When Saigon Surrendered

by James Aura

  Tom pressed me again for the full plan and I said the goal was to get the bad guys locked up and free the women. But we’d have to play it by ear until we could locate the blackguards and see exactly what we were dealing with. We listened to Mr. Hudson on the radio and just as Tommy pulled to a stop at a flashing light on a railroad crossing, he played ‘Last Train to Clarksville’ an old song by one of those British groups. Tom chuckled, but I felt like it was some kind of omen, and not necessarily a good one.

  As we pulled up to the house, Tommy reached into a bag and pulled out three fake driver’s licenses and handed them to us. At that moment we all turned 21.

  “I don’t know where you came up with these weird names, Mr. Creativity,” he said, but they are exactly what you wanted.”

  The rental house was pretty fancy. It had central air conditioning and a color TV. The rental lady seemed a little nervous, probably because of our ages, but she glanced at my I.D., wrote something down, took my cash and drove off. We walked around and looked the house over, inside and out then jumped into the Mustang and headed south, 15 miles down the road to Clarksville, Tennessee.

  The first night we drove around the town, getting the lay of the land. The Mustang did draw some looks, not such a good thing for a reconnaissance mission. We spotted three bars, all fairly busy for a Thursday night, or so it seemed to us. We decided to split up and each visit one the following night.

  Tommy wanted to visit the one named the Foxy Lady immediately but I insisted we stake out each place for at least an hour or two before venturing inside. So we sat curbside down the street for awhile watching the traffic at a bar on the north edge of town. Many of the cars parked nearby looked like junkers, lots of scrapes and rusty fenders and the motorcycles were no better, dented and mud-covered. Tommy decided this must be what a slum looked like.

  I saw several vehicles with Screaming Eagle stickers. That was the 101st Airborne, back at Fort Campbell from Vietnam. I thought again about Daddy and how it was he came to be shot just when the war was finally winding down, nearly over for the U.S.

  I went over the ground rules: We were to drink no more than two beers per visit. We were to do nothing unusual to draw attention to ourselves, and keep our eyes and ears open and whenever possible, mouths shut. Each of us would spend two hours at each bar, then we’d head outside and Tommy would pick me up in the Mustang at the appointed hour.

  We moved on and parked near the Foxy Lady on the other side of Clarksville. There were quite a few guys who looked like G.I.’s coming in and out. Several looked close to our age. We figured we’d have no problem fitting in, except maybe for our haircuts. None of us had long hair, but it wasn’t military-short. We saw no women.

  Next morning while Tommy and Jim were still asleep, I drove the Mustang back to Clarksville and looked up the last known address for the blackguards. There was nothing but an empty lot. But I did notice a run down motel across the street. An old man was waiting out front at a bus stop. He told me the apartments that had been there were torn down and a supermarket would soon be built on that spot. I noticed him watching the car intently as I drove away.

  That night we divided up the bars. Tommy dropped me off at a dive that had loud music blaring out the front door. Jim drove the Harley to a bar not far from Ft. Campbell and Tommy would check out the Foxy Lady and pick me up at 10 pm. He waved me off when I repeated the instructions.

  “Russell, I will drink only one or two beers and I will not shoot off my mouth. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  When I walked in the front door, the noise and the smells were strong. Stale beer, perfume, puke and cigarettes. It was warm, almost steamy. A cowboy band was playing and a bunch of girls in cowgirl getups, blue jeans, boots and hats, were doing some kind of walking dance. I had not spent much time in bars. Back home there was a pool hall in town. It was dark and run down and seemed mostly populated by drunks. Not a place favored by our crowd in high school.

  A spot opened up at the bar and I stepped up and asked for a Coke. I figured I’d need to keep my wits about me this first night out. The girls started fanning out into the crowd asking guys to dance. They didn’t get many takers. I, myself, could do the twist and slow dance, but I had no clue about this dance. It looked complicated.

  One of the dancing girls oozed by and grabbed the hand of the guy next to me at the bar. His hair was cut down to his scalp and his face, deeply sunburned. He looked like he was either still in basic training or had just gotten out.

  “Dance with me soldier. I won’t bite! Let’s do the two-step!”

  He bit his lip and shook his head.

  “I just like to watch. I can’t dance.”

  She went on down the line at the bar, found a guy who would go to the dance floor with her.

  I turned to the soldier.

  “The only dance I know is the ‘horizontal bop.”

  He laughed, and took a swig of his beer.

  “I could use some of that. I ain’t been with a woman for months. They damn near killed me in basic. I’ve been pushing Tennessee a long way.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Louisville. I am hoping to learn radio work; maintenance and repair. They are sending me to Fort Gordon. What about you?”

  “I am pretty much local. My Dad was in the 101st. He got shot dead in ‘Nam.”

  “Oh man, I’m sorry.”

  “I am just checking this place out. I kind of like Asian girls, myself, Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, petite little girls, you know. You seen any around?”

  He gave me a strange stare and took his beer over to a table with some others who had the same close-cropped weather beaten look.

