Fake House (21 page)

Once I did venture halfway down the mountain. I was hiding in the bush, watching the montagnard ladies dip their boobs into the gargling water. I became so vexed and sorrowful I had to hightail my ass up the craggy mountain before I did something unwholesome. Never again.

Janny, who must be wrinkly by now, is most likely a grandmother. Maybe you’re dead already. I came so close to knowing you. You bit me like a blue fish, but you let go of my finger when I tried to lift you out of the water.

All the ladies come back, the girlfriends, the whores, even those glimpsed just once on the streets, one by one, when I sleep alone at night.

I sleep inside this parachute. The mosquitoes are the size of woodpeckers on Chopped Steak Mountain.

One night, as I was lying inside my parachute reciting the streets of my hometown: Melody Lane, Lily Pad Circle, Baseline Drive, Telegraph Road, I heard a loud snoring sound. I went on reciting: Yelling Boulevard, Hunting Pack Street, Frog Pond Drive … but the snoring got louder and louder. It must have come from the biggest set of lungs in the world. I wasn’t going to give in. I started screaming: Square Deal Road! Lick Skillet Drive! Possum Road! Greenback Street! The snoring stopped.

This morning I saw Chuck sleeping on the ground but he did not get up to salute me. I squatted down next to his head and was
surprised to notice that he was old, like me, and not a young soldier. He had a hurt, sorrowful expression, with some accusation in it. His mouth was wide open and his eyes were slightly open.

About eight miles from here, in a part of the woods I never go into, is my downed helicopter. I was a Scarface, with more than three hundred missions to my credit. I worked the Delta to the DMZ. Every now and then I would manage to be at 1st MAW headquarters with enough time for a lunch break. The chow was fantastic: thick, juicy steaks; baked potatoes with sour cream; apple pie; and vanilla ice cream.

A hilarious memory: I once saw a Filipino queer impersonating Mick Jagger at a USO show. He was good too. The shit you remember.

The capital of Kentucky is Frankfort, population: 20,000. There was a nice tavern at the corner of Broadway and Madison, where you could get an excellent roast beef sandwich for 89 cents.

My favorite sport is football. My second favorite sport is baseball. I was a pitcher in high school, with a fastball that topped off at eighty miles an hour.

The stadium in Lexington can hold seventy thousand people. I was there at least a dozen times. We always sat in the cheapest seats, me and my father.

My old phone number is 732-0806. Janny’s phone number is 922-7908.

I was only supposed to be here for eleven months and twenty days.

I was not born in this country, but I will die in this country.

Artist and writer
Linh Dinh
was born in Saigon in 1963; came to the United States in 1975; and after twenty-four years away from Vietnam, returned to live in Saigon in 1998. Dinh is the author of a chapbook of poems,
Drunkard Boxing
(Singing Horse Press, 1998), and the editor of a short story anthology,
Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam
(Seven Stories Press, 1996). In 1993 he was the recipient of a Pew Charitable Trust fellowship for his poetry. His stories, poems, and translations have appeared in recent issues of the
Threepenny Review, New American Writing, Chicago Review, Sulfur, Denver Quarterly, American Poetry Review, New York Stories
, and
VOLT
, among other journals. His poem, “The Most Beautiful Word,” has been anthologized in
Best American Poetry 2000
.