The Drive to Hội An

In my dream, I felt a vibration, and I opened my eyes in a hotel room, with A/C and blackout curtains and Rosie stirring next to me.

“Is that your phone?” she asked.

I mashed the buttons, and I checked the deadbolt, figuring he would try that next, but I forgot about the room phone, which went off like a fire alarm, so I punched it, and I heard a voice saying, “Hello? Hello, Sir?”

“Yeah?” I said, grabbing the receiver on the floor.

“Sir, your friend is asking me to call you.”

“Hugh? What does he want?”

“He says that you need to come down to talk to the person about the motorbikes. Can you come now, please?”

“Okay, one minute.” I hung up and smacked Rosie on the butt. “Go talk to the motorbike guy. I guess there’s a problem or something.”

She was wide awake now: “I booked the flights, the hotels, and I’m the one who found us these motorbikes, so how about you go do it?”

The elevator wasn't working, and every step felt like an aneurysm, cascading all of the way down to the lobby, where I found Hugh sitting in a circle with a group of Vietnamese women, folding t-shirts and other hotel merch.

“About time you woke up,” he said.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, still adjusting to the sunlight.

“I came down to get some beer this morning, and I found these wonderful ladies folding t-shirts.” He waved at the ladies, who looked half-amused and half-worried. Then he held up a t-shirt. “They said that if I helped them, they'd give me one for free, so now I have that change of clothes you were so fucking concerned about last night. Here, you want a beer, now that you’re finally awake?”

I felt a wave of nausea, and I thought I might vomit, so I closed my eyes and massaged my head, saying to Hugh,  “Why does everything you do hurt my brain?”

He laughed. “Because I’m the coolest motherfucker you’ve ever met. Now, go talk to the motorbike cunt out there; he's fucking pissed.”

The rentals were both parked out front, two old Honda Nouvos, and the guy took one look at me, rolled his eyes, and he launched into an angry tutorial, talking over me as I tried to explain to him that I drove the same one in Saigon, and had so for several months. As soon as I showed him I could start it on my own, he muttered something in Vietnamese and wandered off down the street, lighting a cigarette and still talking to himself as he turned the corner.

“All good?” Hugh asked.

“Think so, why?”

“That fucker took one look at me drinking my beer this morning, and he went fucking nuts on the poor cunt at the front desk — and he had nothing to do with it! I was starting to think they were even going to let us rent them, but good thing you look like the lamest fuckwit in the whole goddamn planet!”

“Yeah, good thing,” I said, as I walked back inside, still trying to process everything — looking at the women, who were speaking quietly and laughing at us, and the guy at the front desk, who looked like he’d seen a ghost.

“Everything is okay, Sir?” he asked.

“Yeah, no problem,” I said.

“I tried to call your cell phone, but you did not answer, so that is why I have to call your room phone. I am very sorry, Sir.”

“No worries,” I said, already thinking about my climb to the fifth floor. “What’s happening with the elevator? Can I use it?”

“No, because they are doing maintenance all morning. I’m very sorry, Sir.”

I went to the stairwell, and I asked Hugh, “Did you sleep at all last night?”

“Of course not,” he replied, smiling like the Grinch.

“Well, I'm going to take a shower, and I’m guessing Rosie will want one as well, so we'll meet you down here in a bit. Try to stay out of trouble.”

“Want a line to start your day?”

I stopped and glared at him. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Lots of things,” he said, rummaging through his pockets.

‍

By the time Rosie and I were checked out and ready to leave, Hugh had fallen in love, and he was on his knees. He proposed to every woman in the lobby, telling them over and over again just what a good husband he would be — if they would only give him a chance — except they didn’t speak English, so he had to act out a lot of what he was saying. They were laughing, but it was weird, so Rosie and I packed up and we were putting on our helmets when Hugh cornered two young backpackers who had just stepped out of a taxi, waving his fists at them like a wild animal.

“Which one of you cunts fucking stole it?” he screamed. “I fucking know it was you!”

“Don't have,” one of them said, with a Scandinavian accent. “We don't have.”

“Hugh, what are you looking for?” I asked.

“My fucking passport,” he said, crouching into a fight stance. “These cunts here stole it!”

“Did you even look for it?” Rosie asked. “You probably dropped it somewhere.”