  I asked the bartender for a beer. The place was becoming even more crowded. More men moved up to the dance floor with the cowgirls. I swigged the beer and tried to look relaxed, as if I was having a good time. Two more of the two-step girls with their blue jeans practically painted on, tried to get me to dance. The guys at the G.I. table were staring at me and talking. I began to sweat. Maybe I had come on too quick, asking about Asian girls. This was a redneck bar in Tennessee, not a university campus.

  The dance band took a break and somebody played ‘Kentucky Gambler’ on the jukebox. The line at the bar was three deep. I started to wonder about fire exits. ‘Roll On big Mama” rolled out of the juke box and one of the guys from the G.I. table ambled up to me.

  “Foxy Lady,” he said. “They were pushing Korean whores at Foxy Lady the other night, if you got the money.” He took his beer and pressed through the crowd toward the men’s room.

  I wondered how the night was going for Tommy at Foxy Lady. Then I saw it was 10 o’clock. I’d find out soon enough.

  “That was a scary damn place,” Tommy said as I slammed the Mustang door shut. He looked like he’d seen a ghost and kept glancing into his rear view mirror. He lit one cigarette off the other, pulled the Mustang onto the street and picked up speed. I was afraid we’d get a ticket.

  “A guy at this bar told me the Foxy Lady was the place to be.”

  “The place to be if you want to get your throat cut, maybe there was a guy in there, he was huge, had scars and tattoos all over his arms and he had a damned earring! He seemed to be running the place. Spooky as hell!”

  “Maybe he was the bouncer, was it a strip club?”

  “From the minute I walked in, he watched and followed me. The son of a bitch didn’t take his eyes off me a single minute I was in there!”

  “Did you manage to act, well.. normal?”

  “I had one beer and sat at a table in the corner. It was not a strip club, Russell. There were no women in there. I would say it was mostly a biker bar, lots of Harleys, Ducatis and Tigers around outside.”

  “No Foxy Ladies. Nobody asked you if you were interested in a girl? A G.I. told me that was the place.”

  “Hell, I was so spooked by that big guy staring at me; I didn’t even talk to anybody. Tell you the truth, I had my one beer then left and dro
ve around until it was time to pick you up.”

  Back at the rental house we sat around the kitchen table and talked about our first night of reconnaissance. Jim said his bar was slow, until the bartender refused to serve a couple of loud drunks and they got thrown off the premises. There were some older couples sitting at tables eating fried chicken and drinking beer. That was about it.

  Tommy continued to be worked up about the Foxy Lady. Twice he went to the front window and stared out at the street.

  “Russell, there was just something about that place and that big guy. It was like he was onto me from the get-go. I got real bad vibes.”

  I decided the Foxy Lady was our best bet at finding the blackguards. I said I would take up duty there the next night, and asked Jim if he’d come with me. We’d take the Harley. Jim said he would. He was a little bemused at Tom’s heebie-jeebies.

  “Tom, since that was a biker bar, maybe you just seemed strange, pulling up in that hot Mustang,” he said.

  We all turned in for the night. I dreamt some big guy who looked like Bluto in the Popeye cartoons was chasing us around with a club. He was just about to catch up with us when I woke up. It was 7:00 a.m., time to milk the cows. I hoped Uncle Wallace and Soo Jin wouldn’t get suspicious if I didn’t call for a few more days. As far as they knew, I had taken off for another visit to Auburn. Soo Jin had been especially curious when she saw me load up a bag of potatoes and some canned vegetables. I told her my friend Elaine liked to cook. They didn’t have Elaine’s phone number so the only possible fly in the ointment would be Evelena. She promised to keep quiet, but I worried she would blurt something out when she picked up the milk on her weekly run to the farm.

  The next night Tommy went to another bar near downtown and Jimmy and I took the Harley to the Foxy Lady. It was a Saturday night and the place was packed. There was no sign of the big guy who had spooked Tommy. We found a spot at the bar and ordered beers. The crowd was a mix of long-haired bikers, and crew-cut military guys.

  A familiar face approached the bar. It was the guy from the night before, the one who had steered me here.

  “Hey buddy, see that guy at the table in the corner? He’s the one to ask about slant-eyed chicks.”

  I was shocked. It was the same old man I had seen at the bus stop the day before, the one who had been standing in front of the cheap motel. I quickly turned away. I didn’t want him to recognize me, but it might have been too late already. Then something clicked. The Mustang: Maybe when Tom drove up last night in the Mustang some alarm bells went off in the Foxy Lady, since I had talked to the old man while driving that car. Maybe they had lookouts, or something.

  We finished our beers then took off for the downtown bar where Tommy was engaged in a heated discussion with a big black guy wearing a do-rag. When Tom saw us walk in he stood up and told the other guy to follow him.

  “Come on guys, I am going to show Clarence here, what a real motorcycle looks like.”

  I should have known it would be about something mechanical. We all went out to the parking lot and Tom showed the black motorcyclist his Harley with the engine transplant. Clarence was impressed. They started talking carburetors and valves. Clarence showed Tom his refurbished Triumph. Tom was impressed.

