Minh Stared Up

TW: Sexual violence, gore

The Americans were leaving. The last convoy of tanks and soldiers rumbled and marched out of the city streets. A final procession of victory, or what they perceived to be victory. They had on their faces the satisfaction of the gourmet, moving slowly in the wake of their hedonistic revelry. The appetite of their bodies sated by violence, the memories of their inhumanity churned through their lower intestines – to be discarded in some ditch or rice paddy or off the front of a boat. The blades of the helicopters overhead seemed to purr in contentment, the bombs inside slept peacefully, dreaming disappointed dreams of missing out on the destruction they were promised. Maybe one day they’d be chosen to spread their fire -- the gift endowed in them by their creator -- in another land, like so many of their brothers and sisters. For now, they were headed home. Somewhere cool and dark and dry, the dens of spiders and rats.

           Minh held his sister’s hand. They had followed the procession on foot from the streets of My Lai. His parents were there somewhere, buried amongst their neighbors. He had tried to find them before they left, so he could say goodbye. Tried to unearth them, to see their faces as he had remembered them, but the Americans had left them all to bloat and rot. Purple atrophy plaguing olive-yellow skin. Faces frozen in mortal terror, now appearing to live again by way of the worms undulating beneath their complexions. The soldiers painted the living flesh of the men in molten lead and defiled the women. Set them walking the path to the next world without limbs or faces. Without clothes, without blood. Minh had watched through a space in the wooden wall of his home as the soldiers trampled their way in. He held his sister close, so she could not see. They tied up his father and ran the cold steel of their bayonets up and down his torso, across his throat and over his thighs. They had forced his father to watch as they tore off his mother’s clothes. There on her back, she looked upwards towards the space in the wood. Firelight cast glimmers in Minh’s tear-soaked eyes, a single reflection in the slats of moonlight. He remembered how she screamed. It was an alien scream, it was a roadkill-cat’s whelping, it begged him to look away. Minh was helpless, his fingernails cut grooves through the wood. When the soldiers finished, he grabbed his sister. They spent the night hiding in some vegetation near their house. The crickets chirped between the shuffling of boots and the crackling of fire devouring the village.

           Thuy tugged on Minh’s sleeve. She knew the look in his eyes, even though she was small. She knew that behind them Minh could travel, through time and space, to places she hadn’t been or couldn’t remember. She’d followed him as they’d wandered the streets begging for food, and remembered the pitiless smiles the soldiers would direct at them. Every night he would fly away into himself, his eyes would carry him to the misty places in the crevices of his brain. She would wake him when he screamed in his sleep, and would try to warm him in her arms until he came back. “Minh,” she said softly, tugging at his sleeve again, “Is this where we’re going?”

           Minh’s eyes refocused, vibrating as he returned to his body. He ran his fingers down his chest, smoothed his shirt, felt them ripple over his exposed ribs. He had starved for so long that the pain in his gut, heralded by its low rumble, was like the voice of an old friend. The voice of his mother. No, something else. “No,” Minh whispered. “What?” Thuy asked, looking up at him. Her eyes were deep mahogany flecked with fresh honey. Minh shook his head, tried to knock the dust loose off his consciousness, “No,” he repeated, “but we’re close.” They were in the city now. The tall buildings loomed over the streets like pall bearers, empty yet strong. Motorcycles and scooters stood abandoned in front of shuttered markets and upended carts. The sun shined wearily through the grey sky; the clouds promised rain. The gutters overflowed with refuse, aspects of living left hastily behind. Bedframes, bicycles, portraits of relatives, wardrobes, radios, suitcases. A small paper blew across the street and caught itself under Minh’s foot. It flapped hopelessly against him as he reached down to grab it. It was emblazoned with the French and American flags, and showed two soldiers crossing their rifles over a map of Vietnam. “Democracy” was written in big blue letters at the bottom. Minh crumpled the paper between his fists, felt it sigh as he compressed it as small as he could, then tossed it aside. Five buses were running in the square, people clamored through a military checkpoint to board them. Soldiers at the point collected papers, broke up families, pushed and pulled the crowd. “These are the last ones today!” A sergeant bellowed. “Last ones!” a small man echoed in broken Vietnamese. The buses ran to a small airstrip in the South, which promised to convey refugees to their next life. “Come on, Thuy,” Minh took his sister’s hand. They’d have to look for a place to sleep tonight, he turned his nose to the air like a stray dog in search of food.

