THE GREEN LINE
Say "Quan Loi" to folks who have been there and you will get a knowing nod. Say "Quan Loi Green Line" and you get an eye shift as the gaze turns inward and back in time to a night so dark you can't see the hand in front of your face and you are sitting in a scooped out hollow of dirt that resembles a grave more than a defensive position, the base camp behind you, the jungle somewhere out there, and a long tour of duty ahead of you.
Quan Loi doesn't figure directly in the book I am writing, but it is always there in the back of my mind. It is the shadowy jungle out of which ideas and images emerge with the suddeness of a booby trap going off.
We all have a Quan Loi rattling around somewhere inside us. I am at peace with it, the memory of it no longer a sharp stick but a time-worn walking stick that guides me to the dark places where the good stuff waits to be found and dragged out into the light of day, word by bloody word.
October 16, 2009
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