MY NOVEL -

SEASONS OF THE PEARL, was published in 2000.

The Oriental Pearl, more often called the Pearl, is a bistro in Saigon, Vietnam during the peak American years of the war. Historically, Saigon has been known as the pearl of the orient, and most Americans stayed for a year-long tour, prompting the name of the tiny bar and the title of the book. The Pearl was a bar where Americans frequent at the end of their day to wash down the military atmosphere they have endured for so many long hours. A place to help wind down the one-year tour to which most of them are obligated. It was a time of tears and sadness but the Pearl people will mostly make you laugh.

If you would like to see how to purchase the book, please click on MY NOVEL above.

Or if you like, following are a few excerpts from the book:


Chapter 4
Lan was a sing girl. At least that is how she described herself in English to those English speakers who asked and to some who did not. She was a beautiful twenty-three year old who was part of a trio that sang patriotic love songs on TV and at personal appearances. Every weekday evening at six o'clock, Lan, Luan, and Hai could be seen on channel 11, singing their hearts out about the ravages of war, hero lovers lost to jungle fighting, and family reunification. Mostly sad songs with a few American hits of the times thrown in for good show biz. They were employed by the Army of Vietnam as a morale boosters on national TV and traveling road shows to some of the safe haven troop base camps. These road shows featured Lan, Luan, and Hai, the Victory Sisters. So the three sing girls were kind of the Andrew Sisters of the day.

This Saturday afternoon as Lan walked down toward the end of Tu Do Street, near the river, toward Maxime's Restaurant, Bugs Silverman nearly frightened his taxi driver to death.

"Stop!" Bugs demanded.

For no good reason, the driver looked into the rear view mirror, hit the brakes and rolled up onto the sidewalk, just missing a small tree and one park bench, slightly bending another.

"Perfect. Thanks," Bugs said giving the driver the prearranged twenty-five cents. The driver had to back up a few inches so the back door would clear the park bench for Bugs' exit. Lan was wearing a beautifully embroidered ao dai with brown and tan diagonal patterns and gold-like threads outlining these patterns.

"Oh excuse me, uh, Miss," Bugs had no plan since this idea just struck him about ten seconds ago.

"I'm sorry, Miss. I, uh, I think you dropped this, this, uh, this pen," he said reaching into his shirt pocket for his gold plated Cross ballpoint pen.

"Oh no. Not my pen. Thank you. Good bye."

"Wait. I'm sorry. I thought it was yours. But now that I see you close up, I think we've met before."

"Oh no. Not met before. Thank you. Good bye."

"Wait. I'm so sorry. I'm so very sorry. I'm not bothering you, honest," he said, according to his theory.

"Oh no. Not bother. Good bye."

Oh oh. She didn't say 'thank you' that time, he thought.

"Well, all right. I'm gonna come clean. You're beautiful and I wanted to talk to you. My name is Bugs. I'm an API news reporter," he lied.

"Okay. I am sing girl. Maybe you see me on TV. Six o'clock."

"Oh yeah. Right. I see you all the time. You're the short one on the left. Well I'll be. Fancy meeting you here on the sidewalk and you singing on the TV and all. Can we sit down and talk for a minute or something?" Bugs was flustered and wasn't making much sense even to himself, but the longer he could keep this conversation going, the better.

"Okay, no. I meet my friend now inside restaurant. I got big hurry, too late now. Good bye."

He knew he was just short of illegal detention or perhaps kidnapping, but he had to go for it.
He walked around in front of her, walking backward at a respectable distance and asked,

"Could we meet later? Somewhere? Outside? In the sunlight? Over there on that park bench? No. Not that one, it's broken. That one?"

"Okay, I got big hurry. Give me pen."
She wrote her first name and a telephone number on a piece of paper she got from her handbag.

"Okay, here. That my number. My name Lan. I sing girl. Call me. Good bye."

"Good bye," he said with emphasis added. He thought he should bow or something but just stood there with his mouth agape. Had he just been had? Was this a phony phone number? He smiled at the play on words in his mind and the other stuff he had on his mind.

