I had been at the Victoria on a resupply mission for my advisory team and for my regular sanity check. I visited Papasan Bich and took him my month’s ration of cigarettes and liquor. He always gave me the best prices and a discount on cần sa.1 I asked him if he had seen my friend, Tovares.
“Yes, my friend,” he said. “He come back already. He all the time ask about you.”
I told Papasan I would go see him and left. Tovares was not on duty, but I was able to reach him from his unit’s radio. Telling me he was glad to hear from me, he asked me to meet him at the St George Hotel NCO Club for dinner. I felt restless, tired and vaguely detached from myself. I dropped by the St George NCO Club and picked up my bottle of Johnnie Walker Red planning to go back to my room and drink by myself or at the patio on the roof of the Victoria.
“Hi, Tony!” said a cheerful voice as I walked past the check-in desk. I was preoccupied with my thoughts and hadn’t noticed my amusing and gorgeous lady clerk who had become a close friend - close friend but not sufficiently close to remember her name. I always called her “Co” meaning young lady in Vietnamese.
“I didn’t see you check-in. How long you stay?” she asked. I told her I was leaving early in the morning then left for the rooftop patio. I ordered Coke from the bar and commenced to drinking my Johnnie Walker Red with warm Coke. Ice in Vietnam was not known to be sanitary, so I was careful not to use ice in my drinks unless I was totally wasted. I sat there alone watching some distant smoke way out in the distance in the direction of my former Advisory Team 99 in Duc Hoa. There were two young ladies either having a serious diving contest at the rooftop pool or trying to impress me with their diving skills. My mind kept going back to my uneasiness and could not understand the reason for it. I’ve always analyzed my feelings but I was at a loss this time. I just could not understand the reason for my restlessness.
I began to work on a list of reasons and discounted the increased use of alcohol and weed. I was not into opium anymore since Papasan Bich warned me to stop its use. It had come down to the possibility my restlessness might be due to my decision to leave the army in just a few more months. I had begun to feel comfortable with my life in Vietnam and especially with the combat pay and overseas pay. I recognized that Vietnam duty would not last forever, and I just could not stand the possibility of staying in the army and having to serve stateside. I despised the stateside army.
Unlike stateside, in Vietnam there were no formations, no waking up in ungodly hours (except for mortar or ground attacks), no daily physical exercises and no performance evaluations to worry about. Besides, the Army did not tolerate weed stateside. Vietnam was a haven for weed, opium and any other hard drugs a person might choose to get involved with. In many ways regular mortar and ground attacks were quite acceptable given the fact that we did not have the foolish and irrational stateside requirements or restrictions. I fell asleep by the pool and missed my meeting with Tovares. I then took my bottle to my room and just slept.
My alarm woke me up quite early, and I was tired, sleepy and outrageously hungry. It was either eat at the St George or at one of the many sidewalk carts with their traditional Vietnamese cuisine. I packed my stuff into my laundry bag which I used for traveling and headed down to the lobby.
It was about 6 AM when the elevator doors opened to the lobby which at first appeared like one of the kill zones I had witnessed in field locations. Several bodies were sprawled out in awkward positions asleep on the sofa, recliners and on the carpeted areas. These were all hotel employees some of whom I had come to know well. No one was managing the front desk. I looked at the bodies laid out in the lobby. Stretched out in an awkward position half on the carpeted area and her other half on the tiled floor with a sofa cushion for a pillow was my gorgeous lady friend. She was snoring softly, disheveled and totally removed of all the class, glamor and elegance which I had come to admire about her. I left payment with a note to her behind the front desk and walked to the St George for breakfast then caught an army Beaver to my Advisory Team 51.
For some dumb reason, that image of my gorgeous lady friend sprawled out on the floor stayed engraved on my mind. I had begun to think seriously that she might be the one for me. She was a widow whose Vietnamese husband had been killed by the Viet Cong and had a little girl of about five. That particular aspect bothered me somewhat because I had not wanted an ‘instant’ family; however, I had begun warming up to the idea of the ‘instant’ family. The picture of her spread out on the floor disheveled, sleeping and snoring began to kill that option.
From that day forward I maintained the friendly, platonic friendship with her. When I tried to locate her on a subsequent tour a couple of years later, she no longer worked at the Victoria. For some time I lived with the regret that I had unfairly judged her. Perhaps she could have been the stabilizing force I very much needed in my life back then. It was probably another one of the several missed opportunities in my life.
Photos: http: //thaolqd.blogspot.com.
Victoria Hotel was previously used as American military living quarters. When insurgents bombed the hotel in 1966, Americans were moved out, and the hotel was reconstructed and opened to general public. It became my favorite hotel on my resupply missions to Saigon.
1 - Vietnamese word for marijuana, pot, cannibas.
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