Honey: Selected Journals from the Years Away
From Book VIII: She’s Gone
4.6.17: Son Trach, Vietnam (Part I)

 

The painting on the wall was of a young girl with two puppies. One was hugging her left arm and the other was sitting in a basket on her back with its tongue out. The girl was in profile, looking slyly at the viewer. She was surrounded by some sort of damp greenery. She looked maybe naked.

The walls were hot; the room was hot. One of those buildings made from cheap materials, quickly, with no insulation. The heat could literally seep through the surfaces, overtaking the AC. Even the mattress was hot. I was lying there, naked, trying to move as little as possible, a very faint bloodstain beside me on the white sheet. The blood was brown – real blood, the way it looks when it dries. When I was in fourth grade, I fell off a spiral slide at the playground. I landed on my glasses, and received a cut next to my right eye. They carried me off to the Nurse’s Office. Blood dribbled onto my white turtleneck, and that’s how it dried: blood brown.

~~~

The next morning I went to Hue’s most famous attraction: the Imperial Enclosure. It was a big fort, surrounded by a moat, built in the 1800s. Several of the structures had been destroyed during the French and American wars; now it was mostly rubble. It was so goddamn hot out that everybody was standing in the shade of the remaining buildings staring at the debris. Past the large concourses was the cool-sounding Forbidden Purple City; but it was also in ruins, and there wasn’t anything particularly forbidden or purple about it. At which point I started to feel bad for the Imperial Enclosure, because the heat was making everyone upset, and because a big part of the experience called for you to imagine what the place had been like before being bombed by foreign forces.

In the afternoon I went to the movies, and by the time I got back to the hostel it was dark. I’d missed Family Dinner – somewhat intentionally, because I didn’t want to face Long after the bedbug incident. They were sitting cross-legged on the floor: Long and the two girls, then a couple of Brits in matching Hawaiian shirts and a lanky blonde guy who looked like Dolph Lundgren. They were eating what appeared to be boiled grass. I got a beer from the fridge and sat on the stairs. Long asked: “So you’re leaving tomorrow?” I said: Yeah. He asked where to, and I said Khe Sanh. “Then onto Ho Chi Minh Road?” I said yeah. He pointed to the blonde guy and said: He’s doing the same, except all tomorrow – some 350km. I was pretty sure that was impossible, but I didn’t say anything because I could already see where this was going.

My plan was to drive to Khe Sanh, spend the night, and then head to Phong Nha National Park via HCM Road the following day. It was a 230km ride through the mountains – certainly not easy, but supposedly beautiful. I’d gotten the idea from Alex, the Rockford Drunk, who was taking his crew along that path; he thought QL 1A was bullshit and wanted off. I certainly agreed, but it hadn’t occurred to me that there might be another way. Everyone was always looking for some untouched experience, and HCM Road seemed to be the next big thing. So I’d commandeered their plan, stayed safely back in Danang to avoid them, and then continued on my own.

Where this was going was: Long was saying: So the two of you can ride to Khe Sanh together, and then he (Dolph) can continue on. I immediately blurted out: “Why are you offering me up like this?” Which was quite rude, but Long was ruining my perfect plan. He apologized, and Dolph said: “No, no,” but the damage was done. The thing was, Long was the type was guy who liked people, and thought it was great luck that Dolph and I were headed the same way. He was clearly unaware that I wanted the exact opposite of what he’d suggested. I wanted to be more than alone. That wasn’t necessarily true, but I kept telling myself that.

Dolph’s real name was Hans. He was from the Netherlands, which was a plus; but he had a guitar with him, which was a minus. It seemed like riding together was inevitable, unless I stayed in Hue another night – which would be excessive even for me. And Hans was nice enough, even if he kept asking me stuff like: “Do you like music?” and: “Do you have any siblings?” while I was trying to watch TV. We decided that if he got up early enough for the 350km journey he’d go; otherwise he’d drive to Khe Sanh with me. I was still praying for the former, but figured it was out of my hands.

We didn’t make it far into sleep, though, because soon I discovered the bedbugs again. These really weren’t deniable. They were in my bed, and the bed next to me, and on my laptop. I told Hans, and he found them in his bed as well. We stood up and investigated. We were in our underwear. Hans got out his phone and I used my iPod as a light and we took a video. It was good teamwork. Hans said: “You know, I really don’t want to sleep with bedbugs.” He said it like it might be an unpopular opinion, but he was sticking to it. So we got the night watchman, who got Long, who came scurrying down. I was relatively pissed – more so than Hans, who was playing it cool. He was like: “Yeah, this is really bad for you, you can’t have this.” Long apologized and said he’d move us to the hotel next door, where we could have our own rooms at the same rate. So we gathered our belongings and walked with Long to the hotel, where a sleepy girl opened the gate and gave us each a room on the third floor. Hans said: “Thank you, you did a really professional thing here.” Which I guess was true, but at this point I was having so many complex feelings re: Long that I couldn’t actively tell what was professional and what wasn’t. So Hans and I got to our rooms, and for some reason we fist-bumped and then went to bed.

