Big Mike's Perspective in When Heaven and Earth Changed Places

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One of the events that stuck out to me from this book is when Le Ly agrees to have sex with an American soldier for $400, about eighty times what the usual Danang prostitute gets for the same service. The person that I see as responsible for this event is Big Mike, an American MP. Here is his side of the story:

I had been dealing with this crap my whole life, whenever somebody needs something they call me, Big Mike. Most of the time it's nice because I can get a tidy profit from my dealings. Sometimes, like today, I end up losing out on more than profits.

To start from the beginning, I was working over at the Freedom Mill talking shop with some of the Marines, when these two kids who look to be about my son's age walk up with a colonel. The colonel introduces them as Privates Williams and Jensen, and says they are on their way back Stateside. He also adds that they have had a pretty dreary tour and our looking for something fun before they have to go home to their girlfriends and wives. The colonel looked straight at me when he said that last part and I realized that it was going to be my job to go find some 'bum bum' for these two bums. Wanting to impress the colonel I stepped up with a big cheesy grin on my face, "I think I catch your drift Colonel, sir. Let me take care of these Privates." A few of the surrounding officers laughed at my innuendo, but the two privates just smiled sheepishly to each other. The colonel smiled, agreed, and handed me a wad of bills to pay for their good time. It added up to four hundred dollars, more than enough for the thirty minutes they had before they had to be on the plane home.

I started to leave the hangar with them and walk towards the Hoa Phat bar, which I knew to have a few nice clean girls. As we started walking I noticed a familiar figure with a red bucket standing by the gate. It was Le Ly, a black marketeer that I turned a blind eye to in the past in exchange for choice weed and Chinese jade. Now here was a pretty, clean girl. With the boys only having about twenty-five minutes before they had to board the plane I decided to try and bargain with her.

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