"Hot damn," he mouthed as he walked up the street to the Pearl.

Chapter 6 (Rated PG)
Nobody knew for sure how old Honey was. Probably not even Honey. She told Clark she was eighteen, so Clark, at thirty-nine years of age, was proud and told everyone that version. Honey could easily pass for mid-twenties or older and was a voluptuously beautiful young lady. By Vietnamese standards, some could even describe her as borderline chunky. Sumptuous came to the minds of most men. Her non-frail build made the ao dai a poor choice of dress for her, so Mini-dresses or short shorts were her normal attire.

"Clack so handsome, I could cly," Honey announced to Sammy.

It wasn't so much that Honey couldn't speak proper English, it was just that certain combinations of vowels and consonants didn't roll well over Asian tongues. Most noticeable was the intermingling of the R and L sounds that either replaced each other or happily met somewhere in between, sounding like an L with an attitude. Then too, according to their grammar rules, certain consonants could not team well with others. So Clark became Clack or other variations.

"No, no Honey," complained Sammy. "If you love him so much, you gotta' say his name right. Come over here and sit on my lap so I can teach you right," Sammy volunteered.
Clark didn't mind. He thrived on the way the other guys paid so much attention to Honey. That's why he liked to bring her around to the classy places in town where his friends occasionally gathered. Here at the open-air rooftop bar at the Embassy Hotel, even the bargirls wore semi-formal ao dais and were a notch above their counterparts on Tu Do Street.
All bubbly, Honey hopped around the table and onto Sammy's lap. Bugs leaned over to get a better look and Clark, puffing on a cigar, started making out with the waitress, Miss Bui.

"Now, watch and listen to me," Sammy told her as he lightly pinched her lips into a fish-like pose.

"Claaark. Can you do that? Claark."

"Crock." First try.

"No Honey. Look at my lips," Sammy said with his lips curled into a weird circular contortion.

"Clark."

"Clerk, no, Cluck. No that not right. His name Clack. That what he tell me. His damn name Clack."

"Okay. One more try," Sammy was enjoying the lap game and was willing to do this all evening if that's what it took. Honey was getting tired of the lessons though and was bouncing around, also to Sammy's liking.

"Once more. Clark."

"Culk," Honey said in finality, then she got up, put her hands on her hips, threw out her chest and added, "How you like that?"

"That's pretty good, Honey. You keep practicing like that and come back over here when you get it right."

Honey, having to go to the ladies room, picked up her purse and left. This gave Clark more courage to pursue his conversation with Miss Bui as he walked around the corner of the patio, out of sight, to find her. After a while when Sammy and Bugs finished some small talk about Clark's sanity and Honey's body, Honey returned to the table with a startled look at Clark's empty chair.

"Where my Clit go?"

Sammy and Bugs looked around. Honey plopped down in Clark's chair, spread eagle-like with her arms outstretched, gazing at the oncoming evening sky, and exclaimed proudly, "I love my Clit."

Chapter 7
Lan answered her mother's phone on the third ring. Bugs was so anxious, he felt sick to his stomach. He was anxious to know if this was a real number to the real Lan and his anxiety deepened at the thought of talking to her again and trying to get a good conversation going.

"Hello."

"Hello. May I speak with Miss Lan please."

"Okay, this Lan talking."

"Hello Lan. This is Bugs Silverman. Remember me?"

"You the UPI guy on Tu Do Street last week or something like that."

"Yeah, uh, yes. How are you today?"

"I'm okay. What you want? I have big hurry."

"Just wanted to say hello."

"Okay. Hello. Good-bye."

"Wait! No. I mean I don't mean to keep you, I just... "

"What you mean keep me? You cannot keep me. What you mean?"

"No. I mean, I would like to meet with you for lunch or something, when you have some time. Okay?"

"Okay. You write story about me? How I sing? I'm sing girl long time now. Vietnam paper always write story about me and my sisters. We sing on TV all the time. We sing all over. All over the place. What kind of story you want to write?"

