It was late at night and I was hastily walking down the street with my friend Martin. Although it was late the street was full of people, bikes and a couple of cars; however we did not see any Xe Om , motorbike taxi, or any taxi. As we walked trying to spot a taxi Martin stopped to tie his show lace,

“Move on, we have to be home at 1:30 “I said

“yeah, but we live like 20 min away so it is easy, just stay here and wait for a taxi”

“Aight but you better hurry up”

As I tuned around I paid more attention to the narrow road, the thousand motorbikes on the street and the honking. The cigarette smell took over me; I just had to sit down. I took my phone out of my pocket to look at the time “Yo, its 2 am we are late already. Damn I would call a taxi if I had any credit.” Martin did not reply, he just looked at me. We both looked at the road again trying to spot a taxi, time slowed down and no taxis could be seen. It was torture.

We gave up and decided to walk home and hope we could grab a taxi on the way. As I stood up I looked at someone behind martin, I didn’t know who he was but he was a Viet. I tried to tell martin to move away but the Viet kicked him on the back, I screamed “f*** you” and Martin stood up and said “Dit Me (what the hell).” The Viet dashed back inside leaving both of us confused about what happened, I asked martin if he was all right and decided to leave. Then we saw it; sweat dripping down his forehead and these crazy eyes. It was the same Viet with a baseball bat sized stick on his hands, Martin ran but I stayed behind. When I saw he walking towards me I decided it was time to get the hell out of there and sprinted away. In frustration, he went back inside and grabbed a beer bottle and threw it at me. The bottle hit me on the back and ricocheted to Martins shoulder. We got inside a club called Hair of The Dog where the bouncer “Trang” told the Viet to leave.

I looked at martin and said “What the f*** just happened”

“I don’t know, let’s go beat him up” he said while looking at a bottle.

“We come here every weekend; we should go and say sorry”

“Yeah, let’s say sorry and see what happens”

“Just in case let me get this bottle, you know protection”

“Yeah, but let me have it”

We walked back to the place, as we passed through the door we saw the Viet as he stood up, he was looking straight at us while biting his teeth. A few words crawled out of my mouth “Xin Loi (sorry).” I looked at my friend for a second as he squeezed the bottle ready to throw it at that guy. By the time I looked back at the Viet his face changed, his mouth relaxed and his loosed up; He told us to sit. We sat down and he brought out 3 glasses of wine, he said “Good you apologize, next time I kill you” we were so confused but we had a small conversation about Vietnam and started like us. Martins asked him if he could call a taxi for us and promised that we would never sit there again. To make the story short I got home at 3:30 am and my mom asked me what happened and I said “People are crazy”