The Lake Will Take You Home

A man was crawling on Hang Khay street
today. He moved slowly, in a combat

crawl along the sidewalk. No one helped him,
so I found a policeman, and in my sloppy Vietnamese,

I asked him why no one would help this man.
Dien cai dau, he said in Vietnamese,

crazy, and he twirled his right index finger
next to his temple making small circles,

that universal sign. Soon, more police arrived,
and a crowd had gathered. The crawling man

stood up when a high-ranking officer
arrived and the man bowed to him as if

he was bowing to the Buddha, but the police captain
slapped his hands down and spoke roughly to him.

I could only understand a few words, but he was trying to tell
the man it was time to get up, and begin

walking home. When he stood he was only a few feet
from where I was, helplessly waiting to help.

He looked at me but our eyes wouldn’t meet and he focused
his attention instead on the captain. He struggled to put his belt

back on, but when the captain saw the belt,
which had been torn in half and had no buckle,

he grabbed it and threw it in the nearby trash and the man
who’d been crawling began to bow again,

holding his hands together in prayer. After another
hard smack across his back, he stopped ranting

and stood up straight. He was small, I saw for the first
time, and he thanked the policeman who walked

him across the busy street, dodging cars
the way they do here. On the other side

was the lake of the returned sword, Ho Guom,
the Vietnamese call it, that held an old

myth about finding the will to go on no matter
how complete the destruction of your life or your soul. People

walk around the lake day and night
until midnight. Mostly couples of all

ages, and some tourists. I watched him walk
to the edge of the lake before he began

to join with others around the perimeter, but no one
noticed him. He walked upright and held his head

high like he was headed to some worthy purpose. The police
captain was standing beside me, watching too.

He smiled at me and took his hat off. The crowd
had thinned. In Vietnamese he’d told the man

to stand up, and walk home, around
the lake. The lake will take you home, he’d said.