A Cheap Room

[Guest]

Tan was sitting in her room surrounded by friends. Food on plates was spread out over the tiled floor. Fish, som tam, vegetables fresh from the market, sticky rice, fried pork. There was talk and laughter. Three of the seven girls sitting in the room were bargirls. They kept the others entertained with vulgar stories.

 

At some point Tan seemed to be acting strangely. She said something that nobody quite understood and went to the toilet where she stayed for longer than was normal. Nobody thought much of this until Tan walked out of the toilet stepped over the food in the middle of the room and threw herself out the window ten storeys to the ground below.

 

Sawei?in, the manageress of the provisions shop directly below the window Tan jumped from heard the screams even before she saw the body drop outside her store. She hit the till and used money from the till to use her own payphone.

 

Many people saw Tan drop. Many had stories about the way the body had bounced against the wall two or three times. Everyone had a theory.

 

When the ambulance came a crowd had gathered round. Tan?s face was unrecognisable. Where it wasn?t bloody, it was swollen and in the swelling most of the features had been distorted. I can?t comment too much. I didn?t see it. I know that she was still, technically, alive when the body was taken away. She died en route. After the ambulance left and the police had finished with the scene, Sawei?in took it upon herself to mop up the mess left behind.

 

The first I knew of Tan?s death was seeing Sawei?in still cleaning up. I sat at the table in the courtyard. It was full of Thais only too willing to discuss the events. One girl, a girl I had found attractive, started talking with such relish about the mess that the body had made and how ugly Tan had been lying there with bits of brain visible and thumping with blood. There was a gleam in this girls eye as she talked about it as if the suicide had made her day. The reaction was mixed between people saying it was awful and they felt sorry and others enjoying gallows humour about it.

 

Oddly it wasn?t the first death on the tenth floor of that apartment even since I?d moved in. There?d been two suicides there that I knew of and a couple of months earlier some Thai man had murdered his girlfriend and killed himself. Knowing all this it seemed odd that any Thai would still choose to live there. Apparently the boss who owned all but one of the apartment buildings in the complex had lowered the rent on the tenth floor substantially to try and fill all the rooms. Thais are as superstitious as anyone but low prices can override superstition.

 

It was several months later that I started seeing this girl called Yung. Yung worked in a Soi Cowboy bar that, again, I won?t mention here. She was pretty but not stunning. She was nice in bed but not the most exciting woman in the world. What I really liked about her was her nature. She was really good natured and she was a really lovely person to spend time with. Her feet were firmly on the ground. She didn?t use drugs and she wasn?t a heavy drinker or a gambler. The fact she worked in a bar meant, of course, that she was sleeping with a lot of guys, but then I?d been in Bangkok long enough not to have a problem with that. One day she?d meet a nice one and disappear forever but in the meantime she was mostly with me and, likewise, I was mostly with her. So much so that when her flatmate?s boyfriend turned up and was pleading for a bit of space until his holiday was over Yung came and lived with me and I was cool with it. In return for letting her stay and being the main provider (most of her earnings went into a bank account for her son) Yung took good care of me. She kept my apartment looking like a home rather than a total disaster area and, on those nights when neither of us were otherwise engaged, we made pleasant, decent, well protected, love.

 

Yung did have a few friends who lived in the same apartment complex as me. And this is where the story gets nasty/interesting. One of those friends was living, very cheaply in a room about three doors down from the one Tan had lived in. When I was out or visiting Yung would go and sit with this friend and do whatever it is that Thai girls do together. Have Tupperware parties and try on each others underwear and enjoy lesbian fumbling as they licked every inch of each others firm pert... (well in my imagination that?s all women do when men leave the room).

 

It was about six weeks into our cohabitation when this other girl was having a birthday party. Naturally, as Yung?s temporary husband I was invited alone. I didn?t really want to go along as Thai girl birthday parties had never worked out well for me but I knew it would mean a lot to Yung so I went along anyway. One of the other girls had brought along her boyfriend, Robert. I understood how he had been dragged along. His girl had that, just come back from the islands, flush of sensuality. He was simply following his dick along a path to pleasure. I was glad he was there though. Farang, in such situations, become natural allies and brothers. He?d done quite well out of being an engineer attached to an oil rig somewhere in the South China Seas and was now living in Bangkok looking for another job that kept him in the area. I felt I understood him completely and we sat there chatting in our own little corner about the generally wonderful insanity of Thai women and shared stories and jokes and laughed. I suspected each of our girlfriends would have preferred us to sit like bored wallflowers while laughter was the sole provision of the Thais but we started having a pretty good time.

