| General Fiction posted December 30, 2021 | Chapters: |
...7 8 -9- 10... 
|
  |
A river flows through it.
A chapter in the book Concertina
Moonlight Sonata
by Yardier
| Background Lee Morason is a Vietnam veteran with the aftereffects of combat clouding his view of life. He avoids the symptoms and denies he is heading to a psychological and spiritual break down. |
When Lee awoke in a dark room, he could not remember where he was. The back of his throat was dry, and his mouth tasted like stale cigarette smoke. Then, as his night vision balanced, he saw familiar shadows illuminated by the green light of a clock radio; chair, dresser, television, and a lump on the bed next to him.
Who is that? Lee patted nervously at the lump.
Oh, my duffel bag, hmm, Saigon. He could not help but smile at the irony of his realization. The only thing missing was an overhead ceiling fan revolving to the beat of Huey rotors.
A vague and disturbing memory of his rude impatience while checking in at the front desk urged him to sit on the side of the bed and rub his head. That was a long flight. Was I drunk when I checked in?
The flight was longer than he remembered when he first flew to Vietnam in '68. He rubbed his temples and grimaced when he realized the flight back to Saigon had been worse than uncomfortable. It had been painful. The man next to him introduced himself as a medical advisor with an investigative group searching for MIAs. He had never been to Vietnam and badgered Lee with questions about Agent Orange, POWs and deserters, and MIAs. Lee tried to be polite, but the questions just kept coming. Lee finally shut down and upped his drink from beer to scotch. Twenty-two hours over the Pacific is a long time to listen to an FNG.
Before passing out, the last thing Lee remembered was the medical advisor eagerly sharing the good news he and the group were carrying. "We've got rock-solid information an MIA is alive in Saigon."
Who cares about that? Lee thought with his head spinning and his stomach ready to heave.
Feeling the full effects of the distance and alcohol, he looked at the clock radio; nine o'clock at night? How could that be? He arrived in Saigon sometime around noon, or so he thought. Perplexed, he couldn't remember when he arrived. He couldn't even remember the shuttle ride from the airport. He stood on stiff legs, hobbled to the window, and pulled the curtain back, and peeked at the Saigon Harbor. It was still there, and the river was still flowing.
Who is that? Lee patted nervously at the lump.
Oh, my duffel bag, hmm, Saigon. He could not help but smile at the irony of his realization. The only thing missing was an overhead ceiling fan revolving to the beat of Huey rotors.
A vague and disturbing memory of his rude impatience while checking in at the front desk urged him to sit on the side of the bed and rub his head. That was a long flight. Was I drunk when I checked in?
The flight was longer than he remembered when he first flew to Vietnam in '68. He rubbed his temples and grimaced when he realized the flight back to Saigon had been worse than uncomfortable. It had been painful. The man next to him introduced himself as a medical advisor with an investigative group searching for MIAs. He had never been to Vietnam and badgered Lee with questions about Agent Orange, POWs and deserters, and MIAs. Lee tried to be polite, but the questions just kept coming. Lee finally shut down and upped his drink from beer to scotch. Twenty-two hours over the Pacific is a long time to listen to an FNG.
Before passing out, the last thing Lee remembered was the medical advisor eagerly sharing the good news he and the group were carrying. "We've got rock-solid information an MIA is alive in Saigon."
Who cares about that? Lee thought with his head spinning and his stomach ready to heave.
Feeling the full effects of the distance and alcohol, he looked at the clock radio; nine o'clock at night? How could that be? He arrived in Saigon sometime around noon, or so he thought. Perplexed, he couldn't remember when he arrived. He couldn't even remember the shuttle ride from the airport. He stood on stiff legs, hobbled to the window, and pulled the curtain back, and peeked at the Saigon Harbor. It was still there, and the river was still flowing.
~~~~
Lee found it pleasantly odd, almost dreamlike, to stand in a tile shower in a modern hotel in Saigon with hot water massaging a gentle pulse onto his stiff neck and shoulders. As a young soldier, he recalled how he had spent more than a year in Vietnam, but this was the first time he had a hot shower, and he'd barely been in Saigon a day. He remembered how fuel drums painted black and set up on timbers and filled with river water provided tepid showers when the sun was out and cold showers when it wasn't.
After his long-needed shower and quick shave, Lee changed into fresh clothes. Now somewhat relaxed, he gave himself a final check in the dresser mirror and admitted that while he looked and felt a little better, he still had a nagging headache and was hardly confident he knew what to do to find Annie. Lee never thought to telephone his wife to let her know he arrived in Vietnam safely. However, he did know he needed a tall, ice-cold beer to get over the jet lag and annoying doctor or medical advisor or whatever he was.
