One February night at about midnight, I realized that closing time had snuck up on me. I could hear the Australian marines pulling down the heavy steel gate over the entrance of the Caravelle Hotel for the night. This thing was massive—it shielded the entire building entrance. They have that all over the Bronx now, even on houses, but I’d never seen it before. Once it was secured, you were locked up tight, and they really didn’t like opening it again. I said good night to Ben Hur and tore down in the elevator, and they let me squeak through.
“You really shouldn’t go out there, mate,” one said. “I’m sure they will find you a room, and if there isn’t one, sleep in the lobby.” The US and South Vietnamese had still not retaken Saigon: B-52s were dropping five-hundred-pound bombs all around the capital, and sporadic attacks were still being launched by the Vietcong throughout the city, especially at night.
The fighting had flared up that day. You could hear guns firing in and around Saigon and out at the Tan Son Nhut airfield. All I had to do was make it to my fleabag, which was just around the corner. Why didn’t I switch the voucher to the Caravelle? Well, every day, I thought that this was the day I’d go home, or maybe land that big job on the oil tanker, so why bother? Besides, I was one of the few guests at the old man’s hotel. His son, Nuong, was my friend now, and I wanted to give them the embassy-underwritten business.
It was past midnight. I passed an alley off Tu Do Street, where I had heard there was a nice little tavern, so I headed there to check it out.
I didn’t get ten yards down the alley when I noticed something moving in a doorway on the left. Someone was lying in wait. I saw the weapon first: a glint off the end of the barrel of a rifle. I stopped and stood still. If I turned and ran, he could have shot me in the back. Then I realized that the height of the weapon was such that anybody holding it had to be considerably over six feet tall, a rarity among the Vietnamese.
I looked down and I saw a boot—a very big military boot—so I guessed he was American or Aussie or Kiwi—another of our allies serving there. I walked straight down the middle of the alley so he could see me clearly. I didn’t want to piss him off by signaling that I had seen him. I wanted him to think he spotted me first. I could hear a squawk on his radio, and his platoon mates were on the roof and in the building. They had cast a net for somebody, and I didn’t want it to be me by accident.
I sauntered down the street and started whistling before I reached the doorway.
“Halt!” he yelled. It was a young soldier with an M16 rifle.
“Hey, buddy,” I said. “How are you doing? What are you doing here?”
“What the . . . What am I doing here?!” he said incredulously. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
“I’m going for a beer,” I said. “I heard there’s a good joint down the end of the alley.”
“Are you out of your mind?” he said to me in kind of a scream-whisper. “Going for a beer? Charlie’s all over the city, and you’re out strolling in the middle of the street, going for a beer?!”
“Well,” I said, “I’m thirsty. There’s supposed to be a nice pub right at the end of this street.”
“There’s nothing open down this whole block, buddy,” he growled.
By this point, he seemed intrigued, as if he were thinking, What kind of awesome bar could this be that an American pops out of the mist in a war zone to find it? So, we walked together—he’s still got the M16 rifle up, pointing ahead. He couldn’t have been older than eighteen or nineteen, like Tommy Collins.
We reached the end of the block, and there it was: a little colonial hideaway that looked like it had been airdropped from Paris and hadn’t changed since its French clientele had fled. But it was locked tight.
“Listen, man, I don’t know who you are or what your story is,” he said quietly, “but you’d better leave right now. Where do you live?”
“Just around the corner.”
“Okay, look, head there and call it a night,” he advised.
So I did, and before I turned the corner, I looked over my shoulder, and the kid was covering me. I got home all right, and I hope he did, too. All the way home.
The following day, when I brought the next feed bag to the Caravelle, I organized the hotel guests into a little strike with one demand: the bar stays open past midnight. If we had to be trapped in the Tet offensive, we might at least drink. I didn’t want to lose my life over it.