Meanwhile, there had been some changes at Chullingsat. A married couple from Butte, Montana had arrived. Ted and Susan Michaluk. They had been teaching at a school in Bangkok but had to leave because of “problems” with their school. I didn't ask. The first time I met Ted, he shook my hand and said, “We have GOT to talk.” He was a small, stocky man with wheat growing out of his ears and Old Glory waving proudly from his bunghole. I didn't understand what he and his wife were doing in Thailand, and I didn't particularly want the details. I had already decided that foreigners living in Thailand were mostly societal rejects. Ted, however, had a way of tracking me down. They always did.
“Look, have you got any friends who want to come out?”
“Out of what? The closet?”
“Out to Thailand.”
“No.”
“We've got a little business going where we recruit teachers from the States and set them up with schools over here. They don't have to be real teachers. They don't even need a diploma. We've all got diplomas. We'll make copies. All we have to do is alter the name. The Thai will believe anything.”
“I don't know anyone.”
“Well, if you do... ”
There was another change. With Bob gone, I had a two-bedroom house to myself. So did Montezuma. I went straight to Sangwan before anyone made a decision without consulting me first.
“I'm not living with him,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because he's a freak.”
The school didn't want to lose me. My white skin and big nose had proven to be a valuable asset. There was an empty storage room on top of the third and fourth grade building. It sat there like a little house on top of the flat, concrete roof. I walked Sangwan to the window and pointed up in the sky.
“I'll live there.”
The next day, I moved in.
§
I liked my home in the sky. The wind really ripped through the place. Each time I arranged my papers and hung pictures on the wall, the wind would come through and send them all flying. Better the wind than my fellow Americans. At least I could close the window against the wind. Ted and Susan didn't take the hint so easily.
It started with Ted's voice. “Hey in there!” Then the BANG BANG BANG of his fist against the door. “Hey, what'cha doin' in there?”
“Studying Thai,” I yelled back. “Naked!”
“We've got Trivial Pursuit!” said Sue.
“Oh, sorry guys, I'm sick in bed with food poisoning.” I remained silent until I was sure they were gone. I was not a misanthrope, but after returning from my trip south, I didn't feel like talking to anyone. Making it with the ladies seemed a more impossible venture than ever. In fact, the only thing that did make sense was holing up in my room and waiting out the funk.
On Monday, the teachers came back to work. Students still had another week of vacation. Madam Gamonwan called a meeting of the four foreign teachers. She told us to show up at eight o'clock. So Monty, Ted, Sue and myself dressed in our uniforms and went to the meeting. We sat around a table and waited.
“My contact says that I don't officially begin until April seventeenth,” said Susan. “If she tries to make me teach before April seventeenth, I'm going to say no.”
“I think the problem is that the foreign teachers before us didn't set a precedent,” said Ted.
“If you're referring to myself and the other foreign teachers, I'd like to ask what precedents we were supposed to set,” said Monty.
“Every Thai school we've been to has tried to take advantage of their foreign staff,” said Sue. “If you don't start saying NO from the moment you arrive, you're going to regret it within a month.”
“For example, how many hours a week do you teach?”
“I taught twenty-four classes last semester,” said Monty, “Plus another two if you count my night courses. If you want to get specific—”
“Twenty-six,” Ted interrupted. “Do you know you were hired to work a maximum of twenty? You're also guaranteed a raise after your first four months. You guys didn't know any of this?”
Monty raised his eyebrows. “I've never seen that written—”
“Boy, are they scamming you!”
“You sure are lucky we came,” said Sue.
Madam Gamonwan walked in and waiied the lot of us. Ted and Susan both jumped to their feet and waiied back. Madam Gamonwan sat at the head of the table and welcomed Monty and I back. Then she talked about the new semester. She told us about our new workbooks and asked whether there were any problems she could help us with. No one said anything about money or maximum hours. No one voiced any grievances at all.
“OK!” she said. “I wish you all good teaching!”
Outside, it was a different story.
“Did you get a TV?” asked Ted. “We didn't get a TV. I think we should demand a TV for every foreign accommodation on campus.”
“And a new refrigerator. That one in the kitchen is shot.”
That afternoon, I gave them my television. I would have given them my refrigerator too, but I could already see that Bitching and Moaning were as essential to their existence as breathing oxygen. I'd seen this syndrome before, usually in couples who have run out of things to talk about, things to think about. Or maybe there was nothing to discuss and ponder in the first place. Whatever. These were the people who clipped their toenails regularly, kept a dictionary on the shelf and sent their food back at restaurants. There was no winning against them. There was no losing. There was only the daily challenge to stay out of their way, especially when they're armed with Trivial Pursuit.
