Deros Vietnam (8 page)

The assemblage doubled over in hysterics. Someone started singing “smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.”

Then it was Harry Carter's turn. New to Vietnam, the baby-faced Carter was still intimidated by his surroundings, afraid of the danger that lurked outside the Continental Palace's walls. As a press corps virgin, Carter hadn't cultivated any sources, so he didn't have much in the way of gossip, stories, or juicy tidbits to share. He'd already drunk too much, lost his ID, and made a clumsy pass at one of The Shelf's beautiful bar girls, but it was his turn, and take it he would.

Weaving as he stood, Carter reached inside his sport coat pocket for the only weapon he had—a copy of a press release he'd been handed a few hours ago by a wiry Vietnamese with a broad smile and a French affect. Trembling, Carter held the single sheet of paper aloft, his hands like pliers gripping a nail. Even as he stumbled over the Vietnamese words in the release, there was no doubt about the message—the Buddhist monks of Xa Loi intended to resume self-immolation immediately unless the United States withdrew support from the corrupt regime of South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu.

“Party pooper,” someone hollered. Carter turned crimson. Quickly, the two old hands, Van Slyke and Jones, came to his rescue.

“Let me see that.” Van Slyke walked over and grabbed the release. Jones read over his shoulder.

“How many of you got one of these?” he asked, holding up the sheet of paper. No other hands went up.

“Who put it out?” a voice from the rear asked. Van Slyke glanced at the sheet. “Ah so, ‘tis our old friends from the Pagoda.” He smiled a big smile.

“You're not going to believe this,” he added, handing the release to Jones, “but it specifically mentions quote poet, spiritualist and pacifist Allen Ginsberg as a source of encouragement.”

“Allen Ginsberg?” Jones shook his head.

“That fucking fairy,” growled a voice near the bar.

“Beatnik.”

“Hippie.”

“Pansy.”

“I saw the best minds of my generation
.…”

Jones was waving his arms. “Hold it a minute. Nobody knows better than we the truth in the adage about the lessons of history repeating themselves.” Low murmurs and rumbling voices.

“What's Allen Ginsberg got to do with history or with Vietnam?” Carter asked.

Jones winked at Van Slyke. He took a deep breath, removed his glasses and raised his hands as if anointing the crowd.

“Once upon a wayward war,” Jones intoned in his best Walter Cronkite voice, “Allen Ginsberg graced these friendly confines, stood where we are standing, walked a mile in our shoes, strove with every ounce of fiber in his body to …”

“Diddle a Buddhist monk!”

“Enough already,” shouted Cutler, one of the old hands from UPI. “My drink's getting warm and I've got a lady friend waiting. Cut to the chase, for fuck sake.”

Unperturbed, Jones kept right on talking, “Listen, what we all should know about that time is that it was a lot like this time, which is maybe the way Vietnamese history has always worked.”

The Shelf was momentarily shrouded in smoke and silence.

“In the early 1960s, like today,” Jones continued, “you had a corrupt South Vietnamese President who was a devout Catholic clamping down on a country that was home to a shitload of Buddhists. The PR professionals will confirm how headlines like ‘Buddhist Monk Barbecue in Saigon' weren't the best way to generate support for the U.S. mission in Southeast Asia. And …”

Like a practiced vaudevillian, Jones repeated the conjunction.

“And …that's when our own Walt Whitman, the intergalactic guru himself, entered stage left. Apparently Ginsberg thought he could lower everyone's temperature by his mere presence. Ooohhhmmmm …” Jones started chanting.

“Well, did he?” Carter asked.

“Truth is, our home-grown cosmonaut spent most of his brief time here scared—and I use the world in its literal sense—shitless.”

A volley of laughter moved like a wave through The Shelf. Most of the reporters stopped talking and looking at their watches to listen to Jones.

“Tell them what Do-Re-Mi said about Ginsberg,” Van Slyke reminded him.

“Good point,” Jones smiled. “Even the fresh faces among us know Do-Re-Mi, real name Ngo Rai Minh. He was at the center of the Buddhist uprising in '63 and was famous for his impromptu press conferences about the Buddhist burnings.

“Legend has it that when Sheehan asked Do-Re-Mi what he thought of Ginsberg, the cherubic bonze replied matter-of-factly: ‘He's a spy.'”