The next morning I tried to sneak out, but Hans had his door cracked and caught me. He said: “I overslept, so I guess I’ll come with you and spend the night in Khe Sanh and then we can do the ride?” I said: Sure. There was no way out of it. I went back to the hostel. I was thinking I could technically just ditch him. There were no steadfast rules about any of this. But I figured I ought to give him a chance. If necessary, I could stay in Khe Sanh an extra day and let him shove off without me.

It took Hans a long time to pack up. Mostly because he didn’t have a luggage rack and had the guitar. He wrapped everything in a blue tarp and tied it to the bike horizontally. Then he put on shin and elbow guards, and sunscreen and a big ass helmet, which oddly enough made me like him more. He seemed to know a fair amount about bikes: I told him about Hawk’s ignition problem, and he said if I was having trouble I could switch on the O2 valve. That would help start the bike by flooding the gas tank with oxygen or some shit.

Once we’d left Hans began having trouble. His bike was a rickety old piece of shit. It made me all the more proud of Hawk, who purred patiently while Hans kick-started at stoplights. His bike was also leaking oil, which seemed like a bad problem to have. We made it out of the city and coasted along the highway. I was nervous, because I’d thought Hans might be one of those guys who drove crazy fast; but he kept it light and even let me go ahead some of the time. It wasn’t too bad riding with someone else, even I felt less free. We did another fist bump while driving, which was pretty lame but made me smile.

We stopped for lunch. Hans said he’d have to take his bike to a mechanic because something was definitely wrong, but I could go on if I wanted. I said it was fine; I’d wait. Hans was 23 and it was first time traveling; but he didn’t seem bothered by much, like many first-timers were. He’d studied engineering and just finished school. He wore these billowing pants and a flat-brimmed Under Armour hat, and his platinum-blonde hair looked like straw. I asked if his bike had a name, and he said no but it ought to. He said it seemed like a girl – like an old world-worn girl. He named her Amy. Then we made a lot of jokes about how Amy was a real slut, letting all kinds of guys ride her over the years.

We cruised up to Khe Sanh, clouds circling. It was a higher altitude: the air cooler, the land hilly. The town was a long road of restaurants and shops, with a statue of some soldiers at the place where the street forked with HCM Road. During the war Khe Sanh was the northern-most U.S. Military Outpost; after the Viet Cong progressed south it became impossible to get in or out, leaving the soldiers stranded, unable to move forward or back, defending their base day and night. The army would fly overhead and drop supplies, but there wasn’t much else they could do. This went on for a year – maybe longer.

Hans and I found a hotel: a tall narrow building with a lobby full of polished wooden furniture. Sitting in one of the chairs was a grandma-looking lady holding this baby with a massive head. He was eating Cheetos, and looked to be on the verge of tears. A double was 250,000d: two beds set snuggly against the width of the room, and then a hollow bathroom that was larger than the room itself. I told Hans I was going to go check out the Combat Base. He said: “I think I’ll join you.” I would’ve said: “Can I join you?” Or maybe even: “May I join you?” I was kind of trying to get some alone time, but I was like: Yeah, sure, come along.

The Khe Sanh Combat Base was 5km along HCM Road: a wooden A-frame museum surrounded by tanks and artillery. The coolest thing about the site was that there was virtually no upkeep. The place had been perfectly preserved: paint-peeled rusted tanks without stoppers on the ends of their guns. Almost all of the tanks had an empty 7 UP can inside. There was an arsenal of unused missiles and bombs cemented to the ground, but they seemed so untouched that it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that they might still be active. Hans and I walked to the trenches, which were barren and quiet and not particularly deep; so we could see over them, especially Hans because he was a real tall fuck. Hans said he’d studied trench warfare and knew a lot about WWI. I knew that trenches were often filled with disease and death and rats, and we were standing in that previous horror. Hans said sometimes the enemy trenches were only a couple meters away, and everybody would be peaking their heads out trying to kill somebody. Out of the shadows came two old Vietnamese men. We nodded sullenly to each other.

Back at the hotel, I was looking up accommodation in Phong Nha while Hans strummed at his guitar. It’d been signed by tons of people he’d met along the way. I asked if I’d get to sign it. He said: Yeah, you already passed the test. I was trying to think of what I’d write, but all that came to mind was Homer’s yearbook quote in The Simpsons: “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.” Hans started explaining various signatures. Most were inspirational shit like: “You only truly find yourself when you get lost.” He had stories for all of them. I asked if he had a lady-friend back home; he said no, but he’d gotten around here. I said the guitar was probably good for that. He said: Yeah, that was 100%. He said the writer thing was probably good for me too. I said: Yeah, it was alright for some girls.

