Of course, there are a lot of
ways an individual can screw up. My way seemed to be never thinking far enough
ahead. I now possessed, having completed basic and AIT, a new set of skills. Some,
like shooting a rifle or hand-to-hand combat, I hoped I would never have to use
and others, like writing a story or taking a poignant picture, I couldn’t wait
to put to use.
But on many levels I was
still the same screw-up who had switched majors three times and been unable to
find a job back in the days when everyone coming out of college was finding a
job. If there was one maxim that would have done me a world of good back then
it would have been: Think man. Just think.
But I was having none of
that—especially not in my social life.
There was a girl back in
Boston*
who I had pinned two years earlier who just wasn’t doing it for me any more—and
I know she felt the same way—and her family even more so.
There was also a girl back in
Rochester who I had known for about ten years but just began seeing again in
the few weeks before I shipped over to Vietnam. She had to know I liked her
because I was going over to her house every night to drink coffee with her and
her mother. She knew about the girl in Boston but didn’t know I intended to
break up with her. To make matters even more confusing the Carpenter’s hit
song, Close to you, was getting a lot of
airtime on the radio and as I prepared myself for my upcoming tour in Vietnam
it seemed I wanted nothing more than to be close to her.
But I was keeping this desire
to be close to her close to the vest because I had a plan—one I would later conclude
was just one more in a long line of not-well-thought-out-plans but of course I
didn’t see it at the time. I figured the safest way to deal with the situation this
delicate would be to deal with it from afar—put everything down on paper to
ensure there be no confusion—say what you mean and mean what you say but don’t
take a chance of saying the wrong thing.
In other words, don’t say anything. Write it down.
* No names have been used to protect the innocent.
I had already broken up with
my girlfriend of two years on a quick trip to Boston and to be honest it went
better than I would have expected, which hurt my pride a little but I was okay
with it. As soon as I arrived in Vietnam I sent a letter to the girl in
Rochester telling her how I felt about her.
And then I waited. I had
completed my assignments in Pleiku and Dalat and was still waiting.
It seemed like it took
forever but the Rochester girl’s letter finally arrived. I thought it took a little
bit longer than it should have but I was still excited as I opened it up. It
wasn’t a long letter and it wasn’t a short letter but it basically came down to
one question—What about the Boston girl?
Well I quickly wrote back
that it was over between the Boston girl and me but what did she think about
the two of us.
And again I waited and again
it seemed like the letter didn’t reach me as quickly as it could have and I was
beginning to have second thoughts about chosing to go the mail route. When her
second response finally arrived I quickly opened it only to read that maybe,
possibly, perhaps, under the right circumstances, if the stars were aligned
correctly and…and…alright, I’m not going to beat around the bush…and if hell
were freezing over and pigs were flying, then what I was proposing might be in
the cards but we would have to just wait and see what happened when I got back
home in a year.
It wasn’t exactly the
response I was waiting for, so I read it over several—many—times but being that
it was written down on paper there was no confusing the message, just as I knew
there wouldn’t be when I devised my ill-fated plan. I tossed the letter into my
footlocker and headed down to the club, where Lin and her niece, Rang were
tending bar. Both girls spoke English although Rang not as well and both girls
were attractive although Lin not as much; but I quickly decided that I would be
dropping in on both of them quite a bit in the next year.
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