"Uh, I thought a story on the real you. Y'know, personal stuff. What kind of person you really are. How you got started in show business. What are your hobbies? Stuff like that. A story about you," Bugs shrugged. What a great idea. She even created his pick-up line. Good idea.

"Okay. You take me to lunch. Write a story about me. Story be all over the place?"

"All over the place."

"Okay. When we go to lunch?"

"How about Sunday? At the Embassy Hotel rooftop lounge." He thought that sounded better than bar.

"That place a bar. I'm sing girl. Everybody know me. Everybody know I not go to bar. Too many bar girl there. I look like bar girl? No way. I'm sing girl. Okay. No."

"You name the place."

"Place already got a name. The Continental Hotel Terrace."

Chapter 9
Bugs rubbed just a small dab of Wildroot Cream Oil in the palms of his hands and ran his fingers through his hair making little drop curls on his forehead for effect. His best khaki cotton trousers and a dark blue short sleeve shirt rounded out the desired look. Clean tan socks and black loafers topped off the ensemble and he was ready to roll.

Hopping into the blue and cream colored Renault taxi, he went over the plan in his head. Be there at quarter to noon, get a table away from the sidewalk, watch for her arrival and walk out to the street in a noble gesture to greet her. Offer his arm as support and glide back up the three stairs to the outside veranda table, assist her to settle into her seat, and tell her she looks exquisite. Ask her what kind of wine she prefers and recommend something white. Bugs checked his wallet again and sure enough, there was a wad of money stuffed in there that could finance a small business venture.

The Continental had been a stately landmark of the city since its opening in 1885. A French construction consortium, the Society of Grand Hotels of Indochina, built it. Famous painters and writers graced the verandas and lived in its rooms over the years. Both Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene used it as a backdrop in their stories. And now, Bugs Silverman was about to scribble notes on a pad at a table in the terraced cafe. Notes to nowhere, he mused. And now he sat at the prearranged table and waited for the interviewee.

From the table, under the wooded revolving fan, Bugs watched the phenomenon out on the street of the red traffic light starting gate. Saigon streets were abundant in small motor bikes and scooters. It seemed that every young lady in Saigon drove a light green and white motor scooter. He was amazed at how routinely they placed the flowing part of their long ao dai so that it rattled a bit in the breeze but never blew wildly in the air and never got soiled.

The red to green light race was about to get under way right there in front of him. Each participant swiveled the handlebar throttle almost in unison, but the one who did it most frequently was surely destined for victory. Then there it was, almost a green light. The older man in the black and silver Honda, with shiny spokes in its wheels, got off first and the others followed. The only problem was the traffic from the adjacent street had not yet paid respect to their red light, so the starting gate experienced a false start that caused a haphazard restart from various points within the intersection.

Then a small taxi stopped near the intersection at Le Loi Street. The driver opened the back door for Lan from his seat and bowed his head several times in gracious ceremony of her exit. In regal splendor, she walked away without closing the door, leaving the driver the task with which he was all too pleased to accept. Bugs upset one of the empty water goblets on the table as he awkwardly rose to the occasion. He gave himself last minute instructions and gallantly strode across the wooden floor, down the steps to her side. He wished he could say something in French because it seemed somehow appropriate but wasn't sure what to say so he went for, "Hi. You look great."

"Okay. Thank you. What you want to talk about?"

Oh no, he thought and hoped she didn't have a big hurry.

"It's so nice to see you again, Lan. I have a nice table right over there and look forward to a pleasant lunch," he went on and was really proud of how that went.

"Okay. Me too. Place look good. Do you think? Yes. I like this place. This place look good. Lot of fine ladies go here. I go here all the time. Everybody know me. You watch and see. Everybody know me here. Many fine ladies go here."

Bugs helped her to her chair and walked around to sit in his.

"Okay, thank you. You want to eat?"

"Sure. There's plenty of time. Just relax. How about some wine? I'll call the waiter."

