‘Another Saigon tea?’ the girl whined, stroking Ted’s arm as he idly sipped his beer. We were in one of the cheesy joints along Tu Do Street not far from the hotel. Another bargirl, one we’d named ‘Slabs’ because of the prominent flat moulding of her forehead and cheeks, perched on a stool next to me.

​

‘Huh? No, that's it, Chi, I'm getting out of the tea trade this evening; just leave me alone, OK?’ Ted answered distractedly. He’d clearly lost interest in the girl; was bored by the tedious conversation in broken English; the empty questions like, ‘Where are you from?’ or ‘How old are you?’ or ‘Are you married?’ Besides, at a dollar a glass, the tea was just as expensive as the beer, and for what any of us got out of paying for it – a lot of silly drivel – we might as well burn the money.

​

Chi, like most of the Saigon bargirls, was a tough nut, made so by too many men with extra money, too many propositions. The ground rules were clear: if the fellow a girl latched on to didn't keep her supplied with glasses of tea, she moved on to another customer; there was no shortage. No hard feelings, either; a girl had to make a living while she could. After all, as one girl had said to me earlier, ‘The war can't go on forever!’

​

Chi promptly spun around and started rapidly chatting with a couple of girls entertaining some American soldiers in a booth. When she felt the connection between herself and Ted was broken, she quietly slipped away to seek a more generous customer. Ted seemed relieved to see her go. Already we were both tired of these women, their excessive cuteness, strutting sexuality and incessant yakking. They seemed tougher, shrewder than the Manila bargirls, or at least more than Rosita and Divinia. And I could understand it; the Saigon bargirls had to learn to survive in their own kind of war zone.

​

‘What’s wrong, Ted? Feeling out of sorts; not in the mood for your darling “Chi-Chi”?’ I teased. ‘Is that ravishing, nubile virgin drinking up your pin-money?’ Slabs, who understood only a dozen words of English, sat alongside grinning stupidly. I reached over and pinched her padded bra. She shrieked.

​

I was feeling good. Earlier in the day I’d learned of my assignment to Gia Dinh Province, an intensively farmed area surrounding the city. From the little I knew, it seemed I was in for an exciting tour of duty. Poor Ted, however, his hopes dashed for a Mekong Delta assignment, had to stay in Saigon and work at the AID office. Bad luck, I thought, but it will be great having him around.

​

‘No. Just tired of listening to her. She natters like a chipmunk!’ Ted answered as he emptied the last of the beer into his glass.

​

‘Hey, man, a chipmunk; that’s crazy!’ said a young soldier who sat half slumped over the bar a few seats away.

​

‘Yep, crazy,’ Ted said, turning to face him, a skinny kid of about 20. He wore the standard dark green fatigue uniform with some patches and stripes that meant nothing to me. ‘How’re you doing, fella?’

​

‘Not bad, could be better,’ the soldier answered.

​

‘Where you from?’ Ted asked.

​

‘Toledo, Ohio. You ever hear of it?’

​

‘Of course, don’t they make those Trojan rubbers there… or is that Akron?’ Ted said. It was one of those times when I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

​

‘Beats me, I never use ‘em.’

​

‘What’s your name?’

​

‘Bob.’ He spoke with the flat, nasal accent of the Midwest, pronouncing his name like it was spelled ‘Bab’.

​

‘I’m Ted. That’s Eddie and Slabs,’ he said, pointing over to us. I nodded.

​

‘Slabs?’

​

‘Yeah,’ Ted said, without explaining.

​

‘How long you been in Vietnam, Bob?’ I asked, emphasising the ‘o’ in his name. The soldier didn’t seem to notice the full, round sound.

​

‘Eight months, one week and, eh… three days, tomorrow,’ he answered.

​

‘Why tomorrow?’

​

‘Because when you hate a place like I hate this place, you keep the days remaining as few as possible,’ Bob said emphatically.

​

‘Yeah, I see.’

​

‘How long you guys been here?’ His speech was a bit slurred. Been drinking a while, I guessed.

​

‘About a week,’ I said.

​

‘Damn, fresh stuff. Me, I'm a short-timer now,’ Bob said. ‘What’re you doing here?’

