The Boyfriend

[MrX]

There followed nights of extraordinary instability. Our demons were somnambulant!

 

 

One I recall with particular intensity.

 

 

 

Back in Bangkok alone, a day early; after a sneak thief had taken all my money and cut short a trip up-country, I telephoned her.

 

?See you Nana BTS 9.30 you have card, I want go long time?

 

?Romp I no have credit card I no have money?

 

?Its Ok,?.. ID card, ID card Ok mai??

 

 

 

 

 

We wandered toward Nanaplaza, without the Bar to anchor us everything familiar rendered new.

 

Drinking outside in the square, she said;

 

?Where you want go?? With a commercial twang, as if to a customer.

 

 

I longed for long time, seeing it as the balm to our succession of broken moments. But the Nana hotel was full, to us at least, and I led toward PB with less enthusiasm.

 

We successfully negotiated an all night tariff against the run of punter play which included a richly woven blanket and, for a 100 Baht deposit, even the key. The TV was working too, on the soap channels, but IP remained as opaque to me as ever.

 

 

Later, while trying to sleep she started up restlessly and dialed Sa in Prakanong.

 

?I no can sleep, we go room friend? She announced flouncily, after the call.

 

I refused, though on unsteady ground and she, perhaps sensing this, insisted.

 

 

Leaving PB, after asking her to drop the room key off at reception for safe keeping, I hardly registered her deftly and uncharacteristically tipping our sour attendant 100 baht.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coincidentally, Sa lived near my house, somewhere around lower Suk 71, within earshot of the mosque, in one of those numberless nondescript condos where so many urban Thais eke out their lives. There was no lift and while we were resting on the sixth floor IP took her bearings. She wasn?t able to but by using her telephone as a compass we were informed; one floor up, almost hidden, still under construction.

 

 

The room was almost bare except for 4 people: Sa, IPs? deputy village soul mate, appearing fattened and creased by the scene. Her mother and younger sister hanging around in the social shadows, and the 19 year old Thai boyfriend smiling gummily.

 

Together we made awkward small talk until someone suggested beer and the evening bumbled slowly down the runway.

 

Before long I was tiring and hungry to take IP back to our hotel. She noticed my discomfort, mock pushing me out the door.

 

?You want go condio I know you afraid tukon know you here?? She asked, but still, incredibly I wasn?t alive to the flow.

 

?No worries?

 

We walked down the mysterious soi on the north side the mosque with a boarded over stinking klong running alongside. All heavily marshaled by the Imans? opulent houses. There was almost no traffic now so I seized on the first passing taxi. But as she was getting in I heard her say ?Ram Si and I pulled her out quickly, almost roughly, before it sped away.

 

 

 

Of course, only a little later, I had to let her go.

 

 

Back home at last, settling down in front of UBC, strung out between Desdemona and a hard place, my phone rang. I shouldn?t have answered it though, still less chased her down the line she had just hung up on.....