The plane landed at Don Muang International shortly after midnight. A voice over the loudspeakers told everyone to remain seated until the aircraft came to a complete stop. The Fasten Seatbelt sign went ding and the cigarette with the bright red X across it did too. No one paid attention. All along the aisles, seatbelts clicked open. Passengers were on their feet with unlit cigarettes jammed between their lips, wrestling with the overhead bins for their luggage. The Asian stewardess tried to make them sit, she seemed very concerned, but there wasn't anything she could do. Everyone had been cooped up for too long, eating peanuts and watching bad movies.
I made it. The hard part was behind me, or so I thought. I followed the crowd to passport control and waited. The line was very long. There was a man standing behind me wearing a brown suit and a brown cowboy hat. He had a well-groomed beard and mustache. These too were brown. The man was vastly overweight with silver rings on his fingers and silver chains around his neck. Every so often, he'd say something in a dull, dollar ninety-nine voice so that everyone could hear. Something like:
“What are they doing, exchanging recipes up there?”
Or
“Wake me up when this line moves.”
Or
“Christ all mighty, how long does it take to stamp a passport?”
When he saw that no one was listening, he tapped me on the shoulder and began to tell me about all the problems he'd had with this particular airline. Fortunately, the man in front of me, who appeared to have worked under hard, fluorescent lights for twenty years, took an interest in the cowboy's complaints, which left me in the clear. The two men folded their arms and spoke in deep, businesslike voices. They took turns sticking hands in the front pocket of their pants and rattling sets of keys. The line just kept getting longer and longer.
At last, it was my turn. I stepped past the red line and moved to the small booth. A Thai official wearing a small strip of colorful medals sat in the booth. I didn't know what the medals were for, so I assumed he had the authority to screw me if he so pleased. He looked at my passport, looked at me.
“How long you stay in Thailand?”
I took a wild guess. “Six months.”
I showed the Thai official my contract. He stamped my passport and handed it back.
“Listen,” I said. “Just between you and me, the guy with the beard and the hat just tried to sell me something.”
“He try sell you drugs?”
“Let's just say it was something I didn't want.”
I walked off to the escalators that led to baggage claim. I looked back to see the Thai official give a wave of his hand. I imagined there would be an intense grilling. A luggage search, a frisking, maybe even a body cavity search. Sniffing dogs, loaded guns, there I was not fifteen minutes in the country and already a friend of the people.
My backpack was moving in slow circles on a long black treadmill one floor below. I picked it up and hoisted it onto my shoulders. My shoulders said No. I ignored them and walked on. The ground beneath my feet was hard and real. You could drop a melon from high up and watch it go splat. But after so many sleepless hours in the air, the mind starts to play tricks. The clocks make little sense, the faces even less. And no matter how many melons went splat at my feet, I still couldn't believe that the ground was entirely hard, entirely real, with myself upon it. This was all going to take some getting used to.
I moved to a row of people up ahead. The people had strange faces and fought to get ahead of one another. A pretty Thai woman kept yelling, “Welcome to Thailand! Mr. Kramer! Welcome to Thailand!” Mr. Kramer was nowhere in sight. Others held large signs with the names of companies printed in big black letters. Back in Chicago, I had been told to meet a man named Monty. I looked for a sign with my name on it. A woman's heel crushed my foot. I walked past the crowd once, twice, then a third time. I didn't see anything with my name on it.
“Welcome to Thailand! Mr. Kramer! Are you Mr. Kramer?”
“Hoover,” I said.
“John Hoover?”
I turned in the direction of the voice. There it was, misspelled in crayon on the back of a shirt cardboard: WHUVER. How could I have missed it?
“I'm Hoover,” I said. “Are you Monty?”
“My legal name is Montezuma. Like the Aztec ruler.”
I looked at Montezuma. He was Mexican American with a shaved head and heavy black glasses. Sad dog's eyes, a wide stretch of mouth, and the whitest teeth I had ever seen. He was dressed in baggy exercise pants with a white stripe running up each leg and a sleeveless pink shirt.
“Everyone calls me Monty, but I prefer that you call me Montezuma.”
Travelers and suitcases began to fill the area. The Fuji man found his mark. The folks from Sony lassoed their fresh blood. A popular fast food chain gained a new clown. A woman's heel crushed my other foot.
“Let's get moving,” I said. “Yeah?”
The hotel Monty had booked us at carried five stars and was within walking distance from the main terminal. Easy enough. I pointed to an opening and followed Monty through the airport. We made it to the escalators and went up. Halfway to the top, Monty remembered that we should be going down. We retraced our steps through the terminal, came to a dead end, then got into an elevator that took us to some kind of service entrance. Another turn, and we were outside with the planes.
