What do I know about men anymore? That is not much to say about Mr. Fontenot. He came to see Miss Noi on a Saturday night and left on Sunday morning. Then the next Saturday night I was naked on the stage and I saw his face at the foot of the runway, looking up with his long nose pointed at my special part, and I felt a strange thing. My face got warm and I turned my back to him and danced away. After I finished my dance, I got dressed and came out to the bar, but he was not there. I asked the guy behind the bar, “Did you see that tall man with the thin neck and the long nose that I had a drink with last week?”
This guy says, “The one who looks like a goddamn goose?”
I don’t like this guy behind the bar. I never even learn his name. So I say, “Go to hell, you,” and I go outside and there is Mr. Fontenot waiting on the sidewalk. I go to him and I take his arm and we go around the comer and down the block and he says, “I couldn’t hang around in there, Miss Noi. It makes me uncomfortable to talk to you in there.”
I say, “I know, honey. I know.” I see all types of men, though I realize I don’t understand any of them deep down. But I know some men feel nervous in a bar. They come there to meet me but then they tell themselves that I really don’t belong there, it’s not worthy of me. And if I take this type of man to my room, they give me money quiet, folding the bills and putting them under a vase or somewhere, like it’s not really happening. I know that kind of man. They can be very sweet sometimes.
We go up to my apartment again. It is a small place, like Saigon. I am comfortable there. Outside my window is a phony balcony. It looks like a balcony but it is only a foot wide, just a grill on the window. But it is nice. It looks like lace, though it is made of iron. I close the shade and turn to Mr. Fontenot and he is sitting on my bed. I go and sit next to him.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he says.
“You drive all the way back to New Orleans just to see Miss Noi again?”
“Of course,” he says. His voice is gentle, but there’s also something in it that says I should know this already. This is plenty strange to me, because I know nothing about Mr. Fontenot, really. A few words. He’s a quiet man. I know nothing more about him than any man.
Then he says, “Look,” and he shows me his hands. I don’t understand. “I got one of those things you used on me last week.” I look closer and I see that his hands are clean.
This makes me feel one more strange thing, a little sinking inside me. I say, “See? You have no need for Miss Noi anymore.”
He takes me serious. He puts his arm around my shoulders and he is right to do this. “Don’t say that, Miss Noi.”
So then we make love. When we are finished, he turns his face away from me again and I reach over and turn it back. There are no tears, but he is looking very serious. I say, “Tell me one thing you like in Saigon.”
Mr. Fontenot wiggles his shoulders and looks away. “Everything,” he says.
“Why should I not think you are a crazy man? Everybody knows Americans go to Vietnam and they want to go home quick and forget everything. When they think they like Vietnam while they are there, they come home and they know it was all just a dream.”
Mr. Fontenot looks at me one more time. “I’m not crazy. I liked everything there.”
“ ‘Everything’ means same as ‘nothing.’ I do not understand that. One thing. Just think about you on a street in Saigon and you tell me one thing.”
“Okay,” he says and then he says it again louder, “Okay,” like I just push him some more, though I say nothing. It is louder but not angry. He sounds like a little boy. He wrinkles his brow and his little black eyes close. He stays like this for too long.
I ask, “So?”
“I can’t think.”
“You are on a street. Just one moment for me.”
“Okay,” he says. “A street. It’s hot in Saigon, like Louisiana. I like it hot. I walk around. There’s lots of people rushing around, all of them pretty as nutria.”
“Pretty as what?”
“It’s a little animal that has a pretty coat. It’s good.”
“Tell me more.”
“Okay,” he says. “Here’s something. It’s hot and I’m sweating and I’m walking through your markets in the open air and when I get back to my quarters, my sweat smells like the fruit and the vegetables in your markets.”
I look at Mr. Fontenot and his eyes are on me and he’s very serious. I do not understand a word he’s saying now, but I know he’s not saying any bullshit, that’s for sure. He sweats and smells like fruit in Saigon. I want to talk to him now, but what am I to say to this? So I just start in about fruit. I tell him the markets have many good fruits, which I like very much. Mangoes, mangosteens, jackfruit, durians, papaya. I ask him and he says he has not eaten any of these. I still want to say words, to keep this going, so I tell him, “One fruit we do not have in South Vietnam is apples. I loved apples in Saigon when GI bring me apples from their mess hall. I never have apples till the GIs give them to me.”
As soon as I say this, Mr. Fontenot’s brow wrinkles again and I feel like there’s a little animal, maybe a nutria, trying to claw his way out from inside Miss Noi. I have made this man think about all the GIs that I sleep with in Saigon. He knows now what kind of girl he is talking to. This time I turn my face away from him to hide tears. Then we stop talking and we sleep and in the morning he goes and I do not come and help him bathe because he learns from Miss Noi already how to clean his hands.
Is this a sad story or a happy story for Miss Noi? The next Saturday Mr. Fontenot does not come and see me dance naked. I sit at the bar with my clothes on and I am upon a time and I wonder if I’m going to fall off now. Then boom. I go out of that place and Mr. Fontenot is standing on the sidewalk. He is wearing a suit with a tie and his neck reaches up high out of his white shirt and I can bet his hands are clean and he moves to me and one of his hands comes out from behind his back and he gives me an apple and he says he wants to marry Miss Noi.
Once upon a time there was a duck with a long neck and a long beak like all ducks and he lives in a place all alone and he does not know how to build a nest or preen his own feathers. Because of this, the sun shines down and bums him, makes his feathers turn dark and makes him very sad. When he lies down to sleep, you think that he is dead, he is so sad and still. Then one day he flies to another part of the land and he finds a little animal with a nice coat and though that animal is different from him, a nutria, still he lies down beside her. He seems to be all burnt up and dead. But the nutria does not think so and she licks his feathers and makes him well. Then he takes her with him to live in Thibodaux, Louisiana, where he fixes cars and she has a nice little house and she is a housewife with a toaster machine and they go fishing together in his little boat and she never eats an apple unless he thinks to give it to her. Though this may not be very often, they taste very good to her.
CRICKETS
They call me Ted where I work and they’ve called me that for over a decade now and it still bothers me, though I’m not very happy about my real name being the same as the former President of the former Republic of Vietnam. Thi