A wave of laughter rippled across The Shelf and out into Tu Do Street.

“But not just any goddamn spy,” Jones shouted above the laughter, “he claimed Ginsberg was a quote top secret, CIA-clearance spy!”

More hoots and shouts.

“So, Ginsberg spends a couple hours chanting ‘Om' with the monks who basically ignore him. After the combat police flattened the Pagoda gates, it suddenly dawns on the cosmic cowboy that this is a pretty dangerous place, so he spent the rest of his time here hiding in Sheehan's office.”

“‘I'm scairt,' he wrote to his boyfriend back home.” More snickers. “And within four days, the poet laureate of pop was long gone. Probably had to pick up some clean underwear.”

Jones paused.

“You all know what happened next. More Buddhists toasted themselves for the benefit of the six o'clock news. Diem and his brother dug their hole deeper and deeper until Kennedy and the CIA had no choice but to take them out. And the rest, as they say in Vietnam, is mystery.”

Jones made a royal bow, applause raining down from his colleagues.

Hours later, the applause echoing in his ears, Carter lay awake in his bed, a delicate flower of Southeast Asian femininity breathing quietly next to him. Sleepless, he remembered seeing the 1963 protests on the six o'clock news back home in Richmond. His thoughts drifted to his days at the university, the all-hours debates with his dorm mates about God, religion and fate.

His first marijuana high, and his romantic lows. And Allen Ginsberg and his favorite lines from “Howl”:

yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,

Which sent him on to a restless sleep.

Morning came early, the sun bright and boiling, the monsoon preparing its regular noon appearance. Jones and Van Slyke joined Carter for the stroll to 89 Huyen Thanh Quan Street. The Xa Loi pagoda, separated from the street by a gated fence, shimmered like a jewel in an otherwise drab downtown. Inside the fence, they were welcomed by a stone Buddha holding a vial of elixir in one hand and making a gesture that seemed to signify the removal of obstacles with the other.

“Left hand know what the right hand is doing?” pondered Van Slyke. “Could be a metaphor for the U.S. in Vietnam?”

The interior courtyard resembled a travelling carnival with scores of monks, nuns and children zigzagging the premises. Amid the cacophony of bells and chants arose a stench, a rotting, cabbage-like smell which brought the three reporters' hands to their noses.

A wrinkled
mama-san
in black pants flashed her stained teeth and beckoned for them to follow. She guided them to stairs which led to the main hall of the pagoda on the upper level, then stopped, pointing to the stairs on the left hand side and saying something in Vietnamese.

“What's she jabbering about?” Carter asked the others.

Neither of the men said anything. The
mama-san
kept pointing. Jones finally spoke up.

“She wants us to take the stairs on the left,” he said, “because that's how men enter the hall. Females enter on the right.”

As the trio ascended the stairs, Jones started to hum his favorite Glenn Miller song, “Let's Build a Stairway to the Stars.”

They entered a huge, pillar-supported rectangular hall. Looming above them was a massive statue of Buddha, seated in meditation on a lotus blossom, wearing the garb of a monk.

“Pleased to meet you,” Carter mumbled in his best Mick Jagger accent, “hope you guessed my name.”

Jewelry hung from the Buddha's ears. He had closely cropped curly hair, and a large protuberance on his head. Carter knew from his “Introduction to Religions of the World” class in college that these indicated something, but he forgot exactly what. Royalty? Aptitude?

“I don't think we're properly dressed for the occasion,” whispered Van Slyke.

Do-Re-Mi's smiling face appeared. He bowed and escorted them down the rectangular hall. With his plain robe and shaved head he looked like a miniature version of the statue.

At the back of the large hall, seated in a circle, were the Pagoda's elders in flowing robes that reminded Carter of Gandalf in
Lord of the Rings.
Their sleeveless tunics, trimmed with yellow brocade and yellow silk, made them appear like tiny starbursts.

One by one the monks, with Do-Re-Mi translating, spoke about life and death, Buddha and Vietnam.

“The struggle of the Vietnamese people is not only for peace and independence,” came the translation of the words of the first elder. “The struggle of the Vietnamese people is to remain Vietnamese.”

