-^-for posterity-^-

it's hard to remember what it was like back home. traveling up to saigon on a rainy friday night spending time watching white lights and hearing the horn blow.

we sit at dusty ferry stations waiting to board. there is a guard wearing an old, blue uniform. he has a large stick which that he never had to use and he checks people's tickets. people are everywhere selling things. people touch your arms and yell things at you. it's easy to ignore them. they know such a different world. the exhaust from the trucks burns your eyes and the dust sits on your tongue. i wonder what it would be like in africa.

the ferry is as it always was. it rumbles against the flow of the river and boats flash it with white lights. they tell the ferry where they are but it really doesn’t matter. we couldn't get out of their way if we wanted to. we a re a bulky mass of steel trudging through a muddy river that's picked up dirt, silt and trash ever since tibet.

i talk to a couple of drivers on the boat. i have also inherited that gene from my father. i'm oddly interested in other people's lives and what they do. i want to know trivial details and stand next to them looking away from them with my arms folded. it reminds me of my father at soccer games or on family trips. kick the dirt, mention something, smile and shake their hand at the end.

one of the drivers was driving a large truck up to saigon. it was probably thirty feet long and twelve feet tall. there aren't any tractor-trailers here. it would be suicide to drive them. he says he's delivering smashed beer cans that have been collected from all over the province. he shows me one of them to make sure i understand. he has been driving truck for only five years and the truck is owned by someone else. he has to stay over in ho chi minh city after his delivery and he misses his wife. he smiles a lot and wears a sleeve-less teal shirt. his hair is long in the back on the top. he looks like a truck driver.

i talk to the driver of the bus i'm riding on. he wears a nice, tropical shirt and his face has scars from acne as a youth. he has spiked hair. you know the type. he says he's been driving for about ten yeas but only two years with this company. he is proud. he will also sleep in saigon tonight and will miss his wife but he assures me that he has a girlfriend in the big city and he won't be too lonely. i smile and spit over the side of the boat. it seems somehow seems appropriate.

we continue to drive and honk and flash our lights. i try to sleep but it doesn’t come.

we pass the bridge. the large bridge. it's probably one hundred feet high and slopes steeply.

everything seems wrong. we are zooming down the other side. there is no one there and our bus makes click-ity-click-ity-click-ity-click-ity noises over the metal strips that separate the pieces of pavement. the windows are open and the engine is screaming. we are going too fast. we surely will zip into the guard rail and roll into a firey grave. i look at the speedometer and we're going one hundred and twenty km/hr. by my estimation, that's about sixty five or seventy miles an hour. i shut my eyes and i'm in a different world that i completely forgot about. i'm pulling onto route four seventy six heading down to philladelphia. the wind gushes into the vehicle and the engine roars. there are cars everywhere and the music is playing. i drive for an hour switching lanes and monitoring the radio. i'm flying down route eighty towards bluffton. the air is fresh and a little cold but the windows are still open. i'm surrounded by tall, green trees and the cb crackles. i'm driving my tractor trailer down route ninety five heading towards another kfc in noon rush hour. i grind through the gears and am in ecstasy.

i open my eyes and the bus slows down to a reasonable fourth miles an hour for the rest of the trip. i'm back in vietnam and feel a bit homesick.