The Little Flower Girl of Saigon

View Photos (8) Image © 2000 Jack Yaghubian

A blast of humid air hit me as I heaved myself out of the air-conditioned interior of the Huong Sen Hotel and on to Dong Khoi Street. I picked my way around the vendors and motorbikes that blocked my path, towards Globo, a restaurant/bar that was one of several spots recommended by a friend, Ceri Smith, a previous resident of Saigon. I had been to Globo twice in the four days since arriving in Saigon, but this night I was disappointed to find a dark, locked exterior. I stood looking at it for a moment trying to understand the obvious--Globo was closed on Sundays.

I had no plan in mind as I turned and walked back down Nguyen Thiep to Dong Khoi Street, crossed it and walked up Dong Du Street. Dominating this small street was a huge, new hotel. A road crew was busy putting in a fresh layer of asphalt in preparation for the hotel's grand opening. The eerie, yellow lights they worked under had drawn a swarm of insects that had, in turn, attracted the attention of a group of bats. The bats now darted and swooped between the large, loud road machines the men worked with in the heat of the night. "Who the hell's going to stay in it?" I thought as I passed the looming facade.

My own hotel, tiny in comparison, could not be at more than 20 percent occupancy. The Jardine across the street was empty. There were several other hotels in the near vicinity, but very few tourists on the street. Saigon was empty. Well, it wasn't empty; it teemed with humanity. It was just empty of tourists and other foreigners who would fill the hotels, restaurants and bars that had sprung up in the past four or five years to cater to the international community. They had come in droves in the mid-90s, then abruptly left three years later.

Those thoughts faded as two restaurants caught my attention. I wasn't hungry, even though a banana had been my sole sustenance for the day. Apparently the heat coupled with the thousand or so calories a night I was consuming in beer had put a damper on my appetite. I made a mental note of these restaurants for future reference and continued on my way.

My reasons for coming to Saigon were related to the year I'd spent on the DMZ with an infantry company in 1969 and 1970. When I returned to the States in 1970, Vietnam was the last place in the world I wanted to see. A decade later, I began to daydream about a return trip. I fantasized about being able to relax and enjoy the beautiful, tropical country I saw on my first visit.

Another part of the daydream was to see Saigon. During my tour of duty, I had heard stories from the sergeants and other enlisted men that had been fortunate enough to visit Saigon. They had described a lovely, French-influenced, Asian city with wide boulevards, traffic circles, French architecture and lots of bars. The pictures they painted contrasted sharply with my environment on the battlefield. These images had lingered for nearly thirty years.

What I could do about these daydreams was difficult to determine. For years a trip to Vietnam was unachievable, given both the political climate and my financial status. As the years went by, however, the political barriers came down and my financial lot improved; I moved up the retail ladder from hat salesman to bartender. Still, the journey seemed out of reach.

Then, one day in February of 1999 as I stood smoking a cigarette in front of Mario's in North Beach, a friend stopped to chat. He was leaving for India the following day. I told him of the trip to Mexico I was planning for my 50th birthday in May. "Man! You should go to Vietnam, I went there last year and had a blast," he said. That made me think, "He's a DJ, I'm a bartender; if he could to go to Vietnam, so could I." Three months later I was walking down Dong Du looking for a place to get a drink.

I heard music coming from a bar and stopped briefly to inspect it. A sign above the open-front establishment advertised it as a tapas bar. I peered inside. It had a designed look to it; but then so did Globo, and I liked that place. Closer inspection of this tapas bar, however, revealed the customers to be business types of about my age. I decided I was looking for something a little more funky and moved on.

At the end of the block I came to Hai Ba Trung. The boulevard was dark except for the lights of passing motorbikes. By the volume of traffic it seemed to be a main artery. I turned right at the corner to avoid crossing this busy street in the dark. Sitting on a chair against the dark exterior of a dingy building, I encountered an old woman. Behind her there were double doors with dimly lit glass panels. It wasn't clear to me what sort of establishment this was, or whether or not it was open for business. A few paces further I came to a second set of double doors. A beer sign glowed brightly in a window next to them. "What the hell," I thought, negotiating the single step up from the sidewalk. I pulled one of the doors open and entered into a rustic, wood paneled, air-conditioned room. My nostrils filled with the faint smell of damp wood and stale beer. The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" blared from the sound system. On the wall a sign proclaimed that the place was The Wild West Saloon.

