Hell, I don't know, maybe I ought to have left altogether, while I could still remember what the outside world was like. I wasn't particularly thrilled about returning to my old ways, yet the part of me that didn't exist anymore still called my name from around street corners and behind light poles. Whenever I tried to look, I only saw short-skirted Thai women stepping out of a cloud of dust and pop music like dark-skinned angels. During those long bus rides that took me south, I often turned my pre-Thailand days over in my mind; the music store, the relationship, the walls that held in the smoke and the emptiness like a science project. I thought about it all and I came to the same decision each time; only a fool would go back to that rotten stew. Rather than put my mind at ease, this resolution to live and die in Thailand gave me an even greater consternation. Back home, I knew where I stood. I knew how far I could push the bosses and how long I could stall the landlords. I still didn't know anything about relationships with women, but I had learned certain maneuvers after treading the path for so long. Suddenly, I was back to square one. Christ, I wasn't even on the board. I was just like all the other farangs, traveling around with an idiot's grin, an idiot's nod, and a bit of Thai under my belt. Only a bit, but not nearly enough. It was the language that was screwing me up, keeping me isolated. I needed to learn. I needed to get good. Thailand wasn't going to come to me. I was going to have to meet it halfway.
§
I was in Surat Thani, sitting in a nightclub with a girl named Dao and a man named Bert. Dao was young with a wide, attractive face. Bert was not young. He had gray sideburns and a glittering blue suit. I had to buy each of them a drink. There was a stage show where the staff rotated behind a mike, each singing a song. Dao sang a song, then ran back to my table. Then it was Bert's turn.
“Uh!” said Bert, who had long gray sideburns voice like a gravel pit. “Now I sing a song for Joe!”
“John.”
“John! I sing a song for John, yes?”
“Sure. Sing a song for John.”
Bert walked to the stage. Limped, actually. Something was wrong with his left leg. He positioned himself behind the mike and said: “This song - for John!” The boy on the keyboard, the lone musician, hit the appropriate switch. An electronic beat shook the house. It was terrible. A real embarrassment.
Dao took hold of my hand. “Do you like?”
“Oh, yes.”
Then a girl ran to wind a string of flowers around Bert's neck. I had never seen her before in my life. “Thank you, John,” said Bert into the mike.
“Am I paying for that?”
“Yes,” said Dao. “You have a good heart.”
“I've got to go.”
Dao wanted to go too. She told me one thousand baht. I told her I didn't have one thousand baht, that I just came out to practice my Thai. She dropped her price to five hundred. Then Bert came back to the table. Bert offered to go with me for three. A waiter totaled my bill: six hundred baht. I had been charged for everyone's drinks, two songs, a plate of fruit, flowers, cover charge, and a box of matches.
“I've really got to go.”
Dao was disappointed. She walked me out and kissed me good night, free of charge. I went to the road and caught a tuk-tuk back to my hotel.
§
Another time, further South in a Hat Yai massage parlor, the girl doing the work had me on my back and her long hair kept brushing against my skin. There was a fat Japanese man on the mattress next to mine being beaten and slapped by a woman of less equal stature. I was amazed at how his flesh rose and fell. It was like watching waves roll in on the beach. Then my girl suddenly began to rub between my legs and flesh became flesh and waves on the beach were still a long way off.
She stood and drew the curtain between the Japanese man and myself.
“You want three hundred baht massage or six hundred baht massage?”
“What's the six hundred baht massage?”
The girl took a condom out of her purse and handed it to me.
“You wear this, I give massage.”
Then she did something I just couldn't get over. She took my hand, the one without the condom, and placed it upon her left breast.
“Touch my milk,” she said.
“Touch your WHAT?'
Next door, the Japanese man let out a fart.
“OK, you wear this now, big boy.”
“Big boy doesn't want a six hundred baht massage. Big boy doesn't want to touch your milk. Big boy wants to leave now.”
It would later dawn on me that the Thai word for breast translated into milk, which makes perfect sense, if you think about it.
This time, I walked home.
§
Then there was the time on the island of Ko Samui. I was pleased to have finally reached an island. I rented a small bungalow and planned to spend my days studying. I brought along a Teach Yourself Thai book to read on the beach. I read two lessons, then put the book down to swim. I went way out in the water. It was one of those scenes I imagined only took place in color brochures. There was the orange and red soaked sky, there were the waves slowly making their way to shore, there were palm trees, seashells, and fishing boats painted blue and white. I began pointing at things and saying their names out loud in Thai. Then I turned and looked towards shore. A dog came trotting along the beach. Ah, I thought, sunak. One of God's creatures. One of Buddha's enlightened animals. The dog stopped at my Teach Yourself Thai book, sniffed it, then picked it up in its mouth and continued on.