As he closed the door behind him and walked to the elevator, his mind percolated with possibilities; Saigon Hall of Records, US Embassy, MACV… wait, no, this is Ho Chi Minh City now. That's right; there is no MACV anymore.
The elevator dinged, and when the door opened, Lee stepped into the car, preoccupied with trying to figure which government agency he needed to contact. He pushed the lobby button, and as the elevator swooshed to the ground floor, Lee realized the man standing next to him was his reflection from the car's mirrored walls multiplied into infinite and smaller images.
Startled by the distortion, he began to panic on the edge of vertigo as the elevator touched down and the door opened into a grand French Colonial-themed lobby. Relieved to step away from the mirrors, Lee walked past the check-in counter on wobbly legs avoiding eye contact with the receptionist. Trying to shake a vague sense of paranoia, Lee paused between the faux marble columns to get his bearings then headed to the bar. While light and lilting piano music greeted Lee and soothed his mind, he admitted he did not know what to do but knew he had to have a beer to figure it out.
Approaching the bar, he saw a small group of men and women at a table drinking cocktails and speaking French. He figured they were a commercial flight crew because of their matching suits with silver aviation lapel pins. One of the men glanced at Lee then turned away and spoke to the others. Lee did not speak French but understood one word: American. He also understood the laughter that followed it.
At the bar, he asked for a bottle of Vietnamese 33 beer to start the night off right. The Vietnamese bartender quickly retrieved a cold one, placed it on a Budweiser coaster, and said, "There you go, GI." Lee was surprised. He didn't think it was obvious, and even though he had been startled by the bartender's quip, Lee tipped him a green-back, resulting in a genuine smile even though they both knew it was illegal. He was relieved to see some things had not changed in sixteen years after all.
Leaning against the bar, Lee watched and listened as the French crew gabbed and laughed over the background piano music. Frogs, what would they know? What was that tune? It seemed familiar, American. He walked toward the sound of the piano near the patio doors overlooking the Saigon River and saw a beautiful black lacquered baby grand piano. Nestled in the corner, surrounded by lush green palm fronds the piano presented an image of eloquence Lee had not before experienced in Vietnam. The depth of black lacquer contrasted with the deep bold green of the palm fronds filled Lee’s interest short of awe as the melody trickled lightly into his mind.
The lyrics then came to him softly like a feather, "Do that something, something one more time."
He could almost visualize the female singer performing the song as he passed by the flight crew's table.
One of the women at the table tapped a light beat with her foot and sang the lyrics softly in French. The song bloomed gently in his head, "Do that to me one more time." Pleased, he smiled at the woman, who smiled back over the rim of her cocktail. The next verse fell into place, "I can never get enough of a man like you." He walked around the column nearest the piano and was perplexed to see a vacant piano bench.
The modern player piano continued to play Toni Tennille's torch song as an elderly Vietnamese woman in a maroon smock cleaned the ashtray near the piano. She smiled a friendly smile revealing her beetle-nut-stained teeth as the lyrics continued in his head, "Oh, Bayybee, do that to me once again..."
"Beautiful, isn't she?"
Lee turned and saw a tall, smiling Vietnamese man wearing a maroon blazer with a brass name tag: Mr. Tran, Assistant Manager. He walked past Lee, sat at the piano, and lightly buffed a small smudge above the keyboard with his handkerchief. His gaze swept over the top of the piano and beamed satisfaction. The glossy finish shined as deep and clear as if it had just been dipped in the purest lacquer. "Made in Korea, not Japan. They're much better craftsmen, you know. They take their time."
"Nice piano." Lee gulped his beer and looked over the top of the bottle toward the lobby door. "Can anyone play it?"
"Of course," the manager said while ignoring Lee's arrogance. He turned the auto-play off then looked deep into Lee's eyes.
Ya, right... chopsticks? Lee glanced away.
There was a pause in the air, and except for the faint sound of a vacuum cleaner coming from the hallway, an awkward moment passed when Mr. Tran turned and stretched his fingers and placed them lightly on the keyboard. Then, he leaned forward and closed his eyes as he began to play.
Lee knew the piece was classical but did not know it was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata first movement. He thought Mr. Tran would stop playing as soon as he had proved he could play. But Lee saw Mr. Tran's posture had changed and he had become focused on performing the piece with perfection. Lee became uneasy as the soothing melody graced the lobby and the distant memory of a moonlit night appeared in his mind. An all-seeing moon revealed a circle of soldiers pointing their M-16s at a figure lying at their feet. A small ember glowed as one GI passed a joint to another while the lingering sensation of Lee's pistol having been fired, buzzed in the palm of his hand. He remembered with sudden clarity how raucous jeering had become stunningly silent after a loud report split the night, causing his ears to ring as he holstered his pistol.
