They stood with their right hands clasped firmly on the base of each other’s necks. Sweat flowed down creating a pool in the crease of each finger. Their foreheads pressed together as the artificial light from the ceiling beat down on their glistening skin causing steam to roll off their backs as the two wrestlers waited. Each held onto the other's elbow with their remaining hand as they both began to tense in stance.

The whistle pierced the air and welcomed the uproar from spectators. They stomped and smacked the bleachers creating an earthquake within the gymnasium. He pushed up Saxon’s elbow and spun around him, digging his shoulders into Saxon’s back just before taking him down to the mat. Saxon had his face pressed against the ground with his right eye on the mat and the other looking out to the audience on the bleachers.

In the crowd was his mother, Emilia, who sat motionless. Her concerned face was easy to spot in the mix of smiles and cheers. Her orange banana curls ordained her glare like a lion’s mane, further drawing Saxon’s attention to her. Even with one eye, he could still easily spot her chin tremble despite the rumble and commotion.

Beside her was Saxon Sr. who’s arms where flailing in excitement. He was about 15 pounds overweight but he still held onto shreds of evidence that he once had the same muscular build of his son. Despite the gut his arms where still chiseled with veins tenderly wrapping each muscle in his large forearms. His excitement was in part pride for his son and part vicariously living through him, wishing he could be down there wrestling too.

The wrestler had Saxon’s arm locked behind his back. He struggled to break out. His light blue singlet was turning darker and darker as more sweat began to stain it. His muscles tensed and glistened under the florescent lighting. His face tightened as he tried to reverse the maneuver. He turned with his forehead pressed against the blue and gold mat, bought his knees under him and tried to summon the strength to lift himself and his opponent off the ground. He knew he managed to reverse the lock, but it wasn’t happening.

The doors of the gym flung off the hinges as an ocean began flooding in. Saxon’s breathing tensed as the water cascaded through the gymnasium spilling over the mat and washing away his sweat. The audience continued to cheer, with the impending flood remaining unbeknownst. The bleachers slowly began to submerge and members of the audience too fell under the water. Yet they cheered as if nothing was happening.

With Saxon failing to lift his opponent, the water slowly entered his mouth, entered his lungs, slowly choking him…

My eyes open. Rag pulled slowly from my throat. I hunch over spitting and spouting and coughing the excess. It burns my throat and my lungs… like gasoline pouring in them… like inhaling fire. Blood and bile in my mouth mix with saliva and water. My head feels nearly twice its size and bounces back and forth like that Mickey Mantle papier-mache bobblehead I had as a child.

“That’s not how it happened.” I cough out a barely coherent thought. My head sways, only allowing glimpses of my environment; the only continuous sight is the dirt floor beneath my feet.

“Anh ta nói gì? Thắt dây thừng!”

One new companion comes over to me. Too delirious to fight him away. He tightens the rope around my left hand, extending outward fastened to a metal pole or column. The same is of my right. They have me bound to this metal chair which feels cold against my legs. Uniform’s wet and ripped with cuts of flesh exposed. I can’t tell if I’m bleeding or if it’s excess water and drool from my mouth dripping down me.

“That’s not how it happened.” I say it again, being the only thing I can say. It was 1961 that wrestling match. 9 years later and I’m here in Vietnam.

Anh ấy trông rất yếu. Người đàn ông nghèo. Camo của ông bị nhuộm màu máu và nôn. Có vẻ giống chiếc khăn của tôi hơn bộ đồng phục của một người lính Mỹ.

One of the Vietnamese looks at me, expression nearly sympathetic. No more than three in total.

The meanest of Khmer Rouge soldiers, the one with the small nearly inverted nose, hits me with the butt of his gun. I guess he's jealous, decides to brake my nose; my eye sight fuzzy. The swelling already present on my right eye increases.

Người bạn đồng hành của tôi đánh này –

The calm soldier gently takes the dog tags off my neck.

