Jackson Warfield
"it's easy to be a bad writer, but it's hard to wake up each day and devote a chunk of your life to bad writing."
All work copyright Jackson Warfield 2009
SAIGON NIGHTS
by JACKSON WARFIELD
For some reason I'd wake up in the mornings. I never did quite understand. There was no alarm screaming at me, no work to go to, nobody to meet, and I certainly wasn't rested.
But I'd roll over and drop my legs to the floor, look in the mirror, and as was customary, open my mouth and make a noise which would start as a growl, grow slowly into a deafening roar, switch octaves to a wild tendon-stretching banshee scream, and finally dwindle into a tormented yelp and finish as a pathetic whimper. Then I'd mumble,
"oh, you fuckin' fool."
Those four words, they came into my head every morning. And like a ruler-whipped student, I'd sulk into the bathroom with my head down and sit on the toilet which had no toilet seat.
Bits and pieces would come back to me.
The restaurant, sitting there eating dinner and drinking beers and watching the people go up and down the street. Hoping maybe I'd see a scooter accident or something exciting.
The ex-pat bar. Meeting up with Nigerian Frank and putting more beers back. Matching each beer with a low grade menthol cigarette. The kind which, when somebody asks you for a fag, you pull out your pack and they look away disgusted and say,
"oh, god. No thanks."
The beers sinking faster and finally the miserable remnants of the hang over turning into the first signs of a buzz. Looking over to Nigerian Frank and saying, while waving my fourth finished bottle in my hand,
"I know it sounds cliché, and maybe you've never heard this phrase back home, but I'm finally starting to feel like myself again."
Nigerian Frank laughing in that deep and beautiful African way and signaling a waitress for two more beers. Sitting and watching the people go by, sometimes saying things to one another but mainly just sitting there, becoming ourselves.
We shake our heads constantly to fend off the cigarette vendors and the women that walk around with meter tall stacks of books. Mainly guidebooks that were printed illegally in some hack publisher's warehouse in Cambodia.
We do the meet and greet with other backpackers and finally there's a circle of maybe ten or twelve of us, mainly Europeans and Australians.
"what's yer name?"
"where ya from?"
"first night here?"
"how long ya traveling for?"
"where've ya been?"
"I'm from Sweden."
"I'm from Tasmania."
"been here a week, love it."
"on a world trip."
"came here from Yemen."
I'm tired because I never get anything close to rest. I get twisted nightmares of split lip, kitten-sized Siamese fetuses in green jars of formaldehyde, just like the ones in the War Remnants Museum. The caption underneath says,
"Deformed premature babies born still as a result of agent orange which the Americans used on soldiers and civilians alike."
And eventually somebody brings up the hick fool in the White House and I explain to them that not all Americans are lazy, fat, arrogant pieces of shit and that they should go sometime and see for themselves. But some people jump back and say,
"no way! It's way too dangerous there. You can't even go to school without getting shot!"
Then I go on to explain that there are over three hundred million people in America and what they know about the place is from the news and by nature the news that's televised and printed is generally the bad news because it sells more copies and gets more viewers. They say,
"yeah, I guess that's true."
Soon I tire of the endless, night after night discussion about American politics and decide my time is better spent inhaling crispy smoke and shoveling down handfuls of peanuts.
"should we go upstairs and see if there's anybody dancing?"
Nigerian Frank thinks this is a good idea and we rise from our seats and it seems that everybody else has had the same idea and there's a line of people all walking up the stairs. There's a sweet excitement, the foreign effect, when you go into a dance club and there are girls from around the world.
"holy shit. There are actually people in here tonight."
We stay safely in the dark on the edge of the dance floor and rip through our menthols. I wonder why I've picked up smoking cigarettes and then realize that it's because it slows down my drinking and for some odd reason seems to settle my stomach which is always rotten.
I look around and decide what the hell and turn to Nigerian Frank and say,
"fuck it. I'm gonna go for it."
I finish my beer and hit the dance floor and for the first five minutes it's like I'm back in the shadows of a junior high school dance, like I've just grown into my body and am still trying to figure out how the limbs move and how the whole thing works. I yell over the thumping music,
"I usually only dance when I'm super fucked up!"
Nigerian Frank smiles and I wonder if over the music and across our accents he understands me and then I realize that it doesn't really matter at all. That nothing matters at all. And suddenly I'm right in there on the dance floor and I've found my moves and the way my arms and legs are moving seem to make sense and I start in with this little jig that I picked up while on a rooftop in Syria while watching a wedding party.