---

           The morning air held in its humid atmosphere the assurance of heat. The kind of summer day that follows rain, in which the sun bakes the air and stuns it, so its fatty thickness can be felt in every pore of sweat-soaked skin. Minh crawled out from beneath the rubble they had slept in last night and watched as the five buses turned into the square. Already a crowd was forming. He shook Thuy from her sleep and dressed her quickly. They ran together across the street and up the block, panting as they found their spot in the mounting wave of people. Towards the front the sergeant began booming again, saying something Minh could not quite understand. A few people around him began murmuring, sighing in fear. The small man translated, “We can now only allow one adult and one child per family. There is no room for more.” The words spread out across the crowd, covered them like a bedsheet of grief. Men began fighting their way to the front, their faces contorted in rage. The crowd squeezed in on itself and exhaled, then squeezed again. As the bodies pressed together, the people transformed. A monster grew there, made of condensed human flesh, fueled by the anger and desperation of its constituent parts. Minh took his sister’s hand and they weaved through the belly of the beast. Soon they were at its mouth, gaping above the sergeant’s head. Minh saw the open door of the closest bus. He looked at the soldiers who were distracted with quelling the beast they’d conjured before them. He gripped Thuy’s hand tightly, so tight he could feel her carpals rearrange themselves under the force. She screamed, he focused his attention completely on the open door, then started running. Two long strides and he was stopped. The sergeant grabbed Minh by the hair and threw him on his back. Minh coughed, clutched his chest as he tried to regain his breath. Thuy tried to help him to his feet, in between sobs she begged the soldier not to hurt him anymore. The sergeant stood above them, his shadow cast itself over Minh’s face, his finger caressed the trigger of his rifle. “Didn’t you hear me, you little zip? I said only one of you could get on.” Minh covered his face as the sergeant grabbed him by the shirt, picked him up off the ground, and discarded him. Minh took his sister by the hand and they walked away from the square. Three shots were let off into the sky, and the screaming crowd dispersed.

           Minh and Thuy sat together on the pile of rubble where they had spent the night. An old woman had happened by with some French bread, which they shared. It was stale and difficult to chew. Minh’s jaw ached as he forced the bread down. He watched his sister break off small pieces and eat them one by one. He brushed the crumbs off of her shirt. When the bread was finished, they watched the last buses of the day leave once again. He had to think. Thinking was all the power the world had left him. He could turn thoughts around in his head until they took a shape, a form he could touch and turn over in his hands. He crossed his arms behind his head as Thuy slept beside him, and he tried to make out the stars behind the building whose foot they rested at. Thuy was on her side, her legs pulled to her chest, hands around her knees. Her small mouth was open slightly, and she dozed tranquilly. Minh brushed her matted hair away from her face, tucked it behind her ears. He wondered how the world in all its cruelty could find mercy for something, someone so tiny. He remembered the way she had cried those first nights, how he’d had to explain that their parents were never coming back. How he’d fought to keep her fed, clothed, and safe. It was mercy to live, but without security, without their parents, that mercy felt more like a joke. He watched her eyes chart dreams behind her closed eyelids.

Suddenly, his heart started pounding. He crawled out from the rubble as quickly as he could. Minh had an idea. He ran through the streets to where they had first entered the city, dug through the gutters until he had his prize. It was a blue suitcase, about half his size. He wheeled it back to their shelter and laid it beside her. It was perfect. He set himself next to her and went to sleep.

Minh stood at the front of the crowd once again, he had waited for several hours. This was the third rotation of buses that day. They pulled into the square and sagged as their suspensions expelled air, like an old mare after too long on the trail. Minh ran his hand over the suitcase, then knocked on it twice. That morning, he had woken her up early and told her his plan. “Just like how you were sleeping, sis,” he had pulled his arms to his chest, elbows to stomach, fists to chin, and tucked his knees underneath them, “just like this.” He tried to smile at her as he zipped it shut. She giggled as he rolled the suitcase across the street to the checkpoint, “You’ll have to be quiet,” he warned, “as quiet as a mouse.”

The sergeant waved the young man and his blue suitcase through. Minh’s heart pounded, he could feel the blood surge through his fingers and toes. He rolled to the steps, and struggled to hoist the suitcase on board. He hefted it onto the first step, took a deep breath, then onto the next. A soldier approached from behind, Minh tried to ignore him. “Let’s hustle it up,” the soldier barked. Minh strained his arms around the suitcase and brought it up another step. “For God’s sake, I said move!” The soldier pushed Minh aside and took hold of the suitcase. His mitts latched onto the handles; his muscles tensed as they sent power through the veins around his knuckles. Minh held down a scream. He wanted to peel off his fingernails, wanted to obliterate every atom of his insides. He tightened his lips, sucked in his cheeks and gnawed on them, composed himself. The soldier chuckled, “Jesus, kid, what the hell do you have in this thing, rocks?” He hoisted the bag onto the bus and swung it carelessly upwards into the bus’s luggage rack. The blue plastic slammed against the metal bars. The soldier wiped his hands and turned to Minh, “Now sit down, we don’t got all day.” Minh made himself small so the soldier could pass him and get off the bus, then he took a seat underneath the suitcase. Minh stared up. More people filed onto the bus, and soon the blue of the suitcase was framed by the luggage of the other passengers. Minh stared up, watched it carefully between the metal bars. He reached up and knocked twice. He watched as the bags shifted with the lurching of the bus gaining speed. And even as the bus left the city behind, Minh stared up.