Teo
"Uncle Sau," Teo called out his greeting."Ah, Teo, have you eaten rice?"
"I only had time for a sweet potato."
"Troi oi! Heavens! That's all? Well, never mind. Hop on. You can always have some good stuff downtown later, I'm sure."
Teo shoved his box under the bench on the left, put his foot on the only step, clambered up, slipping a bit clumsily, and settled himself on the back end of one of the benches.
The vehicle sputtered into motion and stuttered north leaving the hamlet behind, then turned left onto Tran Xuan Soan Street which ran along the Te Canal. Teo squinted over water saturated by molten light and saw the Long Kien ferry leaving its berth in Khanh Hoi for the trip across the canal to Tan Qui Dong. A few minutes later, as the xe lam moved along the road, again scanning the stretch of canal, he could see the area which had been Vinh Hoi slum district, now sprinkled with new buildings. His legacy!
- From the purulent slums, from the squalid hovels,
- from the humming, buzzing, putrid poverty of Vinh Hoi.
- Destined for to be but a helot among the haulage,
- a goofy goon napping on helicoid mooring hawsers.
- Flea-bitten fledgling he'll be,
- pustular, purloining, purplish as vapors of incense.
- Hotheaded humanoid hugger-mugger in high hulking dudgeon.
- A dual-purpose dunderhead from a dunghill called Vinh Hoi!
"The smell of the nuoc mam factory is so terribly heavy this morning, don't you think?" Sau asked in a yell over his shoulder.