Displaced Sufferers, You're Home!

[Vientiane, 7/18/23]

Nearly a month into my bodily discomfort, I still spend most of my waking hours in bed, so have not been as productive at photographing or writing as usual. In Ubon Ratchathani nine days ago, I snapped the oozing wounds on my left leg, but decided against posting that repulsive image. You’d lose your breakfast. It’s offensive.

Spending so much time shut in, alone and mostly in silence, has not hurt my thinking. Pain, too, focuses the mind. Like the toxins escaping my body, buried memories rise up to demand reexamination. Whatever their significances, though, they’re still less than a whisper, muttered to no one.

Within 50 yards of me are several large temples, each with dozens of graves housing ashes in tiny jars. Yesterday I stumbled upon two Japanese, Noriko Nagakawa and Kazuo Ishida. How did they come to die in Laos and, even more intriguingly, why didn’t their relatives bring them home?

At another temple, I found the stupa grave of two Laos, but with its inscription in English. “In Loving Memory” it says beneath the portrait of a woman, and “FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS” is the epitaph for “Michael ‘Kno’ Somsavath,” so he’s a Lao American, it appears. Dead several universes away, incinerated Michael was flown home.

In life, though, Michael was perhaps most at home watching the Vikings on TV at the end of a Minnesota cul-de-sac, after another long, numbing week at his office cubicle. Spraying bits of nachos, Michael couldn’t help but scream, “Throw that bitch, Cassel!”

Where am I going with this? Home, of course. For much of last year, Vũng Tàu, Vietnam was home, and I would have been perfectly happy to stay there until I turn to ashes, but, as often happens, the gods had other plans, so here I am, a human mess in lovely Vientiane.

After Mark leaves tomorrow for Bangkok then Brisbane, I’ll lose my daily conversation partner, but I’m as good as anyone at being displaced alone. Sorry for the bravado. I’ve had decades of practice. It’s a useful skill.

Ideally, no man should be evicted from anywhere, but that’s not the world we live in. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are 110 million forcibly displaced persons on earth. Of course, this figure doesn’t include guys like Fred Reed, Morris Berman or Gonzalo Lira, etc., or millions of others who would rather grapple daily with the alien than be homebound, because home has become more or less insufferable.

I’ve introduced readers to Troy Skaggs, the man from Indiana who had joined the army to escape an aimless life of black-out boozing. After six months in Afghanistan, Troy was back to that zombified existence in a dispiriting landscape. What else could push so many Americans to heroin, fentanyl and tranc?

On TV, a degenerate leers, tries to string cliches together and cops another cheap feel, while his vice can’t go beyond, “What can be unburdened by what has been.” Idiocy sonorously delivered has become an American specialty. It’s enough to drive you mad.

Stuck in that nuthouse, Troy also suffered a tick bite, which gave him babesiosis. With health poor and money short, he bounced from friends’ couches to homeless shelters, camping grounds and skankiest motels.

If a tip or two can get someone out of deep shit, why not give them? On 4/20/23, I emailed Troy:

I’ve been meaning to bring something up. If you’re getting VA benefits, you should consider getting out of the US to push that money further. I don’t mean flying to Laos, since the culture shock and heat may be too much, but what about going to Mexico or Ecuador? I have an American friend who’s paying $360 a month for rent in Cuenca.

In Southeast Asia, you can get away with even less. I’m staying in a comfortable hotel room for just over $9 a night. If I’m willing to sign a year lease, I’m certain I can pay around $200 a month.

On Don Det Island, I was paying $4 a day, but the heat was too much even for me. I had no AC.

I have a good friend in North Macedonia who can get you an apartment for under $400 a month easy, and a super nice one, too, with a working kitchen and your own living room, and you’ll be right downtown in goofy Skopje.

A travel writer is already a guide, so I was only doing what’s become second nature. Of course, it was my tour guide instinct that got me drugged and lying face down on a Pakse sidewalk. After I had shown a fake Turk an Italian restaurant, Vietnamese temple, best liquor store in town and stylish music bar, he reciprocated by relieving me of many crisp and fragrant $100 bills!

Immediately, Troy Skaggs responded:

I’ve given some thought to leaving the States for obvious reasons. It’s not looking good. I’ve considered Mexico. Fred Reed speaks highly of the place. Ambrose Bierce who was from down the road disappeared there. 

In all reality, I’m a recalcitrant child of the Midwest. I signed a lease for an apartment here in South Bend three weeks ago, Linh. It’s a couple of blocks from South Michigan St. which is South Bend’s skid row.

This place can destroy and comfort me depending on the day. Everything that you write about is on display here although the legacy of Notre Dame and Mayor Pete keep some lipstick on the streets. 

Shots around the corner sometimes, but I felt worse in New Carlisle. I accidentally knocked down a utility pole on the outskirts of town in 2007 and memories are long there. 

Unfortunately, my Dad got diagnosed with prostate cancer this year and with my sister Angie working her butt off and raising my nephew Reid, my presence here is probably for the better at present. 

Iggy Pop did a song called “Paraguay” which addresses the suffocation, despair and danger of hanging out in America. 

I got out of the Army ten years ago February and have managed to stumble over myself much like I stumbled in. I’m certain that there’s a purpose to this mess, but I haven’t figured it out. Staying healthy and sane is a starting point. If I can do that, I try not to rule anything out. Nothing has turned out the way I expected it, and therein lies some of the magic. I chase it like a junky because I see the charms shine through sometimes. I prefer to seek it outside the possibility of gulags or crushing poverty. 

I’ve been reading a physical copy of Postcards from the End of America. It’s a beautiful book. The pictures at the beginning really are something. I’m holding my own, Linh, but those are the faces that I see a lot of and it’s not a bad thing. Reminds me of Bukowski and Ecclesiastes. We’re all flowers of some sort. Still looking for my roots, Linh.

I’m going to Michigan for a small bag of White 99, a sativa that’s easy on the dome. Excessive cannabis consumption has its pitfalls, but “fluffy town” (my term for the buzz) has been a nice place in comparison to alcohol and pharmaceuticals. The industry itself is a combo of hype, marketing, profit, bullshit and legitimate relief so I don’t have it figured out. Regardless, gonna get fluffy today.

Though there are obvious reasons to escape, Troy must stay put because his nephew, sister and father need him there. Favoring weed over booze, Troy gets by, if barely. Though just about everything has turned out disappointing, Troy still hopes to find rootedness and meaning, or light, if you will. Troy has had glimpses of it.

The American types I photographed in my last publishable book, Troy sees all the time, and so did I, obviously. They are our people.

Having no plans to return to the US, I won’t see them again. I’m exhausted, man. Drifting to Albania, Namibia or Laos, etc., I had to be prepared to stay in each alien environment indefinitely. This practice has been useful.

If possible, you should give it a try. Home, you’re already displaced.

Done, I’ll walk into an afternoon heat even I haven’t gotten used to, and I was born into this. There’s always an air-conditioned room to duck into, though, and the range of international food near me rivals anywhere in the world, I kid you not.

This slice of Vientiane, then, is also a flickering flame, but I’ll take this last buffet, last call and last facsimile of the old normality. When nearly everything has been taken away, I’ll still be glad I’m here.

[Vientiane, 7/16/23]

[Vientiane, 7/16/23]

[Vientiane, 7/18/23]