The Merit Birds (9 page)

The mouth of the cave was cool and dark and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust. I turned on the flashlight and followed the path inside. Somchai was right behind me. Water echoed loudly as it dripped from the cave's ceiling, making the rocks slick and wet. The air smelled dank and stagnant. We crept along barefoot, our fingers running along the cave's slippery walls so we wouldn't lose our bearing. I could barely see a thing.

Somchai whispered something about a Buddha statue being deep inside. His voice reverberated in the hollowness and garbled what he said. I turned around to ask him to say it again when I lost my footing. I fell with a thud against a sharp rock and heard something crack. Then I began to slide. Farther and farther into the cave, pointy rocks stabbing and piercing me all the way down. Lightning rods of pain shot through my body, but everything was moving so quickly I couldn't tell which parts were being damaged. I saw splotches of red on my running shoes as I began to somersault. First I saw the cave's slick ceiling, then the floor. Ceiling, floor, ceiling, floor. I tumbled farther down the death slide. A metallic taste rose in my mouth and by body was stiff with fear. I heard Somchai's voice call my name, but it was getting fainter. I was completely disoriented, when my head slammed into a rock and everything went black.

Seng

Seng was going to meet Khamdeng at their usual spot along the riverbank. He asked Nok if she wanted to come along. He loved being seen with her. She was known around their village for her smarts and determination. All of the girls envied her tall, proud way. They knew that someday she would make Laos proud. But Nok didn't want to come with him. He wondered if she was embarrassed. Maybe walking beside him made her feel dragged down. He was a big weight on his sister's success.

“What's wrong, little sister?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“You, hiding things? That's not normal.”

He decided it was time to mention what Khamdeng had told him.

“You've been hanging around a
falang
boy?”

She looked up abruptly. “How did you know?”

“Khamdeng saw you. By the river.”

She nodded. Seng's heart flipped. Nok with a boyfriend! And a foreign one at that. They were America-bound for sure!

“Which state is he from? California? New York? Connecticut? Montana? Iowa? Washington? Delaware? Minnesota —”

“Are you going to name all fifty states again?”

“North Carolina? South Carolina? Arkansas? Massachusetts?”

“Seng!”

“Sorry. But I know them all, you know.”

“I know.”

“So, which?”

“He's not American,” she said.

“So sorry to hear that.”

“He's Canadian.”

Seng didn't know a thing about Canada.

“It's next to America,” Nok explained. “Not as many people, lots of forests and snow, French and English.”

Close enough
, Seng thought. “Do they eat cheese?”

She laughed and gave him a playful shove. At least he could still make her smile.

“Now I know why you won't hang out by the river. You're going to see Canada Boy.”

She looked down at the ground and shrugged. “You go, Seng. I'll see you when you get back.”

He walked toward the Mekong with a bounce in his step. Why hadn't he thought of this before? A foreign boyfriend for his little sister. It was perfect. Now she would be less serious and have a shot at something better than the massage house, although she would argue that she didn't need a guy for success. She didn't need Seng, that was for sure. He began to wonder if she would leave him like Vong had, but then he spotted Khamdeng sitting under a coconut tree and throwing pebbles into the Mekong. It made him think of loyalty. Of course Nok wouldn't leave him. She was different.

“What's up with your shirt?” Khamdeng asked, pointing to his new, pink T-shirt.

“You like it? Grateful Head. It's a super cool American band.”

“It's the Grateful Dead, you dimwit.”

“No, it isn't.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it isn't.”

“Yes it is. And they're an old band. Not cool anymore.”

“Then why would they make a Grateful Head T-shirt?” Seng asked. “I got it at the Morning Market.”

“The Morning Market isn't exactly on the pulse of what's cool. They put all kinds of messed-up English on shirts.”

Seng wasn't going to let Khamdeng's disapproval ruin this great day. Nok had a boyfriend! A
falang
boyfriend! Seng wondered if the guy had a sister. Maybe they could double date.

A group of tourists rode by on rented bicycles. Seng suddenly wished he had brought some plastic goods to sell.

“Hey, the Grateful Head!” one of the guys stopped and pointed at Seng. His friends stopped, too, and they laughed when they saw Seng's T-shirt.

“Told you,” Khamdeng said.

“That's awesome!” a tourist laughed.

“See?” Seng said to Khamdeng. “I am on the pulse.”
I'll wear this next time I work
, he thought.