Blocking my path to the bar stood a full-sized pool table, on which a game was in progress. The contestants were a European man and a Vietnamese woman. She was wearing a pink ao dai, the long, flowing Vietnamese dress, split on the side up to the thigh. I walked around them, careful not to interfere with their game and took a stool at the left side of the bar.

The bartender approached me and took my order for a bottle of Tiger beer. He carefully poured it into a glass and made a note of the sale on a piece of paper. He stuck the paper into a small ceramic cup that he placed on the bar near me. He then withdrew to the other end of the bar. I lit a cigarette and took a sip of my beer--it was very cold. I took another sip and became aware of someone sidling up next to me. Suddenly a young woman in a white ao dai attached herself to me.

Startled by this development, I considered my delicate position--I didn't want to insult the girl, but I didn't want her hanging on me either and I certainly wasn't looking for a prostitute, if that's what she was. Thoughts of pickpockets crossed my mind as well, and I remained mindful of the money pouch hanging around my neck, under my shirt.

My first course of action was to act uncomfortable and incommunicative, in the hope that she would sense my disinterest and give up. That didn't work so I told her, politely, that I just wanted to drink my beer, which also failed to deter her. Then, sensing that subtlety wasn't going to work in this situation, I simply told her that I wanted to be alone. This message got through and she moved away.

Less than two minutes later a second girl came over and put her arm around me. She said something to the bartender and was handed a small plastic packet. Putting it in one hand, she slapped it with the other. It popped open with a loud "Bang!" I jumped at the sharp sound. She giggled, then pulled a damp cloth out of the broken packet and began to wipe my neck with it. I pulled away from her, taking the cloth out of her hand as I did. I thanked her, then told her I wanted to be left alone to drink my beer. I removed my hat and wiped my brow and freshly shaved head with the cool, damp cloth--it felt good. More persistent than the first girl, this one moved in for another try at me. I brushed my fingers through my close cropped, gray goatee saying, "I'm too old for you!" Predictably, that didn't work either. I was finally forced to get off my barstool, saying as I did, "I don't like to be touched!" She looked a little dejected, then wandered away to the other side of the room.

Alone to enjoy my beer unmolested, I took a drag on my cigarette, then a gulp of beer and thought, "What have I stumbled into? I'm going to finish my beer and then get the hell out!" At that point the bartender came over to where I was seated and nodded at me. Concerned that I may have offended the two young women, I made a point of telling him that I meant no offense to the girls, "I just don't like to be touched in that way by people I don't know," I explained.

He smiled, waved his hand in the air dismissively, then asked if I was an American. I told him I was, then added, "I'm a bartender in San Francisco." We talked about the similarities of our jobs as best as we could given the limitations of our language skills--he spoke a little English; I can count to ninety-nine in Vietnamese. At this point we exchanged names. His was Fu.

Fu informed me that the Wild West Saloon served the coldest beer in Saigon and that he was the bar manager. Then, warming up to the subject of bartending, he asked me what we did if there were troublemakers in our bar. I told him the bartenders, and if need be, a few of the regulars would take care of the problem. He looked at me knowingly, "If you have problem in America the gangsters take care of it; same thing in Saigon."

Next he told me his father and brother lived in San Jose and he hoped to join them there one day. He asked if I knew of San Jose and I told him it was near San Francisco. He said his father had a business there, though he had no idea what sort business it was, and if he could learn English well enough, he would be allowed to join his father and to work for him. I advised him to find out what sort of work it was before he made such a big move, but I don't think it really mattered to him as long as he could live in America. Pointing to a poster on the wall that advertised the movie Titanic, he told me he had seen it five times. "I don't know why I like this movie so much, but I do," was how he explained his apparent obsession with it.

