The Bangkok Asset

22

Memory, of course, is notorious for its power to deceive. Nevertheless, I am certain Ben and his brothers have faithfully reproduced the museum that I first visited in Saigon with my mother, Nong, all those years ago. Walking ramrod straight, and a little too fast, Ben takes me to what I suppose is his favorite exhibit: a photograph of a giant thousand-gallon tank of Agent Orange, which carries the legend The Giant Purple People Eater.

“This is where we turned Nazi,” Ben announces loudly. He has become suddenly officious, a different person entirely; stress works all his features. His words pierce the somnambulant state I seem to have slipped into. “Did you know we had to refine napalm to make it better stick to human skin? It stuck especially well to the tender skin of young children.”

“No,” I hear myself saying, as if underwater. “No, I did not know that.”

A kind of panic overcomes him, like someone who suffers from claustrophobia. He marches us through the rest of the exhibits at a fast walking pace-the My Lai massacre; victims of Agent Orange; the picture I saw on my first visit with Nong all those years ago (exactly as I remembered: an athletic-looking GI, an M-16 in his left hand, his right holding the torso of an enemy fighter, which is hardly more than skin plus head hanging upside down; the GI is laughing hysterically).

Now Ben is glaring at me. I am put in mind of crazies who throw tantrums for no apparent reason: a sudden resurgence of uncontrollable rage waiting for a trigger.

“You gotta blow them away, you have no choice. You can’t be who you are and let them be who they are. It don’t work. Someone has to die.” He raises his voice again, making it crack. “We coulda won, you know?”

“Won what, the genocide?”

He blinks rapidly. “Yeah. The genocide. Why not? It’s only the first time you kill that you feel bad.” He stamps his foot. “So, why didn’t we just drop the Bomb on Hanoi?” He stares at me, distraught. “I could have been standing here a winner, instead of a loser.”

I am afraid of him, this crazy old man, so I say nothing. The suffering of a crazy possesses an unnerving authenticity that can make you feel like a fraud in your fragile sanity. Is it because we know deep down that a divided mind is perhaps the only honest reaction to a cleft world? Sorry, R, these are jungle thoughts, I’ll be okay once I’m out of here.

Or will I? There’s an atmosphere of finality in the camp that creeps up on you, as if this were the hidden endgame I have been postponing all these years.

A groan starts somewhere deep in Ben’s chest, and ends with a scream. “You trying to fuck with my head, boy? You trying to fuck me up all over again? We weren’t supposed to lose.” Now he weeps. “We could have had a victory parade just like after World War Two. The whole of New York would have turned out to honor us.”

Now I cannot stand any more. I am pulling him toward the exit by grabbing the strap of his dungarees. He forces a halt in front of the “Napalm Girl,” who is running naked toward the camera, her body burning with the chemical that has stuck to her. Ben bursts into tears. Now he is running toward the exit. I race after him, but when I pull open the door of the hut, there is no sign of him.

I have to go back in. I stop in front of a photograph of an eighty-five-year-old woman in a wheelchair leading ten thousand people in a march from Berkeley to Oakland on November 25, 1965; she carries a banner with the legend My Son Died in Vain, Don’t Go to War, Go to Prison. Black-and-white pix of marches and demonstrations from Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, Cuba, France, Britain, the USSR. Now I see close-ups of Hugh Thompson and Lawrence Colburn, two helicopter pilots raised to the level of superheroes: they saved the lives of ten Vietnamese civilians at My Lai. In November 1965, Roger LaPorte, Norman Morrison, and Alice Herz soaked themselves in gasoline and set themselves on fire outside U.S. government buildings. Here is the wall of the intellectuals, led by Bertrand Russell of the U.K., giving finely articulated reasons why the war must end. A telegram sent by Ho Chi Minh to “American Friends” on the occasion of 1968 New Year’s. Finally, a distraught young woman, on her knees, weeps over the dead body of a fellow student at Kent State University.

The one that grabs me the most, though, is a highly colored, deliberately amateurish poster by vets who opposed the war: Don’t go, the U.S. Government will turn you into a psychopath.

–

Outside the hut it has started to rain with the sudden violence of the tropics. I stand in the downpour and shiver. Now a tall, wild figure, also without protection from the rain, appears from behind one of the other huts, cupping a lighted cigarette.

“Ben flipped, didn’t he? Captain America took over, I suppose? You must forgive him-and forgive me, too,” he says. “I hope you understand why we had to do that?” He gives a good strong pull on the Camel.

“What is a wormhole?”

“I’ll tell you in the truck on the way back. The point was that you should see where everyone is coming from.”

“Everyone?”

He looks at me. “Yes. The Asset included.”