For dinner I looked online for restaurants. The only one was this place called Cheese Pizza, which someone had given one star. He said they had terrible pizza and the staff was rude. I read the review to Hans, and we decided this guy was probably a dick and we ought to check it out. Hans said he’d been a delivery boy for three years, so he knew pizza and would be able to tell if they had the good shit. The place was small, and had a tiny bar. The kitchen was separated from the dining room by frosted windows. Sitting at one of the tables was a fat kid watching music videos on a television that hung above the door. The couple that owned the restaurant came out to meet us: the lady made the pizzas and the guy made the drinks. Hans asked if we could see the ingredients, and the lady gladly took us into the kitchen. The dough base was small and looked like a Lunchable, and the cheese was shredded mozzarella kept in a bag; but the sauce was homemade and smelled really good. So Hans said: Yeah, they got the shit. We both ordered beef pizzas and sat down. Then Hans said: “You know what,” and actually went into the kitchen and made the pizzas with the lady, suggesting she use this garlic-olive oil dressing on the crust and helping her perfect the cheese-to-sauce ratio. Hans said: “Play to your strength, which is this sauce.” We also ordered drinks: the guy only made mojitos, so we had two of those. The pizzas turned out quite well, and the lady brought out a dish of extra sauce because she knew she ought to have used a bit more. You could tell Hans was really passionate about this and was hoping she’d take his advice. I offered my services to write a glowing five-star evaluation to combat the other guy’s review. They were taking a risk by having a pizza place out here, and he didn’t have to be such a dick.

While we were sitting there Hans got to telling a story. He’d met a Vietnamese girl at a club in HCMC and they’d hit it off; so they’d gotten a hotel room and hooked up. In Hans’ experience, Asian women had particularly small vaginas and therefore were difficult to have sex with. I didn’t have any experiences to confirm this. But Hans realized he’d arrived without a condom, and instead of going to get one he was like: Eh, fuck it – him being drunk and all. So they’d hooked up and he’d come inside her and that’d been that. Except right after she’d been like: “We’re going to have a baby.” Hans had been like: Woah. He was realizing what had just happened. So Hans said: “Well, let’s get a pill,” and she said: “No, no, our baby will be so cute – half Asian, half white.” And Hans couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, but he certainly wasn’t; so he said: “Good luck with that, raising the baby, because you’re not getting shit from me.” I was just incredulous that they’d been having sex two seconds before, and now this. Hans seemed to know his shit, though – whereas I probably would’ve freaked out and offered large sums of money. He played it cool, even with the possibility of a Little Hans running around out there. Eventually she said: “No, no, my parents would kill me,” and he said: “Damn right,” and got dressed and left.

Except in Part II Hans starts getting this pussy discharge from his dick. He knows something’s up. An STD. Had to be her. I would’ve freaked out at this point too, but Hans didn’t just yet. He goes to the doctor in this small town he’s passing through. The doctor says: Gonorrhea. But Hans also has this pain in his abdomen; so the doctor runs some tests and says one of Hans’ kidneys is failing. Nobody speaks English. Hans says: “Is this serious?” The doctor says: “Yes, yes, very serious.” Then the doctor asks: “How long would it take you to get home?” As in the Netherlands. Which is generally not something you want a doctor asking. Hans says maybe 14 hours. The doctor says: “Yeah, okay, that should be fine.” Now Hans is freaking out. He gets a plane back to HCMC and sees a real doctor. He’s thinking he might die. He’s having to contemplate his potential death, out here in Southeast Asia. But these doctors ran more tests and said: “Yeah, your kidneys are fine. What happened is that the STD – which is actually chlamydia – traveled up some internal tube and is causing the abdominal pain. And also whatever that other doctor gave you is making it worse, not better.” So Hans was going to be fine, even though he’d essentially had to interrogate his feelings re: mortality. The only two pieces left were the STD, which I’d assumed was a lifelong affliction; but Hans said no, you take the medicine and are all cured. And then Little Hans, which Big Hans didn’t seem to care about so much.

At this point I could definitively say I liked Hans. Not necessarily because of his story – which verged on misogynistic and irresponsible – but rather the way he’d told it. He admitted the mistakes. He acknowledged the fear. He dealt with it, and kept going. He seemed to understand it, whatever it was: it was a ride, a dangerous ride, one that required you to look deep inside yourself in every moment and find out who you were. I was glad I’d stayed with him, even begrudgingly. It was incredibly satisfying to admit to myself: I like this person, against all odds. I have no choice but to like him.

The next morning we awoke at 8AM. We took breakfast on the top floor of the hotel: a large, open cafeteria with windows overlooking Khe Sanh. I had a cappuccino and an orange juice. Hans had fried noodles with beef and a tea he didn’t like. There were dark clouds again. I stood at the window, thinking. I was thinking: I could stay here for the day, write, relax. It wasn’t a bad idea, especially with the weather. I was trying to feel in my gut what to do. On the other hand, I was generally wont to stay where I was instead of moving forward – to dig into some abandoned place. I’d save time and money by going with Hans. It probably also wasn’t smart to do this road alone. I decided to go. We paid the ladies, who were standing at the bathroom mirror spreading a carrot paste on their faces. I dabbed my finger into the dish and put some on my nose. We got our things and packed up. The bigheaded baby was back, held by the grandma, looking out ambivalently as the ominous sky rolled overhead.