​

‘We are agricultural advisors.’

​

‘Here in Saigon?! You trying to grow things in this sewer?’

​

‘No, we’ll be going out to the field soon. At least Eddie will. I'll be here in the AID Mission,’ Ted answered.

​

‘Oh,’ Bob said, then paused to take a drink of beer. ‘Did you get sent here or volunteer or what?’

​

‘Volunteered.’

​

‘You're crazy, man! It's a shitty place. War going on, too damn hot, nothing to do, girls rip you off. Bad news, man.’ Bob shook his head slowly and stared into his beer glass.

​

‘What's your job here, Bob?’ Ted asked. Slabs had jumped up to hug and joke with a heavy, middle-aged civilian who had just entered the bar. The way she acted it was obvious he was a regular customer, a big Saigon-tea man. His fleshy jowls quivered as he stroked her back and ran his hand down across her tight ass. He'll have ten gallons of tea invested before he gets a look at that, I thought.

​

‘I'm stationed at the docks. Security guard.’

​

‘Well, that's not so bad. At least you aren't out in the bush fighting a war,’ Ted pointed out.

​

‘Oh, I don't know, sometimes I think I'd prefer that to the Mickey Mouse at the docks.’

​

‘Hell, you've got it soft,’ I said. Bob motioned for the boy behind the bar to bring him another beer.

​

‘Maybe, but it's got drawbacks too. It's spooky as hell at night. There's a lot of valuable stuff coming in down there, and a whole lot of people who want to get their hands on it. I've been offered bribes, big bribes, to keep my eyes closed.’ He closed his eyes to show how it was done.

​

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, smiling at his facial expression.

​

‘People with big money, man, piastres, dollars. They want to buy an hour of your guard-duty time. You know, only one hour. Just don't be anywhere near warehouse number six between, say, midnight and one o’clock, that's all. No problems, no shooting. Just a regular, everyday sort of break-in at warehouse number six when you happen to be patrolling over at warehouse number ten. You know, no big deal.’ Then, almost as an afterthought, he added casually, ‘There’s a job on tonight.’

​

Bob poured his beer straight down into the middle of the glass. ‘Look at that,’ he said, ‘no head. How the hell they gonna win a war if they can't even make beer?! The damn slopes have perfected the art of making flat beer!’

​

‘Slopes?’ This was a new term for me.

​

‘Yeah. Slopes, VNs. You know, the Vietamese,’ he said, mispronouncing the word.

​

‘Who offers the bribes?’ Ted asked.

​

‘GIs. They take the stuff. You know, stereo equipment, refrigerators, booze or other stuff brought in to sell at the PX on base. These guys sell it to Vietamese guys and it ends up on the street. It's the black market, man. There's a lot of money in it.’

​

‘Have you ever taken a bribe?’ Ted continued in his questioning mood.

​

‘No, man. Like, I've been tempted, you know. It's so easy. At least I'd get something besides VD out of this damn place. But I haven't done it. Don't have the nerve, I guess. Man, I just want to put my time in and get the hell out of here.’

​

‘What will you do when you get out?’ Ted asked.

​

‘If I get out!’

​

‘Ah, you look like a guy who will make it,’ I said lightly.

​

‘Yeah, sure.’ Bob took a gulp of his flat beer. ‘Ohh, I don't know. I thought maybe I'd go to callege,’ he said, flattening out the ‘o’. ‘Maybe do a course at Bowling Green State, you know. It's not far from Toledo.’

​

‘Sounds good,’ Ted responded.

​

‘Yeah, maybe. I'm not so sure now. After this shit I need some peace and quiet, and that's no place to get it! My sister studied there. I went to see her once. Jesus, talk about a racket! Like 1200-watt stereo units blasting from one end of town to the other. And it wasn't even the weekend! Crazy. Those students are noisy. I mean, you get no peace. I don't know if I could take that shit now.’ Bob looked up and grinned. ‘This place makes ya kinda fragile, you know.’ I laughed. Cute kid. I bet his mom misses him.