  I was not impressed. I was impatient.

  “Let’s go have a beer inside. I am buying.”

  Tom introduced us to Clarence who was a mechanic in Clarksville, a local. We found a table in back and I went to the bar and brought back four beers. It turned out Clarence was a Vietnam vet, an artillery sergeant. He had one more point he wanted to make with Tommy about the virtues of Triumphs.

  I waited for the conversation to slow down.

  “Clarence, would you be familiar with the Foxy Lady bar? We’ve heard there might be some illegal stuff going on over there.” Clarence looked me up and down, and frowned.

  “You boys should not be looking for hookers. That is a hooker joint and young guys like you don’t need to be messing around with that. They mostly got HAB’s anyway.”

  “What is a HAB?”

  Tommy chimed in, “I think he is referring to Hot Asian Bitches. Some of my Dad’s buddies used to call them that.”

  Clarence nodded.

  “It’s a long story, but no, we’re not looking for hookers. What can you tell us about it?”

  “Bad medicine. I’ve heard stories that guys get ripped off, sometimes get beat up, dealing with the people who run that place. I am told the girls are somewhere else. If I was you, I would stay far away.”

  Tommy nervously nodded in agreement. He didn’t need convincing about the Foxy Lady.

  Back at the rental house, I confessed I had probably caused the problem and explained I was driving the Mustang when I asked the old man about the address across the street from the motel. The very same old man who was seated at the back table in the Foxy Lady.

  We decided we’d need to drive back and get a less noticeable vehicle if we were going to do any more surveillance. Tom and I took the Mustang back the next morning. Jimmy said he’d lay low while we were gone. Tom was having second thoughts about our clandestine operation. He was still spooked by the big guy’s evil eye at the Foxy Lady.

  On the ride back north, Tom said he could understand how some guys might prefer prostitutes, although he’d never do anything like that. I said I thought a guy would have to be pretty desperate to pay for sex with a woman he knew nothing about.

  “You make life way too complicated, Russell. Here's the deal with women. You provide the food, shelter and money and she provides you with gratitude and sex. Isn’t that how it works?”

  “Tommy, I think about my Grandpa Teague. He only lived to be 60. My Dad only made it to 37. In another year we’ll be pushing 20! So the question comes up: What do we want to accomplish in life? There’s sex, there’s a roof over our head, but what else, Tom? There's got to be more! We need to make our mark in the world, and I hope it's a good mark, but there's got to be more than we've done so far. Look at some people from history that did great things. Why can't we be like that? Why can't we do great things? Maybe this what we’re doing right now is the beginning.”

  Tom didn’t reply, but I could tell he was thinking about what I said. As we pulled into town, some high school kids were sitting on the hoods of their cars on Main Street. They waved and gave us a thumbs-up as the Mustang drove past.

  The plan was to swap the Mustang for an old Mercury Meteor he had at the shop.

  The Meteor was immaculate even though it was over a dozen years old. Tom said it was owned by an elderly railroad agent who had asked him to tune it up and sell it for him. There had been no takers. It even had an eight-track player installed, with a Tennessee Ernie Ford album.

  We sang along with ’16 Tons’ and ‘Catfish Boogie’ all the way back to Guthrie.

  Jim was bored and ready to get into something when we got back. So I put him to work. He was the only one of us not likely to set off an alarm bell with the blackguards. He took the Harley back to the Foxy Lady, while Tom and I sat in the Mercury about a block from the old motel, where I had talked to the elderly gent at the bus stop.

  It was about seven in the evening. Jim’s job was to wander in, order a beer, and if the old man was in back, ask him if there were any good spots in town to meet women. If the old man was not there, he would just keep his eyes and ears open for any unusual or odd activity. We would keep an eye on the motel. We’d talk from a couple of phone booths after an hour to compare notes.

  We hit pay dirt only a few minutes into the motel stakeout. Both the big bearded dude and the old man came walking out of the motel office, got into a van and drove off.

  I was tempted to tail them but Tommy was cautious.

  “Trust me; you don’t want to get on that big bastard’s radar. Let’s stay here awhile and see if anything else happens. “

  So we sat, listening to Tennessee Ernie Ford and waiting. Then we drove to a gas station and called the phone booth near
the Foxy Lady. Jim answered immediately.

  “The big guy and old man walked in a few minutes ago and everything seems pretty quiet. I didn’t get any strange stares from the guy who scared the shit out of Tommy, but man, he is intimidating, looks like he might just haul off and hit somebody on a whim.”

  “Did you ask the old man where to meet women?”

  “No, I thought I would wait awhile and see if anyone else approaches him. Maybe talk to a few guys at the bar, then wander back to his corner a bit later.”

  “Good thinking, Jimmy.”

  We agreed to check back by phone in another hour

  This time we moved the Mercury to a burger joint parking lot, where we could still see the front of the motel. Tom went in to get a couple of burgers and drinks to go.

  Then I saw Jimmy drive by on the Harley. He pulled right up to the motel and walked into the office. Tom came walking out with the burgers and drinks and I motioned for him to quickly get in the car and sink down low.