Honey: Selected Journals from the Years Away
Book IX: To Ban Goic Falls
10.6.17 to 14.6.17: Hanoi, Vietnam

 

The room was dark and chilled and ominously silent. A silence made deeper by the gentle breathing of centralized air-conditioning: an automatically regulated portal humming in the center of that low white ceiling. There were twelve bunk beds of immaculate white sheets; sumptuous mattresses, the kind that took your burden without complaint. At the base of each bed was a rolled white towel, tied with an orange bow. Through the thin crack in the thick blinds you could see the tumbling of rain and fog and humidity, a sore comfort of similar mornings back home. The room felt like a sanatorium, both eerie and soothing – a place of intense repair. A simulation of the womb.

I was having breakfast in Old Quarter’s restaurant, watching the wall-mounted flatscreen play an endless loop of the hostel’s tour options. Breakfast was from 6:30AM to 9:30AM, and included one menu item and unlimited juice/coffee. There were day trips to Ninh Binh and Sapa, and then a two-night detour to something called Castaway Island. The video showed tanned young people smiling from a yacht, surrounded by rising green isles, diving and backflipping into clear blue water while friends cheered. Then they were trudging playfully through the sand onto Castaway Island, waving goodbye to their yacht with big sunny grins. Then it was night, and they were sitting around a campfire, acoustic guitars abound. The camera pulled up and out, their commune of laughter fading to an orange dot in the blackness of the bay. It was an effective video. It was top quality. It had to have been filmed on drones.

It rained all the way into Hanoi. Expanding and receding beneath dark clouds. At this point I’d lost all cover except for some plastic I’d wrapped my army surplus bag in. Everything strapped to Hawk’s back couldn’t be saved. I was coming in on 1A when it started pounding down. The only refuge was a tiny shop: two men drinking tea beneath an awning. I practically ran them over as Hawk launched in; they recoiled; then, after I shook the wetness from me, calmed and offered a seat. Green tea was poured into a thimble-sized cup and handed over. The sky showed no signs of anything else. A cigarette was offered; I took it and smoked, watching the rain with crossed legs.

The awning didn’t provide much shelter. It was made of rusted tin, and had holes in it. The rain was of such might that it could hardly be contained: it overtook everything, rushing down the highway; Hawk was getting wet. One of the men saw me looking concerned and extended an arm around the back of my chair. He gestured, something to the effect of: If you’re worried about your bike, take off your shirt and cover it with that. It was a weird thing to suggest. I declined. The guy pulled up the hood of his jacket, mounted his scooter, and rode off into the storm. Now it was just the shopkeeper and me.

After some time he produced a long silver pipe from beneath us. At first I thought it was a broken table leg. It was actually a bong. The man opened a tin can and took a pinch of what looked like burnt wheatgrass. He placed it in the carburetor and lit it, putting the pipe to his mouth and inhaling for a long time. When he was through the bong made a deep sound, like a tuba. Then he passed it to me.

I’d seen these things around – apparently they were big in the north. Alex, the Rockford Drunk, had shown me a video of him smoking one: he was sitting on a curb when he’d taken his hit, and then this placid look had come over his face and he’d fallen back onto the sidewalk. The video was on Facebook. I was thinking I ought not to do it since I didn’t know what it was, but I figured it was just a tobacco derivative. So I took it and he lit it and I hit it. The smoke entered my lungs and I pulled from the bong, coughing gravely. There wasn’t anything that would elicit a placid look. There was just this general weakness – like my body was queasy, like I’d slept in a bad position. A dull pain throbbed in my injured shoulder. I handed the pipe back. I was thinking I ought to offer him something in return, so I pulled out my sunflower seeds. He took a couple as a courtesy, even though you could tell he didn’t want them.

When the rain seemed to let up I took my leave. It hadn’t really, though. And so I was riding towards Hanoi as the drops cut to me, stinging my skin. Eventually 1A entered its tail section, and again became inaccessible by motorbike; there was another road that ran north, parallel to a train line, leading directly into the city. The problem was that it was a real shit street: completely flooded, broken and jagged, populated by cars and trucks that should’ve been on 1A. I couldn’t understand why there was no infrastructure in place for heavy rainfall. I couldn’t understand much of anything. I was riding through water up to my knees, groaning, my bandaged feet stewing in brown liquid.

