Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham Page A

with bicycles and motorbikes. The vehicles are fixed right on the curb by grease-blackened men and boys who work with shoddy hand tools. The cement is runny with oil.
    The bike needs a major tune-up after my one thousand miles in Japan, and I’m not up to it. The airport baggage handlers have damaged the rims beyond my ability to true them. The broken brake isn’t working properly either, no matter how much I fiddle with it. Then there is the puncture in my “puncture-proof” tire. I carry three types
of repair patches and try all of them, but Saigon’s humidity foils every one.
    The bike guru is a shirtless little Vietnamese, a five-foot-one, silverhaired grandfather. Since he is the shop’s revered expert with the most seniority, the other mechanics defer to him the honor of working on my foreign bicycle. He spends a full five minutes marveling at my clunker, going over everything from the quick-release hubs to the grip-shifters to the cleat pedals. When he gets to work, he is amazingly fast. Somehow with a couple of wrenches, pliers, and a hot-patch press, he perfectly trues the wheel, fixes the brake, and gets the bike to purr like a kitten in twenty minutes.
    He seems so enamored with the bike that I suggest he give it a test ride. At first he declines, claiming it is too big for him. I insist, and he capitulates with a childlike grin and leaps on it. How he manages to find the little pedals with his rubber flip-flops I don’t know, but he speeds off around the city block like a racer, whooping and dodging traffic—wild as a teenager. He returns huffing, wet with sweat, rosy with pleasure. He wants to waive the fees, but I won’t let him and settle the bill: $1 U.S.
    Around sunset, Viet decides it would be funny to give me a tour of the city at rush hour, when the streets are legally open for trucks and every sort of traffic. Saigon is already so crowded its streets can’t handle the large trucks and commercial vehicles during the day. City ordinance requires all vehicles larger than a minivan to park in sprawling dirt lots beyond the city limits and wait until 6 p.m. before assaulting the urbanscape.
    Viet laughs when I ask him for a helmet. “People can’t even afford eyeglasses. Prescription glasses! And you’re talking about a helmet? A helmet costs sixty American dollars—that’s twice as much as a teacher makes a month. Nobody wears them anyway. It’s too hot here, and people think you’re scared if you wear a helmet.”
    With that, he guns the Kawasaki down the alley, narrowly missing the kids playing soccer with a tennis ball. The roads are so people-thick I can reach out and touch four other motorists at any moment. Viet works the horn, the brakes, and the gas constantly. The whole
time, all I can say is, Oh, shit. Oh, God. Look out! to which his reply is a published fact: head injuries resulting from traffic accidents are the number-one cause of accidental deaths in Saigon. I see no helmets and extremely few eyeglasses.
    Nobody gives way to anybody. Everyone just angles, points, dives directly toward his destination, pretending it is an all-or-nothing gamble. People glare at one another and fight for maneuvering space. All parties are equally determined to get the right-of-way-insist on it. They swerve away at the last possible moment, giving scant inches to spare. The victor goes forward, no time for a victory grin, already engaging in another contest of will. Saigon traffic is Vietnamese life, a continuous charade of posturing, bluffing, fast moves, tenacity, and surrenders.
    Viet veers, a second from being broadsided by another motorist. I panic, lose balance, and wrap my arms around his torso.
    Viet shouts over his shoulder, somewhat embarrassed: “ Hey! Don’t worry! It happens all the time.Just stop octopusing me. It’s not manly. Only women do that.”
    After I reluctantly untangle my arms from around him, he says,