Butterfly Yellow

Eighteen-year-old LeeRoy drives past the same landscape as Hằng. He has driven up from his home in Austin and is headed to Amarillo, hoping to meet his idol, Bruce Ford. He wants to join Ford and train to become a cowboy with him.

Hằng persuaded her cousin, Angie, to drive her to the bus station earlier. Hằng needs to reunite with her brother, Linh, who is waiting for her: “It’s been six years, two months, and fifteen days since April 20, 1975, when the siblings got separated” (7). Linh is the only person left from Hằng’s youth; her grandmother and parents are all dead, and Linh is the only reason she crossed the sea in a rotting fishing boat.

Angie knew her father would be livid but drove Hằng to the station, anyway. She also helped Hằng pack supplies and money into a backpack, promised to cover for Hằng, and asked her to be careful while traveling alone.

LeeRoy listens to rap music as he drives along, twirling the mustache he grew as a tribute to Ford’s. He eats some of the brownies his mother packed for him and decides to stop for milk.

Hằng does not know Texas is shaped like a skillet, with the northwestern tip dubbed the “panhandle”; she only knows of the state because her father’s younger brother is a doctor in Dallas. As she rides a bus through Texas, she thinks about the cowboy movies starring Clint Eastwood that she used to watch with her father and brother. Her father used them to teach her English. Hằng believes if Vietnam had cowboys, her father would have given up his translation job to become one.

Now, she heads to a specific address: “405 Mesquite Street, Amarillo, Texas” (14). She tried to escape with Linh across the border via Operation Babylift in the final days of the war but was rejected for being too old. Five-year-old Linh, who was assumed to be three, was taken away from her at the airport. The American volunteer who witnessed Hằng’s screaming and crying took pity on her and passed her a card with the Texas address. When Hằng tried to confess what happened at home, her grandmother, Bà, concluded that Linh was kidnapped before she heard the whole story, and planned ways to retrieve her grandson. Hằng never corrected her but has lived with the guilt over Linh’s disappearance all these years.

LeeRoy gets out of his truck and examines his outfit in the mirror. His parents bought him the brand new clothes, boots, and hat, along with the red Ford F-350 truck he insisted on as an ode to “Bareback Ford.” LeeRoy also carries his grandfather’s bareback buckle, which the latter won at a rodeo many years ago. LeeRoy was christened Leslie Dwight Cooper at birth but renamed himself “LeeRoy” before setting out on his journey, shortening “Leslie” to “Le” and joining it to “Roy,” his grandfather’s name.

LeeRoy steps into a store to buy milk and attempts to chat with the cowboys there, but they sneer at him and call him a “rhinestone cowboy.” Stung, LeeRoy leaves and resolves to buy milk elsewhere.

A car that looks like Chú Quốc’s zooms past the bus, and Hằng nervously chews more ginger, Bà’s go-to cure for almost everything. Hằng had told Chú Quốc when he greeted her at the airport the previous day that Bà had wanted her to search for Linh. From Chú Quốc’s expression, Hằng understood that Bà had passed away in the time Hằng had been traveling.

Chú Quốc told her Linh was missing and had searched at the address when Bà first sent word, but there was no one there. When Hằng insisted on seeing for herself, Chú Quốc forbade her from traveling alone, but Hằng resolved to maneuver past him. Now, she watches a digger as the bus zooms past, thinking that it looks like a metal giraffe. Hằng begins to feel sick and throws up in a paper bag a couple of times before the bus comes to a stop.

The other passengers get out, commenting on how Hằng, who looks much younger than 18, shouldn’t be traveling alone. The driver hands her paper towels to clean up and signals that they are at a rest stop and will leave again soon. When he and the others return to the bus, Hằng and her backpack are nowhere to be found. The driver honks and waits a few seconds, then drives off without her.

Hằng returns to find the bus gone. She begins to panic but then remembers Bà’s advice: “When in danger look for those who can’t help but be kind, kindness from the stomach out” (27). Hằng approaches an elderly couple and shows them signs written out by Angie, explaining the address she wants to get to, as her brother needs help. The couple spots LeeRoy, who has just entered, and despite his refusals, strong-arms him into driving Hằng to Amarillo and gives him $10. Hằng climbs into the truck but feels unsure about LeeRoy; she quietly unsheathes the knife strapped at her ankle, just in case.

An annoyed LeeRoy begins talking about how he was on his way to meet Bruce Ford and describes his idol’s various accomplishments. His parents, professors at University of Texas, wanted him to go to Yale, but the cowboy life has always called to him. Hằng doesn’t respond, and LeeRoy notices she is looking a little green. He stops by the side of the road just as she throws up again into a bag. LeeRoy hands Hằng some ginger ale to help settle her stomach, but instead of drinking it, she holds the cold can up to her forehead. They drive off, Hằng vigorously signaling that LeeRoy keep the window rolled down.

The cold can revives Hằng a little, but she still doesn’t feel like talking. She concentrates on the plan that has been six years in the making, which led to 12 days at sea, three days on an island, and four-and-a-half months in a refugee camp.

After Chú Quốc wrote saying that Linh had disappeared, Bà began saving up money to buy seats on an escape boat. They received news the previous year that countries were accepting refugees under the "Orderly Departure Program” (36) and could fly out, instead. However, the family’s paperwork kept getting stalled, so Bà devised a secret plan to escape by sea. When the time came, Bà couldn’t leave because of a tumor in her leg.

Hằng marvels at how much LeeRoy talks, even as she tries to push away the memory of a “red line across a pale thin throat” (38). He parks at a store and fetches milk, offering her some with brownies, which Hằng thinks too sweet. He then begins chomping on raw celery, which Hằng wonders about, as she never saw Clint Eastwood doing so in any movie. She finally asks LeeRoy, “‘Du ri-eo cao-bồi?’” (40) (You real cowboy?).

LeeRoy is surprised that Hằng can talk. He talks slowly, as per her request, and teaches her how to pronounce “mesquite,” explaining the word’s meaning and pointing out the tree. The more Hằng talks, the more LeeRoy understands and can decode her pronunciation, asking her to stop stressing the s in her words.

When LeeRoy and Hằng finally arrive at Mesquite Street in Amarillo, they do not find 405; instead, where it should be, an abandoned building stands, half blown away, with a barred door and a crumbling sign that reads “South Baptist.”