Six months went by.
It was New Years Eve on the island of Ko Samet.
I had been up and down the beach looking for a place to spend the night. All the guesthouses were full. The only thing available was a small tent among a row of other small tents. It was not a good night for camping. The revelry had already begun. Fireworks were being shot into the air. Thai friends and families had gathered round bonfires to sing their songs and drink their whiskey. Camping was definitely out.
Then I remembered some German run guesthouses on the road that led to and from the pier. They looked dreary on the outside but dreary would have to do. I retraced my steps and went to look for those German guesthouses.
There were bars along the way. Girlie bars. The girlies called out to me as I passed by.
“Hello you! Sexy man! Where you go?”
If any of them ever hit upon a new line, I supposed it wouldn’t be Thailand anymore. I waved my hand and said, “Let me find a room, first.”
“You looking for room?” said one. “Here have room.”
I stopped walking and looked at her. “Are you joking?”
“Why I joke? You want room or no?”
The room was attached to the side of the bar. Paper-thin walls, a tired old mattress, and a dim yellow bulb that Abe Lincoln couldn’t read by. All this and loud as hell.
“I’ll take it,” I said.
I paid the money and closed the door and sat down on a bed of one thousand dead lays. The bad disco and hooker catcalls seemed to be coming from inside my head. I got up and went two doors down to the shower. Nothing came from the faucet. The water lay in a stone basin with a film of dead bugs on top. I scraped away as many as I could and poured some over my head with a dirty plastic bowl. Freezing, of course. After that, I dressed and went out to try to make it through the night best I could.
Never did like New Years.
I did my drinking at a small, beachside bar. Every few minutes there was a loud BANG of a firecracker that nearly jerked me out of my skin. At a quarter to twelve, I paid for the drinks and moved to a dark spot on the beach. All I wanted was to wait it out. The countdown, the cheering, the fireworks. I sat down in the sand and looked out over the dark sea.
A couple of minutes went by.
Then one of the shadows against the beaming guesthouse lights grew in size until it stood directly over me.
“Hi,” said a girl’s voice. “Do you mind if I sit down?”
“No.”
The girl sat. She had yellow hair. She might have been perfectly average, but being with Thai girls off and on for two years made her look oversized. Not fat, just big.
“I’m Heidi,” she said, holding out a hand. I shook it and told her my name. Then came country of origin, length of stay, the usual. I didn’t mind the company, but she was a little drunk and I was a little drunk and once the preliminaries were out of the way, I couldn’t help wonder what set her a wandering in my direction.
“I lost my boyfriend,” said Heidi.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no. He’s not dead. He’s here. Only I can’t find him. Why are you sitting all alone on New Years Eve?”
“I’m waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“Waiting for it to stop being New Years Eve.”
“Well, what night would you like it to be?”
I looked at Heidi.
“Haven’t you one perfect night that you’d like to go back and relive?” she asked.
“It wouldn’t be perfect the second time around.”
“I know which night I’d choose. It would be the first time I kissed my boyfriend. It was magical. I’m afraid the details would bore you. We weren’t standing beneath a waterfall or anything. It happened in a parking lot. So come on, then, what’s yours?”
I thought for a moment. “All right, I’ve got one.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Back in the States, I worked this job called “Lockbox.” All these temp workers and I were locked in the basement of a post office for two four-hour shifts. There were a million envelopes down there with us. Our job was to grab a tray of envelopes, open them one by one, and separate the contents. There was a tax form and a check inside each of the envelopes. The workers had to make sure the amount on the tax form matched the amount on the check. It was terrible. After two hours, your hands began to shake and your back hurt and your eyes had gone funny and the person next to you began to stink. I’d like to go back and relive the lunch break. I’d like to see all those hollow-eyed faces and believe for a moment over a paper cup of bad coffee that I still had another four hours in the post office basement.”
“I don’t quite follow,” said Heidi.
“Then again there was this apartment I once rented in Chicago. It was overpriced and small, but it was just down the street from the woman I thought I loved. If I could spend one night back in that place, any night, I’d do it. Although summer would be best because summer was when it seemed like the whole world was out walking its dog and enjoying the sun. Everyone but me, that is, because I was in love with The Wrong Girl and like a blind man locked in a funhouse, I couldn’t step out the door. All I could do was bounce off the walls and drink and smoke and wait.”
“I don’t think you understand this game.”
“You want me to tell you about nights I’d live again if I were given the chance.”
“Yes, but you’re choosing all the wrong moments.”
“No, I’m choosing the right ones.”