“I fucking know you have it,” he told them, backing them up against a wall, “and you'd better fucking give it to me, before I cut your fucking throats!”

“Let's just get out of here,” Rosie whispered, “before he gets us arrested.”

I walked over and asked them,  “You don’t have it, do you?” 

“No,” one of them said, “we don’t have!” 

“I believe you.” Then I went over to Hugh's motorbike, and I found his passport sitting on his seat, ever so slightly camouflaged. “Hugh, you dumb fuck, it's right here.”

“So, you had it,” he said, trying to laugh it off as he ripped it out of my hand.

“If it helps us to leave faster, then sure, I had it.” 

He passed me a new pair of driving gloves and smiled. “Here, these are your prize.”

“Where did you get them?”

He gave me a wink and said, “It's a secret.”

“So, you stole them. Whatever, I'm too hungover to care — let's just fucking go.”

But as soon as I had the kickstand up, he grabbed his bag and ran into the hotel.

“What now?” Rosie asked.

“I need some beer for the road!”

“Leave him,” she said.

So I did, and we drove through Huế and its quiet streets, leaving behind the touristy areas near the Citadel, and it wasn’t long before we were on the outskirts, with pastel homes, narrow shops, and government compounds all decorated with posters of happy workers raising their tools to the sky. After months of adrenaline-fueled hell in Saigon, this was pleasant, and as we pulled up to a red light, I enjoyed listening to the sounds of our engines and the conversations around us — until we heard a carbonated hiss. It was Hugh, and he had a can of Huda, saying “I found you!”

He was still chugging when the light turned green, so we took off and followed a young buffalo on a cafe racer, staying just far enough behind him to hide our pale faces from the police.

“He's so fucked up,” Rosie said, resting her chin on my shoulder and pointing to a gas station up ahead.  "Let's pull over here and fill up. Hopefully, he doesn't see us.”

We drove up to the pump, flipped the seat, and ordered gas with hand signals from a young man in skinny jeans and flip-flops. I handed him the money, and he licked his fingers before giving us back our change, counting the notes carefully from a huge stack of cash and making a big show of it. Around us, there were a few kids ordering from a food cart, a table of old men drinking coffee under a Tiger umbrella, and a lady in a conical hat sweeping away the dust and leaves, adding a nice metronome to the sound of the gas pump.

Then we heard tires sliding, and Hugh almost ran over the gas attendant.

“Fuck me dead,” he muttered, trying to keep his bike upright and dropping his bag of speakers with a loud thud. “They need to clean this fucking place. It's slippery as fuck here! Good thing I saw you cunts, because I almost drove right past!”

I felt the tension of a hundred witness statements, so I said, “We’re leaving,” and I jumped on the Nouvo. 

Rosie was right behind me, telling him, “See you in Hội An, Hugh,” as we pulled away. “Try not to die!”

We drove south toward the distant mountains and everything seemed to be under construction. Most of the road was torn up and full of potholes, and I learned not to trust anything I couldn’t see, because they looked like puddles, but they were treacherous little bastards. 

Between the never-ending construction sites, a headache, and the transport trucks that kept blasting their horns at the last second, which I couldn’t see, because the mirror was broken, we both struggled as we passed through town after small town, where scenes of rural Vietnam played out in markets and streets with the same names and characters: the kids in school uniforms traveling in herds on old bicycles; the big mamas in colorful pajamas, with fistfuls of cash and distrust in their eyes; and the young men on loud motorbikes, racing through the crowds without helmets or fear; and the little old ladies watching from their doorways, scowling at everything and waiting for the men to wrap themselves around trees.

About an hour south of Huế, riding with the ocean to our left and farms, lagoons, and jagged mountains to our right, we heard the high-pitched, whining howl of an old rental begging for mercy, and then we saw him, laughing as he flew past us, with one arm in the air and a stream of beer hitting him in the face. 

“What a guy,” I said.

“Nobody else like him,” Rosie replied. “That's for sure.”

Near the foot of the Hải Vân Pass, we wobbled into a garage to fix a flat tire, and the mechanic sent out his minions to get us coffee, as I explained to Rosie what Hugh had told me about his plan to get addicted to heroin, which she agreed was insane. Back on the road, we filled up on gas and bún bò at a busy truck stop, where men in business shirts stared at us, and we got yelled at by a police officer because we were driving into the tunnel — the fastest route on the map — but no motorbikes allowed, so we had to backtrack a bit and wait for a train before weaving through the jungle, up steep and winding roads with run-offs and waterfalls and green mountains, as we drove into the sky.

