This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments. And last but not least, Nifty would like your donations.

Farewell, Uncle Ho

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Chapter 92 (Sunday, July 16, 1967)

Both Gerry and I sat straight up in bed at 09:20 a.m. on our first Sunday in Saigon. Cathedral bells were ringing for what they were worth, and I swore, if I'd had a kilo of plastic explosive just then, I'd have blown the mother-fucking sons-of-bitches off the face of the planet. As I moved on bare feet toward the kitchen I had to recognized that I was pissed off and thirsty. But after I'd helped myself to the purified cold water, of which Linh kept ten liters in the fridge in an aluminum container with a spigot, I was unable to keep my face cramped in the frown, which had, thus far, been on display.

The soft voice of eternal hope drifted in from the dining room. "Just be happy that they no longer ring them for their first mass at 0500 hours, since it’s still before the end of curfew." As he came closer to me, out of the rainy-day shadows and into the well-lighted kitchen, Linh brushed the back of his soft hand over my hard cock. His lips hovered above my erect nipples, as if he were going to kiss them, before he withdrew. Although he was fully dressed and freshly showered, his erection revealed that he was not wearing underwear.

Gerry appeared in the doorway and staggered, still half asleep, toward me, taking the glass of chilled water and watched my eyes as he drank. "I'm going back to bed, once the bells have died down."

I drew him closer; he set down the water glass on the counter and placed his scratchy cheek on my shoulder and casually tongued my neck. That Linh had any intention of joining in, at which he only intimated by letting his volume of breath increase, tickling our skin, causing goose bumps to rise, was something still unexplored. He had yet to touch, today. Like miniature nipples, each bump contributed to setting my teeth on edge. I either had to have sex with them, finding release, or hurt someone, possibly myself.

Of a sudden, the chill from the dull-grey, rainy day outside was on me, increasing the goose flesh, making me all the more edgy. I took both men by their upper arms and forced them through the entry, living room, into the bedroom. Both had concerned looks; both knew that resistance was futile.

Gerry was the first to realize what I wanted, and he knew how to react. His fist went into the Crisco can, before I could get the trembling Linh positioned on the bed and disrobed. Since he had lost his erection, I turned the attention of my lips onto his rosebud, as Gerry coated mine with white grease.

As my tongue flicked its way from his hole to his balls and back again, Linh gasped and grunted in almost grotesque gestures. Fear dissipated as lust took over. Then I recognized the built up anger in his tightly tensioned movements. His eyes lighted when Gerry slapped my ass cheeks. Linh was about to get his own back. And although I had had nothing to do with his years of abuse at the hands of others, I was going to be his proxy target. I was enough of a person of authority for him to vent his anger. I was going to get fucked.

Gerry moved swiftly to set the scene. He flipped me into the doggie position and got the tasseled cord from the heavy drapes to tie my hands behind me. His nylon, knee length socks from the day before, saturated in his milky scent, served to gag and blindfold me. He had already loosened my ass enough to allow Linh to ram me mercilessly without inflicting any real damage.

It took Linh several moments to let go. But once the wounded animal was released, his growls turned to gasps and tears.

The minute he screamed at orgasm, my guy raised Linh up to straddle my hips as he took over fucking me ruthlessly. As he roughed my ass, slapping his midsection and thighs against me, making it even sound like the good fuck it was, he held Linh, soothing the hurt from the past, transplanting it into me. I had become Linh's shield, his transducer of emotional pain. And I took it gladly.

***

As Gerry and I held him between us, Linh was an emotional wreck. None of my words could make him believe that he hadn't hurt me. What, for him, had been a streak of physical hatred, had produced what I'd needed. He failed to believe that I had enjoyed it. It had also been an act of mutual release. He kept trying to make me understand that he had abused me, degraded me. "The next thing we know," His sobs were subsiding. "you'll be setting yourself on fire outside in Lê Loi Circle, just like those crazy Mahayana Buddhists."

"But I am a Mahayana Buddhist." I told his disbelieving eyes. I showed him my dog tags. He shook his head violently, as if to deny something that just could not be.

"What are you two arguing about?" Gerry wanted to know.

Linh turned over to face Gerry. "Boyfriend totalement dinky dow."

"Comment dinky dow?" I didn't think that Yvette's efforts in teaching Gerry French were supposed to result in making him fluent in Saigon street slang. But what the Hell? Gerry was able to ask him what he'd meant.

But that's also where the conversation died. Linh shrugged vaguely, cuddled closer to both Gerry and me, and drifted off to sleep.

***

I awoke to see Yvette and Wade, hugging with their heads together, like protective parents watching over their children, grinning from the doorway to the bedroom. Luckily, I had drawn the light sheet over us, before I'd drifted off. There we were cuddled close. There they were, mooning over the three of us.

The disadvantages of my having insisted on Yvette's keeping the spare set of keys were becoming clear, although neither seemed to be upset, quite to the contrary, even. And when Yvette said, not in the slightest condescendingly: "They look so cute." I reconsidered.

"Sorry to barge in like this," Wade cleared his voice and straightened his back, leaving Yvette to stand on her own. "but Jules just called and is inviting us to lunch in twenty minutes at Bodega."

"And how far is Bodega?" I wondered if we had time to take a quick shower.

"Just a block." Wade told me, closing the door. "Next to City Hall."

