[Velz] Strike and Swing: Part II
Laurent
I apologize for the cliffhanger, I couldn’t help myself.
First, don’t worry too much–I’m not about to reveal that my father is a criminal who’s knocked out a number of violent crimes in his past–nothing of the sort.
The night I asked my father about the Night of Dark Temples, we talked for much longer than I initially thought we would. After he finished his main story, he told me more about his time in Vietnam–the good, bad, and everything in-between.
He told me stories I’d heard before and ones I’d never imagined. That night, with my mother and brother upstairs, with a smattering of dirty dishes between us waiting to be washed, my father laid his history bare. As I sat there, I felt like I saw the time and the shadow that looms behind my father.
There was one particular story that caused me to see my father in a different light, a story that reminded me of that damp night when he came to “rescue” me with his pipe. More specifically, I saw his arms in a different light. Those arms held me before I could stand. Those arms lifted and moved things I could not. Those arms washed the dishes between us as he told his story. Minutes before, I would have said that those arms held no true capacity for violence.
Now, I know what those arms have done–and to this day I’m left wondering if there is a Vietnamese man somewhere in the world who remembers being a frightened, bleeding young child. I wonder if that man remembers what my father did to save him, all these decades later.
1975: An Do
The only thing An Do and the children of his neighborhood loved more than Coca-Cola was free Coca-Cola.
When the Americans came to Vietnam, they brought a Coca-Cola factory with them–it sat just outside of the city, soundly within “raiding distance” of the local youth.1 An, his friends, and whichever other kids were around would go to the factory a few times a month. If they were lucky, they would find a case full of Coke bottles left below a window, which they would promptly take back to the city to divvy up between their neighborhood fellows.2
Unfortunately, this pattern of "robbery" could not continue indefinitely. After the Night of Dark Temples, when the Viet Cong had taken the city, things changed. The Americans and southern militia had been pushed out of the city, so the Communists controlled it and the factory on its outskirts. An and his friends stopped visiting the factory–but that did not mean every child in the city followed suit.
It was as hot and humid a day as any other when An's friend rounded the corner of the block at a full sprint and stopped by the porch of the Do family abode. The boy panted like a dog, dripping sweat onto the street.
"What's going on?" An asked. His friend only beckoned him to follow, too out of breath to get a full sentence out. Of course, An did so without question.
An quickly recognized that they were running down to the beach, taking the familiar but now seldom-used path down to the factory. As they made their way out onto the open sands, they saw a commotion outside the factory.
A group of children, younger than An and his friends, cowered on the sand, kneeling and holding their hands on their heads. A large man dressed in a military uniform stood before them, swinging a baton down at a curled up child. The weapon came down with loud cracks against the child’s arms, back, and legs. The officer was sweating through his uniform, the top of his balding head slick with perspiration.
Logic might have dictated that An run for an adult. Logic might have dictated that An approach and ask what was going on. Logic might even have dictated that An apologize on behalf of the young child.
An was not feeling very logical.
Sand kicked up behind An as he ran across the beach. As An approached, he could hear the Communist officer shouting obscenities at the child that lay beaten and bleeding below him.
"Thief!" Twenty meters.
"Rat!" Ten meters.
"Worthless!" An crashed into the man, sending them both tumbling to the ground. He landed two glancing blows on the officer's face before the baton came up and slammed into his shoulder, bruising it instantly. An wrestled the baton away and swung it against the officer’s raised arms before tossing it aside and laying in with his hands once again. He ripped the officer’s arms away from their guarded position, unleashing every ounce of pent-up anti-Communist fury and frustration that he had in him.3
The officer eventually managed to shove An off of himself, but the younger man deftly rolled back to his feet in the sand, ready to keep fighting. The officer spat blood between them, then turned to walk to his baton.4
An noticed that the children behind him had gone–his friend stood a distance away, mouth agape near the shrubbery at the beach’s edge. As the officer went for his weapon, An decided, for all the wrong reasons, to run.
The friend came up beside An as they left the beach.
“What the fuck were you thinking, An?” the friend asked. Sand changed to a dirt road beneath their feet.
“That was a kid!” An shouted, as they entered the city proper.
“And that was an officer!” the friend shouted back. “They’ll fucking kill you!”
The two approached the intersection near the Do family home. “Go home,” An said. “I’ll handle this.”
“What the hell does that mean?” the friend pleaded.