And then to complicate matters Hawk was stalling out, and often wouldn’t start – issues that’d been around before the accident. Whatever I’d paid the mechanic for in Danang clearly hadn’t worked. Now when I wanted to get him going I had to turn the O2 valve and kickstart, and sometimes even that didn’t work. At every stoplight he’d chug to silence unless I was revving the engine; he’d leave me sitting in the middle of the road like some asshole. I was coming around on something I’d known all along: he was a shitty machine. They were all shitty machines. Chinese knockoffs, overpriced for tourists, leaving us stranded mere kilometers after purchase. It didn’t matter if he was cool, or shiny, or had a nice headlight. He was a piece of shit.

And moreover, he wasn’t a he. He was an it. It was a bike – a bike that didn’t give a fuck about me. We weren’t doing this together. I’d concocted some elaborate fantasy in which this thing was my friend, and we were partners. It couldn’t have been further from the truth. I was alone; I’d always been alone. The whole thing felt really fucking stupid. I’d been alone out there.

The worst of it was that I knew I’d miss him when the time came to say goodbye. Not because he was a friend, but because he was a home. When he was gone I’d be untethered again. I’d be floating.

It was a commanding struggle down that final stretch. I was ambivalently aware that I was completing some vague goal I’d set out to accomplish: ride from Saigon to Hanoi. That didn’t seem to matter much now. I wasn’t sure it ever had. I arrived at 3PM, at Hanoi Hostel; I’d booked myself a bed for one night, as the highly-rated Old Quarter View Hostel was at full capacity until the following day. HH was one of the ubiquitous storage-locker-sized hostels: narrow stairs leading up to overstuffed dorms, AC from 5PM to 9AM. The humidity was overpowering. I was in a bad mood. I was always in a bad mood. One time I told [name redacted] I was in a bad mood and she said: “You’re always in a bad mood.” And I felt bad, because she was right. But I didn’t know how to be any other way.

My first objective was to buy a camera lens, which I figured Hanoi would have compared to the rural areas I’d encountered since Phong Nha. TripAdvisor was naming a place called Hong Van near Hoan Kiem Lake, about 1km south of HH; so I hopped on Hawk and rode through the Old Quarter. Hanoi’s streets were narrow, busy, teeming with patrons and vendors; it wasn’t equipped for motorists. People walked into oncoming traffic; bikers cut you off unabashedly; given Hawk’s mechanical issues none of this was ideal. I was throwing out my shoulder at every near-accident. The lake sat within a promenade of blocked-off streets; policemen stood at barricades smoking. I spotted the camera shop beside a KFC/Burger King and made to park; but now the police are saying: No, no. They’re saying this as another motorist is parking directly beside me. I guess you have to know a guy. I’m saying: Where then? They’re gesturing off with the flick of a wrist. Police are always doing this, as if they’ve been assigned the singular job of keeping this spot free of parked bikes – unless it’s someone they know, or they don’t feel like it. All of the surrounding barriers have either a security guard preventing parking or a merchant offering a spot for 20,000d – in some cases both – and at this point I’m so angry that I’m yelling, and can feel this big Fuck You crawling up my throat that really needs doling out.

A block over I found some women selling mangos and paid them 10,000d to watch Hawk. I walked to the promenade. Now my shoulder was throbbing, and my knee hurt for some reason, and the gash on my foot was stinging; I’d wrapped the wound in a white bandage that was now black, trailing behind as I limped forward. The promenade was mostly empty, save for hawkers and tourists. At the roundabout was this heart-shaped structure where a girl was singing into a microphone. People were standing there watching, holding pink and red heart-shaped balloons. I made it to Hong Van and produced my broken camera. There were deep cuts at the base, as if some small creature had clawed at it.

I should have known the transaction wasn’t going to go well, if only because Hong Van was located in one of the most tourist-heavy areas of Hanoi, and clearly wasn’t in the business of giving out deals. They seemed, at best, mildly irritated by my presence. The lady let me try some lenses. It turned out mine had been quite good, because for $100 USD they only had this little one that didn’t even have a zoom. A wide-angle zoom lens cost $300 USD. I tested it on the heart-shaped crowd. I was looking for something closer to $100 USD. So I said: Do you have any cheaper wide-angle zoom lenses? The lady was unenthused. She was like: No. I said: The cheapest you’ve got is $300 USD? She was like: Yeah. I said: Is there a used shop in the city I can check out? She was like: No. I said: I don’t believe you. That really pissed her off. Then I made the mistake of saying: I’m not going to buy anything today; I’m going to think about it and buy tomorrow. At which point she began packing everything up and locking it back in the display case. I said: What are you doing? She didn’t answer. I said: I want to try those out. She said: You can try it when you buy it. I said: I am going to buy it, but I need to try it first.  Now I was royally pissed. I was saying: You wouldn’t buy a bike, or a car, or a television without trying it first. She just stared. I said: I’d like to speak to a manager. I was screaming. Another lady came over, nearly identical to the current lady, and stared. She said: You can try it when you buy it. At which point I was fucking done with this place, and knew that I wouldn’t buy a lens from them if they were the last camera shop on Earth; and I left yelling: “Fuck this!” although I wish I’d yelled: “Fuck you!” because I still really needed to get that out of my system.