And here I thought malaria would be my biggest concern.
§
I soon found out that Ted and Susan weren't whistling Dixie about their “business.” During their first month at Chullingsat, they managed to ship in half a dozen farangs to teach English in Ayutthaya. Their first recruit was a seventeen-year old kid from Minnesota. He showed up during one of my classes wearing cut-offs and a T-shirt with a big green marijuana leaf on it. The children noticed him before I did.
“Farang! Farang!”
“That's right,” I answered, thinking they were addressing me. “I'm a farang. I thought we'd already established that.”
Then I saw them point. I walked over to the door and stood glaring at him. I didn't like white guys interrupting my classes.
“I'm Richie,” he said. “Are you Ted?”
“No. Ted's upstairs with the fourth graders. He's the loud one.”
Richie looked over my shoulder into the classroom. He needed a haircut and a bath. He needed all those things that seventeen-year old farangs in Thailand generally needed.
“So this is like, what you guys do?”
“This is it.”
“Cool.”
I left Richie standing there and got back to my lesson. I was teaching Wild Kingdom and hadn't finished drawing my man-eating crocodile. Only the kids in back were hiding beneath their desks and the kids in front had stolen my eraser to pound against each other's asses just as teacher liked to do.
“OK, kids, what does the crocodile eat?”
“Mai roo!”
“The crocodile,” I said, “eats farangs!”
They seemed to like that.
§
Next came Dale. Dale was thirty-six and had been living with his mother for most of his life. His last job was managing a fast food restaurant, somewhere in St. Louis. Dale smoked a pipe and wore bright scarves around his neck like some closet homosexual from 1969. Dale didn't show up during class. Instead, he went up to the roof to smoke his pipe and sing songs from “The Sound Of Music.” I could hear him out side my window. He sang You Are Sixteen Going On Seventeen, Climb Every Mountain, and Edelweiss. Later in the day, Ted and Susan and Dale came to my apartment and invited me to dinner.
“Aw, I'm really busy, guys.”
“I'm paying!” said Ted.
“Are you the lady killer I've been hearing so much about?” asked Dale.
“Excuse me?”
“Monty told us about all your girlfriends,” said Sue.
“If it's not too much to ask,” said Dale. “I'd sure like some pointers in scoring with the opposite sex. For example, is it true that you can buy any girl you want off her parents for twenty buffaloes?”
I looked him in the eye. “Yes, Dale,” I said. “That is one hundred percent true. Twenty buffaloes per Thai girl. And during the cool season, you can often find a pair of sisters for thirty.”
“Well then!” said Dale. “I'm going to have to start rustling up some buffaloes! I saw some wandering around on the way to town. Do you think those belong to someone?”
Ted clapped his hands together loudly. “Who's got an appetite?”
§
Then there was Simon. I knew about Simon before I met him. Sangwan would receive his faxes and give them to me. Then I would deliver them to Ted and Susan.
“Hey buddy,” Ted continuously greeted me. “How's it going?”
“Ted, why is it that every time you ask me how it's going I'm waiting for you to offer me a deal on a used car?”
“What's that you've got? Another fax from Simon? Great. I've already asked Madam Gamonwan if he could teach here next semester.”
“Do you know about his dog? Do you know that he wants to bring his dog? Look at this fax. “Hey Gomers, I'm bringing my hairy baby. Can I buy dog biscuits out there or what?'”
“Simon's a crazy guy. He's got a real original personality. A little high strung at times, but he's got a good heart.”
“Look, Ted, I know you're running a business, but in the past week, I've had your teachers coming into my classroom and singing Edel goddam weiss on my rooftop. Now you want to invite this guy here to teach with us. To teach with us. These aren't teachers, Ted. These are fruitcakes. Don't you have a few prerequisites besides handing over money? Don't you have some kind of screening process?”
“You know, I have to say, I wondered about Richie and Dale at first too. But I think they're going to do just fine here. They're a little eccentric, but once you get to know them—”
“Don't tell me. They've got good hearts.”
“You ought to give them a chance.” Ted gave me a big dumb grin and slapped me on the shoulder. “Say, you want to have a game of catch?” he asked. I told him I didn't want to have a game of catch. In a game where no one wins, I would surly lose against a foam rubber wall like Ted Michaluk. I walked back to my apartment, shut the door, and locked it.
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