“Yes I do, Duncan. I wonder if Jimi Hendrix was thinking of those boys heading to Vietnam when he penned those lyrics?”
“You know Hendrix?” Duncan inquires? “I’m surprised.”
“Why? Just because I turn up looking like the Avon lady?”
Duncan laughs. We are sitting in his sister’s garden. After four hours of taped interview, the awkwardness of our first meet has dissipated, but we still fumble for words.
Somehow, the Technicolor splendor of the garden seems out of place as Duncan struggles with his former life in faded khaki. There is a 37 minute hour on one tape. Another one is punctuated with even longer periods of silence. It is something we have learned to work with. It gives Duncan a chance to regroup his thoughts. It gives me an opportunity to regroup what has just been said into the next question, or jot down a few more ideas.
But Duncan tells me that the silence of a Vietnam vet seems to terrify most people.
“When I came home, I think people were worried I would go into some kind of psychotic flashback unless they kept me talking about the most asinine things. Then one day I just stopped talking.”
I do not say anything, but give a little nod with my head.
“But you do know that I still have told you more about Vietnam in these four hours than I have told anyone in 38 years? My sister and I have always been close. I think she feels shut out by this memoir business.”
I have sensed his sister’s distance, and would like a chance to get Duncan away for awhile. I suggest a drive around Stanley Park.
“It’s been a hot day. It will soon be dark and cool by the water. We can stop and look at the city lights from across the harbour. What do you think, Duncan?”
He readily agrees.
Thirty minutes later we are slowly cruising around the park’s perimeter. I have opened the moon roof. The air is refreshing. We pass Lost Lagoon, the Nine O’Clock Gun, Deadman’s Island, then stop at Prospect Point to look at the city at night. A few stars twinkle faintly overhead, but most are obscured by the glow from the city.
We sit in the car - close - but do not talk about that distant land of Vietnam. Our conversation again drifts back to the music of the decade; the musicians who survived and those who did not. Duncan tells me that Jimi Hendrix was his favourite.
“Most people think Purple Haze was inspired by L.S.D., but it wasn’t. Hendrix read a lot of science fiction. He got the idea for the song from a book by Philip Farmer called ‘Night of Light.’“
Duncan then looks up through the open moon roof
of the Infiniti, and quotes the line which inspired Hendrix’s song:
“The sky was clear but the stars seemed far away, blobs straining to pierce the purplish haze.”
It reminds me of our struggle to find our visibility. Duncan has his fog of memories. I struggle to find the words which hang overhead like suspended atoms.
“Do you see the irony?” I ask.
“Yes I do,” sighs Duncan.
Our day has ended as it began.