When I made it back to HH I had to find overnight parking for Hawk, because the hostel didn’t offer anything at its tiny storefront; down the road along the train line was a watchman selling spots for 20,000d; there was no overhang, though, and with the rain Hawk would suffer serious water damage; so I asked the guard where I could buy some cover and he gestured with another flick of the wrist; and so now I’m wandering the streets searching for ponchos, where a lady is selling them for 120,000d; and I’m honestly in no headspace to bargain, so I pay her and head back to the guard who says: That’s a poncho, not a motorbike cover; and he’s right, because the poncho only protects half of Hawk; so I find a plastic bag floating in the gutter and wrap it over Hawk’s handlebars; and I give the guard a thumbs up for some reason, who’s like: Yeah, okay. When I return to the hostel I ask the girl at the front desk if she’ll please turn on the AC even though it’s only 4:30PM; so she hands me the remote and I go upstairs, but I can’t figure the damn thing out; I’m pushing every fucking button and flipping all the fucking switches; and I have to go back down three times before she finally comes up and helps – before I can finally lay down in the semi-air-conditioned room, and try to slow my rabid heart, and breathe.

I felt, quite possibly, like I was having a mental breakdown. Maybe I was. I’d driven 1000km, nearly killed myself, spent way too much money. My clothes were tatters; my camera was smashed. I had no soap, no shampoo, no toothpaste, no medical supplies. I’d lost almost everything of value. All I had was a motorbike, a passport, a laptop, and these fucking journals I’d been scribbling in for almost a year. I felt completely and utterly destroyed, and I couldn’t explain why. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t do anything. Any semblance of logic that remained was telling me one thing: to end it. To get on a plane and get the fuck out. That this was a turning point of such magnitude and precision that I had no choice. But I knew, in some deeper, elemental way, that it wasn’t possible. It never had been. Perhaps it was because I couldn’t explain it that I was now imploding. It’d been almost a year. I didn’t know what I was doing. I guess I thought that it was worth it. That the whole thing would show me who I was and what it all meant. Even if the answer to both was nothing.