Này Caulfield Saxon. Như thể đắm chìm anh ta là không đủ…

The fingers of my left hand extend trying to grasp my tags back. They are all I have left in this moment.

“Please!”

A weak scream; all I am capable. I begin to violently shake my left arm in an attempt to break free though I know it’s impossible. Failing and desperate. I just want my tags back.

He looks at me. I swear he understands. I swear he cares.

He wipes the blood off them with the red scarf around his neck and places them back in my hand. I struggle to grip them. He wraps the chain around my fingers, helping me grasp them.

“Thank you.” I smile and start to cry. Goddamn it.

The tears roll over each cut and blister on my face. No nose punches my face; the last of the three, the shorter one holds my head back. The puncher puts the rag back in my mouth gagging me. I feel like I’m going to vomit. He sticks the rag deeper in my throat and the shorter one holds my head takes hold of the cloth. No nose starts to pour water over the rag, once again drowning me. I feel my grip on the dog tags slipping with my palms turning towards the ground as everything else goes black…

The other wrestler, seemingly of Asian descent, wraps his legs around Saxon’s, stopping him from lifting up. Their gray singlets are barley a shade different from each other’s. Saxon looks around. His mother’s dark straight hair flung about as she cheered and whistled. It pieced the room, almost causes an immediate silence that followed.

As the silence rang the other wrestler flipped Saxon, his back splashing against the water within the gym. He wrapped his arms around Saxon’s right shoulder and neck. Another lock being pinned to the ground. The ref counted in excitement and in 1… 2… 3… Saxon had lost the match.

His mother screamed, disappointed. She splashed the water at her knees. While on his back, Saxons turned his head and saw his father. He was so frail in his older years. The skin wrapped around a bundle of vein and bone, with muscle virtually void.

Saxon laid there, allowing the water to sway beneath him. I didn’t lose, he thought. Everything is wrong…

Suddenly he was a child, in the water, wearing a grey singlet that was too big for him. His Paul Newman like features were hidden behind swollen red cheeks and baby fat.

He stood up and walked out the gym doors, in which he appeared in his kitchen. His girlfriend, the beautiful charcoal eyed Rebecca sat along with his sisters and parents. They were all adults while he was merely 9.

No one spoke. Each plucked their forks and knives at the empty plates before them, eating food that wasn’t there. As Saxon looked down at his own plate, his teeth fell from his mouth, one by one. He held his mouth tightly, clasping one hand on his lips forcing them shut, and he frantically smacked the other hand on the table, trying to get help from someone. His teeth pushed themselves out his mouth and between each finger despite his best efforts. The clacking of each tooth on the empty plate frightened him.

He tried to call for “help,” but as he did water violently poured from his mouth. No one seemed to notice. His throat felt like it was ripping as he rapidly aged back to his current age. His family and girlfriend rapidly aged, becoming old and frail and the water washed them all away like ash, up to their last moments eating at empty plates…

I threw up blood and water and chunks onto my chin and chest. Lips feel like they’ll fall off. Whole body feels like it’ll fall off.

Breathing is hard. I miss them all. Rebecca wrote letters to me. Never had chance to write back. She had the most beautiful green eyes, and her smile would make my chest hollow.

No nose again puts the vomit and blood soaked rag in my mouth. Water pours in and spills all over me as my head feels like it explodes. I feel my eyes swell...

Saxon asphyxiated and his body collapsed within itself. His hands went limp and the dog tag in his fingers swung like a pendulum. The Khmer Rouge left him there. All but the Vietnamese soldier who cleaned Saxon’s dog tags. He looked at the dead American soldier.

Anh ấy không xứng đáng

He took his scarf off his neck and wiped Saxon’s face. He looked at the dog tags, and gently removed them from Saxon’s lifeless hand, and placed them around his neck. He put the scarf in his pocket.

Tôi xin lôi…

He left Saxon there, and walked outside of the hut and watched as the sun began to rise on Vietnam.