Tango that takes two

I was told to write from the heart (or just use Google speech, then have it translated into Vietnamese).

If I were to follow this advice, then how could I send those cultural nuances across the softwares, at least, not yet.

For now, we can’t just yet paint a picture of “blush”, “shame” and other emotional hues (crying in tears rules as 2021 most used emoji).

I was on a campus date, and it happened to be with an ardent Catholic-raised Christian gal, friend of mine. We happened to see “Last Tango in Paris”. Of course, half-way through the flick, mind you, it’s Marlon Brando of the Godfather and Apocalypse Now, she asked us to walk out.

I to this day only remember the scene where she posed with one leg on his as they were sitting in a Parisian cafe. Now, it’s schools and girls, not necessary in that order, two topics closest to my heart (then why not blog about it).

While waiting for the SAT-equivalent test scores, I had my first real dating experience. In fact, she (B) was the only girl present at our celebration party.

Schools then girls. A pairing like two train tracks.

Going no where at times, but going.

Fear of the future (what if we were to have a baby before a college degree – translated into career and job security).

Fear of losing her forever (what if things don’t turn out as we thought – the war and all, then permanent separation: turned out to be so true).

Fear of never again “swimming in the same current” ( let’s dance….many nights, many clubs, many partners….last Tango that takes Two).

And that’s the way it was. Stalemate my butts.

Cronkite my behind. Kissinger kisses my asses. The other day, I saw a bunch of guys standing and waiting in front of the Social Security office. Wonder if they were Afghanese, applying for their first papers.

Quite a repeat, a deja vu (one of the girls was among them, very much like our high-school bunch). Yes, they were smoking outside. Young with a lot of life ahead.

We too were pouring beers —but then we had just turned 18, partying under supervision. Unfolding before us was a world full of possibilities. No time to die. By then, my parents had already churned out tuition for Martial Arts school, English schools, French school, private middle school, private High School and music school.

I owe them a chunk of change.

Yet that New Year, I had a premonition. That life would never be the same. Fewer MP’s policing Saigon streets – to catch the ammunition-supplies thieves, the PX’s thieves, the black-marketeers of US dollars and US goods.

Rich kids and influential kids, straight A+’s kids and orphanage kids got on their seatless cargo planes, all dressed up, with planes to catch and English words to look up, idioms and slangs to learn by heart (rote learning: like the French taught us in conjugation. which takes us back to Je t’aime, to Last Tango in Paris).

So I danced those ten nights away, last chance. Last dance that I could feel: the fear, anticipation and anxiety. Nothing makes you feel more alive than knowing there is only a little left to live.

I felt the vibration from various female bodies. Girls of Saigon, not Miss Saigon, were apprehensive too. Everybody felt the rumble, except the US Ambassador who told his wife NOT to move the furniture like our x-President Thieu, who did (his stuff on previous flight to Taiwan – wonder who would continue to move his furniture onto London and Boston, where he eventually passed away).

Later, when schooling in North of Boston, yours truly was staying overnight, of course at the invitation of another date, at the home of former Ambassador Lodge. It was my highlight. At both the movie, starring Marlon Brando, and the sleep-over, at the Lodges’; clean like a whistle.

Healthy dating. Three-dimensional friending. There was never s/t called the internet back then. Schooling and learning about ourselves through the eyes of others. Students of life, of loss and learning to manage parental expectations.

My freshman year saw the war unraveled.

To tango, one must first sprinkle the floor with powder, preferably hard-wood floor . Tous les garçons et les filles de mon age…ballroom danced (pre-Le Freak Disco).

Now I have these episodic memories. Post Vietnam War saw many memoirs, most of them revisionists: “honour”, “honourable”, “decent” …you name it.

Owing it to paranoia and premonition, I made my last Tango last (already had a taste of disaster in 1968, the year I started high school). That year, there was mass grave in Hue, and an extended lockdown that haunted our 68-75 school years. Like the date that walked out of the movie, we walked out on our own 16-mm film torn apart from the sprocket holes. (We knew all along we were living on borrowed time and US tax payers’ money, soon out of bodies and bullets.)

Took a while to splice the frames back. Now it’s Last Tango 2.0, a misnomer (like the Last Emperor, part II on world stage, as people keep forgetting lessons of the past – while dancing as if there were no tomorrow).