At 11:30PM the door opened. An Asian man entered. He rolled in a suitcase, pointed to the bunk above mine, and said: That’s my bed. I said: Okay. I’d yet to encounter a full-on adult in a dorm. Noa told me she’d shared a room with a Chinese family in Cambodia. They’d pulled out a crock-pot and started cooking cabbage. The guy said: “I have a tour at 4:30AM, so I’m sorry about the noise I’ll make.” I said: That’s fine. He spent a really long time in the bathroom. At 2AM he woke me with his snoring. It sounded more like Hawk stalling out than a human being. When I rose at 6:30AM he was gone and the room had grown hot. Someone had turned the AC off.

~~~

But Old Quarter was better. It was tucked down a damp alley, which was itself tucked behind an L-shaped street in the midst of the hostel’s namesake. It was a silent beating heart in the center of this grand chaotic body – and in those incubator-like dorms I felt as though I could heal wounds far greater than the ones I’d received in the accident. Because I couldn’t go home.

The following day I was sitting at breakfast as the television played “We Are The World.” Despite the variety of options I was eating a baguette with jam. Because of its user-friendly atmosphere and high rating, OQ was home to many new travelers – jet-lagged yet fresh-faced, eating Pho with chopsticks. There was a group of two-dozen Lithuanian pre-teens in town for a scholastic bowl, and a table of three muscular Americans with a grandma-type wearing a fanny pack. I felt almost comically jaded. The video ended and another began: late-period Michael Jackson singing in a post-apocalyptic landscape, interspersed with tear-shedding Africans. The wind picked up, and Michael held two dead trees for support, bellowing into the dark sky.

The one thing OQ didn’t have was proper parking, and there wasn’t much they could do about it. The inhabitants of the surrounding buildings – crumbling, peeling things – had presumably been around since before the conception of hostels, or package tours, or foreign voyeurism; to them it was just the Quarter. They weren’t willing to give up their alley space for Honda Wins – not for free at least. And so they were ostensibly now making a living off parking money; OQ staff directed you their way. It seemed like a point of shame for OQ that they hadn’t been able to sort something out with these people. For 30,000d/day they’d care for you bike, which really meant they’d lean it against a dumpster with all the other suckers they’d forced into paying them. At night they chained them together – more like holding hostages than preserving bikes. My people were the worst of them: a mother and son living in a dank fluorescent room, plotting whatever they were plotting. I would’ve felt bad had they not been snowing me in so gratuitously. The son was the creepier of the pair: he looked as if he’d been deprived of sunlight, and thus his eyes had sunk, and his face had gone slack, and his bones had grown in such a way that they poked through his pale flesh. He looked like Asian Gollum. He would pace outside OQ with a sinister look that said: I’m fucking your bike while you sleep.Admittedly there was probably something wrong with him, but I was too big of a dick to notice. I’d given them instructions to cover Hawk with my poncho when it rained; instead they’d put a plastic bag on the seat and left the poncho on the luggage rack. The other parking attendants seemed more palatable, and I was thinking I’d gotten a raw deal.

I’d found another camera shop outside of the Old Quarter, one called Song Hong Camera; and so after breakfast I had Hawk unlocked and rode off in search of a new lens. At the shop, the owner ushered me in and offered tea – the kind of shit I’d been looking for all along. His employees presented the lenses: a regular one for $175 USD and a Canon wide-angle zoom for $225 USD. I went outside and tested them on some parked cars. I told him I’d take the wide-angle zoom. It was a lot, but I felt like I needed to move – to do something, anything. He poured me more tea and said there was a six-month warranty. He had a young guy come out and inspect my camera for other issues. The guy felt the claw marks at the base. I said: I was in an accident. He said everything was okay.

That afternoon I went to Han Lo Prison, known to foreigners as the Hanoi Hilton – the place that held American POWs during the Vietnam War. Mostly famously, it was where John McCain spent five-and-a-half years after being shot down over Truc Bach Lake. It had since been turned into a museum.

Han Lo didn’t go into much detail re: McCain and the War, instead focusing on its history during French rule. In fact, the majority of the museum illustrated how brave and courageous the inmates had been: held as political prisoners and tortured cruelly, they never lost faith in their communist beliefs. There were models of them undergoing incessant punishment, their faces twisted in plaster pain. The other visitors and I were very confused. The American stuff was hidden in a corner; there was actually an exit sign pointing in the opposite direction. Inside was McCain’s flight suit, and photographs of the American POWs receiving much more human treatment. They were playing volleyball and raising chickens; receiving medical attention and putting up Christmas trees; serving mass. There was a video by a French documentarian, showcasing how enjoyable the prison had been for the soldiers.

John McCain wasn’t really featured in any of this, because whenever they tried to photograph or film him he’d flip them off and yell curse words. Because the whole thing was propaganda, really, and McCain didn’t want any part in it. The only photo they had was one from a recent visit in which McCain was shaking hands with the Vietnamese Prime Minister. And I was thinking that it took a near-impossible level of strength to return to the site of such horrific events, witness this bullshit, and still pose for photos in the name of diplomacy. Because things had been tremendously hard for John McCain. He’d fractured both arms and a leg in the crash; and the Viet Cong had rescued him, but then beat the shit out of McCain right there beside the lake. They’d taken him to the Hanoi Hilton and tortured him endlessly; everybody thought McCain was going to die but he held on. He spent two years in solitary confinement. At one point the VC found out that McCain’s dad was a bigwig in the US Army and offered him release to garner publicity; but McCain said no, and so the VC tortured him even more. He stayed in captivity until the end of the war, nearly six years. And now here he was, photographed back at the place of such a thing; and I tried to imagine what it’d be like, the surreal pain of it all, in order to preserve something larger – and what that larger thing might be, anyway.

After the museum I was quite tired. It’d rained while I was inside, and now everything was humid and uncontainable. It made me wonder how old-ass John McCain must’ve felt, because I was a young guy and feeling pretty miserable.

The other thing I needed was a beard trim. It’d grown to such a length that it could practically be tied off; I woke with it in my mouth, soaked in drool. It looked like tumbleweed rolling through the desert. It was really unavoidable now, as nervous as I was at the prospect of someone fucking it up. The problem was that there weren’t a bevy of barbers in Hanoi, let alone those equipped to handle facial hair. Most Southeast Asians, if anything, sported a few sparse hairs. And so I was wandering the streets, my infected foot now causing a pronounced limp; all I found were beauty salons that refused to help. I’d sadly tug at my hair and they’d wave me off like an evil spirit. They didn’t want to fuck it up either.

Eventually I started asking strangers and one pointed me down the road. There, a barber was set up with a chair, cutting an old man’s hair on the sidewalk. He had a mirror tacked to the wall, and various scissors and balms; an extension cord ran from the next-door business to an electric razor. When I arrived he gestured for me to sit beside a waiting foreigner. So I did, and watched him cut the old man’s hair.

The old man had whiskers, and two growths hanging from his eyebrow by a thin piece of flesh. The growths were the size and shape of gumballs. I wondered what would happen if he cut through the skin and was finally free of the growths. They seemed ready to part ways. The foreigner was an old white guy with a completely shaved head and a goatee that ran down to his stomach. He was waiting patiently with his hands on his knees. When the old man was done he hobbled off. The foreigner took the chair and the barber began shaving his already-shaved head with a straight razor. He placed his hands back on his knees and closed his eyes, as if it were a religious experience. I was starting to think that it was.

When it was my turn the barber indicated that it would be 100,000d for whatever I wanted done. I figured he might as well shave the whole thing so I could get my money’s worth. So after he’d shaved through the mess I motioned to the straight razor. He produced the shining instrument and lathered my face with cream. Then he leaned my head back and took to me, the knife at my throat amidst those bleating horns and city sounds. I felt the desperate desire to trust him there, even if it wasn’t warranted. It was like I needed him at my jugular more than I needed the hair gone. It was religious after all.

And when he was through I saw my face in the mirror – a face I hadn’t seen in years, a face I’d been afraid to see. It was small and young; it couldn’t be me after everything. It was as if this face could only be held in a child’s hands. I looked like my sister. I was some former version of myself – like looking back into youth and finding it warped by present knowledge, even if those same sensations still curdle within you. As if your history isn’t your history, and your face isn’t your face.

