Teflon - Original Short Story

Life can be an incredibly subtle teacher… if it wants you to learn nothing and become complacent. Some people are thrown into the loins of the fire and learn to resist the heat, walking out unscathed. Others will be laid gently and left to float on rippling waters to become buoys without an ability to swim. Buoys have no desire to swim. They are content with bobbing along, and being left untouched, and their only incentive is built on a want, rather than a need.

As you can expect for a flight from Louisville, Kentucky to Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam – mostly filled with pasty, googly eyed Americans – it was a frozen tundra. A/C fans and ventilators ran full blast for the better part of twenty hours. Having already experienced Vietnam once before, (a place with a noticeably low ratio of A/C units to people) I suffered the worst of the cold, but was least shocked of all, when we stepped out of the aircraft into the terminal hallway and entered a world with a whole new definition for heat.

The first thing that hits you is the sticky feeling of humidity. I compared it to spending swelteringly hot days by the pond back home, where its ecosystem festered off the heat, and every species of critter, moth and fly would be in and around your body, as you intermittently moved your lawn chair in accordance with the moving shade. That analogy wasn’t entirely accurate, but it was the only remotely similar feeling I could think of, which reminded me of the claustrophobic heat that was on offer here, just 1000km from the equator. The difference was that in Vietnam, it wasn’t the din of mosquitos that made your head swim, it was the air itself that made it hard to breathe and suffocated your body like hot towels pressed against your already warm skin.

I skirted through the airport, with relative ease for someone carrying a 40-pound camper’s backpack. The previous time I’d visited Hanoi was the year I’d turned 20, when I felt so deeply rooted in routine and the cyclical nature of life, that all I yearned for was a new experience. Something new to see, to hear, to feel. With that goal in mind, I scraped together every dollar I had saved up from working at the arcade and scoured for my destination. Every time I thought I’d found it; I doubted the authenticity. My only criteria were that it had to be new, and different from anything I’d ever seen.

Despite having left for all the right reasons, my first trip could only be described as naïve. I spent most of my time in the sultry beach waters, with little to no interest in further exploration. I caught glimpses of the shocking truths hidden in the urban canyons but tended to veer away out of worry. I went home feeling refreshed, but still; a feeling of regret twinged in my heart and as I boarded my flight back home, I promised myself to return and delve deeper into the unseen side of the country.

It wasn’t until I went home for Thanksgiving that year and saw my grandpa Jeremy for the first time since I’d been a kid. Back then all I knew about him was that he’d fought in Vietnam, and that I was – by no means – meant to bring it up. One thing had led to another and he sat me down on the couch and recounting his deployment in vibrant color. What stood out to me then and rang louder than any other piece of advice I’d received from badgering relatives and indifferent friends, weren’t his memories of treacherous, stress-inducing guerilla warfare, but rather the vibrant color and magnitude of another world.

“I still wake up in cold sweats, don’t get me wrong” he added.

“But Gary m’boy. We can’t stay in our little boxes forever. I left for the wrong reasons. Not on my accord, but with violence and murder on my mind.”

I tried to look into his eyes, but his melancholy view was set on my little cousins playing Jenga on the coffee table in front of him.

“I can’t even imagine, Grandpa. I mean the whole time I was there, all I could think about was how devastating everything that had happened was.”

He slowly panned his head towards me, eyes lingering on my cousins – who were know at the zenith of their game, the tower wobbling with every touch.

“Go back Gary. But this time, don’t kid yourself. You want something real, go and see it…but just know that the world is wide, and the beauty comes from understanding it’s people. In our world, we get second chances. In theirs, you scrape and beg for just one”

Suddenly the Jenga tower came crumbling down on the mahogany table, as the cacophony of its players “awed” and “yessed” ensued in full voice.

Grandpa was looking at me squarely with his thin green eyes, a signature grin flashed on his face and a decision was made. I would return to Vietnam, and this time I’d see it for everything it was worth. For everything it was.

My eyes instinctively flitted towards the local taxis as I left the airport and emerged through the mass of haggling taximen and rental company workers who milled around the entrance and jabbered away in Vietnamese as the wide-eyed tourists quickened their pace to avoid them. I headed in the direction of a lone taxi parked in the corner of the loading bay. Its driver was a squat man with beady eyes, a bald head glistening with sweat and a scraggly beard. He was leaning against the passenger door, toting a cigarette, and seemed completely at ease with all the potential customers who passed him by in a hurry. His ragged cotton shirt, quarter cuffed trousers and brown sandals told me exactly what I needed to know. This was the only man who would take my money and take me to the place where I wanted to go. 

I approached him and got a better look at the car; it was free of any labels or signs of being a taxi. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crumpled bit of paper, on which was written the address of the hotel I was looking to stay at. If you could even call it a hotel – from the few photos I’d seen of the area it was in, most locals let alone tourists would have ignored it and moved on without a second look. But as you can tell I was still very much a buoy blissfully bobbing along, and in search of my autonomy. So naturally, appearances weren’t enough to turn me away.