"Okay, no. Wine make my head hurt. Last New Year day, I drink too much wine and my head hurt so bad I want to cut it off," she said, making a slashing gesture at her throat.

"Oh, I know what you mean. But just one glass to celebrate a new friendship."

"Okay, I don't think so. I like ice tea. You tell the boy I want ice tea."

Just then the boy arrived. He was seventy-three years old, and had worked at the Continental since 1916. He had watched Graham Greene pen portions of The Quiet American right there at that table. If he knew Lan, he didn't act like it.

"Two iced teas sir, and we would like some time to read the menu," Bugs said and the man left in a half bow.

"Why you call him sir? He is only waiter. You see how he stare at me? He stare at me all the time all over the place when I go here. He know about I'm sing girl on TV," Lan advised as she exaggerated a gesture of hiding behind her menu.

Bugs ordered everything that Lan ordered. They ate and talked. Mostly Lan talked and volunteered things about her fame and success. Bugs took notes and uttered interested ohs and ahs. Mangoes and sticky rice washed down with strong French coffee filtered right there in the cups at the table, rounded off the meal.

"Okay, I want to walk in the park now. You like to walk in the park? Good," she suggested.
Lan led the way through the winding sidewalks past the art shops and up toward the Saigon Zoo. A shaded traffic circle offered a park-like setting with tamarind trees and wooden benches.

They sat and Lan talked some more.

"This place nice. I like this place. You like this place? Good. Place like this is nice and quite. Nobody go here. I go here all the time. I like to come here and just rest. Remind me of Hoi An. You ever go to Hoi An?"

"No. I've never been anywhere but Bien Hoa, Saigon and once to Danang."

"Okay. Hoi An right there. Hoi An right next door to Danang. You take the road from Danang, go past Ngu Hanh Son and you in that place already. We call that Hoi An. You been there?"

"No," Bugs laughed. "What's that place, Goohan Son?"

"Okay, no. Ngu Hanh Son. That what we call the mountain. Stone mountain. I forget what kind of stone you call that. It's soft and gray and black and many markets in that place make little fish and Buddha statue from that stone and all kind of stuff like that."

Later, Bugs would find out that she was talking about Marble Mountain, just Southeast of Danang, by China Beach. Lan told him the legend of Marble Mountain.

"This is story about magic. If you believe it, then it is true story. If you not believe it, then you are not Vietnamese. This is a story about a guy marry a turtle."

She had his attention.

Chapter 18
The traffic light was mounted atop a six-foot high pole on the edge of the curb and sort of blended in with the colorful background of the market place. Bugs caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye as he drove past it on Doc Lap Street and it was red. He knew immediately the error of his ways. He wasn't worried though because the police, white mice as they were called, seldom bothered Americans driving in town. Sort of a professional courtesy in the world of government graft. This time Bugs was driving one of the jeeps that belonged to his Vietnamese counterpart over at the Vietnamese Military Security Service. The jeep looked civilian with a local civilian tag for proper cover.

The police sergeant stepped off the curb into the path of Bugs' ten mile-an-hour trek past the red light, boldly held his white gloved left hand up in a halting gesture and placed the chrome whistle to his lips, too loudly announcing the apprehension. Even over the din of the obtrusive Saigon traffic, the whistle was more than annoying and gave Bugs a sinking feeling as he recounted in his head all of the violations he carried with him.

He had no ID to show he could be driving this civilian jeep. The ID he did have, depicted him as a journalist, not as the U.S. Soldier he was, and the glove compartment concealed a loaded.38 caliber revolver. He had no driver license, if there was such a thing in the middle of a war and he didn't have much of any idea about the traffic laws. He did know what a red light was and that sometimes the white mice were less than polite at the scene of the crime. And so he made a kind of stopping signal with his hand and pulled to the curb carefully and what he thought was quite politely.