A young woman, who had been sitting behind the bar, looking very bored up to this point, came over to join our conversation. Her name was Mi. She was dressed in a straight-laced manner compared to the other girls. They wore ao dais with open toe platform shoes and their nails were brightly painted. Mi, who was the cashier at the Wild West Saloon, looked like a college student in comparison. She wore a plain white blouse with a tight-fitting, checked skirt that reached below the knee. Her shoes were slip-ons with a low heel and round toe.

She had been reading a book before joining our conversation. When I asked her about it, she told me she was studying French and that she had a boyfriend who had recently returned to France. There was a melancholy air about her that I learned was due to his absence. Her dream was to marry him and move to Paris. She then shared with me her concern that he might not return. Having been burned in a long-distance relationship myself, and with a Frenchwoman at that, I kept my pessimistic thoughts to myself and assured her that he would surely return for such a pretty girl. I ordered a second beer and we talked for half an hour or so until several customers entered the bar and Fu and Mi were called into action.

Lighting a cigarette, I let my thoughts wander. Earlier that day I had taken a walk around the area near my hotel. I stopped for half an hour in a park to rest and it was very relaxing, except for the nervewracking traffic at the corner. Streams of traffic, running perpendicular to one another, were crossing the intersection with no regard for the traffic lights. I assured myself it just looked dangerous. They obviously knew what they were doing because other than an occasional honking horn, traffic flowed; perhaps not smoothly, but it flowed. As I sat smoking I spied a small girl. She was about six years old, dressed in a red and blue plaid jumper with white trim on the collar and sleeves. She walked with a purpose and her eyes held a serious gaze for a child so young. A lifelong bachelor with no desire for children, I found myself fantasizing about fatherhood. "What if I had such a child?" It was this lapse that set me up for the predicament in which I soon found myself.

Over her shoulder hung a strap that I assumed was connected to a book bag. Considering the time of afternoon, I guessed her to be a schoolgirl on her way home. I expected her to pass me by, but as she neared my bench, she swung the book bag around in front of her and it was then that I realized, "That's no book bag, it's a vendor's basket!" She had blindsided me.

She walked up, looked me straight in the eye and with a confident voice commanded, "You buy postcard!" "Oh, no thank you," I said timidly, sensing I had fallen into the clutches of a master salesgirl. "How 'bout Vietnam phrase book?" "No...I..." "Maps? Vietnam poetry book?" she said, holding each item up briefly for my inspection. "I really, ah, well, maybe later," I stammered, glancing about for an escape route. "Well, I can't promise," I said, drawing myself up off the park bench to my full 5'9" from where I towered over her. "You lie, no buy later. Why you not buy now? You cheap Charlie!" she snapped, sensing her quarry was about to escape.

Being Armenian, I pride myself on my sales resistance, which, absorbed from my grandfather, Jack Yaghubian I, has served me well over the years. However, this girl was tireless in her pursuit of a sale. Sizing me up as a rough customer, she switched into a tiny voice, quivering at the edge of tears, "I no sell nothing today. I no go to school until I sell. Why you no buy? You no like me?"

What would grandpa do? "I give you 10,000 dong to take your picture," I blurted out, pulling my camera from the front pocket of my khakis. She would get her money all right, but having bought none of the offered items, I could feel I had maintained the family tradition of strong sales resistance or at least, not utterly lost it.

She gave me a disappointed look, knowing she had met her match, shrugged her tiny shoulders and we trudged a few paces to the edge of the park and down three steps to the sidewalk. There she posed dutifully for me against the park's retaining wall. As I was about to snap her picture she smiled weakly for the camera. I gave her the money, she thanked me and we went our separate ways.

Now, hours later, gloating over my victory in a dank barroom, I shook off my musings and focused on the glass of beer before me. I drank deeply, then turned to survey the room. The bar girls were scattered about in groups of two and three. A few feet away from me a very pretty Vietnamese woman in a pink ao dai was playing pool with a European man who looked to be in his twenties. Every now and then she would come up to the bar and order a rum-and-coke, then return to the game. I thought she was going through the drinks at a rapid rate for someone who couldn't weigh more than 90 pounds. When the game was over, her opponent left.

