Love, from Vietnam to Sunset Boulevard

Love, from Vietnam to Sunset Boulevard


In Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, had it not been a war going on in 1971 there, you would have thought, the beautiful bay, with its white sands were just the place for a vacation.




Behind a wired fence (in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam) was a village, near the white sands of the South China Sea, here young and pretty girls stood and waited for GI’s, they stood behind this fence until a GI (soldier) came up to take them out from behind it—a date, but when they returned back to the village and had to go back behind the wired fence, they had to pay the Cowboys, the young gangs of the village, lest they get rapped or beat up, so the GI was subject to paying a minimum of $3.00 for the date, whatever it may cost in-between, but if it was over the three-dollars they charged ten- percent. Thus, the girls never took money out, only brought money back in.

My name is Corporal, Siluk, and I want to tell you about Ming, she was behind that wired fence, and I was somewhat new to Vietnam, and I had the afternoon off, and I went to that village I was just talking about. And she was among the many. I crossed the dirt road, above me was the afternoon sun, baking my skin, the girls, pretty and full and frosty in bloom, arms swaying like twigs and branches to and from, from behind the fence “My name Ming,” said a voice, “and you see, I pretty girl, yes?” And she was very pretty, and added to her repertoire of words, “You like me?” she questioned, and what I could say but ‘yes,’ although, all the other girls were pretty, but she was the best of the best I suppose.
I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to do, especially in the afternoon, but I didn’t care to be alone. Across the bay you could hear some gun fire, the area had been under shell fire for a few days now, the Ammo dump was hit a week ago, Charlie dump, and the whole thing went up in smoke.
“You take me out for talk, eat and walk?” Ming asked me.
I looked at her, I made $350-dollars a month, and really only spent about fifty-dollars of it in Vietnam, nothing to spend the money on but fifteen cent beer, twenty-five cent packs of cigarettes, and a $3.00-dollar whore now and then, so I said “Yes,” to her statement. When a man doesn’t have to invest so much money in a woman, or whore, or whomever, he doesn’t need to expect too much in return, and I didn’t.
So the two of us were now walking along the white sands of Cam Ranh Bay, just as beautiful as Jamaica, we were talking to one another. Perhaps, both of us invisible to each other in the shadows under our feet, which made sounds as we walked, tranquil, with perhaps ironic thoughts unmentioned, but nothing too loud.
We sat on a rock, large stone, I was looking out into the South China Sea, we sat there as if we were both alone and perhaps in a way we both were.
“See,” she says, pulling out a picture of herself from her wallet. I looked, commented, “You look lovely in it, but you have a fur coat on.”
I didn’t mean to be sarcastic to her; it was more a perplexed statement, than a question. I mean you never needed a fur coat in Vietnam, and why would you put one on? Like a child, who once was a child, and perhaps when she took the picture, had childish dreams for a moment. I mean, she lived in a dirt city, a plywood hut city—fenced in like a chicken coop, with thin metal over her head for a roof, where chickens ran lose, and dogs were chopped up for stew. But it dawned on me sitting there, she, like all of us, had dreams, dreams that took her away from all this war and poverty, dreams from movies perhaps, to be in New York City sometime in her life, or Chicago, or even on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angels, I was there just before I was drafted into the Army, drove by Dean Martin’s nightclub, or so I was told it was his, and I saw a sign to that effect, and sure enough, if she was dreaming, she most likely would be wearing that fur coat, like Gloria Swanson in the old movie “Sunset Boulevard,” where she has that long fur coat dragging on the floor. But Ming’s was of course not that long, it was actually sportier than Gloria’s.
Anyhow, we got back up and strolled on the white sand, then she said, “Sergeant Sexton, left for the States two days ago, he was my boyfriend, he pay me 50% of his check to be girlfriend, he gone for three months, his mama dying, you be my boyfriend the same?” She asked.
I thought, ‘boy she’s cleaver, two for the price of one, and soon she’d have that ticket to Sunset Boulevard, and that fur coat on again, but it would be paid for in full.’
I asked, “Wouldn’t the Sergeant be made at you?”
“He no need to know, we no tell him!” she replied.
If I could laugh and I could, but I didn’t, and I dared not. She was all woman, and all child, and all dreams, and I didn’t want to rob her of any of that, and I didn’t want to be robbed of the few dollars I had, and I told her, “I can’t afford to be your boyfriend, but I like the walk along the sands of Cam Ranh By,” and she said, “You take me back to village, give me $3.00-dollar for cowboys,” and I did just that, and I bet as I am writing this, she’s perhaps living some place on Sunset Boulevard, long forgotten me, I wouldn’t doubt it.


Written May 27, 2008 (Original name: "White Sands of Vietnam.")