The backpackers asked where they could go for good food. They stood chatting with Seng and Khamdeng for awhile; wondered where they could get a T-shirt like Seng's. He gave them directions to the Morning Market. Then one of them leaned in closer, lowered his voice.

“Speaking of head,” he said, a grin on his face. “I've heard about Southeast Asia. Know where I can get some?”

“What do you mean?” Seng looked at him blankly. Khamdeng shifted.

“You know. Head. I heard you can get it cheap in a poor place like this. At those massage houses.”

Khamdeng stepped forward. “A massage house isn't a brothel,” he said and Seng could hear the resentment in his friend's voice. Suddenly the ugliness of the tourists' words dawned on him.

“You're an ass, Will,” one of the tourist's friends said to him. “It's cheap because the place is poor. Those girls don't have another option. You want to take advantage of that?”

Will raised one shoulder. “I was just asking. You know you hear all those stories. I'm just curious, that's all.”

“Let's go eat,” the other backpacker said in an annoyed tone.

Seng watched as they rode away, his heart suddenly feeling heavy in his chest. If he wasn't so fat, he'd rip his stupid T-shirt off.

Cam

My head seared with pain as I came to consciousness. My eyes felt like lead as I slowly opened them. I don't know why I even bothered — blackness was everywhere. I couldn't see a thing. I felt hard, wet protrusions digging into my spine. The air around me smelled dank and rotten. My body tensed with fear as I frantically searched my throbbing brain to try to remember where I was.

“Nok?” I tried to call out in a hoarse voice. But even as I said it I knew it wasn't the right name. She wouldn't be there. Who would be? I couldn't remember.

I began to panic. My legs felt restless and jumpy, but I couldn't move them. I felt sweat trickling down my forehead, but I shivered with dampness and cold at the same time. My breath was shallow and quick, like a dog panting. I could taste blood in my mouth.

“Hello?” I called out. My voice echoed eerily. When it stopped I heard nothing except for the continuous dripping of water. The sound made me remember.

I was in the cave.

“Somchai?”

Silence.

The whir of wings flapping fluttered past my left ear. Bats.

I was desperate for something to drink. I wondered how close the dripping water was. Could I open my mouth and let some drops fall in? I tried to shift my body, but a blaze of pain stopped me. I could do nothing but lie in the stillness and feel my heart rage against my ribcage.

It seemed like hours passed. Where did Somchai go? I was alone in the dark with no clue about when he would come back, and no power to help myself. It made me remember Julia's date nights when I was a kid. I tried to deepen my breath, but it hurt my ribs too much when my lungs expanded. I wished I could close my eyes and sleep.

I would have given anything to be back home; not in Ottawa, but back in our rented house in Vientiane. I wanted to find Nok and tell her how sorry I was for grabbing her like that. I wanted to walk with her by the river and forget all about the drunk guy, the basketball fight, and my mother.

My bladder felt like it was going to explode. I had to pee so badly, but I couldn't move. I tried to shift to my right side so the piss would run down the cave path, mixing with its slickness, but I couldn't do it. Suddenly, I felt a rush of warm liquid and wetness between my legs. I felt anger rising up my body, but I had no way to release it. I couldn't move. It rose and rose until I felt like a balloon about to pop. I screamed long and loud. Why would Somchai leave me alone?

I was about to go berserk when I thought I saw light flashing along the ceiling of the cave. A bat whizzed past me. The light started to bob up and down. Then I heard someone calling out in Lao, but I couldn't understand what they were saying.

“I'm here!” I yelled. “Over here!”

More indecipherable Lao reverberated off the cave walls. I heard footsteps quickening their pace. I could tell someone was almost upon me. I was flat on my back, my head pointed in the direction of the footsteps, but I couldn't turn to see who was behind me. I was so powerless. It didn't sound like Somchai's voice.

Suddenly a headlight seared my eyeballs. When it moved off to the side it took my eyes a while to adjust to the darkness that was left behind. I saw a stranger wearing a massive, old-fashioned pair of glasses that looked almost clownish on his small, brown face. I attempted to sit up, but he pushed me back down.

“He's a doctor,” I heard Somchai say from behind, and then felt a reassuring hand on my shoulder. A rush of relief flooded my body. My breath returned. He came back.

We sat in the darkness, Somchai holding a Thermos of cool water to my lips every so often, as he and the doctor debated what to do. I had never tasted water so refreshing and sweet. Suddenly there were more shouts and footsteps.