I showed the driver my paper, and he spung into action without a word, flinging his cigarette bud onto the pavement and reaching to take my bag. I took it off myself, assuring him that I could deal with it – a gesture he deemed somewhat rude, but allowed. I hauled myself into the back with my luggage beside me, and waited for the driver to get in, but he’d paused for moment, and only after realizing that I was intent on staying in the back with my stuff, he finally got in and turned on the car, which came alive with a groaning sound. I was unsure how long it would take us, but I tried not to think to of the destination, instead I marveled once again at the hectic elegance of Vietnamese traffic, and the ocean of people that occupied the roads like ants in a ditch. The driver quickly turned on the radio, but not the A/C, instead he opened his own window, which was a thoroughly useless remedy for the heat, as the air from outside was already muggy enough, and there was no breeze or wind to alleviate it.

From time to time, I would catch his stony gaze in the rear-view mirror and wonder what he thought of me – a bespeckled white guy, in cargo shorts and a bucket hat – requesting transportation to one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. As we delved further, past the bustling center, and the looming buildings erected like great steel giants against a smelting of crumbling smaller shops and restaurants, a stench of oil and dirt, stewed in the air, with no visibility of the city skyline and I knew we were fast approaching the slums. The density of taxis and rentals disappeared, as we got tucked away into the rural roads and crannies that spiraled deeper into the urban jungle. A plethora of mopeds were suddenly swarming all around us and the traffic narrowed, as pedestrians and merchants bravely occupied the trash littered sidewalks and patchy pavement roads. My eyes didn’t know where to look, and I found myself completely overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the slum, and the dynamic nature. It was compilation of living, breathing organisms all equipped with small motorcycles and trolley carts, all working in harmony. Or at least that’s what I thought.

Suddenly, a veering moped flashed before my eyes, and his direction made my heart jolt.

“Watch out!” I yelled, hoping that my alarm would make up for the fact that my driver probably didn't know a lick of english.

It may have been a foot or an inch, but it was the closest call I’d ever experienced. The car swerved to the left, and I watched the moped driver maintain his path so coolly and unwaveringly, that you would’ve sworn nothing even remotely dangerous had happened. He was quickly swallowed by the rest of the traffic and became another speck out of sight. Now, however, it was my driver’s turn to raise his voice. He was blabbering angrily in Vietnamese and accelerated. Waving his hands in protest, a face full of steam, I detected that he was not grateful for my attempt to stop him from flattening the poor man on the moped.

“Even if he had seen him, he could have turned earlier, why’s he blaming me?’” I thought to myself, bemused.

But things were becoming volatile quickly, and we were soon weaving and dodging traffic, and stray dogs with such speed, that I clutched onto the seat in front of me, bracing for impact at any moment. My driver’s temper was only rising, and this time I didn’t see it in advance. There was no forewarning or alarming scream, just a quaking crash, the sound of colliding metals, and the world beginning to rotate around me.

The next time, my eyes opened, they stung badly. A heat was closing in on me, and I could feel fresh wounds and scabs on my legs, from the broken glass, because as I went to move, the blood trickled down my leg. My instincts dragged me out of the lobsided car, which was brewing fire, and I saw the scene around us. The traffic had stopped, and people were gathered around the crash, a group of them were huddling around the victim; a moped lay strewn on the road, one half nearly dislocated. A trolley bin, that I presumed was either being pulled along by the moped driver or was attached to the back also lay strewn. I could feel the eyes of hundreds of people on me as I had stepped out of a ball of fire. My gaze was set on the two men who were carrying away a frail looking women, tattered in blood, lulling in their arms. She didn’t look dead to me, but it was hard to tell.

As they carried her into the crowd of people and out of sight, my mind turned to my driver. I hadn’t seen him leave the burning taxi, and people were now pointing and shouting at the bottom side of the car. A sudden burst of flame spewed from the top, and just when I thought he was as good as gone, his charred bald head emerged from it. He clambered out, and his knees buckled on the landing of his jump, leaving him crumpled on the ground, feeble but somehow alive. Emotions had still not returned to me, and I was still trying to process what had happened, but the crowd were of a different mind. Quickly, a dozen or so of them ran up to the driver, and what ensued made me freeze.

They began beating, clawing, and walloping his disheveled body. Without mercy or remorse, they beat him to a pulp, and before I could see what remained of him, the crowd had closed in further, and their treachery became unbearable.

As I ran in the other direction, trying to put as much difference on myself as possible before the crowd turned their attention on the other person who’d climbed out of that burning car, I felt a twinge of pity for the driver, which was suddenly overcome with incredible spite and hatred. His stupidity had nearly killed me and an innocent woman. His bitterness had led to his gruesome death, and while I tried to navigate the maze-like slum, I regretted  ever coming. But my regret hasn't lingered, and soon after my return I can say life is clearer because of what it showed me. It brought me to the shore and showed me the truth:  

To walk through the fire is to prove you can stand on your own, endure the flames and deal with the memories, good and bad. It’s to grow a perspective, leave your box. It’s never calm, and that’s the point.