the accidental killing. My emotions were all over the place and I didn’t know if I wanted to stand, sit, lay down, or scream from the roof. I did know that I needed to hear her voice. I was blubbering so much that she couldn’t understand me, but she was kind enough and savvy enough to let me come down from my rush before asking me questions. I tried to explain that I was happy I was spared a trial, and all the horrific emotions and public persecution that would have come down on me. At the same time, I had this immense guilt because I was feeling good about the No True Bill. I had killed, and a nine-person jury decided that it was okay.
It wasn’t though. I thought I should be punished for it, punished severely. But I was happy that I wasn’t going to be. My head was on the verge of exploding and all I could think of was that I needed to hear Mai’s voice. I knew there wasn’t anything she could say from the other side of the globe to make it all go away or make me feel better, but I just wanted to hear her say hello.
As soon as she picked up, I began blubbering like a child. When I finally came up for air—I don’t know how long I’d been wailing in her ear—I could hear her sobbing. When I asked if she was crying with me, she said, “Who else? I’m sitting in a room by myself talking with you.” That made me laugh for some reason and then she started laughing. Then we cried again.
When I finally calmed, Mai asked if I remembered the meditation sessions that Samuel taught me. I said I had been doing it every other day. She suggested an increase to two or three times a day, to sit quietly and just follow my breath, in and out, in and out. Every time a stray thought came into my mind, I was to look at it for a second, then just let it float away and go back to following my breath. She added, “And kick the shit out of the heavy bag once a day. Then meditate again after the shit kicking.”
Like an obedient child, I did what she said, and it helped, like a Band-Aid sometimes makes a cut feel better. The extra meditating helped me get some control over my thoughts, and the extra hard bag work made me too tired to think at all, at least until morning came around again.
“You okay, Sam?” Mai asks looking into my eyes.
“I am now.”
She smiles. “I am happy for you to meet my mother and I want to show you so much about my life, but I am scared that you might not like it here. You might be bored.”
“Impossible. Like I said before, you and Samuel caught me during a bad week.” A shadow passes across Mai’s face before she looks away. “Sorry,” I say caressing her arm. “Bad joke. You know, we have yet to talk about Portland State, those deaths. I wanted to many times but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up.”
“I want to talk to you about it too, but not now. Now I want to just be happy to be near you,” she says, looking at me and then out the window.
I gently turn her head toward me and kiss her.
“I wish we had more time to spend here, but we need to go to see Father. Maybe in a few days when you are rested, we can talk then.”
“Just say the word.”
Mai nods. “Okay, I will say the word.” She scoots off the ledge, steps in front of me and slips between my parted legs. She takes both of my hands in hers, squeezes them and without an ounce of shyness, moves those gorgeous eyes to my shoulders, down my arms, across my chest, and all the way down to my shoes. Then slowly, caressingly, she moves them back up to my eyes. She exhales slowly with a little shake of her head. “Come on, Sam.” She steps aside so I can scoot off the ledge. “We better go, now. Before I… we just better go.”
I’ve gotten a couple of compliments in my day, but that one, without uttering a word, ranks at the top. I can even hear the electricity crackle between us as we walk hand in hand to the elevator.
“Sam, who was the boy at the airport, the one who made such a quiet entrance into Saigon?”
Good idea. Talk about something else since there is no cold shower available. She pokes the elevator button.
“Bobby Phan, or so he said. He told me that he was coming here to meet his parents and spend time with his dying grandfather. Appears that wasn’t true since his father filed a runaway report on him in California. He also said he had a black belt in taekwondo.” The elevator doors open and we step in. We begin descending “At least the black belt story was true. Did you see his kicks? Hit two guys in the head without putting his foot down.”
“Not just guys, Sam. Policemen. They will be hunting for him now harder than before.”
“I wonder then if he will call me… wait. I didn’t tell him that I’m a policeman and I don’t remember if the magazine article he read about me mentions it. So maybe he will call. You know, for a while on the plane, I thought he might be connected with Lai Van Tan.”
She shakes her head. “Oh, I don’t think so. Just a… running away, no, runaway. Lots of people come here when they run away.”
“I was just being paranoid.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m on suspicion overdrive, I guess.”
“I understand,” she says, squeezing my hand.
“When I’m not suspecting Bobby of being a Russian secret agent, I see him as a great kid. Apparently one with some big problems. I’d like to help him. He’s got my cell number, and yours.”
Mai moves into me. “Always wanting to fix things, right, Sam?” she kisses me before I can answer.
Mai is laughing as she leans on the horn and brakes to avoid a young girl on a motorbike who streaked out from a side street and passed by our hood just inches from earning a grave. The sky is in twilight mode and the streets and sidewalks are beginning to light up like a carnival.
“That’s considered funny here?” I ask.
Mai laughs again. “The girl? No, not funny.” She shrugs. “Of course it is dangerous but it is also like I said: It’s just the way it is.” She gestures at the vehicle riot outside our windows. “I was laughing because for a moment I was seeing all this through your eyes. How mad it must seem compared to Portland.”
“It’s un-freaking-believable,” I say. “I heard about it, but nothing prepares you for the enormity of the mass confusion of thousands upon thousands of vehicles going every which way. And the roar!”
She nods. “I said ‘how mad it must seem,’ but you must understand that it is not mad at all, it is not as you say, ‘mass confusion.’ There are about a thousand traffic deaths a year in Saigon, but that is not many when you consider that there are millions of motorbikes and other kinds of vehicles on the streets. It is not mad because all, well, most drivers pay attention to where they are and where they are going. We all cooperate. This is most important when you have to cross the street. Okay, look over there. See that little girl at that far corner?”
We’re parked at a red light, actually hundreds and hundreds of us are parked at a red light at the entrance of what appears to be a traffic circle of some kind with about five streets feeding into it, each of them jammed with thousands of vehicles. Traffic on a couple of the feeder streets appears to have stopped for a light, while motorbikes on streets that have the green light move in mass into the circle, then regurgitate haphazardly onto feeder streets where they battle with oncoming traffic trying to get into the circle.
“No,” I say. “How can you see one little girl in all this.”
“Over there, to the right,” she says, pointing. “Black pants, blue top. She looks about six years old.”
I see her, a tiny thing on the corner of one of the feeder streets. “Yes, cute. What about—” She steps off the curb. “Mai! She’s walking out into traffic. My God, she’ll be killed.”
Mai laughs. “She is fine. Watch