Teens, Tigers and Free Iced Tea
[Cóc Cóc Coffee in Vung Tau on 7/31/24]
When it flushed mightily before 2AM, I wandered around barefoot and mostly blind around my homestay’s garden. I couldn’t help but crunch a few. More used to this mini massacre, I didn’t pick up even one. How many snails are constantly crushed by feet, hoofs, wheels or soldiers falling dead? At Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, even heroic pigeons are honored. Still wet two hours later, I send you this verbal caress, then slap myself hard for being such a fuckin’ cheeseball this morning.
Each man is a series of moods, signifying self love and self hatred in an eternal 69. Like Bruce Lee, you’re happily trapped in a personalized chamber with all these mirrors, reflecting your ghastly self to your deep satisfaction. Just yesterday, this world class asshole told me the Little Dragon died with his mistress on top of him. “That’s how I’d like to go out!” he shouted.
Sixty-seven-years old, he’s a Vietnamese-American from Orange County. Twenty years ago, he returned to Vietnam to do business. Now he’s rich enough to live three lifetimes, he boasted.
“Look at this!” On his phone he showed me some guy lying on a hospital bed with all sorts of tubes snaking from his already lifeless body. He’s also covered with wads of cash. “I spend and enjoy myself. There’s no point in hoarding anything!”
Just days ago, Rich, let’s call him that, dropped into Cóc Cóc in the evening. “Bring me a glass of iced tea!” Rich ordered in his gruffy voice. Most Vietnamese cafés give you hot or iced tea if you order coffee or juice. With no paid beverage, Rich ate his $1.57 dinner, bought somewhere else. He ignored the young barista’s command to buy something.
“Go home!” she snarled. Rich kept on eating.
Three or four months ago, another Cóc Cóc barista, Nga, told me Rich used to order her to exchange money for him across the street. Since Rich didn’t tip, Nga stopped. “He’s terrible,” she grinned.
This 23-year-old almost laughed when I joked, “I’m going to whack him on the head with a coconut one day!” It’s exasperating just to see Rich arriving. Within seconds, there’s that bossy voice again. “Turn the fan off,” he ordered upon leaving.
“Turn the fan off yourself!”
A man who aggravates just about everybody can’t be happy. Since it rained hard yesterday, Rich had to sit next to me. Hearing him going on about buying gold, I asked, “Do you buy pieces or rings?”
“Neither. I just message my brother. He’s a jeweler.”
“In the US?”
“No, in Trà Vinh.”
“So you have nothing.”
“He’s my brother.”
“What if he dies?”
“It’s family. I don’t worry.”
“His wife can say, ‘What gold?’”
Overhearing our conversation, Cóc Cóc’s owner, Mai, jumped in laughing, “Then he’ll cough up blood!” Meaning Rich.
“She’s putting a curse on you!”
Rich merely glared at Mai.
“Look at this,” he grunted. On Rich’s phone was a nude girl in a hotel room. “She’s 18.”
“How do you know? She might be 25 or 26.”
“I checked her ID.”
“Where was this?”
“Saigon. I paid her 10 million [$393.62].”