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Try not to show his frustration and anger closing their behind you they thought he sorry I would say it’s not Dave anymore it’s I if it was me so I thought I sensed a sense of hate within this small man just a quick flash of it but then again that was to be expected I suppose you know that these people for all their smiles and humbleness and condescending graciousness they must hate us, but then again maybe not maybe compared to the French . we’re not that bad but I don’t know there was no reason for them to particularly like us except we’re spending some money here you know that’s not a bad reason but not a real reason to like somebody and the thought frightened me for a moment and and I lit up a Salem I always I always would light up a Salem when I get a little bit nervous Pete must have said something or maybe it was just that I that I had lit up but but him wrapped a fresh cigar bit off the end and spit it out the window then he lifted The Havana with a practice circular motion with the flame from our special above a fleeing from a specially designed cigar lighter oh that’s it the ride out to the Airfield was on eventful and Pete looked thoughtfully out the window not speaking and I looked at the other window also not speaking we quickly passed bar row wound our way through the residential district large stucco homes with well manicured Lawns evenly Place space Palms lining the road soon we were at the outskirts of the city passing rows of shacks made mostly of flattened Schlitz and Coke cans the inhabitants of this informed refugee camp squatted in front of their small shelters their puny naked children played in the potholes and potholes full of dank dark brown water the residue of the 10 AM shower the town gave way to broad green rice fields as the approach the base of the air base and then at the end of the road which is now changed for a blacktop thoroughfare to a red through red clay was the outer perimeter fencing of demand your base that’s interesting twon also saw the poverty of the small growing makeshift Community he knew it intimately the child that Dave that I had noticed split that I had noticed that David was flashing in the mud my whole was his son Tui Tuan lived on both sides of the war the wealthy side of The Americans like that bastard Pete and the side of the people the ones who had to leave their homes in the country leave their Farms their small stores their civilization because the Americans what was that something here I’m reading something I can’t figure it out their civilization to leave like animals in the tin to live like animals in chin Shacks because the Americans with the help of the aristocratic Catholic Catholics and Saigon brought in about whatever Juan hated them both although he was not a communist and had no political feeling from where the other he was a Buddhist and as a Buddhist it was unbearable to watch what to watch as his country his Da Nang was being raped and torn to shreds for ideology that which were no more than meaningless slogans
Pete Snippet 1
The Phases of Peter Vanderwater (Peter Van Der Water)
Pete 1 and Pete 2
transitioning and changing
Work In Progress
I didn’t realize it then but by knowing Pete I was witnessing the dying gasp of an endangered species. They just don’t make his kind anymore. Or do they?
I honestly hope not.
Pete was solely devoted to business. He was what I’d call charismatic and physically imposing. He lived and breathed booking orders, of any kind from mutual funds to bar supplies. He enjoyed the process, and now that he decided to
booking orders, and amassing wealth were by following every scheme that Howie Kogen from Chicago now working out of Hong Kong, came up with. and being so overbearing Pete Vandewater was a “Hard Sell” salesman, in fact, he was so overbearing …
Can you imagine a bundle of visible energy propelling a six-foot-three thirty-nine-year-old dynamo forward in search of becoming important? If you can, you’re just beginning to get the picture.
Of course, Pete smoked cigars, and when he wasn’t blowing smoke into a prospect’s face he was blowing it metaphorically up his … and he enjoyed biting off a cigar’s end, chewing the stubble then spitting Brown juice out the window of his chauffeur-driven black Citroen sedan. Very often decorating innocent civilian and Military strollers and passersby. No wonder the white mice (the Vietnamese police) wearing impeccably clean bright white uniforms, always quickly waved us through busy intersections. They must have gotten the word, or worse yet, the wet curse of the Vandewaters.
Pete cared about Pete, and everything Pete did was for Pete and Pete said he loved kids, and he said that when he struck it rich he’d set up and fund an orphanage to help get unfortunate kids placed in good homes. Pete did not care for or even think of kids as far as I know, and just yesterday he smacked a begging urchin with his newly acquired cane. Something had changed for the worse in Pete since I last saw him a year ago. This was a bit frightening to me, I sensed that I was watching Peter begin to flip over to the dark side. I knew, (the bar girls told me), that Pete wasn’t able to get aroused, and then one of my girlfriends told me that Pete almost killed a close friend of hers. “What happened!? When and where did it happen?”
In the beginning, I was Pete’s Prodigy. ” Dave, my lad, ” he spoke in a booming carnival barker way, ” I’m going to teach you how to become rich. Rich, do you hear me! ” then he blew smoke into my face.
” You have what it takes to become the best goddamn salesman in Asia. Very possibly the whole world! ”
He arched his thick black eyebrows up and looked at me in a way that I later learned was the Vandewater sincerity close. “You have two natural aptitudes that are guaranteed to make you successful. First, you’re honest. But second and most important and best of all you look and act honest, comprehend? Dave, you have what is known in the trade as an honest face. And that, plus your gift for gab, will take you all the way.”
Pete Snippet 2
It was the rainy season, business was bad, and Pete was down on his luck and short of cash. In desperation, he rented a cheap rooftop apartment that overlooked the flower and vegetable stalls on Nguyen-Hue boulevard and offered a breathtaking view across the entire city. And in the distance, I could just make out an ominous thin smudge of green jungle that bordered the city and concealed an enemy waiting to do us harm.
I started to think about how this hunk of cement was able to hold my weight and its own weight sticking out from the side of the building, but then I figured it must be supported by steel I-beams. A reinforced cement patio jutted out from the living room’s sliding glass door I rested my glass on the small reinforced cement patio’s tile-covered cement rail, lit a Salem, and watched as the red sun slowly sank into the polluted Haze that shrouded Saigon.
Pete, a cigar in his mouth leaned against the edge of the rail next to me and looked down at the frenzied movement below.
” Das ist minea ekals nest!” he said in a clipped phony German accent.
“Dave.” He swept his arms out in front of him.”what do you think?”
I thought he had cracked up.