Synkroniciti is pleased to welcome back Kansan writer and poet Robert L. Dean, Jr., with a thought-provoking short story, “Napalm Girl and the Boy Next Door.” In a hospital bed with pneumonia, our protagonist finds himself cared for by a Vietnamese RN named Thuy.
“She stops, turns, hunched, almost as if bowing politely, and says: “Twee. How you say it.”
I tell her it’s a lovely name, a name like a bird taking flight.
“Vietnamese,” she says.
And suddenly time/space slips a groove and I see Napalm Girl, naked, arms flapping like plucked wings, flesh on fire, silent scream scorching the ears of the world, Tràng Bàng 1972, running off the front page towards me.”
Napalm Girl is the main character of The Terror of War, a photograph showing Phan Thi Kim Phuc and her family running down a road in Tràng Bàng after the South Vietnamese Airforce bombed her village as people were coming out of temple, an action based on bad intelligence from the US Army. Kim Phúc, nine years old, survived by tearing off her burning clothes and appears naked in the photo. Our protagonist did not serve in the Vietnam War, but that image was seared into his consciousness.
He finds himself feeling guilty for being part of the American culture that harmed the Vietnamese people and engages Thuy about the war. She notices his calendar which features the Vietnamese monk Thích Nhất Hạnh, also Vietnamese, and talks about his brother monk Thich Quang Duc who burnt himself to death in Saigon in protest of the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnam government. This event was the subject of another famous photo (World Press Photo of the Year 1963) taken by Malcolm Browne. Dean uses these photos and our memory of them (we’ve included links for those unfamiliar with the photos) to underpin and structure the piece.
Both Thuy and our narrator are momentarily transported from that hospital room by their memories and this creates an opportunity for connection and cultural healing. Dean creates believable characters that tug at our hearts and minds for empathy and understanding. He reminds us that life provides moments for us to be good to one another, even when we are sick, in pain, or in situations that are less than ideal.
Read “Napalm Girl and the Boy Next Door” in Synkroniciti’s “Recovery” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Robert L. Dean, Jr. is the author of Pulp (Finishing Line Press, 2022); The Aerialist Will not be Performing: ekphrastic poems and short fictions to the art of Steven Schroeder (Turning Plow Press, 2020); and At the Lake with Heisenberg (Spartan Press, 2018). A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, his work has appeared in or will be appearing in MockingHeart Review; October Hill Magazine; Flint Hills Review; Midwest Quarterly; I-70 Review; Chiron Review; The Ekphrastic Review; Sheila-Na-Gig online; Shot Glass; Illya’s Honey; Red River Review; KYSO Flash; MacQueen’s Quinterly; Thorny Locust; River City Poetry; Suisun Valley Review; Synkroniciti; and the Waco WordFest Anthology 2022.
Dean studied music composition with Dr. Walter Mays at Wichita State University before going on the road as a bass player, conductor, and arranger; he was a professional musician for 30 years, playing with acts such as Jesse Lopez, Bo Didley, Frank Sinatra Jr., Vic Damone, Jim Stafford, Kenny Rankin, B. W. Stevenson, and the Dallas Jazz Orchestra.
Dean is a member of The Writers Place and the Kansas Authors Club. He lives in Augusta, Kansas, midway between the Air Capital of the World and the Flint Hills.