could have been going all that fast, because both he and the other guy were just dinged up a bit. Nothing serious.”

The bartender returned with the beers and conversation stalled again. The two of them stared at the man as he carefully placed the bottles on coasters and slid them closer. He didn’t look at either of them as he did so, but kept a smile on his face and furrowed his brow, as if the operation required all his concentration. When he finished he retreated back a safe distance and began wiping glasses, the smile still fixed on his face.

Nick and Peter took a drink. “I think I know where this is going,” said Nick. “But why don’t you tell me anyway.”

“Right. Well, Tony got up off the street and ran straight over to the one who’d hit him, and he, that’s Tony, he just loses it completely. Which he knows better than to do, but put yourself in his position for a minute…”

“Sure,” said Nick into his bottle.

Peter sighed. “Anyway, the guy, a kid, really, to hear Tony tell it, he just stood there and took all that Tony had, with his head hung, no eye contact. Tony never touched him, but he went ballistic in every other way, and you know that at that point physical contact doesn’t even matter…”

“Sure,” said Nick, again.

“So once he’s blown his load Tony stalks back to his bike, which is crunched up pretty good. He doesn’t pay the kid any mind, but as he’s lifting his bike off the ground he sees him talking into his cell phone, which isn’t so strange, only given the situation Tony could have been a bit more careful, perhaps…”

“He was calling his buddies, or what?”

Peter took a long drink and belched a small belch as he put his bottle down. “Sure. Five minutes later Tony’s still fooling with his bike when somebody taps him on the shoulder. He turns around and right off gets knocked in the ribs with a tire iron. He drops and this group of three guys starts kicking the shit out of him, right on the highway, while traffic went by and the people who’d stopped just stood around.”

“Christ.”

Outside it had started to rain. The street was already swimming, and the bikes cut deep wakes as they passed, even in the middle of the road. A woman shuffled by the open door of the bar with a bamboo pole on her shoulder, bearing the load of two large pails hung on either end, both heavily weighed down with fruit. She walked in short steps, and the pails bobbed in counterpoint to her movements. Her pant legs were rolled up above the water line and she was barefoot. The rain streamed off the modest peak of her non la conical hat in fast currents.

“So how’d he get out of there?”

Peter shrugged. “After the boys had quit somebody stopped a taxi and put him inside, then sent it to the hospital. He was there three days. They did a job on his knee. May need surgery at some point. Broke his arm, too.” He paused to take vicious swallow. “Face. Don’t fuck with face.” He paused again contemplatively, then said in a low murmur, “Fucking country.”

Nick stifled a belch and nodded. “You tell me like I don’t know. I’ve gotten my ass kicked too.”

“Shit, that’s right,” Peter said, and laughed a little. “That was over the price of gum, wasn’t it? Some storekeeper woman’s moto man knocked you around a bit?”

At the sound of his laughter the bartender looked over, his smile genuine and tinted with relief. Nick set his mouth in a short line.

Peter was still cackling. “What was it, three thousand dong difference? And you pitched a fit and broke a glass and got your face beat in for it? That’s grand.” He rocked back and forth in his seat.

“You think that’s funny?” Nick pulled his lips back in a crazy grin and leaned forward with teeth shut tight. “You see that?” he said, without moving his mouth.

Peter couldn’t answer. Tears were beading in his eyes. He only shook his head.

“My teeth don’t close straight. They used to, but not anymore. That damn xe om driver hit me with a block of wood on the blind side, put my jaw out of line.”

Peter shook his head again and almost lost his balance.

Nick didn’t say anything for awhile as he watched the bartender, who was still smiling at them. He tipped his bottle and finished it, then wiped his mouth roughly with the back of his hand.

“You keep laughing,” he said to Peter in a fierce whisper, “and you’ll know how it feels yourself.”

“Oh, come on,” said Peter, who slapped him on the back, “don’t be that way. I still think you’re beautiful.”

Nick shrugged his hand off but didn’t say anything. The two of them sat there for a moment quietly as Peter composed himself. The bartender wiped glasses and watched them, feeling befriended, sharing in the joke.

There was a moment when Peter could have let it go, but he didn’t. “Hey, what flavor was it anyway?” He was laughing before the words had left his mouth.

Nick took his time raising his hand, and when he slapped him the sound echoed longer than seemed normal. There was a moment when nothing happened and the sound hung in the air. Peter and the bartender wore the same expression, their mouths half-open, their eyes wide. Finally Peter lurched at Nick and pushed him off his stool, but Nick grabbed him and they both toppled over, onto the floor. The bartender blinked, shook his head, and went to help them up. They let him, their faces to the floor.

tagged under:asia, living abroad, race