~~~

That night I was having a beer in the restaurant while the television played YouTube parodies of radio hits. There was one for Ed Sheeran, and one for the Chainsmokers, and one for Megan Trainor. Almost all of them featured cross-dressers and bumbling policemen. At the end of each video a guy would come on-screen and say: “Thanks for watching! Make sure to like and subscribe! And thanks to Tray and Chris and Damon and Ashley for being in this!” On the screen’s perimeter appeared the smiling faces of Tray and Chris and Damon and Ashley, waving and pointing to their social media handles. All of the videos had over five million views. One of them featured Stan Lee.

Each night from 6:00PM to 6:30PM OQ offered free beer, presumably in an effort to foster community. We’d all line up with our plastic mugs and receive a glass of foam from a keg labeled Fresh Beer, then sit around for thirty minutes trying to talk to each other. You could normally get two beers in before they took the keg away, unless you were consciously chugging. I think OQ hoped that the Free Beer Half-Hour would lead to people buying drinks post-deadline; however at 6:30PM no one had eaten yet, and it was far too early to begin getting properly fucked up. Plus the beer was warm and sour, and it was really only newcomers who thought it was a sweet deal.

The parodies upset me. Mostly because they were so poorly conceived and so massively popular; and as a struggling artist it seemed objectively unjust that this trash could accumulate millions of views and Stan Lee’s involvement while I could hardly get friends of mine to read my shit. I was wondering this aloud to the girl across from me, who said that YouTube actually started paying people once they hit a certain number of views/subscribers – which sort of added insult to injury. Her name was Helen; she was German; she had large deep eyes and olive skin, and was wearing a long grey shirt that served as a dress. She’d just arrived from Bali with mosquito bites that were now scabbing over; she was afraid they were infected. She was laying low in Hanoi until things healed up, which was difficult in such a humid climate. We exchanged looks at our grotesque wounds. Helen had an air about her that the whole thing was rather ridiculous, but she didn’t want to lose a limb over some mosquitos.

Soon we were joined by two more Germans: Valentine, a slight blonde guy with pointed features; and Annabelle, a tall girl with a top bun and rosy cheeks. They were leaving that evening on a Sapa tour; it was unclear what their relationship was. Valentine said that YouTube was big business: everything you could think of had a channel associated with it. For instance, he was really into cars and subscribed to a few channels that reviewed the latest models. Annabelle, who was a grade-school teacher, said that one of her students was trying to become famous by posting rap videos. She pulled one up on her phone and we gathered around to watch. It was two kids sitting on a couch while one of them spit some rhymes. He actually wasn’t that bad. It was mostly in German; the only phrase I understood was the hook: “Saturday Everyday.” Valentine translated; the majority of the lyrics were about fucking someone’s mother without a condom. They only had 100 followers, but Annabelle said she watched. I probably would too if one of my students was rapping on YouTube.