She immediately came over to where I was sitting and struck up a conversation with me. Caught off guard, I mentioned how much she was drinking. She replied dryly, "I not drinking at all. I serving man drink." Her voice had a musical quality and she touched me as she spoke, but refrained from hanging on me as the other girls had done. She introduced herself to me as Tam, then tried to sit on my lap. I put her off by telling her I thought she was too heavy and might crush my leg. "How much you think I weigh?" she asked, her eyebrows raised in a challenging manner. I saw a chance to have some fun with what little Vietnamese I knew, "tam muoi nam (85) kilos?" I guessed. Her face momentarily registered shock and then realizing I was teasing her, she laughed, slapped my shoulder and strode away on glittering platform shoes. She walked over to a new arrival. As if to illustrate what I was missing out on, she put her arms around him, massaged his shoulders and then sat on his lap--all of which he seemed to enjoy.

As I watched Tam, a young man sauntered in. He was dressed in jeans, sandals and a huge T-shirt that hung from his wiry frame like a nightshirt. He walked with a full-body swagger, leaning to one side, his entire torso waving back and forth, almost as if he had a limp. His arms, very long for his size, swung in such a way as to exaggerate his gait. His face held a grim, deadpanned expression. He approached the bar and gestured silently to Mi who handed him the phone. He made a brief call, turned around and swaggered back out. What Fu had said earlier about gangsters came to mind.

Tam came up to the bar and ordered a beer. She put her hand on my thigh as she waited for the order. Noticing that my beer was nearly empty, she asked me if I needed another. I had been planning to leave, but on second thought decided to stay for one more. "Sure," I said. She took the piece of paper out of the ceramic cup, made note of the sale on it and put it back in its holder. Fu handed her two bottles of beer, one of which she carefully poured into a fresh glass, then placed on the bar before me. Her work with me done for the time being, Tam delivered the other bottle of beer to a man across the room. She returned to the pool table where she entered into a game with an American who looked to be in his late thirties. Soon the man was banging his pool stick on the floor and cursing loudly, "I don't believe I missed that!" I thought he seemed to be taking his game a little too seriously, especially for someone who didn't seem to be very good at it. When Tam came to the bar to get him a drink, she said, "I don't like him. He has bad tempa." A few moments later the man came up to the bar and ordered a shot of tequila, "Yeah, I need some aimin' juice," he commented before tossing the shot down in one gulp. "Yeah, right," I thought as I watched him return to the game. His lack of accuracy was now intensified by strong drink and I was beginning to think this might get ugly. I began to ready myself for that possibility when Tam wisely scratched, letting him win. She adopted a grossly exaggerated attitude of defeat, the humor of which was lost on her opponent. He bellied up to the bar for a victory shot, tossed it off, slapped his hand loudly on the bar, nodded his head triumphantly and left.

Suddenly I became acutely aware of my bladder. Rising off my bar stool with as much dignity as my discomfort would allow, I walked briskly in the direction that common sense told me the restroom should be: down the bar to my right, then left to the back of the room. I was correct. I found a smelly room with one toilet where I promptly relieved myself. Just outside of the men's room I encountered three bar girls where there was a mirror on the wall. They chatted while applying makeup. I stopped for a moment to greet them. Taking my hat off, I said "Hello ladies." Mocking their vanity, I looked in the mirror and smoothed imaginary hair on my bald head. I licked my index fingers and ran them in opposite directions over my thick eyebrows as if I was grooming them. I looked to the girls for approval and replaced my hat. They giggled and made a few comments to one another in Vietnamese as I returned to the main room where I resumed my station at the bar.

As I sat talking with Fu, a young woman, who seemed to be about fifteen, came in carrying a basket of roses. She wore a long, unadorned, white ao dai with platform shoes. There were long pink ribbons flowing from the handle of her flower basket. She was extremely animated, gesturing and smiling. She was also a deaf mute. She approached me with the offer of a rose. Tam was standing near me at the time and by hand gestures, the flower girl indicated that I should buy a rose for her. I declined by shaking my head. She then made hand gestures that included running her fingers from her eyes down her cheeks. Tam interpreted for me, saying she said I looked sad. Then, the flower girl pointed to her eye, then to my green suede Hush Puppies. She held her thumb up in a gesture of approval. I needed no interpretation for this compliment and bowed my head in thanks.