Even now, he could recall the smell of gunpowder and pot lingering in the air like deadly incense, incense that could not camouflage the scent of death that rose from Mr. Charles, Mr. VC, Mr. Rice Farmer... Mr. Nobody. Stubbornly and with eternal insistence, the smell of death and pot and gunpowder comingled, curled, and snaked its way through the hot, humid night, tainting each soldier's soul with the memory of Mr. Nobody's spilled blood forever.
Shaken by the long-ago buried memory, Lee looked around the lobby for an exit as if he could simply walk away from the past and bury it once more. But it was too late; the rising melody of Beethoven's composition had snuck into his chest and wrapped its embrace of melancholy joy around his heart. Alarmed and vulnerable, Lee felt a great weight shift within himself then settle into a pool of profound sadness. Troubled, he began to struggle with a repressed emotion that was determined to surface from deep within his being.
Angry and confused, Lee blamed jet lag and the rude doctor for feeling out of sorts while dodging the persistent question; what was he doing in Saigon? Denying the obvious, he quickly brushed aside the emerging black and blue evidence of a hole in his soul and the thought his wife had fallen into it. Yet, mysteriously, Lee sensed a translucent outline of Anh Li floating and weaving in and out of distant memories desiring to become more than an apparition but a replacement. Enticed and troubled he wanted her, the aura of humidity, jungle, and mildew surrounding her with a hint of deadly seduction gave him pause.
He shuddered to remove the image and blinked away the gathering moisture in his eyes. He struggled to focus on Mr. Tran's delicate fingers as they danced lightly from one end of the keyboard to the other. A woman from the flight crew slipped beside Lee, closed her eyes, and tilted her face toward the ceiling, then with a smiling whisper asked, "Lovely, no?"
Lee turned from her and looked past Mr. Tran to the busy Saigon Harbor where lights from massive freighters and Vietnamese Junks danced and sparkled on the surface of a black and determined Saigon River. He watched through eyes scarred with combat cataracts and sadly realized, he did not know.
Instead, as the woman's perfume merged with the piano's rising melody, the sudden vision of a blooming and delicate orchid appeared in Lee's mind then quickly slipped into darkness. The image alarmed him with the pressing thought the river current possessed fingers that could reach through the open patio doors and pull on a frayed thread he hid within his heart; A thread connected to a soulful spool deep within the shadows of buried memories. Memories he feared would soon be exposed as empty, bare, and useless. And, in that tomb of emptiness, he worried the once buried and scattered bones of guilt would begin to vibrate and rattle into the formation of the man he had become.
Suddenly alert and frozen in a place between two periods of time, Lee saw how the past had become woven into a tapestry of his present life, and yet he denied it existed all along. Now, he felt as if a younger Lee had passed away, never to be seen again. Not only did he feel grief and remorse for not acknowledging that passing, but he also feared a darker part of him had taken an active role over the years, in the denial, that he and he alone had been complicit with his own slow and clever destruction.
Lee turned from the open patio doors just as Mr. Tran finished playing. Mr. Tran stood and bowed gracefully, evoking polite applause from the flight crew. Mr. Tran then looked directly at Lee with a sparkle in his eyes and a warm smile on his face and asked, "You were expecting chopsticks, maybe?" He paused for a moment when he saw Lee appeared uncomfortable. Then, concerned, he added kindly in perfect English, "Look, I think you might enjoy this bar on Dong Khoi St. called "The Bunker." A lot of returning vets go there to drink and meet old buddies. I think you'll like it. I'll have my driver take you there in the shuttle van."
After his long-needed shower and quick shave, Lee changed into fresh clothes. Now somewhat relaxed, he gave himself a final check in the dresser mirror and admitted that while he looked and felt a little better, he still had a nagging headache and was hardly confident he knew what to do to find Annie. Lee never thought to telephone his wife to let her know he arrived in Vietnam safely. However, he did know he needed a tall, ice-cold beer to get over the jet lag and annoying doctor or medical advisor or whatever he was.
As he closed the door behind him and walked to the elevator, his mind percolated with possibilities; Saigon Hall of Records, US Embassy, MACV… wait, no, this is Ho Chi Minh City now. That's right; there is no MACV anymore.