But it was cold, and the fog surrounded us. We both added layers and Rosie put her arms around me, but we shivered, and our motorbike didn’t sound great. We moved through a bubble in the fog, and I had a vision of another cold morning, from what seemed like a lifetime ago — of a hand curled inside a glove, and it’s dark, and I see bridge cables swaying through gusts of snow, above the constellations of Halifax, glowing beyond the Dockyard and the cranes and warships and the building where I’ll spend another day in a cubicle, as the brake lights flicker and we roll onto Barrington St. and the doors open, and I leap into a snowbank, and I watch as the bus pulls away through slush, and cars are sliding, and the wind is cutting through me, and I’m waiting for the little man before marching downhill into the parking lot, following in the footsteps of those who’ve come before me, those poor souls who’ve already been through this, and I see the barbed wire fences, and I remember how it felt — that sense of dread: for a future I didn’t want; for a now that I couldn’t escape; and for a time when I didn’t have to walk through Rainbow Gate, with an ID and a security clearance and a voice that kept whispering to me: this isn’t living; this is waiting to die.

But that memory faded as we drove into a mountaintop village of shanties, souvenir shops, and an old temple, next to what appeared to be a machine gun pillbox. A few people ran out to wave us in, but we were in no mood to negotiate, so we just stopped at the nearest one, where a woman brought out chairs and placed them between display cases filled with jade figurines and silver jewelry.

“Hot coffee,” I said, still shivering. “As hot as you can make it.”

“Where's your jacket?” she asked, laughing at Rosie, who went straight for the bathroom. “You should have a jacket!”

“I know, but we didn’t think it would be this cold.”

“Where are you from?”

“Canada.”

“It's very cold there,” she said, rustling behind a curtain. “This is cold for you?”

“We live in Ho Chi Minh City now, so now we're used to the heat.”

“You work in Việt Nam?”

“We’re English Teachers.”

“I also meet another English Teacher today, and he is working in Ho Chi Minh City. Do you know him?” 

“Was he tall?” I asked. “White skin? Yellow hair?”

“Yes, that is him,” she said. “He is your friend?”

“Yeah, we're traveling to Hội An together.”

“He is very funny,” she said. “He is also very cold, like you, so I give him a hat.”

“Well, at least he made it this far,” I said, looking out at the fog and seeing the cement pillbox again. “Is that from the war — that building over there?”

She looked and nodded. “Yes, the Americans come to Việt Nam very near to here — in Đà Nẵng City. That is where they build the guns to shoot down the airplanes.”

“Did you have family in the war?” I asked.

“Yes, many,” she replied.

While I was thinking about helicopters, bombs, and underground hospitals, Rosie slouched into the chair next to me and shivered.

“Well, that was fucking painful,” she said.

“Squat toilet?”

“Yep, and they're even worse when you're this fucking cold.”

The woman arrived with two steaming coffees and placed them on the display case. “I want to ask you,” she began, “do you like living in Việt Nam?”

“We love it here,” Rosie replied. “It's so beautiful, and everyone is so nice.”

“And the coffee is strong,” I said, wrapping my hands to feel the warmth. “Just how I like it.”

The woman smiled. “I am happy to hear you like my country, and I hope you stay here to teach for many years.”

We chatted a bit more, but it was cold, so we paid for our coffees and soon fell out of the clouds, riding the brakes hard around tight corners, until we saw Đà Nẵng's towers in the distance, hazy, like a mirage — a tropical oasis where it was warm and sunny and they served coconuts on the beach.

Then we got trapped behind a herd of cows, and when we finally made it into Đà Nẵng, it was getting dark, and the bridge we wanted to take was, of course, closed for construction, so we had to find our way through a maze of narrow alleys and kids screaming “Hello!” as we drove into yet another dead-end. 

When we crossed the river, it started raining, and by the time we got to our hotel in Hội An, it was dark, and my hands were arthritic, and we could barely walk. Rosie dealt with the front desk, while I parked the motorbike, and then we both went straight for the shower.

“Hugh demands that we come have a drink with him,” Rosie said, stepping into the hot water with me. “He keeps sending me angry messages.”

“Tell him to find new friends.”