This flower girl then moved through the room, interacting with both customers and staff as she did. Hugging this one, kissing that one and joking with each in one way or another. Occasionally she would break into a brief dance step in her platforms, making hand gestures as she did and smiling all the while. Like a stage actress or silent movie star she projected her personality through body language and facial expression, mesmerizing me in the process.

She stayed for just over an hour. As she was leaving I wondered what her future would hold as a deaf mute in a poor country. Presently she seemed to be doing well, using her youthful charm to make her way in the world. But what would her life be like when her youth faded? I found the image of such a charming creature slowly turning into a beggar on the streets too awful to contemplate. I preferred to believe that her natural talent and intelligence would get her through life in a difficult world despite her handicap.

My depressing thoughts were soon interrupted by the arrival of a handsome and distinguished looking European man; he bore a resemblance to a bearded, gray haired Burt Reynolds. At his side was a very attractive Vietnamese woman. Both were well-dressed; he wore a suit and tie; she wore a fashionable western style dress. They ordered food that they ate at the bar while several denizens of the Wild West congregated around them. He seemed to be an important man in this microcosm. From Fu, I later learned that he was Danish and lived in a town about a hundred kilometers from Saigon. He was a distributor for a Danish beer company--a very important man indeed!

Several members of the staff also ordered food at this time. Fu came out from behind the bar and sat near me while he ate his dinner, a bowl of pho, which he pronounced "fa". Watching him I realized I was hungry and asked if I could order a bowl of pho. He gave me a questioning look then said, "You want to eat? Yes, then it will cost 8,000 dong." "8,000 dong? That's about 55 cents US," I thought. "Sure Fu, sounds good to me," I said. Fu sent a man next door to place my order.

Shortly, a young man came in with a bowl of steaming hot soup. He looked inquiringly at several persons at the bar. I gestured to him and he set the soup in front of me. All I had was a 50,000-dong bill that I was a little apprehensive to let leave the room with this man. Fu, again at his station behind the bar, assured me it would be okay, so I gave him the bill and started on my soup. Several minutes later he returned with my change. I tipped him 2,000 dong which caused him to smile in a way that said he wasn't used to, or expecting, a tip.

The pho was simple; beef broth over noodles with pieces of beef and vegetables. It was very hot, both with heat and spice, and it was delicious. I ate quickly, lit a cigarette and leaned back on my barstool feeling quite satisfied. All I needed now was another beer, which I promptly ordered.

"Man, that hit the spot, Fu," I said after a swallow of beer. "I know," he said, "they are very good cooks. They are Chinese. The Chinese are very good cooks." "Really? I thought they were Vietnamese," I said, wiping my hands with the damp cloth I'd gotten from the bar girl. "Oh no, they are Chinese. You know Mr. Jack, there is a saying here; to live a good life in Saigon you must have Chinese cook, sleep on a French bed and marry a Japanese wife." I laughed, then asked, "Why a Japanese wife, Fu?" His reply was, "Because they are very beautiful and very obedient!" I laughed again, lit a cigarette and took a gulp of beer.

Looking across the room to where Tam was seated at a table eating her dinner, I was surprised to see her eating her rice with a spoon, rather than chopsticks. I was under the impression that everyone in Asia ate with chopsticks. But here was a young woman, born and raised in Vietnam, eating her rice with a spoon. As I pondered Tam's table manners, a tall, handsome young man entered the Wild West and sat at the bar next to me. At first I guessed him to be Australian or English. I couldn't hear too well in the loud bar, but I thought I detected a slight accent when he ordered his drink. Within a few moments he turned to me and asked if I was American. I answered his question and he replied, "Yeah, me too, I'm an expat from New York." His name was John and he worked as an English teacher. His pupils were the sons and daughters of businessmen and other wealthy international residents of Saigon.