An pushed his friend aside and ran to his home, ignoring his frustration as he slammed the door open. Blood rushed through his veins, filling his ears with a rhythmic thumping that almost sounded like his fists coming down onto that damned Communist’s face. An had run from the fight, yes, but there remained an important distinction to make: An Do was no coward. He did not run from the beach to escape the officer’s wrath, but instead to arm himself with his own weapon, which he scrambled to look for.
Rummaging through shelves and drawers, An ignored the questions of his siblings, young and old. He searched with a fervor that matched the fire that still pulsed through him, until he finally found his boon: the machete his grandmother often used to chop fruit.
An grasped the wooden handle in a tight fist. The blade was about as long as his arm was from fingertip to elbow, and widened slightly up the length to its curved tip. An had watched his grandmother use this to split fruit of every variety, hewing soft and hard skins alike with skilled, well-placed strikes.5
“An.” A single spoken word.
An turned, face still twisted with anger and frustration. In the doorway of their home, Grandma Do stood with crossed arms. His siblings had scattered to the winds, nowhere to be seen.
“What are you doing with that.” A directed question, uttered like an accusation.
“I’m going to kill that bastard down on the beach.”
Grandma Do did not respond, did not nod or acknowledge any of what An had said.
An twitched and continued: “he was beating a kid with his stick. I’m going to go back there.” An tried to move past his grandmother, but the woman did not budge. He turned sideways, squeezing between her and the doorframe. He stepped one foot outside before Grandma Do spoke again.
“An.” A word spoken again with such fire and fury dripping from it that An instantly cooled in comparison.
“Back.” A reverberating command.
An backed into the house once again. He bit his lip as his own fury mellowed under the burning gaze of his grandmother.
“Explain.” An undeniable imperative.
An opened his mouth, but Grandma Do swiftly smacked the top of his head. He looked up, confused until he saw that Grandma Do’s eyes were pointed sideways. With the barest tilt of her head, she regarded An’s friend, who had remained on the street outside their home.
An’s friend began a stumbling account, starting with when he realized his little brother was taking too long playing with his friends. He’d gone to find all of the boys rounded up and under punishment, and he’d run back to fetch An. The friend mentioned that An got into a minor scuffle with the officer before running back to the city.
Grandma Do flicked her eyes back down to An, who had at some point had begun kneeling on the floor. She smacked his head again, calling him names and insulting his intelligence as she yanked him up and ordered him to place the machete back in its housing. She dragged him out of the house and to the local police station.
As Grandma Do watched An grovel and apologize, she commandeered the station’s phone, sending a call northward. In a closed room with a metal table and metal chairs, An sat face to face with the officer from the beach. Man and boy sat bleeding and bruised, shooting venomous looks at each other for the hour it took for Grandma Do’s call to bear fruit.
Under normal circumstances, An could have been imprisoned or killed for attacking an officer. By Grandma Do’s intervention, however, an influential and well-off uncle from the North walked into the station an hour after her call.6
An watched as his uncle used his influence and importance as a doctor in the North. Through much bartering and discussion, An’s uncle eventually managed to plead for An’s forgiveness. The assaulted officer and the station agreed to let An off the hook on the uncle’s behalf, and so the Dos left the station freely. On the way home, An’s uncle and Grandma both made sure to remind An that such a rescue would not be possible a second time–not for lack of ability, but for lack of willingness. An would have to dig himself out of his next mess, if it ever came.
An nodded, recognizing his incredible fortune that night. He never got into direct conflict with an officer again.
An’s friends, however, made sure to go out into their front yards every morning for the next few months. As that officer walked past their homes every morning, An’s friends would watch and whisper, menacing the man but always erring just on the side of safety, making sure to make him as miserable as they could for as long as they could.
My father once again used dirty dishes and a dish towel to properly lay out his city and the nearby beach and bay.
They never stopped to question why there was so often an unattended case of Coke left under a side window–someone in the factory seemed to have a soft spot for the children.
My father and his friends could perhaps have been considered teenage deviants. The Communists brought new and, to some, excessive rules and regulations to his city, and many people my father’s age were not fans.
Needing a weapon as an adult against a 14-15 year old is a pretty bad look, if you ask me.
If I had a nickel for each parent I have that felt the need to attack a man with a machete at some point in their teenage years, I’d have two nickels–which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. I hope you’ll understand if I tell you that my mother’s story is one for a different time.
A real Deus Ex Machina, I know.