“Okay, okay,” said Monty. “I know that I didn't come in this way. I think that if we can find baggage claim -”
I was no longer listening to Monty. I didn't know which comic book he had stepped out of, but I knew that he wouldn't be able to locate our hotel. I began to ask around until I got the general direction. Up, left, straight, left again. My spine wept. My feet cried Mutiny! Then, at the end of the tunnel, there it was: hotel, room, bed. Once inside, I didn't bother to count the channels on TV. I showered and hit the sack.
“Okay, okay,” said Monty. “I should probably tell you a few things that you ought to be aware of. FYI, for your information, don't drink the water, don't touch people on the head and always act respectfully towards the Royal Monarchy. Also, the bottom of your foot is considered very offensive in Thai society. Never position your foot so that the bottom is directly facing someone.”
“Monty, this is the stuff you find in the first three pages of every guidebook written about Thailand. Believe me. I've read them. Now, would you turn off the light?”
“Would you like to hear about your job? Do you want to know about the flood? Or, if you prefer, I could fill you in on some of my basic impressions of Thai culture.”
“Monty,”
“Mmm, yes, mm?”
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
I turned off the light above my bed and rolled over so as not to face Monty. The bed was soft and real. My watch said one a.m. You couldn't argue with it. I closed my eyes and thought of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I thought of Popsicle sticks in the summer sun. I thought of these things and of the whole wide world and my little place in it.
Monty said good night and turned his light out. Five minutes later, he began to snore.
§
When I awoke the next morning, there was sunshine and a hot shower and Montezuma, one of the last great Aztec emperors, walking around in bikini briefs. There was something he wanted to do. Some palace he wanted to visit. He talked an endless stream. The words seemed to tumble out of his mouth like marbles. I tried to pick out the information that was pertinent to my existence. It was damn near impossible.
“Look, Monty, I want to see my school. I want to know where I'm going to be sleeping. I want to put my pack down and not have to pick it up again.”
“Okay, okay. This may come as a surprise to you, but I'm planning to join a Buddhist meditation center. The problem I'm having is that none of the monks where I live speak English. I'm hoping that the monks at the Grand Palace are more used to dealing with tourists and thus have a basic command of English.”
“Will you put your pants on for Christsakes!”
“I don't know if you're aware of Buddhist meditation.”
“I'm aware that Buddha doesn't rhyme with butter. It's an ooh sound, Monty. Boo-ddhism. Now, where's your shirt?”
“FYI, if I find that I've made sufficient spiritual progress through meditation, I'm considering ordination.”
It was obvious. Monty couldn't dress himself. I had to do it for him.
“Put your socks on! There you go! Now your shoes!”
“If you're at all interested in becoming a monk, there are two wonderful books I'd like to recommend.”
“OK, Lights out! Let's go! Hyah!”
The man at the reception desk agreed to hold our bags until noon. There was a parting shot of cold air just before exiting the hotel. That was it. We stepped out into the brightness and dust and I put on my sunglasses as the sweat began. The sun was visible through the dirty air but the heat seemed artificial, man made. I expected to see a great metal machine wheezing and pumping out one hundred degree temperatures while thirty shirtless men shoveled, cranked, and jackhammered alongside it. But there wasn't any single machine responsible for the heat, just as there wasn't one for ugly babies or bad romance novels.
“Okay, basically we have three choices.”
“Pick one and hustle.”
We crossed a street to a row of young boys on motorbikes. The boys wore orange vests with large black numbers on the backs. They gunned their engines and smoked cigarettes and laughed, laughed. Monty spoke with one of them.
“WE GO ROYAL PALACE.”
They wanted three hundred baht. I didn't know the Blue Moon from Swanee River. I got on the back of one bike, Monty on another. My driver couldn't have been over fifteen. Holding on to his waist for balance was like grabbing a broomstick in a hurricane. We started on the back roads, side by side, before moving onto the highway. Then my boy took the lead. He snaked through a row of cars and darted in front of a bus. I screamed for the Blood of Jesus. The bus didn't hit us. We didn't hit the bus. My boy gunned the engine and took us forward into the speeding traffic. At least until the next jam. I tucked my knees in while he wheeled through the narrow space. Inside the cars, I saw men and women and children all waiting patiently. Outside, I saw pick up trucks filled with sleeping families. Even the other cyclists, carrying two and three and four passengers on a single bike appeared calm, ripping along the highway, oblivious to lanes, road signs, speed limits.