The policeman took sort of goose steps around to the driver's side of the jeep, careful not to ruin the crease in his khaki uniform trousers. He saluted and Bugs saluted back, smiling. Bugs noted by the policeman's rank insignia and nametag that he was about to deal with Sergeant Sang.

Sergeant Sang spoke first. "Hello."

"Hello Captain. How are you?" Bugs decided on a promotion.

"Hello. You speak Vietnam?"

"No. I'm sorry."

"How long you stay Vietnam?"

"About eight months now."

"You stay Vietnam eight months and not speak Vietnam?"

Bugs was embarrassed, "No. I'm sorry. I've been sick."

"You have, uh... you have, uh, uh... driving license?"

"No. Again, I'm sorry. I think I lost it. I'm sorry, Captain."

"Hmmmm. Not having driving license. Hmmm. You see that, ah... that ah, you see that ah... "

There was a long pause as he pointed to the traffic light.
Bugs helped, "Red light?"

"Led light. Yeah. You see that ah, led light?"

"Well. You see, that's just it. I did, but I didn't. I mean I saw it but it was too late. Oh, I should have seen it. It was right there and all, I was just too stupid I guess and I forgot to stop when I saw it, I guess."

"Hmmm." The policeman paused for thought. Seemed to be going over the crime scene in his mind, using his fingers for counting the offenses.

"Hmmm," he went on, "driving not having driving license, not stopping at led light. I think this is very bad. I think this very cost too much in court."

"How much you think it'll cost?"

"Hmmm. Le's see." He started to using his fingers to count again. "Driving not having driving license, not stopping at led light. I don't know. We have to go to court now. Ask judge."
With that, Sergeant Sang walked to the other side of the jeep, hopped in and motioned for Bugs to drive forward. More motions, left turn, go straight. Not wanting to appear reckless, Bugs stayed in one lane, therefore inching along in the killer traffic at about five to ten miles an hour. After about a block of this the policeman spoke.

"Very hot today."

Bugs agreed.

"Very hot today," Sergeant Sang said again. "I think inside courthouse very hot more. I think we wait a long time for judge. Sometime three or two hour wait. That place very hot. No air-condition. Just hot. Waiting. Sometime take longtime."

"Three or two hours, you think?" Bugs seemed interested.

"Maybe more. I don't know."

Bugs had an idea. "I've got an idea."

"What idea?"

"Why don't I just give you the money and you can just give it to the judge when you see him?"

"Hmmm."

"What's a fine like this gonna cost anyway? I mean what would the judge think this will cost?"


"Hmmm. Driving not having driving license, driving not stopping at led light. I think more than five dollar."

Bugs, sort of surreptitiously pulled six dollars out of his pants pocket and said, "Here y'go Captain. Give this to the judge."

The policeman considered the calculation of more than five dollars. "I think judge want seven dollar."

Case settled, gavel down. The policeman rumpled the seven dollars into his pants pocket and motioned for Bugs to pull over to the curb. He said he would go call the judge now and that Bugs would not have to wait. He told Bugs that he should hurry to get a new driver license and be very careful about traffic laws in Saigon. He saluted a departure, hopped out onto the sidewalk and started to blowing his whistle at someone or something that Bugs couldn't see in his mirror. Bugs sort of patted the glove compartment and drove off toward Tan Son Nhut Airbase.

Chapter 56
Bugs watched the notoriously flamboyant VNAF pilots strut their stuff in the operations center, just off the flight line. Bedecked in a variety of colorful silk scarves wrapped loosely with a hint of devil may care, the young officers walked briskly with pride. Bugs had never been on this end of Tan Son Nhut Airbase before. All of his flights up until now where courtesy of Pan Am, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force and those crazy guys in Air America. The Vietnamese Air Force side had less air conditioned buildings, more food stalls and a mixture of ARVN and VNAF uniforms accompanied by their families. The Army of Vietnam often traveled from one base camp to another with their families and worldly belonging in tow. A luxury seldom afforded the Northern Army and their VC counterparts.

