Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta by Kate Braverman
"Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta" by Kate Braverman is a narrative that explores the psychological and emotional struggles of a divorced California woman in her late thirties. As a recovering alcoholic, she navigates her life with the challenges of motherhood and a recent commitment to sobriety. The story is set against a backdrop of her encounters with a mysterious and unsettling figure named Lenny, who introduces a tantalizing and dangerous allure into her life.
Lenny, characterized as a short, pale man with a troubled past, becomes obsessed with the protagonist, persistently inviting her to join him on adventures that blur the lines between reality and fantasy. His strange charm and tales of danger from his life as a drug runner captivate her imagination, leading her to oscillate between fear and desire. The narrative delves into themes of escapism, the struggle for autonomy, and the seductive pull of addiction, as well as the protagonist's internal conflict regarding her commitments and desires.
As the woman grapples with her attraction to Lenny and the risk he represents, the story unfolds in a dreamlike manner, highlighting her gradual descent into a troubling relationship that threatens her recovery. Ultimately, the tale brings forth questions about the nature of freedom, the allure of the unknown, and the fragility of self-control in the face of overwhelming temptation. This evocative narrative invites readers to reflect on their own vulnerabilities and the complexities of human connection.
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Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta by Kate Braverman
First published: 1990
Type of plot: Psychological
Time of work: The late 1980's
Locale: West Hollywood, California
Principal Characters:
The unnamed narrator , a recovering alcoholic divorced woman who teaches creative writingLenny , a Vietnam veteran, former drug addict, and former convict
The Story
The unnamed protagonist is a thirty-eight-year-old California woman who is divorced and raising a young daughter, has been a recovering alcoholic for five months, and is currently seeing an analyst. As she walks across a parking lot in West Hollywood one day on her way to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, she is accosted by a short, fat, pale man with bad teeth who introduces himself as Lenny. He invites her for coffee, inquires about her life, and tells her that he will show her the other side and give her the ride of her life. She turns him down.
The next day, Lenny is at the narrator's noon Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and has brought the narrator a bouquet of roses. Again he invites her out, and again she refuses, but Lenny persists. After watching her for two weeks, he knows every move that she makes. Lenny calls it "recon," the kind of reconnaissance he used to do in Vietnam, and promises to tell her some tall tales from the Mekong Delta. She again cuts him off, but later, sitting in her car, she notices the sky in a different way. It is China blue, and Lenny's talk of Asia has given her exotic fantasies of emperors and concubines.
At her meeting the following day, she finds herself looking for Lenny. Sure enough, he is there, holding two cups of coffee as though awaiting her arrival, and he seems younger and tanner than she remembers. Walking out later, she looks at her watch, but Lenny admonishes her, and makes her take it off and give it to him. Time is not important, he says; besides, he will give her something better, a Rolex. He claims to have a drawerful of them, along with a bundle of cash in a safe-deposit box. He offers to take her for a ride around the block on his motorcycle and extends his hand. She takes it and fantasizes once again about blue Asian skies and China seas.
Over the next week, the narrator tries to avoid Lenny. She changes the times and locations of her meetings, but she trembles when she thinks of him and is irresistibly drawn back to the earlier meeting place. She finds him sitting on the front steps of the community center as though he were expecting her. She begins to cry. Lenny consoles her, offers to buy her dinner, and tells her not to worry about the way he looks. He is in disguise, on the run from Colombian drug dealers, and he shows her a knife he has hidden in his sock. He has another under his shirt and is carrying guns. The narrator feels dizzy, lost, but Lenny reassures her: He is in her dreams; he is her ticket to the other side, and she can never get away from him. She lives in a dreamlike state, another time almost, because she no longer has a watch.
Days later, when Lenny says he wants to have sex with her, she finds herself helpless, although rationally she knows better. He needs to get an AIDS test, he is a drug addict, he is pathological, and he has spent time in prison. Lenny reassures her by telling her that if she contracts a disease, he will see that she never suffers. He will take her to Bangkok, keep her loaded up with dope, and will kill her with his own hands before she suffers too much. With Lenny, she is like a child, frozen in time as though under a spell, and she allows him to take her to a place in Bel Air vacated by one of his acquaintances. On the way there, Lenny tells her about his experiences as a drug runner, flying planes from Arizona to Colombia. In fact, that is how he got into trouble with the Colombians.
The narrator now fantasizes about living with Lenny in Colombia, dancing barefoot in bars and fanning herself with handfuls of hundred-dollar bills. At the Bel Air mansion, she and Lenny swim naked in the pool and make love in the bedroom, her body draped with expensive diamonds.
The narrator does not see Lenny for a while, but on Christmas Eve he shows up on her doorstep in blue jeans and a black leather jacket, riding a motorcycle. The Colombians are after him, and he is on his way out of town. He needs a drink; despite the fact that the narrator is in Alcoholics Anonymous, she agrees to have one with him. He wants her to come with him, but she refuses. She has a daughter to think about. Nervous and anxious to leave, Lenny heads for the door, tells her it was some ride and that he gave her a glimpse of the other side, and roars off into the darkness. She takes another sip of vodka and knows that when the bottle is empty, she will buy another and another. The air seems a pool of blue shadows, an enormity that will enter her, finding out where she lives and never letting her forget.