The Big Buddha Bicycle Race
THE BIG BUDDHA BICYCLE RACE
TERENCE A. HARKIN
Swallow Press / Ohio University Press
Athens, OH
Ohio University Press, Athens, OH 45701
© 2017 by Terence A. Harkin
First published in 2017 by Silkworm Books
104/5 M. 7, Chiang Mai–Hot Road, T. Suthep
Chiang Mai 50200 Thailand
All rights reserved
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First published in North America in 2018 by Ohio University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Harkin, Terence A., author.
Title: The Big Buddha Bicycle Race : a novel / Terence A. Harkin.
Description: Athens, Ohio : Swallow Press, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017058742| ISBN 9780804011990 (hardback) | ISBN 9780804012003 (pb) | ISBN 9780804040907 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Psychological aspects—Fiction. | Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Aerial operations, American—Fiction. | War—Moral and ethical aspects—Fiction. | Americans—Thailand—Fiction. | Soldiers—Thailand—Fiction. | War stories.
Classification: LCC PS3608.A7426 B54 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017058742
Dedication
To Captain Kenneth Little, a pioneering African American graduate of the Air Force Academy (Class of 1969). Like far too many veterans of Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, he spent the rest of his life in self-imposed solitude, Missing in America;
To Phil Hawkshead, who flew more than 150 combat missions at night over the Ho Chi Minh Trail and to his fellow Air Force cameramen, twelve of whom died in combat in Southeast Asia;
And to the people of Laos, who were caught in a crossfire of Western ideologies that proved that war didn’t need to be nuclear to be catastrophic.
From defilement can come much wisdom.
–Ajahn Po
From defilement can come much defilement.
–TSgt Harley Baker
Prologue
When you’ve been to the mountaintop
the valleys seem tame
When you’ve flown through lightning
Death’s just a game
When you’ve kissed Carly Simon
other women seem plain
When you’ve been to Mexico
you can’t come home again
When your back was aching
she washed away the pain
When the storm was raging
she knew what song to sing
Lost in the desert
she brought you the sea
When your mind was sinking
she fed you tea
When you’ve been to the mountaintop
the world seems flat
When you’ve fought in Cambodia
peace feels like a trap
When the full moon breaks through the clouds
the light bursts like flak
When you’ve flown through the Mu Gia Pass
you know you can’t come back
The waters taste bitter
when you’ve sipped on champagne
Your throat becomes scratchy
despite monsoon rain
Your ears fill with silence
when the sweet sparrow sings
When you’ve been to the mountaintop
you can’t come home again
Contents
“Mai Pen Rai,” OR: The Show Must Go On
Lieutenant Rick “Moonbeam” Liscomb
Ron Cooper Isn’t Coming, OR: The Day I Donned My Plastic Wings
Gunship (OR: “Ghost Riders in the Sky”)