​

The bar emptied out a bit; just a few couples and groups of soldiers and civilians remained talking and laughing in some of the booths. The six or so girls without customers lounged on their elbows at tables in the back of the room. Occasionally a couple of the girls heaved themselves up to shuffle around in a desultory dance to the music hissing from a cheap tape deck.

​

As Ted and the soldier continued talking, my thoughts drifted to my upcoming assignment in the field. Ted’s disappointment lingered after George’s meeting but everyone else was pretty excited about their province assignments and anxious to get going.

​

At a later meeting, George and I had discussed the importance of Gia Dinh Province as a producer of rice, livestock, and fresh fruits and vegetables for the city markets. In terms of the war, too, George explained, the province was strategically important because if the VC hoped to make successful attacks on the city they would have to control the area. To establish a broad belt of secure and productive villages around Saigon was a top goal of the Vietnamese and US policymakers, George explained, and said I'd be able to make an important contribution to that goal. Although I'd been expecting to work mainly on rice, the variety of farm activities in the province would make the job more interesting, I thought, and my experience with vegetable production and marketing would be helpful.

​

George suggested it would be best for me to live in Saigon since the provincial office was just across the city line and housing of any kind was hard to find out that way. Thinking about it now, I decided it wasn't important where I lived if I could get on with the work and do something that might make a difference. I was just anxious to get started, anyway.

​

The barboy placed more bottles of beer on the counter and padded off to the other end of the bar, his loose sandals flapping on the wet floor. That's the last one for me, I thought, beginning to feel the effects of the beer. Ted and the soldier were talking about the break-ins at the dockside warehouses again. Ted sounded sceptical.

​

‘Nah, I don't believe it,’ he was saying as I tuned in on the conversation again. ‘You run into a couple of guys just one week in-country and you give them this fat war story!’

​

‘The hell I do!’ Bob said belligerently. ‘What I'm telling you is for real. You guys are just innocents.’ He rolled his bloodshot eyes at us. ‘Some weird things go on here… hell, a couple guys I know make a lot of change selling the same fridge to bargirls over and over!’

​

‘Now what the hell does that mean?’ I asked, beginning to wonder about this soldier.

​

‘They make a deal with the bargirl, see – a nice fridge at half the black market price. These queens are country girls and when they get money one of the first things they want is a fridge. And believe me, they got money! Well, these guys I know load a fridge on a truck and take it over to her place. She pays up gladly. “Cheap” she says, a great deal, stupid soldiers, she thinks. Then, wham! She opens the fridge and a dead GI is folded up inside.’ Bob made the motions: slumped body, twisted head, dangling arms. I smiled. He should do drama at college, I thought. ‘But, of course, he ain't dead, see, he's breathing through a plastic hose in the back. Christ, she panics… happens every time. Know what her first thought is? The money? No. See, as long as she has tits and ass she can make more of that. No, she thinks of the national police – you know, those shitheads in the grey uniform at every corner. Only one thing certain in her life at this point: if she falls into their hands, she's finished; raped, locked up… She’s scared stiff, see? Usually just takes off; doesn't want to be anywhere near a dead American soldier. Or she begs the guys to take it away…’

​

‘And the money?’ Ted quizzed.

​

‘Well, shit, I mean if the girl bolts away screaming, who can they give it to?’ he said, stroking his chin and smiling slyly.

​

‘I don't know, Bob, pretty hard to swallow that one,’ I said.

​

‘Well it's true all the same. This place is rotten right through, man, full of things like that. Look at all the junk on the black market up and down the streets. Where do you think that stuff comes from? Jesus!’

​

‘From guys buying it at the PX and passing it to their girlfriends or selling it to Vietnamese dealers on the streets,’ I answered, taking a guess.

​

‘Yeah, that happens a lot, I grant you that. But that's chicken feed, man. That's just one bottle of booze or a carton of cigarettes at a time. Sure, that happens. I do it myself with my booze allowance when I'm short of cash for these Saigon-tea hustlers. No big deal. I'm talking about lots of stereo sets, boxes of cigarettes, cases of booze. It's big-time, man!’ Bob said firmly. ‘Look, I'll show you. I happen to know a guy who sold an hour of his duty tonight, between 11 and midnight. Do you wanna see what happens?’

​

‘Yeah,’ said Ted.