Giving me a rundown of his recent history, he told me that in New York he had been a bartender, but drugs and alcohol had brought that occupation to an end. I was momentarily distracted, as I caught a glimpse of a bar girl's legs, so I missed the information about how he had ended up in Saigon. At any rate, he arrived with his western work ethic intact a little over a year earlier and was soon making very good money. Eventually the work ethic evaporated and he cut back to doing just enough to get by. Unable to save for a trip home, he was stuck for the time being. During our conversation I thought about the traffic I had seen that afternoon at the park. "Is it just me, or do they drive crazy here?" I asked. He looked at me intently for a moment, then replied, "Jack, I've never seen so much blood and guts on the street until I moved to Saigon and started riding a motorbike." Apparently when someone makes a mistake it has grave consequences for everyone involved. "You have to be very aggressive," he said, then added, "every now and then, someone cuts it too thin and I'll purposely clip his rear tire and spin him out. I just get so pissed off by idiots who don't even look, who don't even pay attention!"

John turned to talk with one of the bar girls while I concentrated on my beer for the time being. I watched Fu as he worked. A bar girl came up with an empty glass and a half full bowl of peanuts from a customer who had just left. Fu took the bowl in a perfunctory manner, lifted the lid off of a large can of peanuts from which he had been filling the bowls all night and poured the uneaten peanuts back into it.

"You know, Mr. Jack," he leaned over the bar to face me, "my doctor has advised me to stop smoking." His comment made me think--I was about to turn fifty and I had only recently gotten a healthcare plan through my job. For most of my life a visit to the doctor's office was out of the question unless a situation became extreme and then it resulted in a financial setback for me. Here was a young man in his twenties who lived in a poor country, made very little money and yet he had a doctor who he apparently visited for checkups and general health care advice! There was something to be learned here, but before I could put my finger on it, I detected feminine movement in my peripheral vision.

Entering the bar alone, two European women sat themselves at a small table against the far wall. I looked at Fu and gestured for him to lean across the bar. "Hey, Fu, look there are two women by themselves--shouldn't you go flirt with them?" I said. He gave me a puzzled looked so I explained, "When a man comes in the girls are all over him, shouldn't you do the same thing for the women customers?" Fu smiled and said, "It doesn't work that way with the women. With the men yes, women--no."

I asked him about the gangster who had been entering and leaving the room all night. He told me, "Oh, that is my cousin. He looks bad but he has a very good heart." "Well, he looks pretty dangerous to me, Fu. If I saw him in San Francisco I would guess he was a gangster." I said.

Suddenly, the bar was filled with Australians. They were big and they were loud. They ordered beers and sorted themselves into conversing pairs. Two of the younger members of the group leaned over the bar and began grilling Fu about the "th' graine staff" on the shelf behind the bar. Fu couldn't understand their accents so they repeated themselves in an even louder tone of voice that only magnified their accents to the point where I couldn't understand them either. Fu stood there looking confused as they kept pointing and squawking, "Now! Th'wan naxt tawit!" I realized it was a bottle of creme de menthe that perplexed them. "It's creme de menthe," I explained, "it's mint flavored booze." Their eyes became wide with disbelief. They were eager to try some. I warned them that it wasn't very good, so they asked Fu if they could have just a little taste. He complied with their request and soon they had yet another story to impress the folks back home. "Meent fliveard!" they yelled to their friends who were standing three feet away. "I'm too beig for I-ja," announced a tall, bulky blond, "I keep bumpin' my heed." She told me that she and her party had just arrived from two months in Thailand and were on their way north for a three-week tour of Vietnam.

"I don't like to travel around once I get someplace," I told her. "In fact, since I arrived here four days ago I haven't wandered much further than four blocks from my hotel, nor do I plan to." She stared at me, aghast. Then, feeling it her duty to broaden my horizons, she squealed, "Ow now! Wheeneva I travel I love ta gow everywiar'nd do everything! I want ta see'nd lairn's much as I cain!" "Me too; that's why I stay put." She gave me an odd look like I was the crazy one and rejoined her friends. That was fine with me--passionate people give me the creeps.