The elevator dinged, and when the door opened, Lee stepped into the car, preoccupied with trying to figure which government agency he needed to contact. He pushed the lobby button, and as the elevator swooshed to the ground floor, Lee realized the man standing next to him was his reflection from the car's mirrored walls multiplied into infinite and smaller images.
Startled by the distortion, he began to panic on the edge of vertigo as the elevator touched down and the door opened into a grand French Colonial-themed lobby. Relieved to step away from the mirrors, Lee walked past the check-in counter on wobbly legs avoiding eye contact with the receptionist. Trying to shake a vague sense of paranoia, Lee paused between the faux marble columns to get his bearings then headed to the bar. While light and lilting piano music greeted Lee and soothed his mind, he admitted he did not know what to do but knew he had to have a beer to figure it out.
Approaching the bar, he saw a small group of men and women at a table drinking cocktails and speaking French. He figured they were a commercial flight crew because of their matching suits with silver aviation lapel pins. One of the men glanced at Lee then turned away and spoke to the others. Lee did not speak French but understood one word: American. He also understood the laughter that followed it.
At the bar, he asked for a bottle of Vietnamese 33 beer to start the night off right. The Vietnamese bartender quickly retrieved a cold one, placed it on a Budweiser coaster, and said, "There you go, GI." Lee was surprised. He didn't think it was obvious, and even though he had been startled by the bartender's quip, Lee tipped him a green-back, resulting in a genuine smile even though they both knew it was illegal. He was relieved to see some things had not changed in sixteen years after all.
Leaning against the bar, Lee watched and listened as the French crew gabbed and laughed over the background piano music. Frogs, what would they know? What was that tune? It seemed familiar, American. He walked toward the sound of the piano near the patio doors overlooking the Saigon River and saw a beautiful black lacquered baby grand piano. Nestled in the corner, surrounded by lush green palm fronds the piano presented an image of eloquence Lee had not before experienced in Vietnam. The depth of black lacquer contrasted with the deep bold green of the palm fronds filled Lee’s interest short of awe as the melody trickled lightly into his mind.
The lyrics then came to him softly like a feather, "Do that something, something one more time."
He could almost visualize the female singer performing the song as he passed by the flight crew's table.
One of the women at the table tapped a light beat with her foot and sang the lyrics softly in French. The song bloomed gently in his head, "Do that to me one more time." Pleased, he smiled at the woman, who smiled back over the rim of her cocktail. The next verse fell into place, "I can never get enough of a man like you." He walked around the column nearest the piano and was perplexed to see a vacant piano bench.
The modern player piano continued to play Toni Tennille's torch song as an elderly Vietnamese woman in a maroon smock cleaned the ashtray near the piano. She smiled a friendly smile revealing her beetle-nut-stained teeth as the lyrics continued in his head, "Oh, Bayybee, do that to me once again..."
"Beautiful, isn't she?"
Lee turned and saw a tall, smiling Vietnamese man wearing a maroon blazer with a brass name tag: Mr. Tran, Assistant Manager. He walked past Lee, sat at the piano, and lightly buffed a small smudge above the keyboard with his handkerchief. His gaze swept over the top of the piano and beamed satisfaction. The glossy finish shined as deep and clear as if it had just been dipped in the purest lacquer. "Made in Korea, not Japan. They're much better craftsmen, you know. They take their time."
"Nice piano." Lee gulped his beer and looked over the top of the bottle toward the lobby door. "Can anyone play it?"
"Of course," the manager said while ignoring Lee's arrogance. He turned the auto-play off then looked deep into Lee's eyes.
Ya, right... chopsticks? Lee glanced away.
There was a pause in the air, and except for the faint sound of a vacuum cleaner coming from the hallway, an awkward moment passed when Mr. Tran turned and stretched his fingers and placed them lightly on the keyboard. Then, he leaned forward and closed his eyes as he began to play.
Lee knew the piece was classical but did not know it was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata first movement. He thought Mr. Tran would stop playing as soon as he had proved he could play. But Lee saw Mr. Tran's posture had changed and he had become focused on performing the piece with perfection. Lee became uneasy as the soothing melody graced the lobby and the distant memory of a moonlit night appeared in his mind. An all-seeing moon revealed a circle of soldiers pointing their M-16s at a figure lying at their feet. A small ember glowed as one GI passed a joint to another while the lingering sensation of Lee's pistol having been fired, buzzed in the palm of his hand. He remembered with sudden clarity how raucous jeering had become stunningly silent after a loud report split the night, causing his ears to ring as he holstered his pistol.
