PUNK PROSE: Out of All the Girls: You by Bryan Myers

Will landed in Hanoi, Vietnam—coming from Chiang Mai, Thailand. 

The first vivisection of streets and alleyway exploded with sights and noises, unlike anything he’d seen or heard. There were motorbikes revving by, people were shouting, selling things like dead chickens and peanuts.

The air was bad. He knew he was near the walking district. He went there.

He found himself enraptured by the dark sky covering Hanoi like a blanket. A city of nine million people came to life within the hum of traffic echoing from conversations in Vietnamese. People spat out the shells of sunflower seeds. They drank yellow tea. Talking, laughing, they slammed their fists down. They ordered more cans of beer. Tourists flocked nearby.

Beer was fifty cents USD.

After drinking two cans and walking in circles, Will came across a taxi driver.

“Hey, where you going?”

“Nowhere."

“Where you from?”

In a few minutes the young Vietnamese man was video chatting with his wife. He turned the phone to show Will.

Will waved at the man’s wife and child. Then the taxi driver hung up. He told Will that he had another child who was sick. And that he was also a fisherman. He said he lived with a half dozen other guys in an apartment. Will nodded politely, trying to get away.

Suddenly he found himself on the back of the man’s motorbike. The taxi driver said he’d duck out of work for the night, and he’d show Will around.

First, they went to a restaurant to get beef Phở. They drank green bottles of beer at a little wooden table sitting on tiny, red plastic stools. They kept cheers-ing their glasses, eating peanuts, tossing the shells to the floor. Soon, there were two or three other friends at the table. One was another taxi driver.

After the meal was finished, they pulled out a pipe and filled it with tobacco. It looked like a big wooden bong.

Will blew out a giant cloud of smoke, coughing hysterically with tears dripping down the corners of his eyes. The Vietnamese guys laughed and the first taxi driver took a picture.

They raced off to a karaoke bar. On the way, the taxi driver said, “Later, you can get a woman. Real cheap.”

Will laughed and thought nothing of it. He figured the guy was bullshitting. But he went along for the ride. After three or four beers, he felt good. It was his first night in Vietnam.

At the karaoke bar, another friend showed up. There were about four Vietnamese guys and Will. They sat around a table and drank many bottles of beer. Each time they clinked their glasses together, Will finished whatever was in his glass.

After four times the taxi driver asked Will, 

“Hey, why you do that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why you drink so fast?”

“I thought when we do cheers, it means drink the rest of what’s in your glass.”

“No, no! That’s just what we do. That’s how we drink in Vietnam.”

They tried to get Will to do a song but they were all in Vietnamese.

The bill came. Some of the guys were a little peeved that Will had out-drunk them by accident. Will told his new friend that he had money to pay. And the friend took some.

Three guys left, they went to another bar. The friend seemed very intoxicated. And it wasn’t long before they were all kicked out.

Will got on the back of the taxi driver’s motorbike, and when they came to a busy intersection there was a lot of traffic. Suddenly, Will laughed and hopped off the back. There was too much momentum for the driver to be able to stop—he kept going.

Will decided to walk back to his place. He had no idea where he was or where he was going.

Out from the shadows, a girl appeared. She was on a motorbike. She had shoulder-length hair that was dark. She was stoic—but kind.

“Where you going?”

“I’m going with you!” Will replied. Like an idiot. 

Then he was on the back of her motorbike. 

Where the hell was she taking him?

He hadn’t the slightest clue.

--Bryan Myers