~~~

Ho Chi Minh Road was isolated. It ran 2,000km from HCMC to Hanoi, moving through various terrains – hills, mountains, valleys, fields. We were riding a 230km stretch from Khe Sanh to Phong Nha. It was recommended you bring oil, food, gas, tools, etc. – but the map showed where that stuff was along the way. Besides, word had clearly spread about the route if Hans and I were on it, independent of each other. Still, I was surprised by its remoteness. We began along a grand plane of fields that led downhill, giving way to the mountainous region of Western Vietnam: hugging the Laotian border, made up of hatchbacks oscillating between incline and decline. It wasn’t a road so much as a ladder of concrete slabs – a sidewalk for giants. It made for a less-than-smooth ride, but Hawk coasted easily. I had my belongings strapped to his back, along with two 500ml water bottles; then my army surplus bag and camera around my neck. Hans stopped frequently to adjust his bag, which was wobbling precariously, the guitar’s neck flapping into view. The thing about riding with someone else is that you’re keenly aware of what they’re doing: their speed, their gear, how they’re taking their turns. You’re keeping time with someone else – not too fast, not too slow. Occasionally, Hans would round a bend and I’d lose him; I could picture him gone, over the edge, lost forever. But then I’d speed up and find him once more.

Hans and I would stop periodically to take photos. It was obvious that we couldn’t capture what we saw – not with pictures, not with words. It was simultaneously frustrating and exhilarating, these limits. I took a begrudging pleasure in what was unobtainable. You could circle it, but never reach the center. We gained altitude, moving into the fog, black clouds holding storms overhead; but we weaved between them, only a drop here or there. It grew cold; the wind ripped through us. The road was this coiled snake that seemed tied of its own stupidity. Eventually we descended into sunlight, onto the other side of heat; it was nearing noon, no sign of food or gas. We were only passing these small villages of wooden shacks – not the usual signs for Pho or Bun Bo. We pulled over near one; I asked Hans if we should check the dirt path for something. I hadn’t eaten anything since the pizza the night before. He said: “I doubt there will be anything, but we could try as an adventure.” I said: “I don’t want to lose time.” We’d left at 10AM, which wasn’t smart for a 230km drive you couldn’t take at 80km/h. My hypothesis was that we’d be driving for six hours, and that was without stopping. Hans said the gravestones were counting down to a village ahead, but there was no guarantee it had amenities. I was like: Whatever, we have no choice. The sun was fully back now, and it was hot as hell.

So we were moving uphill, the turns hugging the jagged mountainside; and then it peaked and we were descending, the road rocky, full of little pebbles scattered across the pavement. I don’t recall how fast we were going. Later, Hans would say somewhere between 60 and 80 km/h. He would take the turns weaving, like a cross-country skier, his tail undulating back and forth. I came around the bend and made a wide arc, Hawk leaning gracefully to the right in the wake of some invisible current – and then there was another bike, chugging up the curve’s outer ridge, flitting into my field of vision. I believe I grasped the brake. I believe I had the clutch held down. I know I wobbled indecisively, as if trying to subconsciously decide the better move. I was acutely aware of the gravel, the slippage. We were set to make an obtuse angle when we met, me colliding with his side, hard; and then onward, into whatever blackness followed.