I let the dancing take over and it's too hard not to smile so I do and Nigerian Frank is on the floor now and he's got some moves of his own and I try to steal those, too. For me, dancing has always kind of been like shoplifting. If you don't have what you need, you steal it. The songs pound out from the speakers and I'm dripping sweat and I laugh to myself, thinking,
"well here's my exercise for the day. Here's the way I'm combating the ill effects of the smoke and alcohol."
But fatigue soon grabs me and even the bass can't keep me going so I snag a stool at the bar and smoke a couple more menthols and watch all the people dancing and it's cool to see all sorts of styles from around different parts of the world. I look back behind the bar at the bartenders and decide that I don't like them. They're slow with bringing a drink, slow with making change and for each of them it looks to be the worst day of their lives. I reminisce about my time behind the bar,
"goddamn I had a lot of fun back there, pouring the beers and taking the shots and mixing the drinks and always going about it like it was the most urgent and important thing in the world."
I smoke for a while and Nigerian Frank joins me and then, despite what I want to do, my body not only wants but needs to go back home and go to sleep because it's shutting down and I'm fighting to keep my eyes open.
"all right, man. I'm goin' home to sleep. Too tired to keep dancing."
Nigerian Frank decides he feels the same and we walk down the stairs and as we pass through the bar on the first floor I look at all the bottles and say,
"maybe just one more?"
But Nigerian Frank raises his eyebrows and in my state of exhaustion that's all I need to convince me to stick with the original plan.
"yeah, fuck that. I need sleep."
We walk down the street and for a second while Frank the Nigerian puts his hand on my shoulder I wonder what he's thinking and whether he's straight or gay but I don't worry much because I'm too tired to worry and something tells me that it's just a customary thing for Nigerian guys to do that. I stop at my alleyway and say,
"all right, man. Wanna meet up again at 8 PM tomorrow night, same place?"
He nods and I duck into my alley and he goes back to his hotel. On my way back I watch the giant cockroaches scurry over the pavement and I pass my corner and go visit the two Vietnamese cops that work nights in the alley. It's become a habit of mine to stop by on my way home after the bars and smoke one or two last cigarettes while trying to communicate with them although together they seem to know maybe three words in English. Tonight there is a couple sitting there, the one I'd met the night before. They're laughing and passing around a joint and I sit on the curb next to them and watch a rat run from one building to another. I mutter, more to myself than anybody else,
"man, the fuckin' rats here."
Maybe I didn't mutter it but instead shouted it. It's hard to tell because the music in the club was so loud but the silence in the alleyway seems to be roaring. Everybody looks over at the rat. The police say nothing but instead smile and raise their eyebrows and the French couple say something to each other and resume their stoned giggles.
"you want smoke?"
I would love nothing more than a smoke right now but I'm sure that if I even took one drag I'd pass out right here on the sidewalk and I'd rather sleep in my own bed.
"good night,"
I say to the cops and the French couple and I walk back to the family's house with whom I'm staying and I quietly slide the latch to the door which is just a gate and when I look into the darkness of their 8 x 8 foot living room all I see are bodies sprawled out across the floor, on the couch, in the chair and anywhere there's space. I take a deep breath and repeat in my head,
"just don't step on the baby. Please, don't step on the baby."
Through a series of slow motion gymnastics I reach the other side of the room, fumble around for my key and climb the three flights of stairs that are only as wide as my shoulders. I see a cockroach sneak into a crack in the wall and I try to wipe out the image immediately. There's acceptance and denial and in regards to those clickitty crawling bastards I'd rather pretend they don't exist. The last flight is up into the attic room, where I'm staying, and it's more of a ladder than a staircase. But I make it up there and go into my room. I stand there for a few moments, catching my breath, and I whisper,
"I feel really weird."
And out of the corner of my eye I keep thinking I'm seeing cockroaches sneaking around, darting in and out of the light. My head is weary and I go into the bathroom and take off my filthy clothes and squat over the toilet which has no seat. I push out some filth and whisper into the dim light of the bathroom,
"oh, what I'd give for a solid shit."
I finish up with the toilet and shower and brush my teeth and then I just stand there naked, the fan blowing the water from my body. The booze is wearing off and the menthol high is thinning out and I'm feeling like a shell of a man, like there's nothing inside. I close my eyes and try not to think at all and just before passing into a nightmarish sleep I say into the darkness,
"oh, you fuckin' fool. You've done it again."
