#27, cigarette for the road

Lately, I grew fond of an iced tea called Arizona. It comes in beer cans, and can easily make the drinker a seemingly inappropriate alcoholic. I sometimes take two at a time. I especially like to fondle the emptied cans: it was made in Woodbury, NY. I like the state initial, New York, new year, nude yeah.

Dearest friends,

I was assigned to a place called Mount Da-han shortly after I turned eighteen. I can still vaguely recall my first ride there. I had just finished my three-year military training/high school education. I still remember how I kept hoping that there might be something that would whisk me out of my destiny. But three years had passed, I could not get out. So you can probably imagine how doomed I must feel when I got on that mini bus, and sat staring out the window as the bus rocked its way deep into the woods, onto the very top of the mountain.

It was a radar station. I worked there at the decipher department. The place was freezing all year round, except in summer, when it could be just tolerably cool in the afternoon. I used to put on six layers of clothing just to keep myself warm. The air always smelled of fresh grass. The water was sweet and icy, you can drink directly from it. And when you use the water to brew tea, it tastes divine.

There was no female member at the base. Because it was stationed too remotely out of civic contact, it was kept strictly a men’s place due to personnel safety concern. But what do they talk about when two hundred men were shut off behind tall walls and away from home? Women. Sometimes, I was relieved that my job required me to work alone in a sealed off two feet square space so that I wouldn’t need to endure the embarrassment when someone tells the story of how he barebacked a hooker. It seemed like a jail cell, but it felt like a protection.

I started learning English by myself when I was here. Because I couldn’t sleep, like always, I spent a lot of time reading.

I found out I had always had insomnia. It had gotten worst when I couldn’t sleep at all that I finally seek professional help only to find out that it’s not normal for a man to spend two hours awake in bed trying to sleep ever since he’s a child.

Every thing was built solid heavy for a reason. When a storm blows, the place was a crazy show. One night, I had to make to the decipher room during a typhoon. I couldn’t see a thing. All I saw was the wind blowing, taking physical form, visible like mad, as if conducted by charm. I couldn’t stand up straight. I accidentally fell, and the next thing I knew, I was fifty meters away, on the edge of the helicopter hanger where the invisible deep void of the mountain was just a few steps away.

When the day is clear, really clear, I could see miles and miles of tree land lining till the far end of my sight, and I wouldn’t see a trace of human civilization. At night, I could see the milky way, and piles of gem-like lights from the far away cities. Or the moon, sitting above the cloud, like a king, demanding awe and worship.

Sometimes, the base would get gulfed by the cloud, and I would feel like that I was the only one in the chaos, breathing water from the air, eye lashes wet, but strangely peaceful and content, like a fish.

There was an accident a few years back before I got there to Mount Da-han. A truck couldn’t manage the narrow path and tumbled down the mountain. All men on board were killed. No rescue teem could come to aide. So the men at the base had to do the rescue themselves. They said several bodies were flattened, leaving nothing but the skin, bones and skin. And they said they couldn’t wash away, the smell of blood.

I liked it when it turns into Fall. The leaves would turn to red, yellow, brown, and gold. Then I could imagine I was in a Bronte story. It helped if I closed my eyes, and felt the bus rock its way down. People sleep during the trip. But I didn’t. I stayed awake and imagined.

Nearly three years after I was assigned to the post, I got transferred to an even further away island. There was a tradition: whoever leaves the base, either retirement, resignation or transfer, had to bid the brothers died in the accident goodbye. The driver let me off and waited for me a few feet from the stone plate that marked how many people were killed but no names. I lighted three cigarettes for the departed and put the rest of the pack before the stone. I said farewell and thought to myself how horrible it would be to be on the trip riding on and on, with no end, no light, and no cigarette.