Shortly, we were treated to the spectacle of the oldest male member of the Aussie party dancing with one of the bar girls. I guess you have to give the old boy credit for letting it all hang out, but he definitely lost points on form. It was appalling! Lots of undulating fat and loud laughing. He made wry comments as he danced but his accent was so thick that only his companions understood him. They laughed appreciatively. John, who had been watching this with disgust, turned to me and said, "See, Jack, this is what I'm afraid of turning into when I get older." I chuckled and shook my head in sympathy at his plight--young and afraid of getting old. Considering what he had told me about his motor biking habits, he might not have much to worry about.

Feeling I should hold up my end of the conversation, I mentioned the hotel I had seen on my way to the Wild West earlier in the evening. A tone of annoyance in his voice, he explained, "See, it's like this; they take three years to build a new hotel and they throw a big party when it's completed. And then they put a padlock on it and walk away." I didn't feel his reply really answered my question, at least not to my satisfaction, so I changed to a topic I assumed he had more familiarity with, "You know, when I first came in here this evening, a couple of the girls came over and started hanging on me. I really didn't like it and I had to tell them to back off."

"Oh yeah, I know what you mean, the same thing happened to me the first time I came in here. You just have to let them know that you don't like it and then everything's all right after that; they just need a little time to figure you out. It's just their job, and they don't make much, about fifty bucks a month is all. It's a great bar, I come here fairly often; it reminds me of home." Then the bar girl rejoined him and once again I was forced to look elsewhere for conversation. Seeing that I was unoccupied, Tam approached me to ask if I needed another beer. I was losing count of how many I had had so far. Tam showed me my tab and it listed six beers. I noticed that the towel was also on my tab. "Okay, sure, one more," I said. She began to pour it for me in such a way that assured there would be little or no head. I stopped her, took the bottle and glass in hand and stuck the bottle end-up, deep in the glass. The beer gushed out and foamed around the neck of the bottle, then stopped, like a water bottle does when fitted into a water cooler. Then I pulled the bottle out and a beautiful head formed on top of the beer. She looked at me strangely, probably thinking I was drunk, but that's the way I like to pour my beer.

I noticed her fingernails were painted blue and complimented her on her choice of colors. She pointed out that her toenails were painted red. "Very nice," I said. At this she began a long, detailed description of all the colors of lipstick and nail polish she had. As she prattled on I feigned interest, but when she listed yellow as one of her colors of lipstick she regained my attention, "Wait a minute, you mean to tell me you wear yellow lipstick?" I said. "I've lived in San Francisco for eighteen years and, to the best of my knowledge, I have never seen a woman wearing yellow lipstick."

She laughed at my naivete, "Sometimes when I wear red lipstick, people complain I look too hot. They say, 'It's so hot. How can you wear that color?' So then I put on yellow lipstick. And then I put on red lipstick. And I don't look so hot any more." I pretended to understand what the hell she was talking about and took another sip of my beer. She left me for a moment, then returned holding a small envelope from which she pulled a stack of photographs. She handed them to me to look through. They were studio portraits of her in various glamorous poses. "You like these?" she asked. "Yes, you're a very pretty girl, Tam." "You take one and when you go back to America you put up in your bar with sign, it say, 'this girl want to get married', okay?"

I looked at her for a moment. She was very young, very pretty and apparently desperate to get out of Saigon. "You know, Tam, I don't think that would be a very good idea." She added quickly that she was only kidding and went to put her photos away. Within ten minutes she approached me again with the same favor to ask. This time I relented. "All right, I'll do it." She tried to give me one of her photos, but knowing they must have cost her quite a bit I declined and told her I would return on another night to take her picture with my camera.

The night wore on, now at a faster pace--the beers were adding up. Each time I neared the bottom of my glass Tam would appear and ask if I needed another. Now, when she poured my beer, she upended the bottle creating a frothy head. The first time she did this she looked at me for approval and I gave her the thumbs-up sign, which made her smile.