When Jones tried to ask a follow-up question, Do-Re-Mi held up his hand. Another bonze spoke. “A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker.”

That was the way it went.

“An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.”

“A jug fills drop by drop.”

“My editor's going to love this,” snarled Jones, imagining the ball-busting McMillan cursing him out for delivering a scoop consisting of windy epithets. What was the monks' strategy? What were their demands? When were they going to take action?

As if the Buddhists sensed his thoughts, the oldest monk spoke, in quiet tones.

“All of life is sacred,” he began, speaking in near-perfect English, “but life has to be lived.”

The monk paused.

“Look at us. We are the walking dead. We are mere puppets. Our beliefs, our traditions, our way of life—are all dying. But even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely,” he smiled.

He and the others stood, bowed and left the hall.

Van Slyke put his hand on Jones's shoulder, trying to keep him from exploding. Carter looked pleadingly at Do-Re-Mi, who had a twinkle in his eye.

“One more question, yes?” He smiled at the trio. Van Slyke and Jones were reaching into their pockets to withdraw their reporter's notebook when Carter blurted out, “What does burning human flesh smell like?”

Do-Re-Mi stood and smiled.

“You'll know it when you smell it,” Jones grimaced. “It stays with you forever.”

The tiny monk nodded.

“I had to write about it in 1963 but it really described itself.” His voice sounded more like a coroner's than a reporter's. “Burning skin melts and, well, it smells like charcoal, but not any charcoal I've smelled before, or since.

“When a human body burns, the iron in the blood gives off a coppery, metallic odor,” Jones was growing pale. “And the body's internal organs smell like burnt liver. But,” he glanced at Do-Re-Mi, “the monks say when one of them burns, it smells like musky, sweet perfume.”

Do-Re-Mi smiled and nodded.

“Mistah Jones understand because he's been there. He first to write about Thich Quang Duc, the 73-year-old monk, who first burn himself in June 1963.

“You come today,” Do-Re-Mi was looking directly at Carter, “and you see how monk burn, outside to inside, layer-by-layer.”

“Dehydration, ignition,” Jones was muttering. “The heat dries the skin; the dry skin ignites. That fire, in turn, dries the next layer of muscle and fat, which then ignites. And so on, until the internal organs are consumed. Textbook.”

“Vietnamese Buddhist give off, how you say, ‘modest BTUs,'” Do-Re-Mi smiled. He turned and began to walk toward the statue of Buddha. “Three o'clock outside Ba Huyen Thanh Quan.”

The three reporters walked back to the Continental Palace in silence. The heat was draining. Soon, the monsoon would follow. And then the immolation.

“Jesus, it's today,” Carter burst out. Jones and Van Slyke looked at him. “This is June 11th, the anniversary of Thich Quang Duc's suicide!”

“Give the Cub Scout journalist his history merit badge,” Van Slyke said, turning back to the business at hand.

No reporters showed up to cover the 3 p.m. performance. It didn't matter. They could smell it, nauseating and sweet, putrid and steaky, like leather being tanned over a flame. The smell was so rich that you felt full. They found out later that the smell and the taste had a name, Do-Re-Mi.

The next morning each of the journalists went his separate way—Carter to Pleiku, Jones to the Delta and Van Slyke to Nha Trang. They never saw one another again.

Several years later, Carter received a copy of “Verses Written for Student Antidraft Registration Rally” by Allen Ginsberg. Two phrases were highlighted in yellow.

“The warrior is afraid
…”

“
The warrior has a big trembling heart.”

Scrawled on the back of the envelope, Jones had written: “You never really lose the smell of burning flesh. No matter how long you live.”

Looking out at the Beirut landscape, hands trembling, Carter pulled the blinds, sat down on the edge of his bed and wept.

Fearful Symmetry

Nightfall in the jungle was like living in another country. The dark overwhelmed and enveloped so that everything and everyone succumbed to it. No latitude and longitude. No battle lines. No Catholic and Buddhist. No black pajamas.

Just the dark.

Nightfall was also the time when the jungle came alive. You'd hear the constant drip, drip, drop of water falling from trees, the ribit ribit of throaty frogs, even the occasional scratching of small ground animals foraging for food. And other sounds that defied United States Army classification.