“Some villagers offered to follow us in case we needed more help,” Somchai explained. “They're coming now.”

I could hear an animated conversation happening behind me, but I couldn't understand any of it. It sounded like two more men were there.

“They're going to make a stretcher so we can carry you out,” Somchai said.

“Make a stretcher?” I said in a weak, whispery voice.

“Yeah, there's a clinic in Vang Vieng, but they're not well equipped.”

More hours seemed to pass. My body convulsed with cold. Somchai had wrapped a blanket around me, but it didn't seem to be helping. He patted my shoulder.

“It won't be much longer, brother,” he said. He looked worried.

Finally the men arrived. Somchai lifted me up by the shoulders and the doctor placed his arms underneath me to support my back. Pain shot through my entire body. They laid me on the makeshift stretcher. From what I could tell it was made from some long poles of bamboo and material like a woman's
sin
. My brain pounded against my skull.

When we came out of the cave the sunlight was unbearably intense. The men loaded me on to a long-tail boat and we rowed across the river. Flies buzzed around me as my skin began to slowly cook in the sun. I could hear the rhythmic dipping of the oars into the river.

“We're going to the clinic, Cam. They don't have much, but they will see what they can do,” Somchai said.

The clinic was nothing but one bare room with some hospital-green cabinets in a corner, and one light bulb dangling from the ceiling. They laid me on the floor in the stretcher. The doctor took out his penlight and began to examine my broken body.

“Concussion. Sprained ankle. Three cracked ribs,” Somchai called out my injuries as the doctor explained them to him. Just the sound of his voice was assurance that everything was going to be okay. “You will be in pain for a while, but you're going to be okay, brother. The doctor says you will heal.”

I took a deep breath of relief.

“There's just one thing,” Somchai said, wincing slightly.

“What?” I asked, afraid of the look on his face.

“You need stitches in your chin.”

“Okay, that's not so bad, considering.”

“Well,” Somchai began. “The good news is that they do have suture thread here at the clinic.”

“And the bad news?”

“They don't have anesthetic.”

I swallowed.

“Can the stitches wait?” I asked.

“For what?”

“Until we get back to Vientiane?”

“Brother, I am sorry, but you aren't going to be ready to travel back to Vientiane for a few days. We are going to miss most of Lao New Year.” He looked away. I knew that to him it was the equivalent of missing Christmas.

“Oh, man,” I said. “Your sister is coming, right? From Thailand.”

“I'm not leaving you here, Cam.”

“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.

The doctor prepared the stitches. I pressed my lips together. As he approached me I could see the flash of the silver needle. I flinched. The doctor said something to Somchai.

“Brother, it is important that you stay as still as possible. Here, I will hold your hand.”

I felt like a child as he rubbed the top of my hand and then took it in his. He began to sing softly. I felt the sharp sting of a needle puncturing my flesh.

“It's my favourite Lao folk song,” Somchai began to talk quickly, trying to distract me. “It's about farmers who have nothing. Their fields won't grow.”

The needle pierced me, stinging each time it moved in and out, in and out. I clenched my toes. The pain seared from my chin all the way down to my groin. It was all I could do not to scream.

“But the farmers are not sad. Instead they dance in a
lam vong
circle with their families. Everything is okay,” Somchai continued.

I thought of Jon and the basketball guys back home. I couldn't remember experiencing friendship quite like this. My heart swelled with a kind of love that I had never felt for a friend before. Finally the doctor pulled away from me.

“It's finished,” Somchai said. Then he negotiated with the doctor to buy some crutches. I saw some money pass between them. Then I remembered. This wasn't Canada; there was no public health care here. All of this was costing Somchai. He must have had to pay all that he could to get the doctor to come to the cave. I would pay him back, but for right now the bills in my pocket were soaked with my own piss.

I wrapped one arm around Somchai and leaned on the crutch on my left side. Together we hobbled to our guesthouse, moving as slowly as a farmer after a long day in a sweltering rice paddy. That night I slept fitfully. Every time I woke Somchai was there, sitting at the foot of my bed reading Thai comics.

“Need some water?” he asked. I propped myself up as he held a straw to my mouth.

“Go to sleep,” I murmured.

“The doctor said I have to watch you because you've had a concussion.”

“Come on, Somchai. You've done enough. Sleep — otherwise you'll look like an old man and you'll never be able to find a girlfriend.”

