I wasn’t stupid. Something was going on. Something happened. Didn’t know what it was. “What’s going on!” “Something is happening here,….what it is ain’t exactly clear”.
In the dark. Kept there. Even to the last minute. People were climbing, pushing and shoving. Babies crying. Adults in tears (separation, fear of the unknown, fear of danger, of forever be changed).
From one geography to another, with different climate, culture and currency. In the dark, even day time. Hence, the Dictionary. The guide and words that mattered.
Words of encouragement, of admonition and of resignation “what can you do!”.
The crisis and the cause – bigger than any of us. For context, everything happened that year: class of 1974-1975 . From HS graduation to Pre-Med admission, then boarding a barge, a boat and a bus to new life. At the camp (transitory) I looked at the bulletin board, to find lost friends and relatives (to see who made it out), then I caught site of an ad for a voluntary interpreter, Bureau of Child Welfare.
Lost children, lost cause (those not in a plane crash the previous week).
So I showed. Then showed up for work. Every day, like clockwork. No commute since the makeshift office was set-up in another barrack within walking distance. Hi, I am Thang. And you are?…Mary Ann, John, Greg, Steve, Jean ….Pardon me? etc… The tempo went on. First day at work. The routine. Showing up. Hi and bye.
Then comes lunch hour. A toss of football (so, you’re sponsored to go to Penn State? Gotta to get used to football). You might want to change your name into Thomas, Tommy etc..
Boom! Toss, run and catch. Your birthday is coming up? The office chipped in. A sheet cake, perhaps brought in from nearby Lancaster or Lebanon, PA. A Webster’s dictionary, perhaps from a Harrisburg bookstore, with a brief well wishes by the office manger.
Appreciate you guys. Then the trip (with day pass) to court “All rise!”…Yes, your Honor. So and so is willing and is in the affirmative to accept said foster homes. Yes, your Honor.
The court cut me a check. Wished I had framed it for souvenir. My first pay ever.
I asked for a stop at the nearest Montgomery Ward to buy a cassette player and some Sony tapes. That night, I put it against my bunkmate’s player to tape all the songs I thought would be lost forever except in memory. Faded one. Until today. Ben cau bien gioi. By the bridge too far, I listen to the flow of time.
Feeling melancholy. Feeling sad. Friends and father left behind. Objects of desire too. Poof! Gone. Never to be regained. All lost. In one felt swoop.
That jump over the sandbag onto the barge. To “listen” to the flow of time. The Y bridge of fate. At Penn State, it’s another world in itself. Lillie white. No mass shooting. Snow and foliage. Friends and (new) families. Lost in translation. Every day was like Groundhog day.
Now, cassettes gone. Music is still in my head. And the memory is securely locked in the recess of my mind. Pardon me! Appreciate it. Thanks. Where words failed, I rose to the occasion: giving context and nuances to the endless search for those dynamic equivalents. Yet No language can depict the contrast between Dark and Dawn.
That’s why we failed. At a war of deception and descending intervals. That’s why we were scattered into the four winds: from Norway to Norfolk. Foster homes and nursing homes. Here we find ourselves still wanting. Still searching. Still listening to the flow of time. Toss and run. Never catch. In the beginning was the Word, then from A we proceed to Z. Dark slowly gives to Dawn. Yet, it’s always a work in progress. A constant revision of our life as a draft. God our Editor. And Judge. Your Honor, I rest my case.
Thang Nguyen 555 