Even now, he could recall the smell of gunpowder and pot lingering in the air like deadly incense, incense that could not camouflage the scent of death that rose from Mr. Charles, Mr. VC, Mr. Rice Farmer... Mr. Nobody. Stubbornly and with eternal insistence, the smell of death and pot and gunpowder comingled, curled, and snaked its way through the hot, humid night, tainting each soldier's soul with the memory of Mr. Nobody's spilled blood forever.
Shaken by the long-ago buried memory, Lee looked around the lobby for an exit as if he could simply walk away from the past and bury it once more. But it was too late; the rising melody of Beethoven's composition had snuck into his chest and wrapped its embrace of melancholy joy around his heart. Alarmed and vulnerable, Lee felt a great weight shift within himself then settle into a pool of profound sadness. Troubled, he began to struggle with a repressed emotion that was determined to surface from deep within his being.
Angry and confused, Lee blamed jet lag and the rude doctor for feeling out of sorts while dodging the persistent question; what was he doing in Saigon? Denying the obvious, he quickly brushed aside the emerging black and blue evidence of a hole in his soul and the thought his wife had fallen into it. Yet, mysteriously, Lee sensed a translucent outline of Anh Li floating and weaving in and out of distant memories desiring to become more than an apparition but a replacement. Enticed and troubled he wanted her, the aura of humidity, jungle, and mildew surrounding her with a hint of deadly seduction gave him pause.
He shuddered to remove the image and blinked away the gathering moisture in his eyes. He struggled to focus on Mr. Tran's delicate fingers as they danced lightly from one end of the keyboard to the other. A woman from the flight crew slipped beside Lee, closed her eyes, and tilted her face toward the ceiling, then with a smiling whisper asked, "Lovely, no?"
Lee turned from her and looked past Mr. Tran to the busy Saigon Harbor where lights from massive freighters and Vietnamese Junks danced and sparkled on the surface of a black and determined Saigon River. He watched through eyes scarred with combat cataracts and sadly realized, he did not know.
Instead, as the woman's perfume merged with the piano's rising melody, the sudden vision of a blooming and delicate orchid appeared in Lee's mind then quickly slipped into darkness. The image alarmed him with the pressing thought the river current possessed fingers that could reach through the open patio doors and pull on a frayed thread he hid within his heart; A thread connected to a soulful spool deep within the shadows of buried memories. Memories he feared would soon be exposed as empty, bare, and useless. And, in that tomb of emptiness, he worried the once buried and scattered bones of guilt would begin to vibrate and rattle into the formation of the man he had become.
Suddenly alert and frozen in a place between two periods of time, Lee saw how the past had become woven into a tapestry of his present life, and yet he denied it existed all along. Now, he felt as if a younger Lee had passed away, never to be seen again. Not only did he feel grief and remorse for not acknowledging that passing, but he also feared a darker part of him had taken an active role over the years, in the denial, that he and he alone had been complicit with his own slow and clever destruction.
Lee turned from the open patio doors just as Mr. Tran finished playing. Mr. Tran stood and bowed gracefully, evoking polite applause from the flight crew. Mr. Tran then looked directly at Lee with a sparkle in his eyes and a warm smile on his face and asked, "You were expecting chopsticks, maybe?" He paused for a moment when he saw Lee appeared uncomfortable. Then, concerned, he added kindly in perfect English, "Look, I think you might enjoy this bar on Dong Khoi St. called "The Bunker." A lot of returning vets go there to drink and meet old buddies. I think you'll like it. I'll have my driver take you there in the shuttle van."
~~~~
Glossary
MIA - Missing in action.
KIA - Killed in action.
MACV - Military Assistance Command Vietnam.
VC - Viet Cong.
FNG - F****n New Guy.
MIA - Missing in action.
KIA - Killed in action.
MACV - Military Assistance Command Vietnam.
VC - Viet Cong.
FNG - F****n New Guy.
The title Concertina refers to razor wire used to secure a combat perimeter. It is also used on prison walls. It is designed with barbs and razor type hooks intended to snag a person from entering or attempting to escape a secure area.
Concertina, in the context of this novella refers to psychological and spiritual entanglement. Specifically, it refers to a Vietnam combat veteran who is ensnared by the deepest and darkest fetters of torment and denial. Those fetters consist of alcohol abuse, guilt, and resentment.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. Concertina, in the context of this novella refers to psychological and spiritual entanglement. Specifically, it refers to a Vietnam combat veteran who is ensnared by the deepest and darkest fetters of torment and denial. Those fetters consist of alcohol abuse, guilt, and resentment.
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