Son of a bitch.
I started to swim. Shore was a long way off. I was a terrible swimmer. So I walked it, fast as I could. I saw a group of fellows sitting in a circle further on down the coast. I waved my arms like a goddam fool and yelled out:
“HEY! THAT DOG'S GOT MY BOOK! STOP THAT DOG!”
One of the men saw me. He stood and waved. The dog walked past him.
“THE DOG! SANUK! NO, NO, NOT SANUK - SUNAK! SUNAK MEE NANG-SUE! LOOK, YOU DOPE!”
Another of the men pointed to the dog. He picked up a rock and threw it. The dog dropped the book. By the time I had made it to shore, the man had walked over to hand it to me.
“Thanks, buddy, kohp khun krap.”
“Oh! You speak Thai!”
I turned the book over in my hands. There were some teeth marks in it, but overall, it came through rather well.
I told that story again to the bartender of the beachfront bar. The bartender was slightly older than the girls on the stools. Her hair was dyed red and her lips and eyebrows painted wider than they naturally were. She poured me a free drink, then poured herself one, too. Well, all right.
“You speak Thai very good,” said the bartender.
“Thank you, but I need to practice. Go ahead, say something.”
She said something. “Do you understand?”
“Umm,”
At two o'clock in the morning, it was down to a pair of large British men, a prostitute, the bartender, and me. The British men had heavy mustaches and eye sockets that looked like small craters filled with expired milk. They had a single yellow pail between them, in which they mixed a pint of whiskey and a bottle of soda. Each had his own straw. One of the boys had his sights on Joo, the prostitute. The last prostitute for as far as the eye could see. Only Joo had been listening in on my attempts to speak Thai with the bartender. She seemed more intent on teaching me the correct way to say “my lighter is empty,” than hustling her sex to a couple of drunks.
“Mot,” said Joo. “The lighter is not bhlao, the lighter is mot.”
“Fai chek mot laew,” I said.
Joo pinched my cheeks. I was very grateful to her. One of the mustached men let out a loud belch. I believe it was meant for me. He was burning in his seat. I enjoyed the show for a few more minutes, up until he and that mustache came over and sat down beside me.
“Whyn'choo fugoff?”
I did just what he said.
§
The next day, I saw Joo again. She was playing in the waves with the Brit. He must have bought her out for the night and day. Either that or he had a charming personality. I got up from my place in the sand and moved to a spot where I wouldn't have to look at them.
§
I was sitting with a girl named Ann. Ann had long straight hair and a front tooth that went against all the others in her mouth. Her father was Indian. He had left when she was one. Mother was a fruit seller in Bangkok. Ann wasn't pretty. That's what she kept telling me.
“I'm not pretty and I don't have friends.”
Ann didn't flirt like the other prostitutes. She just sat there in a sexy dress. But a sexy dress on a sad girl only makes the girl sadder. Ann offered to go with me for two hundred baht.
There was another girl. This one was small with a large chest and a T-shirt that said KNOCKOUT. She said something to Ann that made her smile. Ann wouldn't smile without first covering her mouth with her right hand.
“What's your name?” asked little knockout.
“John.”
K.O. held out her hand. I shook it. She didn't let go. She placed it upon her breasts.
“You're not going to tell me to touch your milk, are you?”
“You buy me drink, yes?”
Ann wasn't smiling anymore. She was looking at the bottles on the wall behind the bar. Maybe if I had met little knockout before Ann, I'd be laughing and throwing money into the air and whooping it up like there was no tomorrow. But I really didn't think so. It was the same as when I was a kid watching Saturday Morning Laff-A-Lot Junction. There was a dancing purple octopus that would spin in a circle and knock everyone down. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. Then a commercial would appear showing photos of starving children around the world. Kids whose ribs stuck through their skin, kids living in dirt without any shoes on their feet. When the dancing purple octopus returned, he wasn't so funny anymore. Something had been taken from him. It was the same sort of feeling with prostitutes except that stories of young girls being turned out of their homes and led into the skin trade didn't have to flash before my eyes. Maybe it was a life the girls believed they had chosen, maybe not. All I knew was that the purple octopus couldn't make me laugh again if he spun himself into the ground.
“I have to go now.”
K.O. sneered at me. Ann gave something of a nod and went back to her drink. As I was leaving, an elderly man in big green shorts and a shirt with pelican heads all over it sat down three stools away. Ann got up from hers and went to the one next to his. Same moves, same conversation, new cigarette.
There was nothing to stick around for.
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