Friendships of Gold

About the Book

In 1972, Tony found himself in Vietnam. He wasn´t sure why he was there, but duty called and he had to do his one year of military service in the middle of Vietnam´s jungles and rice paddies. The stresses and uncertainties of the war seriously affected Tony and the other men in his team. When a sniper suddenly killed their captain, discipline collapsed and they massacred an entire village in a fit of revenge. The face of a young girl, whom Tony had killed, became an unforgiving nightmare that drove him to seek peace of mind through drinking.

Having lost the use of his legs in Vietnam, his drinking and regular bouts of depression increased and finally destroyed his family life. He was left alone with only his nightmare as company. In search of peace, Tony finally went to Thailand. Unable to hold down a job for long, he ended up in one of the city´s many slums. There he hid, accepting friendship only from a young orphaned girl who gladly bought him his daily supply of locally brewed whisky and some food whenever he wanted it. Ti didn´t understand Tony´s need for drink or his outbursts of anger, but she accepted him as a friend, and to Ti nothing was more important than friends.

Tony´s life was now as he wanted it. He could live quietly with his nightmare and hatred for himself without other people seeing him, touching him or caring about him. That all changed when Nimit moved into the ramshackled house just across the wooden deck. Nimit was a rookie policeman from the northeast of the country. His family had been very poor and he grew up knowing what it is like to struggle for survival. As farmers they could always produce enough to eat, but when a wealthy merchant took away their land, they had nothing left of value. His father turned to drink and finally died a defeated drunkard. Shortly after that, his mother also died and he was left alone in the world. With the help of the local temple and some neighbors, Nimit did survive and completed his education, finally becoming a policeman.

Nimit decided to befriend Tony and despite Tony´s attempts to discourage that friendship, remained persistent. Slowly Tony began to relax with Nimit, but carefully avoided saying anything about his past or why he had such terrible nightmares almost every night. The slum community was suddenly thrown into turmoil when an eviction notice arrived. Many of the people accepted it as fate, but Nimit decided that it was time to fight against such injustice. Facing suspicion from many of his neighbors and threats against his life from the landowner, Nimit thought he might have to carry out the fight alone, but both Ti and Tony gave him support he had never counted on. Slowly the community people began joining Nimit and the struggle for the right to stay in their homes grew.

The struggle was tough and brought with it many frustrations. Tony watched all of this from a distance, but finally found himself being slowly drawn in. Other people in the community began to befriend him. He began smiling more and drinking less, but yet he refused to talk about his nightmare.

That belonged solely to him and he needed it as punishment for what he had done. The community fight paid off and the court ordered the eviction delayed, giving the people more time to prepare a land-sharing scheme with the landowner. It might have been a happy ending, but Tony suddenly turned back to his drinking, and depression again took over his life. It became so serious that it almost resulted in the death of Nimit, a friend Tony now highly respected.

Tony entered the hospital for treatment and was soon feeling much better. Still, however, he would talk to no one about his nightmare or why he could not walk.

One can not remain away from an addiction long if the root cause of that addiction has not been confronted. Soon Tony was back on the bottle.

Nimit had tried everything he could to help Tony but now, for the first

About the Author

Born in 1946 Max Ediger grew up on a small farm in the Panhandle of Oklahoma. At the age of 19 he began voluntary service with the Mennonite Central Committee, serving in Africa, Vietnam and Thailand. His work has brought him into close personal contact with refugees, slum communities, poor rural communities and victims of war. These communities struggling for justice and human rights have greatly influenced his writing, which attempts to reflect to the reader the hope and courage he finds among people in struggle.