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It
should not have been a surprise that things began to change for the
young lieutenant. His tour of duty was for one year and he had already
been in Vietnam six months when he first met Meako, yet his emotions
were drawing him to her like a magnet. His military duties were keeping
him buried in paperwork, stacks and stacks of paperwork and yet it was
impossible for him to get her out of his mind. This included her charm,
grace, and that wonderful sweet personality that so methodically
attracted him to her. Meako was all he could think about all-day, day in
and day out.
The Golden Dragon was
approximately two miles from the embassy, but on a clear night from the
small window in his office, he could see the soft radiating reflections
from its continuously beckoning lights against the skyline and the
city’s other darkened buildings. He would often look at the distant,
illuminating display during those lonely times when he was working into
the late hours, and although he had always felt they were gaudy, the
rhythm of the slowly changing display would beckon to him, …Come
here…come here…come here, you lonely Marine…come here…come here.
He first hummed a tune and
then he made up a little song that followed the continuously enchanting
movements of the suggestive blinking lights, and even though he would
later think of these actions as being silly and romantic, he remained
very lonely whenever he was apart from Meako.
Ralph had begun to
experience some confused feelings about her and her occupation. There
was not a doubt in his mind that this lovely, young, Vietnamese lady,
whom he was so passionately drawn to, was nothing but a Saigon
prostitute and that her profession was played out to anyone with money.
He fully realized that she would use all of her talents and abilities to
make each client feel great and inwardly important when they were with
her and it was during those agonizing moments of his deepest mental
despair and confusion that he would think of the wonderful things that
she had said to him. He even wondered if they were the same things she
had told everyone else. These thoughts made him to think of her as a
performer at a circus, a clown who acts as though her performance to the
audience was done for the first time, when in fact, the same words,
phrases, and movements were done hundreds of times before and
everything, right down to the smallest pranks and gestures, were
performed out of extensive practice and memory.
While softly talking to
himself, he began to comment, “What good are women anyway? Why would I
ever want to become attached to someone who would later try to rule my
life to the tiniest detail and spend all my hard-earned money? I wonder
if all women are like my damn stepmother; two-faced to the point that
she probably does not even understand what she actually believes.”
A chill went down his spine
as he began to think about his real mother. He had only seen her on two
occasions after his father threw her out of the house. Once was when she
had come to a college football game with some friends to brag about her
son, and the other was when she made a special effort to see him before
he shipped out to Vietnam.
My
mother does not care for me, he thought. Twice
in fourteen years, now if that is love, then I do not want any part of
it.
He was surprised that she
was still married to the same person her father caught her in bed with.
“A lousy corporal,” Ralph said out loud. Then he felt a cold chill
radiate down his spine with the realization that his stepfather would
likely be coming to Vietnam. He knew that everyone in the military would
serve at least one tour over here, because they needed plenty of warm
bodies for Vietnam service.
The final message his
mother had said before he left was to please be careful. Be
careful for what? He thought. She
had never shown any concern for my well being in the past, so why would
she now?
What was most strange about
the meeting was that he had barely recognized her because she looked
like a hippie and was dressed as a flower child. It was shocking to see
his mother wearing beads, sandals, and dressed in brightly colored
clothes with psychedelic designs and colors all over them. And most
surprising was that her clothes fit in such a manner that it looked as
though everything underneath was going to jump out. He could not believe
how his mother could dress in such a skimpy, revealing manner. At the
time he had thought, “My mother, this forty year old woman, is trying
to become a teenager again.”
When his mother saw him
looking with disapproval at her wardrobe, she laughed and gave him a big
hug. Then ever so softly she whispered in his ear, “This is my free
spirited look.”
Deep in a haze of
wonderment he began to think about how she had left his father for the
corporal. The memories of that night were permanently etched in his
mind, but at that time in his adolescent mind he had understood little
about human sexuality. Now as an adult, he explicitly realized what had
transpired and he felt that his mother was just like Meako, willing to
go with and have sex with anyone for the thrill, physical stimulation,
or something to do with money, power, or anything else she could receive
from her male admirers.
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Then in a state of complete
emotional blitz, while doing paper so routine that his hands made
everything happen automatically, his mind flowed in multiple
directions and he began to feel the trickle of a tear as it slowly
began to run down his cheek.