I knew I was going to crash before it happened. Time slowed; I conceived of it as unavoidable, prepared myself. When I crashed Mom’s car, I remember time moving as a series of photographs, like a film strip, in which the car actually compressed against the car in front of me, and the airbag exploded in poorly timed animation. In that moment, you can tell yourself: I am going to crash. This is happening. I could feel it now, cascading all over me in real time. I know I screamed out: “Oh my God!” in a high-octave; which is bizarre, because I don’t consider myself someone who believes in God. I know I yelled that, and I didn’t like my sound. And then we collided, and the world turned in some direction, and some loud, awesome crash sent me flying what felt like several steps, not just one, but many, until I was lying on the ground, my helmet propping up my head, like a pillow, like I was resting in bed.

I remember two things. First, I remember thinking that the crash was nothing like the movies. They’re always made to look as though everything is shattering into infinite shards, never to be recovered. In that instant, I felt it all not explode but rather realign – as if forming something new, so quickly that you couldn’t see it happening. That matter couldn’t be destroyed: that everything came from somewhere, would return to somewhere; that we were powerless to this process. Then I remember thinking that from where I lay, I’d never felt anything so pleasurable. As in the ground was more comfortable than any bed I’d found myself in. I had no desire to move, or get up, or do much of anything. I was feeling like I was definitely okay and alive and so why not just stay for a while. I have no idea how long I lay there. I was looking down the road at this canted angle, searching for Hans. But he was gone.

When I finally sat up and got my helmet off, I saw the other guy on the side of the road. He was beside his bike making some whimpering noises. I believe I yelled: “Are you okay?” Then I looked over at Hawk. He was on his side, back wheel spinning; one of his turn signals was on and beeping. I could see that something was leaking – gas. So I scrambled over and turned him off. I did this because in movies when gasoline leaks it usually ignites and the car or whatever explodes. There was still liquid spilling out, so I yelled to the guy: “Help me get him up!” He stayed on the ground whimpering. So I used all my strength to lift Hawk and get his kickstand down. That was when the guy got up and started yelling, brandishing his hands. It was clear he thought I was going to ride off – which I definitely wasn’t going to do, because Hawk’s front wheel was completely fucked. I went over and said: “Let’s get your bike up.” I set it on the side of the road. Then I said: “Are you okay?” with a hand outstretched. He was still whimpering. His bottom lip was quivering, and he looked to be on the verge of tears. Sometimes his face would contort towards something worse, but then he’d suck it back in and whimper again. He was dressed in slacks and sandals, with a fully-zipped jacket and a big helmet. Everything was a green-brown color. He was touching his upper lip, which was bleeding a bit; and then his chin was bleeding too. It looked like fake blood – too bright a shade of red.

So while he stood there whimpering I took a look around. The first thing I noticed was that my camera had been destroyed. The main piece was still around my neck, but the place where the lens had been was just a green circular disk. The lens was on the ground. Then I took a look at myself. I was bleeding. I lifted my shirt and realized my whole right side – what could only be described as my haunch – was torn open: bruised, stinging, big, bleeding profusely. I unbuttoned my shirt and took it off; the cloth was smeared with dark blood. The area was the size of a half-sheet of paper; then a small island on my back as well. There were cuts and scrapes in other places: my elbow, feet, ankles, hands – nothing on my face, but seemingly everywhere else. Everything not protected by clothing was covered in small black pebbles. The biggest thing, though, was my right shoulder: it was throbbing, the pain growing – a slow burn that made me think it was broken or at least separated. I started massaging it, trying to feel where the hurt emanated from. The guy whimpered, and we stood there in the wildness of Ho Chi Minh Road.

I don’t know how much time passed. But soon Hans came back around the bend; I heard him coming from the sound of Amy’s motor. He pulled up on the shoulder and took off his helmet. I was mainly feeling embarrassed. Hans, though, immediately sensed that this was some shit and started doing damage control. First he went to the whimpering guy and said: “Are you okay, my friend?” The guy said something in Vietnamese and pointed up the road, presumably explaining that this was my fault. Hans turned to me: “Get him some water.” So I gave the guy my bottle and he drank from it, not touching his lips to the rim. Another scooter stopped. The whimpering guy started yelling, pointing up the road and touching his face. He went to Hawk’s mirror and examined his cuts, then broke into a contorted grimace. And then his phone was out and he was saying something about the police and Hans was saying: “Woah, woah, no police.” I wasn’t registering any of this. Hans was holding out a hand, repeating himself. His tone was that of an emergency responder trying to talk someone off a ledge. His voice was so soft then. In that moment, I thought the best move was to pay the guy – so I pulled out my wallet. He waved a hand beside his head. This was the Vietnamese symbol for: “No.”

