Me and Dawg

I left my work yesterday (Friday) at about 3pm. Dawg and I did a heavy work out. With the weights. Heavy. When we emerged back out into the streets, it was raining like a motherfucker. Raining like Noah’s last stand. Raining like the seventh sign. Raining. But rain doesn’t stop the Vietnamese. Nothing stops the Vietnamese. And rain doesn’t stop me and Dawg. Anyway we had ourselves an umbrella. Halfway home, through the puddles and the torrents, Dawg turns to me and says, “We came a long way from dirty ghetto kids.”

Most of the time, I have no idea of what Dawg’s talking about, and now wasn’t any different. But, I don’t want to upset him. So, I just nod. He likes it when I nod. Yeah Dawg. We did. There’s a lot of reasons why Dawg and I hang together. He’s shorter than me and he’s no good with the girls. Who needs more?

Anyway, as we got closer to home, we found more obstacles. Things were blocking our path. You know what I’m saying? Things. We arrived near the house, near the street, near the ‘hood, to find that the road had gone. Gone. Gone like a Harry Houdini. Gone like a poor Thai farm girl’s virginity. Gone.
The water had collected in the streets. Now, I don’t want to say that the drainage systems in Saigon need work. But, they do. Enough said. The water had collected way up high; calf height. In fact, if I was a baby calf, I would steer way clear of the whole show.

Dawg ‘n’ I dress sharply. So we wanted no part of this. Fuck it. Already my loafers had seen more action than necessary; like me, they’re built for show but don’t ask more. Enough said.
We turned back the way we had come. It was food and liquor time, that much was clear. We found a Banh Xeo joint not far away. Banh xeo is a like large Vietnamese pancake, and it’s probably the reason they won the war. But, that’s not what Dawg and I were looking for; we were after kebabs. Beer and kebabs. I happened to know that the place served good kebabs. There are things that the Vietnamese do well: fighting, loving, drinking. And kebabs. For me, kebabs are enough. I’m simple, and kebabs just happen to be something I know about. I can hook pretty much anyone up with any kind of kebab in the city. People have different skills.

We took a seat. Outside. Under the awnings. Just clear of the torrents. I had endorphins clear up to my ears from the recent exercise. Whoa. A cool breeze wandered through the small side street, between the tables and the waiters, like a Sunday shopper. It was a welcome cool. It had been a hot week. You know what I’m saying? We pointed to some necessary items on the menu. Neither Dawg nor I speak Vietnamese. We got no time for that. The beers came and we started working them. Dawg gave me the sign like there was something behind me, like something worth turning around for. I turned. Sure enough. There was a Vietnamese girl. Just sitting there, like she wasn’t completely gorgeous. Except that she was. I turned back to Dawg. “Swanky,” I said. Dawg has a good eye for the girls. Like I say, he’s no good with them, but he’s got a good eye.

It wasn’t long before I felt a tug at my trouser leg. There’s always something. It had nothing to do with the Vietnamese girl and it was happening way down around my feet. I looked down to the left of me, expecting maybe a dog or a baby Vietnamese. Down around my feet, there was a man with no legs. Smiling. What else was he going to do? If you got no legs and you live in Saigon, you better learn to smile. But how? How do you go on living with no legs? Let alone smile. There he was, traveling an inch and a half above the dirty streets and beaming up at me like he’s just found God. Magazines. That’s what this was all about. I waved him away like I was some privileged person who belonged to the land of legs, followed closely by a wave of self-loathing that swallowed me up like a Somalian drought . I should have given him something. Anything. Legs.

It wasn’t long before Dawg and I got quiet. Each of us coasting down our own mental leafy path. I was halfway through my beer and became still. The rain had stopped and the world was dripping, cool, clean. Friday. I looked up to see the word ‘peaceful’ written on the back of some guys t-shirt. Except that it was written like this: {peaceful}. Amen to that brother, I thought, and fell in love with the world. In love with Dawg. In love with the magazine seller who had no legs. In love with all of these beautiful people I was surrounded by. In love with this beautiful place.
The waiter brought the kebabs, two a piece for Dawg and I. Damn they were good kebabs. The meat was literally dripping, wanting to get off the stick. I garnered the chopsticks and began to free the meat from this unholy crucifixion it had found itself in. Like I say, it was dripping, and just as tender as a Vietnamese girl’s cheek. They call it beef, but I wasn’t going to run any series of tests on it to find out if it was. I think the term may be loosely and freely applied. Like love.

The tugging began again; the legless man was back, pointing. Pointing and tugging. “What? What is it?” I said. “What’s down there?” He was looking up at me, beaming. Pointing and tugging and beaming. What’s he pointing at? I thought. My gaze followed the direction of his signaling finger and landed right smack bang on my umbrella which I had carefully placed underneath the table, next to my chair. There was something he didn’t like about it, something had him miffed and it was clearly related to my umbrella. Perhaps he had been spiked by more than a few discarded umbrellas in the past.
“It’s okay old man,” I started saying. “It’s okay, it’s just an umbrella.” I sensed that he understood, and, slowly, the pointing subsided, like a monstrous orange sun slowly dipping down over an ocean horizon. He went away and I tried not to think about it. Dawg just kept staring down at him, puzzled beyond belief.
“Let it go Dawg,” I said. “Just let it go. It does no good to vex. We will never understand their ways.”
With that, I looked knowingly out into the distance over Dawg’s shoulder. Out into the past, into the future. I smiled, knowingly.
“Dawg,” I said, “all’s we got is now; these kebabs and right now.” The kebab juice dripped down from my mouth onto the table, leaving me slurping and licking. Dawg still looked puzzled.
Yeah, I thought, we came a long way from dirty ghetto kids.