Drunken Love - Que Son (sites to read books for free .txt) 📗

He had no idea where the painting was now. Perhaps he gave it to a friend and forgot about it, or it got lost somewhere when he moved to another apartment. This mind-trip lasted for about six months.

 

It was also during this time that Adam became acquainted with a girl living in another building across the street. This girl fell in love with him. Her name was Jane and she was about his age and was the sister of one of his friends. The first time they met, he came to see the friend and saw her cooking at the stove. She was a small woman, with long hair and a face pockmarked with acne. She served her brother and him a meal. Adam thought nothing about her, he only knew that she had just come to New York from California. She was going to stay and live in in this city with her brother.

 

One night, Adam was called to the phone and on the other end of the line was Jane asking him about her brother: she was worried because it was late and her brother still was not home. Adam said he did not know. After that, she called quite frequently to asked him about things that are utterly trivia, and Adam was surprised, he thought the girl perhaps was having a crush on him. Then he decided that if it was what she wanted, he would respond to her.

 

One Sunday morning she came over to his room and they talked and soon she fell into his arms and onto his bed and they made love and he discovered that she was a virgin. And the relationship began. She called him day and night despite their seeing each other every day. They met in the park in the neighborhood, on the roof top of his building, and in her apartment, and they made love at every opportunity. Adam was happy, but he did not have the same feeling for her as he did for Eve or that girl/child. All he did was responding to the girl's passion, in a way that made her think he loved her too. Adam felt conflicted, but he thought it was too late, the ball had rolled and there was no stopping it. Eventually, because of the frequent phone calls late at night that bothered and wakened the family he was sharing the apartment with, and perhaps because of the noise of love making from Adam’s room that annoyed the family, he was asked to leave. Adam had to look for another room in another apartment. In fact, the noises he and Jane made, either it was from sex or the phone, caused him to move quite frequently from one apartment to another, because wherever he went, people would complain. They always asked him to leave after a few months. Whenever he and Jane met, and as soon as the door was locked, they grabbed one another and made love.

 

Jane was attending college and Adam helped her with assignments, explained to her things from the textbooks she did not understand. He met her at her school and escorted her home, took her to the movies and museums and long walks in the park. She was a good and caring person, but one thing about her that made Adam uncomfortable: she was so insecure and suspicious of people, and she talked a lot. And soon after, no more than six months into the affair, the fighting started, all because of Jane’s unusual jealousy and insecurity.

 

Jane told Adam that he was the first man she loved in her life. And she was 26 at the time. Adam felt that his life was being changed by the relationship in ways that he did not feel comfortable. Many times he wanted to end it with her because he felt that she was unstable, prone to hysteria, and extremely possessive. She followed him closely and made him feel as if he was under surveillance at all times. She would call him in the middle of the night to see if he was home; and if her calls were not answered, she would take a cab to his apartment to see if he was there, or what he was doing, even if it was two in the morning, and she would demand to know why he did not pick up the phone and made her worried. She even started to accuse him of infidelity. All of this was happening when Adam was working full time and going to college part time.

 

One year into the relationship with Jane, Adam abruptly moved to Philadelphia. He was unhappy with her, and besides, he had just made friend with another woman, one who was many years younger than Jane, looked much sexier, and this woman seemed to be a good, easy-to-deal-with type of person. Adam was fascinated by this woman and he decided to listen to his heart and move to Philadelphia to be near her. He took a bus to Philadelphia one morning, telling Jane that he was tired of New York and needed a change but would go back to see her now and then. She saw him off with a tearful face, not knowing that he was running after another woman. In fact, Adam was only trying to escape from Jane and her irrational ways: she had worn him out. And the woman in Philadelphia was offering an opportunity.

 

In Philadelphia, he found an apartment, a job, and started to make contact with the other woman, who appeared to be interested in building a relationship with him. Then Jane eventually found out what Adam was up to when a letter that woman sent him after he left New York fell into her hand. She called up the woman and they had it out with each other. The woman was intimidated and backed off, terminating the budding relationship with Adam. He was disappointed but not really angry at Jane, who by now had began to go back and forth between New York and Philadelphia to see him every weekend. The love making and the fighting continued. One Saturday night, after a fight, she walked out of the apartment at one in the morning and went back to New York after Adam slapped her.