SAIGON NIGHTS
by JACKSON WARFIELD
For some reason I'd wake up in the mornings. I never did quite understand. There was no alarm screaming at me, no work to go to, nobody to meet, and I certainly wasn't rested.
But I'd roll over and drop my legs to the floor, look in the mirror, and as was customary, open my mouth and make a noise which would start as a growl, grow slowly into a deafening roar, switch octaves to a wild tendon-stretching banshee scream, and finally dwindle into a tormented yelp and finish as a pathetic whimper. Then I'd mumble,
"oh, you fuckin' fool."
Those four words, they came into my head every morning. And like a ruler-whipped student, I'd sulk into the bathroom with my head down and sit on the toilet which had no toilet seat.
Bits and pieces would come back to me.
The restaurant, sitting there eating dinner and drinking beers and watching the people go up and down the street. Hoping maybe I'd see a scooter accident or something exciting.
The ex-pat bar. Meeting up with Nigerian Frank and putting more beers back. Matching each beer with a low grade menthol cigarette. The kind which, when somebody asks you for a fag, you pull out your pack and they look away disgusted and say,
"oh, god. No thanks."
The beers sinking faster and finally the miserable remnants of the hang over turning into the first signs of a buzz. Looking over to Nigerian Frank and saying, while waving my fourth finished bottle in my hand,
"I know it sounds cliché, and maybe you've never heard this phrase back home, but I'm finally starting to feel like myself again."
Nigerian Frank laughing in that deep and beautiful African way and signaling a waitress for two more beers. Sitting and watching the people go by, sometimes saying things to one another but mainly just sitting there, becoming ourselves.
We shake our heads constantly to fend off the cigarette vendors and the women that walk around with meter tall stacks of books. Mainly guidebooks that were printed illegally in some hack publisher's warehouse in Cambodia.
We do the meet and greet with other backpackers and finally there's a circle of maybe ten or twelve of us, mainly Europeans and Australians.
"what's yer name?"
"where ya from?"
"first night here?"
"how long ya traveling for?"
"where've ya been?"
"I'm from Sweden."
"I'm from Tasmania."
"been here a week, love it."
"on a world trip."
"came here from Yemen."
I'm tired because I never get anything close to rest. I get twisted nightmares of split lip, kitten-sized Siamese fetuses in green jars of formaldehyde, just like the ones in the War Remnants Museum. The caption underneath says,
"Deformed premature babies born still as a result of agent orange which the Americans used on soldiers and civilians alike."
And eventually somebody brings up the hick fool in the White House and I explain to them that not all Americans are lazy, fat, arrogant pieces of shit and that they should go sometime and see for themselves. But some people jump back and say,
"no way! It's way too dangerous there. You can't even go to school without getting shot!"
Then I go on to explain that there are over three hundred million people in America and what they know about the place is from the news and by nature the news that's televised and printed is generally the bad news because it sells more copies and gets more viewers. They say,
"yeah, I guess that's true."
Soon I tire of the endless, night after night discussion about American politics and decide my time is better spent inhaling crispy smoke and shoveling down handfuls of peanuts.
"should we go upstairs and see if there's anybody dancing?"
Nigerian Frank thinks this is a good idea and we rise from our seats and it seems that everybody else has had the same idea and there's a line of people all walking up the stairs. There's a sweet excitement, the foreign effect, when you go into a dance club and there are girls from around the world.
"holy shit. There are actually people in here tonight."
We stay safely in the dark on the edge of the dance floor and rip through our menthols. I wonder why I've picked up smoking cigarettes and then realize that it's because it slows down my drinking and for some odd reason seems to settle my stomach which is always rotten.
I look around and decide what the hell and turn to Nigerian Frank and say,
"fuck it. I'm gonna go for it."
I finish my beer and hit the dance floor and for the first five minutes it's like I'm back in the shadows of a junior high school dance, like I've just grown into my body and am still trying to figure out how the limbs move and how the whole thing works. I yell over the thumping music,
"I usually only dance when I'm super fucked up!"
Nigerian Frank smiles and I wonder if over the music and across our accents he understands me and then I realize that it doesn't really matter at all. That nothing matters at all. And suddenly I'm right in there on the dance floor and I've found my moves and the way my arms and legs are moving seem to make sense and I start in with this little jig that I picked up while on a rooftop in Syria while watching a wedding party.
