26 May 2007
Rolling Thunder
I can hear the Czech lifeguard moving pool furniture around, when the din of the big motorcycles out of Route 50 diminishes with the cycle of the traffic lights. I looked down from the balcony, and discovered it is Pavel, returning to Big Pink from Medical School in Prague. It is unusual to get a repeat rotation. He must like us.
It is Memorial Weekend, and the summer has arrived in Virginia. With it has come the roar of the big motorcycles that gather at the Vietnam memorial, to celebrate the memory of the 50,000 who did not come back from Asia, and the dead of all the other wars. They call the gathering Rolling Thunder, which is precisely the sound of the packs of Harleys that are headed toward the bridges to the city.
I made a note to get flowers, and stop by Arlington later today, and pay tribute to the waves of markets that march up the highlands, but start with those that I knew in life. That trip will come, of course, after the ritual First Dip in the Big Pink pool, and first encounter with the Mittleurope in America for the summer. Pavel can come here because we won the Cold War, which is the one that occupied half of my working life.
I would drive the truck this afternoon, which would be appropriate since it is a rolling memorial to my Uncle, and by extension to the men of the Eighth Air Force who died in the great strategic experiment over Europe, 1942-44. The truck was part of Dick's life-long statement that he would life exclusively on his terms after surviving the meat-grinder, and having a predilection for speed in his autos.
In another context, high above Germany, those qualities meant life. I suspect it was about having control of his life again, after sacrificing it to the Air Corps in such a personal and terrifying way.
The Vietnamese have the truck now. The crew at Arlington Auto Body got it at 0850 on Tuesday. I often wonder which gang the manager had been affiliated, since the tattoos are a dead giveaway. The most striking one is of a child with a serene saint-like gaze. It is at least two hand-spans long, and erupts from the collar of his shirt and climbs north along his carotid artery to just below his jaw. It is still brightly colored, and so are the dragons that crawl down his arms.
If I were to hazard a guess, the gang would be the BTK, which is the national franchise for the Vietnamese, but it could be something local. Ty is an affable fellow, conceived during the final offensive to an army officer who would not escape the war. He got his name from the fact that he was born in a refugee camp in Thailand as his mother fled the country in 1975.
Having spent most of his life here, he can be as American as I am when he chooses, but is also between the worlds, one foot on each side of the ocean.
His birth just after the fall puts him in his mid-thirties, and a respected businessman, with his gang-banging days behind. His crew does good work. They are older, not between worlds at all. They are ex-soldiers whose eyes are deep and who work hard and silently.
Ty's office is hung with pictures from Vietnam, and there is a Buddhist shrine and the thick smell of incense. I don't know if the decorations are Ty's, or that of his mother, who runs the business end of the garage. She is always there, in her little cubby, and she looks strong and wary.
Ty is almost always out and about, hard to pin down. He is a busy guy.
The Vietnamese have a large presence in Northern Virginia, and were a novelty here before the next wave of immigration from Central America washed over them in the wake of the Reagan wars of the 1980s. Little Saigon is strung out the Route 50 corridor from Rosslyn to beyond Falls Church. Restaurants and groceries are the most visible part of it, but of course there is a network of Churches and temples.
An ex-ARVN general connected to Duong Van “Big” Minh, who led the 1963 coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem, had a restaurant not far from Big Pink, but his time has passed, and the kids run the business now.
It is a little upscale for the take-out market, so I imagine there was a social and political reason for its existence. Possibly along the lines of an Italian Social Club, a sort of embassy from a country that no longer exists.
This is the culmination of four years of desultory restoration. This is the last time I will ever try to recreate shiny metal from rust, or commission the bending of stainless steel to my specifications, or insist on the precise sandblasting of an undercarriage.
I took a peek at it on Thursday. Ty's cadre had it up on the hoist. The tailgate had been pulled off and new solid metal welded to the frame where the salt had transformed steel into disassociated leaves of rust. I was on pins and needles about that. It was possible that things were too far gone to being it back. The gas tank had nearly fallen out, and the front fenders were the first things to be replaced.
Then the long march back: new exhaust, new brakes, new suspension. It was quite remarkable to drive it with everything attached once more, and with the confidence that the power from the 4.3 liter turbocharged V-6 engine can be brought reliably to a halt. The new exhaust makes the truck throb and roar when I tickle the accelerator like distant thunder.
It is comforting that some things can be made whole again. There are so many that cannot.
Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com