This was when I realized the whimpering man wasn’t such a good guy. Because I’d been here before: the police in Mui Ne. They also waved their hands, and you had to keep insisting until they finally took the money – as if you were doing them a favor. Additionally, the whimpering was almost comical. Even the passerby could see that this was a con job, and was smiling slightly at the prospect. This was when I realized that there were a series of problems here. I’d been concerned with fixing Hawk and getting out of here. But really the most pressing issue was how to deal with the whimpering man. I watched him pace along the road, now adding a noticeable limp to his step. He looked like this guy from college who always ate alone and had incredibly long fingernails.

Hans and I conferred. The first thing he said was: “Look, to be honest, I don’t really want to be here when the police show up.” He said it in the same voice he’d used when observing that he didn’t want to sleep with bedbugs. He was clearly on his toes about the whole situation, i.e. two white guys in rural Vietnam who had money. He was right. So I said: “Look, drive to the next village and see if there’s a mechanic.” Hans said: Okay, but if he came back and there were police he was just going to keep riding. I said: That’s fine, just find the mechanic. Hans said: I’ll be back regardless. I believed him; I wasn’t worried about that part. Before he left he said: “How much money do you have?” I had 3,000,000d. He said: Split that shit up, leave only 500,000d in your wallet. Then he drove off. I put nearly all of the cash in my bag, then returned to the group. Three bystanders had now joined Long Nails and I.

My disadvantage was astronomical. Mostly it was language-based. Long Nails could say whatever he wanted and I wouldn’t know. It was clear he was telling them it was my fault, but beyond that I had no idea. I couldn’t make much of a case for myself. All I could do was point at his lip, then point at my wounds; then point at his okay bike, then point at my very-much-fucked-up bike; then make a face like: Come on. Luckily, the audience could see that I was coming up way worse than him, and if anyone should garner sympathy here it was me. He also wasn’t doing himself any favors by rambling on, which I think made the crowd dislike him. Everyone was just smiling and looking at the bikes, and mildly nodding in a way that made it seem like they weren’t listening to him. Occasionally he’d say: “Money,” but when I’d pull out my wallet he’d wave it off. It was comforting, in a way, because I knew eventually he’d take it and leave, just like the cops.

Soon a single police officer pulled up. At which point I shut up real quick and just sat on a road marker. He was wearing a green uniform, and lifted his helmet partially so that it rested on his scalp. It looked like he had two heads piled on top of each other. I waited in silence while Long Nails told his story. He concluded with the part where I said: “No police,” like a total fucking narc. The cop didn’t seem to care. He took his helmet off and lit a cigarette. Then he came over to me. I took out my money and held it up. Then put my hands together in a sign of peace, like I’d seen Haing Ngor do in The Killing Fields. He’d done it in such a way that his fingers didn’t line up exactly. So I did that. The cop stood there. So I took out my larger wallet, the one that held my passport, and pulled out my leftover Cambodian riel and raised that too. “Cambodia,” I said. “Kampuchea.” I was aware that I was shirtless. They responded with nods and a murmur: “Ah, Kampuchea.” Long Nails took the money and looked at it while everybody mumbled. “Thailand?” he said. I shook my head. “Dollars?” he said. I shook my head. I got out some Nepalese rupees. “Nepal,” I said. I figured I could unload some of this useless money on him. But he didn’t want that. He just repeated: “Thailand,” and: “Dollars.” I shook my head.

Then he reached forward and felt my pockets. The group was silent. The policeman smoked. He felt my iPod, so I pulled it out and showed him. He wasn’t going to get that, and he didn’t ask for it. He pointed up the road and said: “Your friend.” I shook my hand beside my head. I flicked my wrist: He’s gone. Which was good, because Long Nails was obviously trying to squeeze everything he could out of this situation. After it became clear that I didn’t have anything the policeman took a drag off his cigarette, tossed it onto the road, and gestured to my pocket. I took out the money. Long Nails picked out the two hundreds and the fifty, like he was picking cards from a deck. He left a twenty and two tens, as if to say: I’m not a total monster. Then the policeman nodded, got on his bike, and drove off.

Once he was gone, the others dispersed. Long Nails’ whimper disappeared, and he chatted with the one guy left. I sat in the gravel beside the grass and said, very softly: “We could have died.”

I suppose I was in shock. I’d suspected the police wouldn’t do anything – that I wouldn’t have to bribe them. The rural people were normally good, honest folk. What upset me was Long Nails. When we crashed, I was concerned for him. My immediate thought was: Is he okay? I’d had this classical vision: two strangers, brought together by catastrophe, working in unison to survive. But I’d been a payoff. His whole act – it was an effort to extract money. I could see myself standing, shirtless, bleeding, pleading with my hands, while he rummaged through my pockets before the crowd. He was now half-heartedly trying to initiate a trade: his bike for Hawk. There was this intense anger rising up in me. Now that the policeman was gone, and the audience dispersed, I was realizing I hated Long Nails. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to kill him. Out here, with no law, I could have. I pictured myself tackling him into the brush, beating at his face, smashing in his skull. If the other guy hadn’t been there, I might have.