My boy took an exit and stopped at a five-way intersection. He sat revving the engine while I readjusted my ass on the seat. The light to the side of us was red. The light on the other side of us was red too. I couldn't tell who had the green. Monty and his driver pulled up alongside us. “Who has the green?” I hollered. Monty smiled and nodded his head. “The green!” I yelled again. There was a terrifying scream of engine and dust. The very air recoiled. A three point was registered on the Richter scale. Every dairy product within a ten-mile radius suddenly went sour, regardless of the expiration date.
All five lanes had the green.
The cars and motorcycles and three wheeled tuk-tuks rushed forward, then moved in a circular direction until reaching the lane they wanted. It was an amazing display of mass telepathy that occurs when large groups of people don't want to die a hideous death.
Back out on the open road, the chances of survival became slimmer. Everyone had different ideas. All I could do was hope that my driver had a better idea than anyone else.
Forty-five minutes later, we were there.
“Jesus, Monty, you said we had three choices!”
“That's right and I picked the fastest way there was. If you had said back at the airport that you weren't time conscious, I would have opted for a tuk-tuk.” Monty climbed off the bike and paid the driver. “Okay, okay,” he said. “They want a tip.”
“Give it to them.”
“Normally, I would agree with you. But the problem is, you're still thinking like an American. In America, I'd gladly give them a tip. But we're in Thailand now.”
I took a fifty baht note from Monty's hand and gave it to my boy. He flashed an ear-to-ear grin and nodded in gratitude.
“Okay, you can tip your driver, but that doesn't mean I have to tip mine.”
“Don't be an asshole, Monty.”
Monty tipped his driver twenty baht. The two of them revved the engines and sped back into the worst traffic jam in the history of man.
§
I have heard stories of infants with the intelligence to solve mathematical problems that have baffled scientists for years. I have heard of a blind ninety-year old man with the ability to ride a unicycle through an obstacle course of little red flags. These stories and more have caused me at times to wonder at the unexplored regions of the human mind. Then along comes a fellow like Monty with a brain like an electrified maze, steering him in odd, dangerous directions and zapping those around him before they have the chance to run. Run away, run fast.
“I don't know if you're aware of this, but I'm a very spontaneous person.”
We didn't speak with any monks at the Grand Palace. We didn't even get into the Grand Palace. It was closed for the morning due to a ceremonial visit from members of the Royal Family. It wasn't Monty's fault.
“That's probably why the Thai students like me so much. I create new ways of teaching that they're not used to.”
The tuk-tuk driver that was instructed to drive us back to the hotel took us to a side street jewelry store and left us there. For twenty minutes, Monty and I looked at necklaces and rings while made up Thai girls spoke their pigeon English and displayed gold and silver from red velvet boxes.
“You like sir? I give special price! How much you pay?”
The tuk-tuk driver received a free fill up as commission. Then he decided not to take us the rest of the way. This too, could not be blamed on Monty.
“For example, when I say the alphabet, I'll often start in the middle. Or I'll mix the letters up to break away from the normal way they've memorized it.”
Then we got into a cab. The cab became stuck in traffic. In two hours we had gone maybe four miles. The air conditioning didn't work and the car scent freshener smelled like old meatloaf. Once again, Monty was not to blame. In fact, none of the events that day had been Monty's fault. But in a way, they were all Monty's fault. Every last one of them.
“I don't know how much time you've spent with little children, but let me tell you something; they're very good at mimicry. All my first grade students can sing “A B C D E F G – H I J K – LMNOP,”
“Oh Jesus.”
“Q R S, dot dot dot. But if you begin in the middle, H I J K LMNO P, dot dot dot, the kids are made to think. You see, spontaneity is the key.”
“Monty,”
“Mm?”
“It's time to stop talking, Monty.”
“Okay, because I thought you wanted information on a., whom you'll be teaching, b., what you'll need to teach, and c., the most efficient way to present your material.”
“Monty,”
“For example, when I teach counting, I'll often mix up the numbers. Three! Eight! Six! One! Ten!”
“Monty!”
“Mm? Yes?”
“We've been stuck in traffic for two hours now. Nothing that you've said makes the least bit of sense. And even if it did make sense, I'd still try to block out your voice. It's very hot, Monty. And the driver has turned up the radio to drown you out. Have you noticed that the driver has turned up the radio to drown you out? All I'm asking is that you sit there and be quiet.”
“I'm a very spontaneous person.”
“Let me put it to you this way. If you don't stop talking, I'm going to take my shoe off and beat you over the head with it.”
The great Aztec Emperor put his hands on his knees and didn't speak for the rest of the journey. It had taken Cortez years in the jungle and an incredible amount of dirty pool. I was thankful I did not have to resort to such measures.
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