Heidi laughed. “You’re a masochist, then?”
“Not at all. I just wouldn’t want to revisit my good times.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Remember that experiment where the scientists put the mouse in a maze and kept shocking it every time the mouse made a wrong turn? Bad times are like that. Bad times are those zaps. They either paralyze you completely or send you off in a better direction.”
“Is that how you ended up in Thailand?”
“Well, yes, actually, it is.”
“I think that’s sad,” said Heidi. “I certainly don’t want to revisit my bad times. I’m quite happy with the way my life’s turned out.”
Down the beach, a fountain of sparks erupted high into the air then died out just as quickly.
“What was your last wrong move?” she asked.
“I left my girlfriend alone on New Years Eve.”
“Maybe that was a right move.”
“I thought so at the time. I thought I needed space, time to think, maybe come to a decision about something. I’m never quite sure what’s going to get me to that hunk of cheese at the end of the maze.”
Heidi stood and brushed the sand from her shorts.
“Is this your reward, then? A hunk of cheese?”
“I was speaking metaphorically.”
“It sounds to me,” she said. “That finding your cheese might just be the biggest disappointment you could wish for.”
I looked up at her and grinned. I’ll remember that.”
“Happy New Year,” she said.
And walked off.
§
Early the next morning I was awakened by a pounding at my door. I was about to get up and answer it when a voice hollered out “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Now what?
It turned out to be a drunk American man and his Thai prostitute. The drunk didn’t just bang on any door, he banged on all the doors. “HAPPY NEW YEAR! HAPPY NEW—” His girl just laughed and laughed.
Jesus, I though. I had to get out of there.
The happy couple went into the room next to mine. I could hear them screwing as I packed. They finished before I did and the girl left him to take a shower. I was putting my shoes on when I heard his voice again.
“Oh God! God!”
I answered; “Yes, my son?”
The man didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “Hello?”
“What is it you wish, my son?”
“Tell me when I’m going to die!”
“Next Tuesday at four-twenty p.m. You’re going to die in a terrible car accident. Your body will be burnt beyond recognition. They’ll have to examine dental charts to identify you.”
“Not if I don’t get into a car!”
“Too late. Your fate is sealed.”
I left the room and walked to the road. The sun was warm, though not quite in the sky. Behind me, a door opened. It was the drunk American and his Thai hooker, now wrapped in a towel. The man opened the door to the room I had vacated and said, “Where are you?”
“What you look for?” said the girl.
“God.”
“Gob?”
“God! He spoke with me. He said I would die next week and they’d have to check with my dentist before they could identify me!”
A blue songthaew came by, and I climbed in the back. The seats were full, even for the first light of the day. Americans, Europeans, Asians, and Australians sat looking silently at each other. Our party made it to the pier, made it onto a boat, and watched the island grow small in the distance as the driver steered us toward the mainland.
It hit me just before the boat docked. Too much beer, too little sleep. I leaned over the side and vomited into the sea. My fellow U.N. delegates looked on, most likely relieved that they weren’t me.
The boat docked. Everyone got off. I came in last, staggered up the walkway to the toilets and paid my two baht admission to an old woman with a plastic basket on her lap. Once inside, I let my new year fly again. I came out feeling much better. The crowd of foreigners had already passed through the market and were on their way to the busses that sat lining the road. I went into the labyrinth of tables hoping to find something I could put in my stomach and keep there. I walked past starfish and conch shells, dried shrimp and fresh squid. I walked so far in, I no longer knew which way I had come. Women at the tables called out for me to come have a look. I started to become dizzy and lose my footing. I brushed against a windchime made entirely of seashells and its music sounded like an alarm clock. Jesus, I was going to be sick again. I leaned against a table and looked down. A giant dead fish lay there staring at me.
It was beautiful.
I mean its colors were beautiful. Its scales were blue and silver, fresh from the water. But the single eye was what caught me. I had seen that eye before. Only not on a fish.
It was Earn’s eye.
Lord God All Mighty, was I crazy? No, I wasn’t crazy. It really was Earn’s eye down there looking at me. Sweet, sweet Earn. My stomach stopped its tailspin. I could stand again.
“How much for the fish?” I asked without looking up. A voice told me the price. I handed over the money and watched as a woman with fat wrists wrapped the thing in newspaper. I stuck it under my arm and continued on. There was a table of fresh fruit a little bit further past the table of fish. I picked out the biggest, reddest apple I could find and bought that too. It cracked like a gunshot when I bit into it.
It was the first day of the new year and it was time to go home to my girlfriend.
fin.
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