Hans came back shortly thereafter. Long Nails didn’t try to get any money out of him. He knew the jig was up. Hans hadn’t found a mechanic. But he had found a guy claiming he could fix Hawk for 1.8 million dong; he’d loaned Hans some tools to measure my front wheel. The wheel looked like a crudely drawn heart, the point of collision pushed deep towards the center. Hans squatted down and measured: “It’s not the right size.” In the interim, another guy had materialized and now claimed he could fix Hawk. Hans and the new guy circled the bike, discussing. I said: “You can fix it?” The mechanic gestured up the road: “One kilometer.” He motioned: He was going back, presumably to get a cart. I nodded. I turned to Hans: “I’m gonna go with him.” I had nothing to defend this choice, other than a hunch and the general feeling that something had to be done. I turned back to the mechanic and motioned: You’re definitely coming back? He nodded, then hopped on his scooter and drove off. Now it was just Hans, Long Nails, the remaining passerby, and me.

Hans said: “I don’t want to leave you here, man. But I don’t know what else to do.” Hans said from the looks of it this wasn’t an easy fix. When him and the mechanic had discussed, the mechanic pointed out that my forks were completely warped – which, according to Hans, would be expensive and slow to repair. So I said: “Go on then.” Hans said: “I don’t want to leave you though.” I said: “Go on, it’s fine. I can handle myself. You know I can.” Hans said: “Yeah, I know you can.” We stood there in the startling heat and sunlight. Then he shook my hand, got on Amy, and rode off.

I don’t know how to feel about Hans leaving. On the one hand, I told him to. On the other, I’d been in a major accident, was running on adrenaline – maybe I hadn’t meant it. I said I could handle myself, but I didn’t know that. I was severely injured, without a bike, on a remote part of Ho Chi Minh Road in Western Vietnam, without a phone or a way to contact anyone, with 3 million dong and the hope that this mechanic was coming back. Maybe I’d convinced myself that I could handle everything, that I was in control – but I didn’t know if that was true or if it was just a lie I’d told myself for so long. I didn’t know if I said that to him because it was real, or because I had to say it to survive.

Pretty soon Long Nails got on his bike as well, but only after mocking my praying hands like: You fucking begged. So I pointed to my lip and mimicked his whimpering. So he tried to run his scooter into me; so I stepped aside and shoved the scooter. He stopped on the road, in profile beside me. He said, in a sneering, smiling voice: “Goodbye.” I said it back to him the same way. I wish I’d said: “Fuck you.” That’s maybe my only regret. So he rode off, and I hated him more than ever. The bystander got on his scooter. “Wait, wait,” I said. “Don’t leave me.” I pointed at the ground. He pointed up the road, then started his engine and drove off. There was this long silence, save for the rustling of the brush. I was alone. I suppose I should have panicked. But I just stood there. Now that the excitement had died down, my shoulder and side were throbbing. I could feel the sun on my bare skin.

The first thing I did was smash my lens camera on the road marker. Then I tossed it into the brush. This felt horribly metaphorical. I was incredibly thirsty, but didn’t have any water left. I pulled out some Neosporin to put on my cuts. It was this small tube Mom put in my medicine bag whenever I went somewhere. I tried to brush out the pebbles and dirt from the wounds without causing myself too much pain. After I was through, I waited. I don’t know how long it was. I remember thinking: If I was truly trying to get alone, this was it. But it wasn’t the way I’d thought it’d be. The lighting was off.

Eventually the mechanic came back, a rig attached to his scooter. It was a cart comprised of five rusting rods set in a lattice, and two rusting rails, on two wheels. The mechanic and I were going to have to lift Hawk onto this thing. I have no idea how much Hawk weighed, but he wasn’t light. So the mechanic grabbed the handlebars like he was doing a bar curl, and I grabbed the back wheel, and we lifted. I screamed out in pain; he was silent. This had to be doing more damage to my shoulder. As we passed each rod, I felt the pain burst exponentially. I thought I was going to pass out. Finally, the mechanic motioned to climb in; so I precariously stepped across the rods and sat on one of the rails, hugging my satchel. I closed my eyes as we groped back the way I’d come, gasping for breath and water.