Noticing he was temporarily deserted by the bar girl, I turned and mentioned to John how pretty Mi was. He looked at her and said, "Oh, that one's all about money." From his tone of voice, I suspected that he had once made a failed play for her. "Well, John, when you get right down to it, all women prefer men with money," I said reassuringly. I excused myself to use the restroom and on the way back, I caught a glimpse of John slipping out the door onto Hia Ba Trung with one of the bar girls. I had a hearty chuckle at John's expense and turned to the pool table where a neatly dressed Vietnamese man was taking aim. He was the same man that Fu had sent next door to place my order for pho earlier in the evening. His opponent was the gangster. I surveyed their faces. Each wore an expression of grim determination; these men meant business. As I watched them a thought struck me--three decades ago men like these were sent to kill me just as I was sent to kill them. The Vietnamese man shot and missed. He shook his head and stepped back from the table, resting his pool cue at his side.

Next, the gangster took aim. Long arms outstretched, he slid the cue back and forth through his fingers; his aim focusing with each short stroke of the cue. His face contorted into a cruel mask; his entire being concentrated on a single act. He gave the cue ball a confident tap. It, in turn, struck the eight ball, propelling it to its destination. In one smooth motion he stood upright and let the pool cue slide through his fingers. The butt of the cue struck the ground at the exact moment the eight ball dropped from view into the corner pocket. He looked up at that moment of victory and our eyes met. A broad smile replaced the usual grim set of his features and he beamed happiness. It was then that I realized that this wasn't the menacing man of my imagination. I returned the smile and gave him a thumbs up. He nodded, then let the smile fade as quickly as it had appeared. He swaggered over to the bar where the old lady I had first encountered out front, sat nibbling on a bowl of peanuts. Rain had driven her indoors from her sentry post on the sidewalk. The gangster took a seat next to her and she wrapped her arms around him like a proud mother. There they sat with a look of contentment on their faces as the roar of the rain and a loud Bob Dylan song filled the room.

It was nearing 1 a.m. when the flower girl reappeared. With a toothy smile she made fun of her own appearance; rain staining her ao dai and dripping from her hair. Although her basket was running low on flowers, her energy still overflowed as she made her rounds, and in doing so she eventually came to me. Reaching into her basket she pulled out a large, red rose, spotted with raindrops and offered it to me. Again she indicated I should give it to Tam, who was standing at my side. I was becoming fond of Tam, getting to know her better as the night progressed. I didn't even mind when she put her arm around me momentarily, in fact I enjoyed it, but I wasn't about to buy her a flower. She was a sweet girl and a pretty one but I didn't return to Vietnam for girls.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a twenty-thousand dong note. I handed it to the flower girl and she handed me the big, red, dewy rose. I took it, inhaled its sweet fragrance and closed my eyes for a moment. In my mind's eye I saw a young soldier whose face was coated with a fine layer of dirt and soot, streaked by rivulets of sweat. Slack-jawed, he breathed heavily through his open mouth. His entire being exuded deep exhaustion and disgust, save for his eyes, which, in a glassy gaze, were fixed upon the horizon and beyond. He had retreated into his mind where he took refuge in a place far away in time and space, a place he called "the world." "I've come back for you," I said silently to the young soldier who cowered in my mind, dominating my memories of Vietnam for so many years, "You made it." Without change in his outward demeanor, he replied, "Yeah, ya came back, ya owed it ta yerself, slick--it don't mean nothin." I inhaled for a second time. Despite the beer, my thoughts cleared; an old debt had been repaid. I opened my eyes and before me stood the flower girl. No longer smiling, she looked at me with a curious expression, as if she expected this old man might keel over. When she saw that my eyes were opened again and that I was all right, her smile returned. She rocked her head from side to side and gave me the thumbs up.

Without hesitation I presented the rose to this shining star of the Wild West. She took it graciously and dipped in a small bow as she did so. Around her swirled the denizens of the Wild West and out on Hai Ba Trung, the motorbikes whizzed by and the rain fell. Beyond that spread the city of my dreams--Saigon. I'd waited long and paid dearly, but I had completed the circle.

From a place far away in time and space, I had come back for myself. I had made it. The old memories were fading; the future now belonged to the flower girl and her friends. Bravo, little flower girl of Saigon.

Published on 11/1/99