Lan and her sister Hai looked terrific, Bugs thought, in their blue jeans and tee shirts. Luan was wearing khaki shorts and tee shirt, looking equally pleasing. The Victory Sisters were on their way to a camp somewhere in the Mekong Delta to sing for the troops and Bugs was invited along for the first show.

The VNAF pilots were putting on special struts and snappy patter for the famous trio. Gifts of paper cups filled with salted fruits, bottles of cold cola, flowers, and occasional scarves from around their necks were the most frequent bounty offered. The girls signed autographs on paper, uniforms, and scarves. Bugs was completely invisible to the crowd and was feeling a little more than jealous over the attention Lan was getting from these joy stick jockeys.

"Do they know I'm an internationally known soldier of foreign wars," Bugs asked Lan.

"No. But so are they," she answered.

Damn, Bugs thought. She was starting to sound like Savannah more every day.

Their helicopter had finally been selected and Captain Vinh showed the way with Bugs in trail. The huge vessel looked as though it had never been off the ground and never would.

Helicopters in flight were an optical illusion, thought Bugs. How could they ever fly, as big and bulky and aerodynamically clumsy as they looked. As Bugs followed Hai and Luan up the metal rungs to the open cabin, Captain Vinh grabbed Lan's hand to guide her through his exterior preflight check. He had never been as thorough and demanding of his crew chief. But it was his finest hour and he would cherish every moment of it.

Bugs took a canvass seat next to Hai, knowing he was just reserving it for Lan since the floor would probably be his airborne seat. The cabin quickly filled in true wartime style. A family of four-a mother, two infants, and a two-year old boy-sprawled out on a small blanket on the aft end of the deck.

The preflight done, Captain Vinh helped Lan into the craft, almost clicked his heels, saluted her and took his place at the command pilot seat. Bugs made way for Lan allowing her to take her seat as he plopped down on the floor next to her. All other seats had been filled. As the craft belched a few starting cranks, the final passengers boarded. An old lady with six live chickens tied together at their feet were next. Just as Bugs thought it was time to slide the doors closed, the last passenger was hoisted up and spilled onto the cabin floor. It was a two-hundred and fifty pound brown and white pig. On the way to market, Bugs figured. The pig didn't seem to object too much and just laid there starring at Bugs with clouded glassy eyes.

"How come he don't jump around much?" Bugs yelled over the engine roar to Lan.

"He drunk," she answered.

"Who's drunk?" Bugs asked.

"Pig. That who. He drunk."

"Now how do you know that?" Bugs went on.

"That how the farmer get the pig to market. Get him drunk so he fall down and don't get up. He go anyplace you put him now. He don't know different. He drunk."

"I'll be goddamn," Bugs uttered.

The whining high pitch of engines, rotor blades and everything else moving mounted to a deafening crescendo until the helicopter made up and down jerking motions, bouncing on its tires before final lift off. For a while Bugs thought his theory to be correct and the thing was never going to fly. Then Captain Vinh and his copilot taxied past the rows of hangars and took off like a fixed wing aircraft, but ever so slowly in ascent.

Bugs finally figured out why no one closed the side doors. There were no doors to close. They had long since been dismantled. One sharp bank and Bugs, farmer, family, chickens, and pig would be free falling to the rice paddies below. He tried not to think about it anymore, but stayed as close to Lan's legs as possible emergency hangers-on.

At about five-hundred feet, the pig screeched once and the chickens started cackling with ventriloquist-like clucking sounds. Bugs knew what they were saying.

"Okay," said the leader, the one with the largest red thing on his head. "Okay, when I say, 'cluck cluck... cluck cluck cluck', everybody flap your wings in unison with me. I'll flap my left wing faster and harder and we'll make it for that door over there by pig. When we get in the air, let the sun be on your right side and flap like hell. We'll be at the Thai border by nightfall. We'll camp out for the night and head for India the first thing in the morning. It's there in Bombay, where we'll join the circus."

Bugs worried about himself sometimes when he had these thoughts, but he was sure of one thing. No chicken sandwiches for him for a while.