The mechanic pulled into a driveway. I got down and he motioned: Now we have to take Hawk out. I was pretty much out of commission. Luckily there was another guy around so I didn’t have to do much. The mechanic put Hawk up on his large kickstand and gestured for me to take off the bags. So I removed the bungees and pulled them off. Adjacent to the driveway was the mechanic’s workshop: a few rusting bikes under a bamboo overhang; then an area for his equipment surrounded by chicken wire, accessible via a wooden door with a padlock. The house itself was this massive wooden structure: an open-air pavilion with smooth wooden pillars rising to an arching roof. It looked like a big abandoned dojo. There was a door in the back wall, leading to something dark and cluttered. All that sat in the pavilion was a wooden table and two benches, all of which seemed affixed to the cement floor; and a wooden bed frame with a tatami mat. A woman was sitting on it holding a baby. I got the impression that the place had once been something else – maybe a temple – before being converted into a home. But even that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

I motioned for the mechanic to come over. I pulled out my notebook and handed him a pen: How much? He wrote in large, loopy numbers: 2,000,000d. I took the pen and wrote: 1,500,000d. He shook his head and went back to the garage. I waited a couple minutes, then wrote 1,750,000d and showed him. He shook his head again. I wrote 1,800,000d. I drew an arrow to it and gestured like an umpire calling safe: Final Offer. He shook his head. I went back to the table and sat down.

I was at his mercy, and he knew it. 2,000,000d was $100 USD. I had no idea how much this should cost; Hans had said it would be expensive. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I went to the woman and pointed at the amount, trying an appeal – look at how much this is, how much you’re turning down – but she just shook me off and looked down at her baby. There was nothing to be done. So I went to the mechanic and shoved the paper in his face, pointing at the 2,000,000d. “Fine!” I yelled. “Fine!” He held out a hand and I shook it. “You’re a fucking asshole,” I said through gritted teeth. He just smiled. I stormed back to the table, picked up my empty water bottle, and hurled it across the pavilion. Even then it felt like a pathetic gesture. The mechanic was working on another bike. “Fucking fix it!” I screamed, pointing at Hawk. “Fix it! Now!” He nodded like: Yeah, yeah, I will. Then he continued on the other bike. I watched him for a moment, then walked out to the road.

It was a village all right. Like the amorphous ones Hans and I had passed on our way. Wooden huts, save for the mechanic’s; his sat on the opposite side of the road, facing a cluster of houses nestled in the greenery. The huts were above ground, each standing on four wooden slats, presumably to protect from flooding; one-room things, with a ladder leading up to an empty doorframe. I crossed the street and entered the village. Chickens were milling about, clucking at one another. The foliage was overgrown. From the doorways people stared. I stared back. I was trying to reach a river I thought I’d seen from above; I wanted to wash my wounds. I broke into a clearing, where one hut sat alone: three men visible through the doorframe, sitting on the floor around a bottle of murky liquid. The bottle looked worn, like one you’d find in the hull of a sunken ship. Each man held a hand of cards; two were shirtless; all were old. I approached, limping on torn feet, raising an imaginary cup to my mouth: Water. They pointed behind me to a neon-blue plastic tank. A kid materialized, carrying a metal bowl. Indented in the bottom was the singular word: German. I took the bowl and went to the basin. The water was foggy, dirty; I dipped inside, too thirsty to care. I hobbled to the hut and handed up the bowl; then I ascended the ladder and entered, sitting on the floor with my dish. The men fell silent, as did the kids who’d crept in to watch. I lifted the bowl to my mouth. The water was warm from the shimmering sun. When I was done, there was an eerie silence. Then the man beside me, wearing a ragged denim shirt, extended a soft hand. His face was weary, traced with lines; his eyes were maybe blue. I waited; then I took his hand in my palms, bending, placing it to my forehead. And then I cried. I sobbed there, shutting my eyes, my body shaking, everyone quiet around me, the villagers descending upon the hut as I wept. It poured out of me as if overflowing. I clutched the man’s hand and cried. Then I looked up at him, into his eyes. I imagine them as blue. The tears burrowed back, words forming, vomiting up my throat: “I can’t stop,” I said to him. “I don’t know why, but I can’t stop. I don’t know why I keep doing this.” And then the tears overcame me once more and I pressed his hand back to my head. “I can’t stop,” I croaked. And I wept even harder.

In these moments I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. Whether it’s lunacy, despair, absolute depression overtaking me – a moment of pure helplessness. A blip on an otherwise coherent radar. Or if it’s the real voice: the truth. Something screaming from deep within that I’m always burying beneath layers of fragmented selves. If it’s revealing something I simply can’t see because I’ve convinced myself otherwise. If this is, in fact, the real me. And so I cried. And so they surrounded me as I did, somewhere out there, either so far away from everyone and myself – or unbelievably, uncomfortably close.