After the beer dried up the four of us headed out looking for dinner. The Old Quarter was always in chaos, but never more so than at night. Hawkers beckoning you into their shops, pushcarts of food and music, blaring neon lights; bikes, cars, cycle-powered rickshaws; old white men with their prostitutes, wide-eyed sweaty travelers, partially-clothed children playing in trash. A woman feeding a fire with what appeared to be hundred-dollar bills. A restaurant called Obama, claiming to have served the former president. It was an overload of sights and sounds – a maximalist museum. We found a banh mi place and retired to its interior, pointing the fans towards us. Upon our return, OQ’s entryway had been converted to a music hall: there was a guy with a guitar, a guy with a snare drum and cymbal, a girl with an electric viola, an old man with a saxophone. They were playing sped-up renditions of classics. Toddlers were dancing, their parents squatting to snap photos; they were stomping the ground with their tiny feet, as if jumping on imaginary suitcases. The performance gained momentum infinitely, reaching towards fervor; it was the only thing to match the surroundings.

When we returned to OQ Valentine ordered beers. Helen said she didn’t want one; she hadn’t had a drink since arriving. Valentine said: “Some crazy nights?” Helen said: Yeah. I asked: What constitutes a crazy night? Because I felt like I’d had my fair share, but could never reach the Platonic ideal of the thing. There was always something pulling me back to the earth, something that left me feeling oddly void of humanity – like the night didn’t narrow space and time so much as create more of it, and it was all black. Helen said her craziest night was at a factory in Berlin. Apparently owners would convert their factories into parties after midnight, which seemed like an irresponsible thing for a factory owner to do. Helen had been wildly drunk, going so far as to throw up on her friend mid-conversation; people had been packing boxes with random shit, putting on labels and sending them out; one guy crashed a forklift, and so they’d tried unjamming it with another forklift, and ended up crashing that too, resulting in both forklifts tumbling into a ditch.

At which point a girl overheard us and joined the table. She said: Are you talking about throwing up? She said one time she’d been hooking up with a guy when she’d vomited. Helen said: In his mouth? She said: Not exactly – she’d been blowing him. Helen said: Oh, okay. I said the guy didn’t have much to be mad about. It’d be like getting on a roller coaster just as it started to rain. The girl shrugged.

Her name was Barbara, and I didn’t like her much. When we asked where she was from she said New York City – like it was a badge of honor, not just some place you’d been born. She said she now lived in Portland, so it seemed like she wanted to have it both ways. Her skin was very black and her eyes were very white. The main thing was that she was American, and loud and boisterous, compared to the Germans, who were calm and calculated – and I wanted desperately to be like them, and not be like her. She said that our president was a rapist fuckhead currently under investigation – which was true, but she didn’t have to go around telling everybody that.

The one thing Barbara did have were two French girls coming to meet her, one of whom was outrageously attractive – so attractive that she shouldn’t have been hanging out with me, or Barbara, or even the other French girl. Her name was Manou: tall, thin, perfectly tanned skin, short curly hair, wore jean shorts and a tight red top. Her voice was resoundingly deep, so much so that you could hardly hear her. It didn’t matter. I knew, almost innately, that she belonged in another echelon of physical society – and it put me at ease, if only because I knew not to try anything. Annabelle and Valentine were leaving; their guide had arrived to take them to Sapa. We said our goodbyes. Left in their wake, Barbara said: “Are we going?” Meaning: Are we going out? Helen looked at me wearily; she was headed to bed. I didn’t want her to go. She said goodnight and climbed the stairs. I left with the French girls, and Barbara.

The Old Quarter had reached its climax: partiers spilled into the streets, nightlife exploded through doorways. Barbara led us into the brush, towards somewhere – a bar crawl about to begin. Manou’s friend, whose name I didn’t catch, reminded me of the Chilean girls I’d met on our descent from Annapurna; we’d shared a bumpy jeep back to Pokhara. I wondered if she was in love with Manou the way the rest of the world had to be. In the midst of that bedlam sat our destination: Backpacker Hostel. Outside was a hive of travelers: girls with make-up running, neon fanny packs latched to their waists. One of them knocked over a trashcan, watched it roll into the street, then turned back to her cigarette. They were chugging from plastic cups, sold for 5000d from a woman sitting on the curb with a keg. We did the same, then entered.

Inside was worse. It was a black, sweaty nightmare. I had the immediate sensation that this was very wrong, and that I wasn’t drunk enough, and that this was the most I’d seen of the thing that since everything, and I didn’t like it. There were boys in sleeveless tees and backwards hats, scruffy chins and sweaty brows; girls on the bar, hair pulled back and shirts pulled down; drinks and cash flying, music pounding; reception sat a few meters off, staring gloomily ahead. Who the fuck actually stayed at this place was unknown. I was, once again, struck by the juxtaposition between this and what I’d seen, where I’d been, what I’d done – the absurdity. But instead of feeling angry, like I normally did, I felt sad, and scared. I felt an echoing loneliness, that dark expanse of space and time I’d described to the Germans – but it was more poignant than that. Like disillusionment almost. Like seeing something terrible when you’re far too young, and having it fuck up your whole world. I could feel my shoulder and haunch sting with understanding. I hurried to the bar.