​

‘Sure, let's have a look,’ I agreed, the beer doing the talking.

​

‘OK, what time is it?’

​

‘10:30.’

​

‘All right, let's finish up here and go on over to the docks. It's not too far,’ Bob said as he poured the last of his beer into the glass. ‘Then you guys can see what this place is really like, see what you're in for here.’

 

***

 

We teetered out of the bar and stopped a taxi. Bob named the street that ran alongside the river and pointed in the direction the driver should take. After going a number of blocks we paid off the taxi driver and stood on the sidewalk across the street from a series of warehouses. In front of each one, a waist-high loading platform led to a set of large doors. A single, dull light, shaded by a metal hood and fixed to the front of each warehouse, just barely lit up the number painted on the door. We stood across the street from warehouse number three.

​

‘I don't know which one is going to be hit, so let's just walk along this way,’ Bob said quietly as he started off towards the higher numbers. ‘Just act casual, like we're going this way after a few drinks. Talk out loud, don't whisper.’

​

We strolled up the dark street, talking and sometimes laughing softly as we pretended to be joking with each other. Since we were half loaded anyway, it was no trouble at all. We reached warehouse number six and walked on. The area was deserted, completely still except for an occasional car or motorbike that shot up the gloomy street. I noticed a few faint lights bobbing on small boats as they passed on the black river behind the row of warehouses.

​

Suddenly, from out of the shadows across the street, a harsh voice barked, ‘Hey, you guys, what the hell are you doing?! This area is restricted. Get the hell off this street!’ A soldier stepped into the circle of pale yellow light in front of warehouse number eight. He held an automatic rifle and pointed it towards us; we heard a metallic click from the gun as the soldier stood with his legs braced; a dark menacing shape, tense and watchful. When I heard the gun click my heart stopped, the beer buzz gone. I was scared sober in an instant. Stupid, bloody stupid, was all I could think, wandering down here in the dark with this damn soldier! Just a twitch of a finger on that gun and we’re all shredded to pieces. Stupid! A couple of aggies, half crocked on lousy beer, don't know where the hell we are… my legs trembled as I stared at the guard across the street. I wanted to speak to him, say something reassuring, like ‘Hey, buddy, we're all Americans, how you doing? Cool it, pal,’ but my mouth wouldn’t work.

​

‘OK, man, take it easy,’ Bob shouted over to the guard. ‘We're just going up to the next corner and turning off. Where the hell are we?’

‘The docks. It's restricted. Go on, get up to that corner and move out of here,’ he yelled back.

​

‘OK.’

​

‘Relax, pal. We’re just looking for a bar,’ Ted said, somehow managing to sound casual.

​

‘None around here, you dopes. You'll get your balls blown away if you keep wandering around here. Get moving!’ the guard said sharply.

​

We quickly walked on while the guard stood watching. At the corner we turned off into a small side street leading away from the river. In the darkness, Bob slipped back to the corner and looked down the road towards the area where the guard had stood. He watched for a few minutes, then stepped back and joined Ted and me. I was still shaken up; no one had ever pointed a gun at me before. I wasn't interested in the break-ins at the docks anymore; I wanted out of here.

‘OK,’ he whispered. ‘He's walking off the other way; if it's on tonight, they'll hit one of the warehouses up here. Just sit tight.’ He squatted down against the wall of a large, derelict storage shed and motioned for us to do the same. We waited silently, keeping well back into the shadows of the side street.

​

Huddled in the dust against the flaking wall of the building, we heard a heavy truck and moved to the corner as the noise grew louder. At a warehouse less than half a block away, a darkened truck turned across the street and slowly backed up to the loading ramp. A couple of men dropped from the cab, jumped up onto the ramp, fiddled with the lock a minute and quietly pulled the sliding doors aside.

​

Soon shadowy figures were working steadily, hauling large boxes from the warehouse and placing them towards the front of the truck. I heard the sound of scraping wood and scuffling feet as a large crate was humped from the warehouse and across the loading platform. So, it does go on like this, I thought. Crazy! Someone grunted and swore in a low, gruff voice as the crate was shifted clumsily onto the bed of the truck.