I let the dancing take over and it's too hard not to smile so I do and Nigerian Frank is on the floor now and he's got some moves of his own and I try to steal those, too. For me, dancing has always kind of been like shoplifting. If you don't have what you need, you steal it. The songs pound out from the speakers and I'm dripping sweat and I laugh to myself, thinking,
"well here's my exercise for the day. Here's the way I'm combating the ill effects of the smoke and alcohol."
But fatigue soon grabs me and even the bass can't keep me going so I snag a stool at the bar and smoke a couple more menthols and watch all the people dancing and it's cool to see all sorts of styles from around different parts of the world. I look back behind the bar at the bartenders and decide that I don't like them. They're slow with bringing a drink, slow with making change and for each of them it looks to be the worst day of their lives. I reminisce about my time behind the bar,
"goddamn I had a lot of fun back there, pouring the beers and taking the shots and mixing the drinks and always going about it like it was the most urgent and important thing in the world."
I smoke for a while and Nigerian Frank joins me and then, despite what I want to do, my body not only wants but needs to go back home and go to sleep because it's shutting down and I'm fighting to keep my eyes open.
"all right, man. I'm goin' home to sleep. Too tired to keep dancing."
Nigerian Frank decides he feels the same and we walk down the stairs and as we pass through the bar on the first floor I look at all the bottles and say,
"maybe just one more?"
But Nigerian Frank raises his eyebrows and in my state of exhaustion that's all I need to convince me to stick with the original plan.
"yeah, fuck that. I need sleep."
We walk down the street and for a second while Frank the Nigerian puts his hand on my shoulder I wonder what he's thinking and whether he's straight or gay but I don't worry much because I'm too tired to worry and something tells me that it's just a customary thing for Nigerian guys to do that. I stop at my alleyway and say,
"all right, man. Wanna meet up again at 8 PM tomorrow night, same place?"
He nods and I duck into my alley and he goes back to his hotel. On my way back I watch the giant cockroaches scurry over the pavement and I pass my corner and go visit the two Vietnamese cops that work nights in the alley. It's become a habit of mine to stop by on my way home after the bars and smoke one or two last cigarettes while trying to communicate with them although together they seem to know maybe three words in English. Tonight there is a couple sitting there, the one I'd met the night before. They're laughing and passing around a joint and I sit on the curb next to them and watch a rat run from one building to another. I mutter, more to myself than anybody else,
"man, the fuckin' rats here."
Maybe I didn't mutter it but instead shouted it. It's hard to tell because the music in the club was so loud but the silence in the alleyway seems to be roaring. Everybody looks over at the rat. The police say nothing but instead smile and raise their eyebrows and the French couple say something to each other and resume their stoned giggles.
"you want smoke?"
I would love nothing more than a smoke right now but I'm sure that if I even took one drag I'd pass out right here on the sidewalk and I'd rather sleep in my own bed.
"good night,"
I say to the cops and the French couple and I walk back to the family's house with whom I'm staying and I quietly slide the latch to the door which is just a gate and when I look into the darkness of their 8 x 8 foot living room all I see are bodies sprawled out across the floor, on the couch, in the chair and anywhere there's space. I take a deep breath and repeat in my head,
"just don't step on the baby. Please, don't step on the baby."
Through a series of slow motion gymnastics I reach the other side of the room, fumble around for my key and climb the three flights of stairs that are only as wide as my shoulders. I see a cockroach sneak into a crack in the wall and I try to wipe out the image immediately. There's acceptance and denial and in regards to those clickitty crawling bastards I'd rather pretend they don't exist. The last flight is up into the attic room, where I'm staying, and it's more of a ladder than a staircase. But I make it up there and go into my room. I stand there for a few moments, catching my breath, and I whisper,
"I feel really weird."
And out of the corner of my eye I keep thinking I'm seeing cockroaches sneaking around, darting in and out of the light. My head is weary and I go into the bathroom and take off my filthy clothes and squat over the toilet which has no seat. I push out some filth and whisper into the dim light of the bathroom,
"oh, what I'd give for a solid shit."
I finish up with the toilet and shower and brush my teeth and then I just stand there naked, the fan blowing the water from my body. The booze is wearing off and the menthol high is thinning out and I'm feeling like a shell of a man, like there's nothing inside. I close my eyes and try not to think at all and just before passing into a nightmarish sleep I say into the darkness,
"oh, you fuckin' fool. You've done it again."
"fuck it. I'm gonna go for it."