The night rang on. We had our drinks, and danced. Occasionally a guy would approach, place a hand on Manou’s lower back, lean in to mutter something; but she always looked nonplussed, and they soon shuffled off. It was as if she held some vast power, and they knew it even before coming over. Chile had her backpack on, and was swinging it wildly at the crowd. Near-midnight: a bearded tank top gets on the microphone and the music stops. “Alright motherfuckers,” he yells, “we’re about to get the fuck outta here! But we gotta bounce in fucking style! We’re gonna play one last song, and I want you all to make some fucking noise! This is the greatest night of your fucking life!” His name was Zach, and he probably worked at the hostel. Part of me wanted to come back every night, for however long it lasted, and see Zach give this same speech – to see every night be the best night of our lives, on into infinity, until it destroyed him. Because it definitely would. Maybe it already had. Zach says: “DJ Fats!” DJ Fats is actually fat. “Spin! That! Track!” DJ Fats plays “I Want It That Way.” Everyone knows the words. There is a girl on the bar with a full nipple showing. Several guys are serenading each other.

Zach doubles down on his shtick when the song ends. “Alright motherfuckers,” he yells, “we’re about to start this bar crawl in just a moment! But I think maybe – just maybe – we have…One! More! Song! Left in us! What do you think?” The crowd screams. “I can’t hear you!” Screams. “Okay, okay, but if we do this thing – if we do this fucking thing – I need something from you!” One of the things I like about Zach is that he frames all this as if it’s some struggle we’re in together. That we’ve got no choice; that we’re a team; that surviving this is necessary, primal. Sometimes I feel that way. So I can relate. “I’m going to need one fucking thing from you motherfuckers! I’m going to need everybody up off the floor! Everybody! Get the fuck up! Off the floor! The floor is lava!” We obey, climbing onto tables and chairs. Custodians rush in with brooms and dustpans. DJ Fats spins that track. It’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

There’s something uniquely surreal about a bunch of drunken white children standing on tables belting out Queen’s six-minute opus. It feels as though the act itself requires something more to be said – about the song choice, the cleaning crew, the very time and place – but the fact of the matter is, nobody says anything more about anything out here. It races forward without pause; it doesn’t care as much as the people don’t care. I guess I didn’t care either. I sang along.

Once the song ended Zach and his cronies herded everyone out of the hostel. I had the sneaky suspicion that this bar crawl was more of a go-anywhere-that’s-not-here crawl, with Backpacker Hostel just trying to get themselves some peace and quiet before picking up the pieces of their shattered lives and doing this all over again the next day. The street flooded with chaos; partiers rushed the keg women for refills. They pumped furiously. This was when Manou had a really good idea, which was: Let’s go in on a bottle of vodka, thus saving money – and in the adrenaline of that pandemonium I assessed this to be a fucking brilliant plan and started implementing it with real vigor. I paid a keg lady 10,000d for four plastic cups while the girls went in search of alcohol at the nearby Circle K; I immediately realized that 10,000d was far too high a price for four cups and tried to negotiate an additional beer; but the keg lady wouldn’t budge; and besides, everything was happening so fast that one could hardly bother: people were streaming forth like ants in some mass midnight exodus. At the Circle K, the girls informed me that there was no vodka, at which point we began roaming the streets in search of some; we found a box of bottles in an abandoned storefront, and then I was up a flight of stairs, brandishing vodka upon a family: “Is this for sale?” It was, for 100,000d. We returned to the Circle K, purchased apple and orange juices; and then we were sitting on the curb, and I was arranging the cups in a neat row, pouring four very strong drinks.

Barbara was less than enthused. She’d talked about going back to the hostel, but there was no stopping the French girls. I liked that about them. We drank the bottle quickly, and soon I was drunk. I was rolling my tongue around my mouth; I thought I might swallow it. Manou was saying they’d tried to go to China and been turned back at the airport; I was saying: That sucks, that sucks, that sucks. I left to the bathroom in Obama’s restaurant. I didn’t believe that he had eaten there. The bathroom door had no latch. My pee was dark yellow. When I returned Manou was pointing across the street to a storefront with its gate pulled down: “That’s the next bar.” A man was stationed outside, lifting the gate so people could enter. I said: Fine. We stashed our cups and leftover juice in Chile’s backpack, and went inside.