***

Although the rain had stopped, the sky was overcast with a single sheet of grey cloud and it smelled of rain to come. We were waiting at the corner of the small, tree-lined park, separating the two double lanes of traffic on Lê Loi, for the second traffic light to change. Gerry was looking intently at the statue, which was the monument to the dead Vietnamese Marines. He was grinning mischievously. "From this angle, the second marine looks like he's sniffing the first marine's ass."

This remark struck everybody's funny bone in varying degrees, and when I translated it for Linh, he went limp from laughing, which, for Yvette, was funnier than Gerry's remark.

When the light changed and we arrived at the corner of the Eden Building, directly across from our apartment and caddy-cornered across from our office in the TAX Building. I was going to ask Yvette what TAX meant, when she pointed to the bronze plaque, which could have used a Brasso touch-up, next to the entrance to the first stairwell at number 104-106 Nguyen Hué, and read Légation de la République Fédérale d'Allemagne. I found it odd that it was below the plastic sign of the American Broadcasting Company.

"Now, you know, where you have to go to register." I nodded at the plaque, as I took his hand and didn't let go. He looked a little taken aback, but didn't try to free himself. He returned the squeeze, when he saw the others grinning.

"You guys do know," Gerry’s face was progressively turning a deep scarlet. "that I'll never be able to go back to the States, after discovering all this personal freedom, available in a fascist, military dictatorship."

"Maybe," Wade's voice was soft, hardly audible. "just maybe, it's the New World that still has some growing up to do."

***

Bodega was positioned between City Hall and the corner of upper Tu-Do, the perfect place for a ragged, but still-trendy tapas bar. City Hall looked as if some unimaginative contractor had stolen the façade of Paris' City Hall, knocked off the 14th century ornate stonework, hadn't bothered with the chimneys, and then left it in a small parking lot to rot. And this half of Tu-Do had once housed the French secret police but was now home to the CIA, disabled Vietnamese veterans, and war-ravaged prostitutes. But the food and wine were said to be excellent.

Jules was already there, in forced, good spirits, in what used to be a ballroom before the curfews curtailed business, beaming somewhat synthetically. He'd had two square tables pushed together, at the edge of the dance floor, so all six of us had places to sit. The stooped waiter, who slightly limped and looked as if he'd fled the Spanish Civil War, some thirty years previously, finally to find peace in Vietnam, served the aperitif of sangria, which contained much more fresh fruit and ice than would normally be expected.

A lazy Susan was in the center of the two tables, which added for me a slight Chinese flare, since I'd only ever known them from Chinese restaurants and my parent's home. At the thought of my parents, I felt a shiver of regret for their not having been willing to talk.

Jules, obviously having noticed my mood swing, became less upbeat. "You'll love Dalat."

"Okay," I tried to smile. "if you're sure." That didn't come out too well.

"It reminded Dad of home." Jules seemed to drift off into melancholia. "Or so, he claimed."

Gerry attempted to rescue what was left of good spirits. "Where's he from?"

"Was." Jules voice caught. He sighed. "From Nantua in the Haot-Bugey, near the Swiss border, not far from Geneva."

"Close to Annecy?" I tried for more joyful, but wasn't very successful.

Jules shrugged. "I guess." He took a sip of wine. "Never been there." Again, his sigh ran deep, but his smile was shallow. "But the plans Dad used for our home in Dalat were the same ones his parents had used in the 20s for their home in Nantua, because the two places were so similar." Jules' laugh was bitter. "Since both are on the edge of a sizeable lake and surrounded by mixed forests and mountains." Then he burst out laughing. "Although I've never been there, I do doubt that the Alps are full of elephants, and tigers, and bears."

"Naw," Gerry quipped dryly. "they're not really into skiing."

***

The afternoon hit an all-time low, when Wade asked Jules what exactly had happened to his parents. Wade had been under the erroneous impression that they'd returned to Europe, as had Yvette's parents. But the more Jules used the past tense in reference to his father, Wade wanted an explanation.

"Year before last, on the 25th of June, my little sister wanted to go to the My Canh…" He drifted off and sighed deeply at seeing Gerry's and my confused looks. "…It's the floating restaurant, a boat on the river, about two hundred meters from our shop." Jules offered cigarettes around. "It was my sister's eighth birthday. And since it was a Friday, they were going to go out later than usual and let her skip school on Saturday morning."

"Were your parents strict about attendance?" Yvette wanted to know, as if it were important, as if she didn't wish to deal with this horrible conversation.

"Normally yes, the school year was winding down, so it wasn't anything out of the ordinary." Jules sighed again, obviously wanting to get this story over with.

He looked at Wade with a slight animosity. "So, ten days after the Americans started bombing the North, the Viet Cong decided to retaliate by blowing up a restaurant, usually frequented by Americans. Or so the official story went. The unofficial story was that the CIA was behind the two blasts."

"There were several American soldiers killed that night." Yvette intervened. "Why would they kill their own people?"

"To win sympathy for bombing civilians in the North." Jules countered and returned his focus to Wade. "And it was the first American-made Claymore that ripped the side of Simone's head off. Our parents died later, en route to hospital, disfigured by little brass balls."

Wade shook his head. "It wasn't the VC, or we would have warned you."

Jules shook his head sadly, and his voice became sarcastic. "Okay, so that leaves Hanoi or our American friends."

"I seriously believe that it was the CIA." Wade informed us with an edge of aggression to his voice. "There were only two or three US soldiers there, that night." Wade glanced at Gerry and me. "And no diplomats," He turned back to Jules. "which had never happened before on a Friday night, since the restaurant is moored only a block from the US Embassy and their Embassy Annex. But those fuckers were there in an instant, after the two blasts."