We pretended nothing happened. Five of us shared whiskey and a joint and just stared at the fire.
"This is what Dang would have wanted," Ritchie said.
I gagged.
He would have said the same thing had the body been mine.
I've rehashed that day, in 1969, a thousand times.
***
"I remember this sandbar. I met your mother here."
In Thai, Ritchie says, "At least I have a mother, cock breath."
The other four men hear, yet seem confused. Three are Thai Air Force. One passes me a joint and a pint of whiskey.
They don't understand. Supposedly, we two round-eyed white men are friends.
The fourth Asian, Sith, explains.
"Farongs (foreigners) are crazy," he says. "They insult each other when they're close. Their friendship's so strong, words mean nothing."
Sith's right. Ritchie and I are neighborhood guys.
City blocks create bonds like families. Color and nationality mean nothing. We unite against outsiders.
I'm a boy soldier, so it's easy to confuse experience and maturity.
I'm certain that war, women or exotic locales will make me a man. I'm searching for that happy place out beyond the horizon.
The earth is round, so my goal's unreachable.
My problems hide in dark, damp places within. I substitute women, drugs and alcohol for an unhappy childhood.
***
We arrive at about 11 a.m. The jungle climate makes the yellow-green water cascading along both sides of the sandbar irresistible.
The Mekong's unpredictable currents don't worry us. Drowning is the least of our problems. We're whacked on whiskey and weed in a combat zone.
An American air base rests on our side of the Mekong. On the other bank lies forbidden Laos. Through that country's dense jungle snakes the well-traveled conduit vital to the North Vietnamese for supplies and communication, the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
***
"Chuey. Chuey. Chuey."
Someone's screaming, "Help, help, help."
A man is drowning. No one moves.
I dive in. The current's stronger than I thought.
I'm in trouble.
The harder I swim, the less headway I make. I turn, gulp for air and barely spy Dang's body disappearing below the surface. I swim toward him.
With no sense of distance and unaware of time, I'm scared sober.
Dang's head appears yards from where I tread water. I try to bridge the gap between us. His cold, panicked eyes are close. My own plight finally dawns on me. He thrashes wildly, screams unintelligibly and lunges to grab any part of me for salvation. Like a grounded fish, he's flopping away any vestige of life.
He's dying.
Less than a yard from me, the hysterical, wild-eyed man disappears below the raging, murky water for the second time. Instinctively, I dive beneath the surface.
My arms shake like a bodybuilder lifting his last repetition. Moments before, I could swim. Now, I can't.
Dang surfaces again. His eyes bulge. His listless hand bids farewell. Spent, I swim toward him. He then slips below the murky surface for the last time.
Shamefully, I'm relieved.
Off the hook at last, I swim furiously towards the sandbar. Then tears flow.
"I'm not going to make it," I realize. "I'm drowning."
"Swim, Billy," Ritchie says. "Keep swimming, keep swimming, Billy."
I think, "Here, right now, among strangers, I'm going to die."
***
I'm alone in the water.
On the sidelines, everyone's yelling, "Swim, Billy. Swim."
I slip below the surface for the first time. The water churns above my head. I'm as helpless as a sock in a washing machine.
When I break the surface, everything's out of focus, the screams muffled, the sandbar surreal.
An improbable calm engulfs me.
My arms no longer hurt. Their screams sound like echoes. "Behind you, Billy...behind you, Billy...behind you."
From a boat, powerful hands grab my shoulders.
Once on the sandbar, I collapse and slip into unconsciousness.
Hours later, we find Dang's cold, lifeless corpse miles down the Mekong. It's repulsive.
The blue, bloated body belongs to a stranger. I feel nothing. Hours before I had risked everything for this lifeless hulk.
Maybe the booze or youth made me reckless. It's young men who charge cannons and jump on grenades. Older, wiser men aren't as careless about life's gift.
I view Ritchie with contempt. No written law says my best friend should jump in the water, but in my neighborhood, we carved it in wet cement.
A stand-up guy does something when his friend is dying.
***
I inhale the joint and swallow the harsh whiskey.
I stare into the fire. Suddenly, I'm overwhelmed with misplaced, self-centered grief.
I'm sickened. Not by Dang's death, nor by Ritchie's betrayal. Despite all that's happened, I still feel like a boy. Inside, nothing has changed.
To the Thai Air Force, I'm a hero.
Weeks later, to reward me, they take me to a no-frills whorehouse.
Loaded, I cross a shaky plank deep in the jungle. From my tenuous perch, I spy a writhing gray river. Below me, thousands of rats squirm atop each other's backs.
Terrified, I leap into the hut. Seven unattractive women wait. Each cost 50 cents. One skinny child, a virgin, sells for $5.
I bolt outside to the ravine and vomit into the gray, slithering mass below me.
In my neighborhood, we don't sell children or watch men drown.
In Thailand, at 20, I'm a man at last.
It makes me puke.
Bill O'Connor is a Vietnam veteran, former Bronx firefighter and pub and restaurant owner. O'Connor is currently a journalism major at UF and a standup comic. The irreverent and acerbic O'Connor performs free standup around Gainesville.