The storefront was a hollowed-out black space that led down some steps into a narrow dark club. There was a DJ booth lined with neon lights; next to the booth was a stripper pole. The walls were mirrored and the floor was sticky. People were dancing. This place had Vietnamese patrons: slumped on couches buttressing the mirrors, girls practically comatose. Manou and Chile found two boys they knew from a previous occasion; one was freakishly tall, holding up a hand as a girl tried to high-five him; the other was pouty, with black shirtsleeves scrunched up to his shoulders and a cigarette dangling from his lip. At first I assumed that the Giant and Mr. Cigarette were together; but I think my ideas of masculinity are sort of fucked up from living in America. In fact, Manou had clearly chosen Mr. Cigarette: she was now actively courting him. I was trying to figure out what set him apart – what made him different from every other man who’d touched her lower back. His cigarette never seemed to decrease. Barbara was tangoing with a swarthy-looking dude. Chile was running her fingers over the DJ’s neon lights.

There were guys walking around with Happy Balloons. One of them saw me, pointed to the balloon, raised his eyebrows. I nodded. I like the Balloon Guys. You give them money, and they come back with a balloon and exact change. It always surprised me. I gave this one 100,000d; he returned with 60,000d and a filled balloon. I took my balloon and sat down between two passed-out Vietnamese girls. I knew what to do now. I put the balloon to my lips, inhaled and exhaled. I closed my eyes.

It came on strong, and fast. I felt my head tilt back, and felt myself fall into another world. Everything fades on away, while still being there, and it’s like it’s shimmering, a snow-white television, but just the sensation. Every time I opened my eyes I saw one of the girls before me: Manou, taking a small puff; Chile, recording me on her phone; Barbara, standing there with a disapproving look. After the main hit it was still coming on, and I remember thinking: This is it. I have forgotten everything. I have forgotten, in a brief moment of rolling ecstasy, who I am, where I am, what I am – the very fundamentals of being alive. I suppose by the time I had that thought I was back. But the pleasure of the moment away, of knowing that moment away, an endless universe of time that was of course not endless – it was enough. I remember thinking: Barbara, don’t judge me. You have to understand. This allows me to forget. This allows me that moment.

When they shut the club it must’ve been 2:00AM. I slept something like five hours. In the morning they were gone. I went downstairs and had my breakfast, then got Hawk out of storage from her creepy wardens. Some rust had appeared on his gages, no doubt form being left uncovered. On the stoop one of OQ’s employees was smoking from a table-leg pipe, this one made of bamboo. An old man in a pink I Love Cambodiashirt was walking down the alley. I’d seen him pacing back and forth, every day, in that same shirt. I started strapping my shit to Hawk’s back, preparing to leave.

Helen came out. She watched me pack. She was moving to a different hostel on account of OQ not having anything available. I said: Are you on your way somewhere? She said no, she’d just come out to say goodbye. That made me feel good. I said: This is Hawk, and gestured to him. She held out her thumb and index finger, and loosely shook the clutch, like a handshake. She said: Nice to meet you. That made me feel good too. She held out her arms for a hug. I said: I’m sweaty, is that okay? She said: Yes, we’ve got to hug. So we did. And I was sweaty. It was so damn humid in Hanoi that it felt like death. Overhead were thick clouds of rain. I had to go – it was 200km that day. I had no choice. I kick-started Hawk and rode on out of there, the engine roaring, the drops beginning to fall.

~~~

I was on my way to get a banh mi when I ran into Jesse. He recognized me without the beard.  We were weirdly excited to see each other. Jesse was the lanky dude traveling with Alex the Rockford Drunk; he was the one who’d gotten high in David’s basement. They’d just returned from a northern loop – sold their bikes, were headed home. I said: So what’d you think? He said: It was fun. He paused. But it was hard. I said: Yeah. He said, almost as if scared of himself: It was really hard.

They’d been coming back, in the rain; and the roads had been slick, and Alex had been a fucking speed demon; and Jesse was coming around a bend, headed downhill, when his brakes seized up. He’d slid, colliding with a guy going uphill. The accident had left his forks warped. I couldn’t believe it. But in a weird way, I could. He continued slowly until they came upon a mechanic. He fixed the forks in a few hours for $35 USD. They’d rode on. He had a few cuts and bruises, but he was mostly alright.

And so now he said: It was really hard. I said: I know. Because I did. We shook hands twice for some reason. I said: I’ll see you in Rockford then. He said: In David’s basement. We parted ways.