It was around 1963, since I still remember discussing Kennedy’s assassination with Pierre, my Elementary schoolmate. The alley we moved (up) to saw less flooding and afforded me some playmates, many of whom half-breed (French, not yet American until later years).
I could tag around with an Indian kid (Ali) three doors opposite or play ping-pong with an older Pharmacy student – youngest of his family, hence understood what it’s like to be out of steps like me, also the youngest ( with decades apart from my siblings).
Instant big-brother across the generational gap.
Everyone knew us as a Northern family, bounced around since the partition of Vietnam, until we re-settled, where we could afford (and being closer to our once-ultra rich second grandma; at least, that emotional geography made us feel rooted, now we were only a stone throw from them).
Lover’s quarrels, bully fights, and every imaginable past-times games we could invent: flying self-made kites, talking on telephone made of empty milk cans, and of course, DIY lanterns during the Autumn Festival for Children.
While the war raged on, we kids played on.
It did not occur to me until that next year, when one of our single male neighbors was carried out on a stretcher, that people could just die alone, by suicide, or stroke, not surrounded by loved ones in old age (my grandma) or in war (next door ranger neighbor). Dead-end alley residents were brought together every once in a while, in our shared grief.
For a dozen years living there, I learned one thing: it’s hard to see around the bend. Take your time, slow down. I learned that summer 71 when nursing a broken arm (every kid in my section advanced to Black or Brown belts).
With that setback, I settled for re-learning the guitar. Safer and more fun.
The British Invasion was featured on every issue of Hit Parade, from Love Song to Love is Blue, from The House of Rising Sun, to California Dreaming. Wow! All the leaves are brown? my alley, only cement and rainy season. You’re lucky water did not pour into you living room.
As soon as I opened my eyes after a few rock numbers, kids my age were already suited up in Air Forces and Paratroopers uniforms. 1973-75 the Vietnamization of the Vietnam War. “We want a ride”. Shamelessly.
Death by a thousand cuts.
Death by the seas, in the jungle (when trying to escape re-education camps) and in one occasion (my older blog) a John Doe, homeless Vietnamese in Tustin, California, killed by a random crash onto a Donut shop where he was recharging his phone.
Who do we want to call on our last phone call? the governor for clemency?
Old lovers as Gatsby would? Or your closest sibling, in my case, decades and miles apart.
I still am on the search for that pharmacist neighbor, my ping-pong playmate. He had empathy. He acted on it. He saw death visiting our alley, saw my reaction (baffled and bewildered) e,g, our next-door neighbor came home in a flag-draped casket. They say you often circle back, to where you begin. Perhaps to lay down for a minute.
Life is fleeting. In Uvalde or in the alley.
We need time out for having fun and for human touch. Those values stood the test of time. I started out writing about a death by suicide in the alley. Then I recalled human kindness across the way.
I’d rather spend time, playing ping-pong, volleying it until I drop (while the ball suspends in mid-air), memorializing the intersect of eternity and gravity. Death ends.
Around the bend, it’s hard to see. Yet in my end, my beginning. Some people are glad to have lived at all. Others settled for the 7 notes. I am the one with luck and have lived beyond that dead-end alley still with some lasting memories.
Thang Nguyen 555 