As I sat on the dusty bench on a busy Tijuana boulevard with an
iced cold Corona in my hand, I saw her walk towards me with an outstretched
hand containing a box of gum. “You buy, you buy?” she asked
in her best English. The lost and desperate look in her eyes made
me want to melt with pity and cry with anguish over her unwarranted
lot in life. She couldn’t have been more than six years old but
the street life had robbed her of the childish gleam that every little
girl should have. I stared for a moment at the dullness of her reddish
hair, bleached by the rays of the hot Mexican sun. How I wanted to
pick her up and just squeeze her if just to show that I knew her suffering
and that I was going to take care of her and her baby sister who was
pulled along side of her by the pleat of Lu Mai’s tattered dress.
What?! Did I say Lu Mai? How could it be Lu Mai? She must be in
her forties by now and half way around the world. Perhaps still walking
the red clayed roads outside the “Strip” in Phan Rang, but
most likely no longer pedaling her bags of stale, saltless peanuts
for 5 piasters a bag. Lu Mai, how she loved to visit me at the gate
I guarded so often. We would spend hours watching the stream of G.I.s
take that short dusty walk from the perimeter road, past the cactus
patches, to the countless bars and shops contained within the confines
of our own “love haven and sin city” located about a quarter
mile outside the base. Little Lulu as I called her, couldn’t
wait until 5: 00 p.m. each day because that’s when the same stream
of crazy, dead drunk soldiers or airmen came stumbling back across
the creek and into the Air Base. She would run up and try to put her
tiny hands into each pocket as she tried to make a sale. More than
once she had to pick herself up from the ground after a swift backhand
or shove from a pissed off G.I. If this didn’t work, she went
with the droopy sad eyed routine, begging and pleading because as
she said, she was sure to get a beating from “her mamasan”
for taking unsold bags home. Lu was a master to watch work. This kid
could have made a fortune working on any used car lot in America.
The sad thing was, that this kid WAS poor. This kid did need to do
what she was doing just to insure that she and her family would have
something to eat. It wasn’t because she loved being around me
that kept her coming back on the hottest days or during the hellish
downpours. It was pure and simple survival. She possessed that look
of pain and hunger I thought I had forgotten. That is of course until
that warm afternoon this passed year on that busy Tijuana corner.
As in Lu Mai’s case, there wasn’t too much I could do
for the little Mexican girl. But as I had so often done with peanuts,
I bought all of that damned bubble gum.
Tony Gonzales
35th Security Police
Phan Rang Air Base
1967-1968
