New Star Page 10

  She paid fifty dollars at the border and about fifteen to twenty dollars at every other police checkpoint. They say the Paksan police are the toughest for her to bribe because it is the last checkpoint before Vientiane.

  With my Vietnamese all used up, I go to the back of the bus and explain to the Aussies what is happening. We all laugh, while the rest of the bus looks irritated.

  Ten minutes pass, and with nothing else to do, one of the Aussies grabs a Frisbee from his bag.

  “You want to play Frisbee, mate?” he asks me.

  “Sure,” I answer and follow the Aussies off the bus.

  The five of us stand on the side of the road in the dirt, throwing the Frisbee to each other. The bus crew looks on and laughs, as we spread out across the empty highway, flinging the Frisbee from one side of the road to the other.

  I throw the Frisbee across the road to one of the Aussies, and tell the bus crew to come out of the bus to play. The three of them stumble down the steps of the bus, laughing and hollering. The Frisbee crosses the highway again, and one the Aussies throws the Frisbee to the bus driver who brings his right hand down to his left hand in clapping motion, trying to trap the Frisbee.

  The Frisbee goes through his hands, and he chases it down. Another of the Aussies shouts across the road, showing the driver, with his hand, how to throw the Frisbee, and the driver copies the motion and flings the Frisbee in the air — it boomerangs back to him and we all laugh.

  He picks up the Frisbee and throws it successfully to another member of the bus crew, who tries to trap the Frisbee in the same clapping motion as the driver. We laugh as the middle-aged woman walks, downtrodden, out of the police building.

  She’s crying and talking to the bus crew. The police took a hundred dollars off her, and she has lost all her profits on this trip to Vientiane.

  We all get back on the bus, and the driver starts the engine again.

  And that’s all we can do, start again — every journey or saga in life comes to an end, and it’s up to us how we forge ahead.

  Maybe one day you’ll find yourself surrounded by burlap bags full of fan belts and playing Frisbee on a highway in Laos. You never know what will happen in life.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Manheim Wagner has spent the majority of his life in fear of having a full-time nine-to-five job. Originally from Levittown, Pennsylvania, he worked a steady stream of dead-end jobs before taking his first leap into the unknown in 1997, when he ended up teaching English in South Korea and nurturing his desire for exploration. Since then, he has wandered down a slew of random streets throughout the world with his cameras, living in such countries as Australia, Scotland, Vietnam, China and Japan.

  He is the author of three additional books including, Korea: How You Feel, What a Day for a Night and Levittown.

  He currently resides in Seoul, South Korea.