“Don't be so sure of that,” he said, and gave my arm a playful shove.

My body felt a lot better by the next night, but lying in bed doing nothing was making me replay the scene with Nok and the drunk guy over again. Would she still want me to go to the Lao New Year party with her? I remembered the night she'd clutched my hand underneath the table of the riverside café. If only we could hit rewind and start again from there.

I needed some air. Somchai held on to me as I tried to get used to the crutches.

“Let's go for a walk,” I said.

Somchai laughed. “Not yet, brother. Take it easy.”

The next day I tried the crutches again.

“Come on, let's go,” I said. “I'm going mental just lying here.”

Somchai laughed. “Sitting still gives you
falangs
a nervous tic, doesn't it?”

“I can't stop thinking about her.” I was beginning to hate the word
falang
.

“Okay, come on then,” Somchai said, giving in.

We hobbled out to the main road. I could barely open my eyes in the bright sun. My body was stiff and ached everywhere, but it felt good to be outside. We walked some more and I paused to catch my breath. Three sweaty, shirtless guys walked past with Canadian flags sewn onto their backpacks. The flags caught my eye. I made eye contact with one of them.

“Where are you from?” I asked, leaning forward on the crutches and pointing my chin towards the flag.

“Edmonton. You?”

“Ottawa.”

“Been in Vang Vieng long?”

“A couple days. This is my friend, Somchai. We live in Vientiane.”

“You live there? That's cool, man. I'm Jake. We're going to get something to eat. Want to come?”

Somchai looked at me with a grin. I knew he'd think it would be a great chance to practise his English.

“Do you want to eat here or there?” Jake pointed at two nearby restaurants.
Nudee Restaurant
sat right beside
Give Pizza a Chance.
I noticed a sign out front with the painted words:
NEED TO GET DRUNK? GET DRUNK LAO STYLE!
Something about it made me feel depressed, although the beer went down really nicely. The inside of the restaurant was dim and shadowy compared to the garish sun outside. Before I knew it a parade of empty bottles stood in front of me and I was bragging about my fight with the Thai basketball guard. Somchai sat silent beside me, obviously not understanding the slang and the quick pace of the conversation. I didn't bother slowing things down or explaining to him. I don't know if it was the beer, or because I was so hungry for easy, English conversation with someone who understood my culture. Whatever it was, I needed this. Besides, now he knew how I felt in Vientiane.

“You smoke? I've got some good stuff I bought from an old lady on the way here,” Jake said.

Normally I wasn't into weed. It turned the next day's basketball game into crap. But I was still suspended and couldn't play ball for weeks. And I really wanted to get away from everything — just for tonight. Besides, the throbbing in my ankle and ribs was making me crazy.

“Yeah. Pass it over,” I slurred.

Somchai looked at me blankly. Then he leaned over and whispered, “Do you think that's a good idea, brother? I mean after the concussion and all.”

I shrugged and took a swig of beer.

“Is that your mother?” one of the guys asked, gesturing toward Somchai.

I didn't say anything. The other guys laughed. Somchai sat there for a while, his massive smile fading like the setting sun, and watched us pass the joint around the thick, wooden table.

“I take it you don't want any?” Jake said when it came time to pass it to Somchai.

Somchai turned to me. “Cam, I'm tired. I'm going back to the guesthouse.”

“Suit yourself.”

“What'd he say?” the drunkest guy asked. “I can barely understand him.”

I don't know if it was the alcohol, drugs, or hunger for a taste of back home that made me laugh with the others. Even as the sound left my lips a self-hatred flared inside that the pot couldn't douse.

I sat, numbly unaware of the conversation eddying around me in the dark, beer-smelling room. Finally I couldn't bear myself anymore. I got up to leave, but I stumbled forward as I grabbed for my crutches. I knocked some bottles off the table.

“Whoa, a little bit drunk, eh, Vientiane guy?” Jake said, laughing.

“It's my ankle. I sprained it,” I said, trying to stand upright.

No one passed me my crutches. No one asked if they could help. They just all sat there, watching me with drunk, stupid looks on their faces. I staggered back to the guesthouse on my own, but Somchai wasn't there.

The next morning the sunlight temporarily blinded me as it gushed through the worn drapes of our cheap guesthouse room. Somchai didn't look me in the eye when he came into the dingy room carrying clear plastic bags filled with
nam wan
.