 

After one year in Philadelphia, Adam, tired of the long distance relationship with Jane, returned to New York. One morning, he loaded his car with some meager belongings and drove to New York, having rented a room in Brooklyn a week earlier. Adam was not happy about going back. He could not say no, and Jane, with her possessive behaviors, seemed to exert a binding influence on him. They were incompatible in every way, but still, like magnets, they were attracted to each other. There were more pain than joy in the relationship, Adam realized. During fights which happened quite frequently, Adam would smack her, threw things against the walls, call her names that he later regretted--he was often out of control when arguing with her. Once he kicked her out of the car because he could not stand her mouth anymore. Jane had a way of angering people with her words but she did not seem to care. She would talk and talk and it did not matter to her if the person she was talking to was listening, or how her words made that person feel. But as the madness went away, they would have sex again and forgot all until another fight broke out.

 

Adam's frustration with Jane sometimes made him want to kill her. One time after dropping her off, and when she was crossing the street toward her building, Adam felt an impulse to step on the gas and run her over. It was hard for him to find in himself any tender feelings for Jane; and when she asked him if he loved her, he refused to answer. He felt that he had been trapped. What’s more, Jane had instilled in him the fear that she would pursue him wherever he ran to, even to the farthest corner of the earth. But amid the misery, he managed to graduate from junior college and prepared to finish his Bachelor.

 

Years went by and one day Adam woke up after a drunken night and suddenly remembered that he still had a family back in the old country. Memories of the past came back and he felt guilty. For so long he had not written to his family, he had forgotten and did not know why. So he wrote. And as he wrote, everything from his past came back, and he remembered Eve, a major part of his adolescence, and wondered what happened to her. He was sure she was now married, had children, and perhaps still living in the new economic zone. Thoughts about her saddened him when he recalled the joy and happiness they had had together back then, the delirium and madness and ecstasy of the first love--and he felt regretful.

 

Meanwhile, his affair with Jane continued. He thought of two possible solutions to the stalemated relationship: he could either abandon all and disappear, or he could wrap it all up by marrying her. But both seems equally unsatisfactory. So the stalemate continued, and Adam felt that he was the most unhappy person in the world.

 

A months after writing again to the family, his father wrote back, saying that the family for the last five years had been worrying about him and searching for him but now they were happy he was ok. Adam started sending money to his family every few months. And every time he sat down and wrote to his family, he thought about Eve and wanted to ask about her. But then he thought he should not disturb the water because he was sure she was not a free woman anymore as most women of her age must be, and he must not do anything to upset the situation. Besides, he remembered the last letter he had written to her, so he did not ask about Eve, but thoughts about her lingered on his mind.

 

Then there was news that the regime had allowed travels between Viet Nam and the outside world. The government was adopting economic reforms after realizing that socialism did not work. Travel agencies in the US began to organize flights to Viet Nam, and exiles trickled back to visit the homeland. Traffic to and from the old country increased. And one day in 1992 Adam decided to go back for a visit. He booked a flight. Preparing for the trip, he was excited not only because he was going to see his homeland and family again, but perhaps he was going to see Eve too. He could not forget their love, and he was curious to know how she was. It had been 12 years since he left the village, and 15 years when he last saw her--and he had thought he would never had this opportunity again. He planned to look for her and see her as a friend if in fact she was married; but if she was not, he would marry her and bring her over to America with him--it was a strong possibility.

 

That summer night as the aircraft descended on Sai Gon, Adam looked out the windows and saw the points of lights on the ground; and just as the aircraft touched down, he broke down and cried. The joy of being home again overwhelmed him, and he could not hold back the tears. Then as he stepped out of the plane, the tropical heat hit him in the face and he realized that this is it, this is what I remember Viet Nam by: an endless summer. He boarded the bus that took him to the terminal, and there in the darkened area outside the fence, he saw a big crowd, and towering above all was his father who saw him and yelled his name