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him, opposite the two young American civilians.
“This is the origin of the word ‘hip,’ you know,” Phil said. “Like hip meaning ‘cool.’ When you smoke opium, you lie on your hip.”
Hank’s English major past drifted up and he doubted the etymology but just nodded.
The preparer slowly stabbed a pellet, the size of pea but dark brown, with something that looked like a pick-up stick, held the pellet over the lantern while it hissed and became distended, then—while the pellet was still hot and gummy—jabbed it into the small aperture of a large, elaborately-carved pipe.
The preparer’s movements were slow, unhurried, deliberate. Hank tried to inhale the scene, wanting to remember and grasp every move, every gesture.
Having stuffed a pellet into the pipe’s small aperture, the preparer inverted the pipe over the lantern. The opium ignited and turned reddish and smoky. Hank hesitantly took in a puff, and papa-san mimed to Hank that he should inhale more deeply. Hank did
so and he could feel the opium going down his chest cavity, filling his lungs. First Hank inhaled, then Phil. Then the same slow, deliberate process repeated: heating an opium pellet, jabbing it into the aperture, then turning the large pipe upside down over the lantern and heating the pellet before inhaling.
After four pellets, Hank raised his arms, signaling he’d had enough.
“You hedge your bets,” Phil said.
“I’m as stoned as I want to be,” Hank said
“Yeah, well,” Phil said, “the idea is to fill up the last corner of your brain with smoke. Keep sending out your mind till it stops coming back.” He laughed as if he were exhaling smoke. Phil smoked and smoked: ten pellets in all.
An hour passed, maybe more. Hank drifted in and out of the present, dreams mixing with the reality of the room. He felt peaceful, surrounded by a loving lava flow of warmth. Lots of nods, smiles, touches. Mama- san brought in some tea and cookies.
Hank suddenly felt a twinge, a memory from child- hood, when he’d visit his elderly relatives in Wash- ington, DC: Aunt Sarah and Aunt Ida. Homemade cookies. Here, deep in Da Nang, in what was possibly Viet Cong territory, there were elderly people treat- ing him with a quiet, gracious kindness. This was
business for them of course, but the gentleness was real, and Hank was touched by it.
When the two young men left, after settling accounts with papa-san, it was dark. The cyclo driver was still outside, waiting. The men got in, and the driver cy- cled them out of the intricate maze of narrow streets and small houses, toward town, ringing a bicycle bell when pedestrians scooted in front of him.
Hank felt a quietness of spirit, as if he were on the other side of things—nothing needed to be done, not by him at least. The dim lights of the neighborhood— its alleyways throbbing with life—took on a tranquil aura. They rode in silence and Hank thought of that opium addict Coleridge: In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree...
After long silence, Hank finally said, “We headed to some restaurant along the water?”
“Nah,” Phil said. “I never eat next to the water. This coast has funny tides.” Hank understood: Phil meant bombs, explosions. “We’ll go to Graham Greene’s favorite place.”
It was called Le Papillon, and once inside, Phil or- dered entrecote and Hank had fish wrapped in a ba- nana leaf. Both washed down their food with bottles of a local beer called 33.
“Tell me something, man, you gonna go on working as a deckhand?”
“It’s a living,” Hank said.
“You know what I mean,” Phil said. “You went to col- lege, right? All that shit about memorizing poems... Whadja major in, English?”
“I don’t remember,” Hank said.
“No, seriously, man, you’re like some wacky character in a novel, exiling yourself into downward mobility.
I mean, we all do some shit like that for a while, but
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