He felt a deep-seated dislike for
his mother begin to erupt forth. She had totally disrupted his
life with her whoring around, and the childhood innocence that he
should have had was destroyed in the aftermath of that horrible
experience so many years ago.
Then as he cleared the thoughts of the past and of his mother
from his mind, his eyes gradually wandered once more to the
distant glow of the radiant lights from the Golden Dragon and his
thoughts flashed back to Meako. His tour of duty here was half way
over when he had first met her and he wondered why it took him so
long to discover this beautiful person. He had instantly become
entranced with her beauty, personality, and innocence, and she was
such a nice lady. Then he thought, Meako
is a prostitute, but what is my mother? Meako would never forsake
a son and run off with another man, then go to bed with anything
wearing pants for a sexual high.
In his mind at that moment, his
mother’s morals were worse than Meako’s. It was his mother who
had run around behind his father’s back to have sex and called
it being free spirited,
and when Meako did the same thing for money she was called a
whore. There was no difference in Ralph’s mind between being
free spirited and a whore. That is except for some crazy reason
that being a free spirited woman was justifiable and condoned,
whereas being a whore classified one as the scum of the earth.
As he became overwhelmed with his
thoughts and a little depressed with his conclusions, he reasoned
that he had no life except the Marine Corps. But his military
duties at the embassy were the most boring thing he could think of
and the only thing that he had enjoyed was his Courtesy Patrol.
Even though it was performed in lieu of duty, it was not his
military occupation and he was only involved in it for two or
three nights a month on the weekends. As a second lieutenant, the
other officers considered him to be only slightly better than the
enlisted men. Just maybe,
he thought, if I was a first
lieutenant or a captain, then my duties would not be so monotonous
and things would become more exciting and glamorous. “It is
so depressing,” he said aloud, and then he returned to his
endless mound of paperwork.
As he sat at his desk and pondered
his life and his future, he came across some correspondence from
the Marine Corps. It was a notification that his tour of duty was
ending and it offered other options for future duty stations. He
carefully reflected on his life and the fact that there were only
two things that stood out in his mind that gave any meaning to his
existence. The first was the Marine Corps. That was where he had a
home, a job, a career, and they took care of him physically. The
second was Meako. She could provide him with the opportunity of a
companion, someone to nurture and care for, and a person with whom
he could share his life. The Marine Corps took care of him
physically, and Meako could take care of him mentally.
He realized that this one person,
a simple Vietnamese prostitute, had made more difference in his
life than anyone since his childhood. Why shouldn’t he consider
marrying her? He had always heard that prostitutes made the best
wives. They would know how to please a man, and they would have
had a tremendous amount of experience in dealing with the various
techniques for the continual gratification of the male species.
They also knew how to make a man feel great and important, they
would know how to keep their man happy, and since they would have
listened to their male clients reveal so many personal problems,
they would know what obstacles and pitfalls to avoid in marriage.
But most of all, he reasoned, was that when a prostitute married
she would have already had a chance to get the promiscuous
attitude out of her system and she would want to settle down and
perform her womanly duties and take care of her family.
Lieutenant Jackson smiled as he
looked at the letter containing the various options for another
duty station. At the very bottom was listed, “Another one year
tour of duty in Vietnam.” Without any hesitation he marked that
as his first and only option and he instantly felt a tingle of
excitement flow down his spine like a sudden jolt of high voltage
electricity. Then he started to laugh. With that, he promptly laid
down his pen, got up from his desk, turned off the light, and went
to his quarters. In minutes he was outside the embassy in civilian
clothes, hailing a cab for the quick ride to the Golden Dragon.
He began to feel his heart race as
he got in the cab, and with an additional flurry of excitement, he
started to think to himself, Will
Meako be available? I must tell her that I plan to stay here
another year. Oh, she will be so thrilled.
During the short trip to the
Golden Dragon, he ordered the cab to stop at a street vendor’s
stand and he purchased a bouquet of flowers. “Nothing fancy,”
he told the lady, “just some simple flowers.”
He felt a warm glow flow over his
nervous but tense body as he entered the alluring compound of the
Golden Dragon. Then the anticipation was over and there she was.
Meako responded with a big smile and a teasing little wave.
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