​

In less than 30 minutes the men had loaded the truck; a heavy canvas tarpaulin was stretched over the boxes and cinched. The warehouse doors slid shut; a couple of people jumped down from the ramp, the engine started, and the truck turned away from the warehouse in a wide arc to head up the street. We watched as it picked up speed and finally disappeared along the silent row of warehouses.

​

‘See, there goes another load of goodies for the black market; tomorrow you'll find a nice new fridge in one of the fancy shops downtown,’ Bob said, keeping his voice low as we hurried away from the docks area towards the main business district.

​

‘I can't believe it,’ said Ted. ‘Where the hell are the Military Police?’

​

‘Oh, they’re too busy breaking up GI fights in the bars or taking drunks to the tank. Besides, this place is guarded by soldiers. Why would the MPs have to worry about security here?’ Bob answered. We were approaching a busier, well-lit street.

​

‘Hell, doesn't anybody miss the goods? Don't they keep records of what comes in and what goes out?’ I asked.

​

‘Yeah. I guess they keep records all right, but I figure the records get fixed up and somebody else gets paid off too,’ Bob answered casually.

​

‘It’s wild,’ Ted said as we turned onto a main street near the all-night market. The area was bright with gas lanterns and street lights.

​

‘Sure is. This is one crazy place, man. Everything is happening so quickly. There's so much stuff arriving at the docks no one can set up a system to control everything. I've heard of whole barges of goods, just unloaded from a ship in the middle of the river, vanishing completely. The barge just gets towed upriver instead of over to the warehouses. I mean, it's all too fast, too much.’ Bob spoke quickly as we dodged around the thickening traffic and groups of shoppers. ‘A few guys are going to go home from this war very rich men.’

​

Bob stopped at a corner. ‘I'll see you guys. I go this way,’ he said, pointing. ‘My girl works at a bar down here. She gets done soon; I've got to check in!’

​

‘OK. Good luck,’ Ted said as Bob started walking off.

​

‘Yeah, sure. No sweat.’ He turned back, smiling. ‘If you guys ever get to Toledo, look me up at Harrison’s Building Supply. If I don’t go to callege, that’s where I’ll be working. I’ll never leave Ohio again!’ he said over his shoulder as he settled into a fast pace and vanished among the sidewalk stalls.

​

The night market was crowded with late shoppers as Ted and I headed back to the hotel. Pressure gas lamps cast intense white light and deep shadows on the faces of the vendors and their customers. We walked past flimsy, canvas-covered stalls loaded with bottles of good liquor, cigarettes and perfume. Displays of electric fans, stereo sets and radios cluttered the sidewalk. Foreigners and Vietnamese picked their way through the goods and haggled over prices.

​

‘Do you think any of this has to do with the old “hearts and minds” thing we keep hearing about?’ Ted said sarcastically as we pushed past a smartly dressed woman clutching a carton of American cigarettes.

​

‘Of course, don’t be silly!’ I answered brightly. But I had been shocked by what we saw. What kind of war is this, I wondered? Why are the Americans bringing in all this stuff in the first place? Is this our idea of fighting a war? Somehow I’d expected to find shortages of things, especially luxury goods, and a country tightening its belt, doing without; people pulling together and sharing hardships. This was madness – a town glutted with American and Japanese goods while war raged around it.

 

***

 

During the next few days, the guys started to leave Saigon to take up their work in the field. Steve was the first to go, managing to talk himself onto a military flight that would put him down in Nha Trang, from where he somehow planned to get a lift to his province. That part of his journey was a bit vague but he didn’t seem concerned. Five of the men flew as a group to Can Tho for assignments in the huge, watery Mekong Delta. Julio and Larry left for their posts in the III Corps area north of Saigon. Ted and I went around to wish them all good luck and say goodbye as they packed up.

​

Shoop was one of the last to leave. We helped him load his gear into a taxi for the trip to the airport, then stood on the sidewalk talking awkwardly for a few minutes. We shook hands before Shoop settled himself down into the back seat of a pokey, blue taxi and hung his head out the window as the car started off.

​

‘Be steady, Eddie. You too, Ted,’ he called.

​

We waved at him one last time and watched as the car got smaller then disappeared at the end of the street.