 

The party dragged on for hours and hours and I did notice that Yung was drinking way beyond her normal capacity. So much so that she was taking on this unhealthy near deathly yellow complexion. Another friend helped her to the bathroom where we could hear the echo of her vomiting groans. This got a real laugh from everyone else. After a few minutes of this I could hear Yung washing up and apologising to her friend. When she came out the bathroom she draped herself around me and apologised to me before moaning on about how she knew that I didn?t really love her but how I would miss her when she was gone. Generally she had a point but I wouldn?t miss this strange drunken version of her. I?d miss the pleasant housekeeping version of her. I said it might be time to go but she shook her head violently and said ?No. I not go now. Is my friend birthday.?

 

It would have been pointless to argue and nobody would have backed me up. So I watched her, still looking very unwell, drinking even more and trying to get involved in the raucousness of some of the other girls. It was clear that she didn?t really fit.

 

Come around Two or Three in the morning a whole bunch more people turned up. They had drinks but we were running short of food. They said they?d go and get some but myself and Robert volunteered. I think we both felt the need to walk away for a while. The volume of drunken bargirl was getting too shrill. It was, to put not too fine a point on it, doing my head right in. There was a surprisingly chilly breeze in the air. Robert told me that in the part of Switzerland that he came from they had a lot of breezes like this in the middle of hot summer?s. I hadn?t realised he was from Switzerland before this point. I hadn?t been able to put a location on his accent. In fact, I said, I thought he was a French Canadian.

 

When we went back to the room laden with plastic food bags and bits of fish the mood had subdued slightly. They were talking about Tan. I?d known Tan. Not well, but well enough to say ?hello? to while picking up breakfast. She was pleasant. She still had a kind of young girl quality that normally leaves a girl who dances naked in a Nana Plaza bar. I?d seen her in the arms of so many different farang but even then she would smile and say hello. I hated the fact that she?d now become this kind of horror story. That everything else that she?d been and done in her life was insignificant next to the manner of her death.

 

The room, like the air outside, seemed cold. I thought that maybe Tan didn?t like her death to be talked of in this glib way either. Someone pointed out to me that Yung was not looking well at all and she wasn?t. Her head was hung low as if she?d lost all the power in the muscles of her neck. I sat by her and put my arm around her. I said ?I think maybe it?s better if we go.?

 

For once the others were backing me up. They all seemed to think she needed a rest.

 

Suddenly she just pushed me away and without actually looking at me said loudly and clearly ?What you come her for ??

 

I smiled and looked around. A few of the people were staring at me and saying stuff to Yung that she should trust me and let me take her back home. Then she shot me this look of absolute contempt and repeated ?What you come here for ??

 

?What are you talking about ??

 

Then she seemed momentarily like herself again. her expression just shifted back to her normal expression and she held on to me. The others talked among themselves and then changed the subject.

 

?What happened to you then ?? I said.

 

?Nothing.?

 

?You just went really weird on me.?

 

?How ??

 

?That... You just... Why?d you say that ??

 

?I drunk a little bit but I know what I do. I not say anything. Don?t joking with me.?

 

I left it in the air. She was drunk and if I?ve learned anything it?s that there is no point arguing with a drunken Thai woman. Not unless you want some heavy scarring. I kissed her on the nose and squeezed her and soon she seemed really okay. Not even all that yellow. She started chatting with her friends and I chatted with Robert. The party went on. There was some singing. Then the lights flickered. It was one of those very quick power drops and within a second everything was back as normal. Everyone, acting all mock scared started making ghost noises. Everyone, that is, except Yung. She just stared at me from across the room where she was now sitting, her face looked completely drained of blood. She screamed ?WHAT YOU COME HERE FOR ??

 

It shook me. Something about it. I can?t even explain it other than it didn?t feel as though it was her at all. I looked around to see other reactions in the fear that I might be going crazy. Everyone else seemed just as shocked as I was, but unfortunately, this didn?t make me feel any better.

 

Then she screamed and screamed and the lights flickered again as if her screams were causing it. There was that strange queasy mix of laughter and shock amongst the other people. Then the lights came on and Yung seemed to be shocked at herself and she went and bolted herself in the lavatory.

 

?What the fuck happened to her ?? Said Robert.

 

?She doesn?t normally drink this much. I think she?s just had a few too many drinks.?

 

Then, not long after, just a few moments later, she walked, quite calmly out the lavatory and toward the window. One of the other girls, one of the ones who had come in late, started screaming in Thai that we had to stop her. That we had to stop her now.

 

Others got to her first and it was a real effort to pull her away from the window. As we did manage to drag her away she was kicking and punching and screaming like she was possessed. We carried her to the bed and held her there. She starting weeping. Two friends walked her to the bathroom and rubbed her back while she was sick. Nobody was laughing now.

 

The party kind of broke up after this and I felt a deep sense of relief. Robert set off with his girlfriend offering an apologetic shrug. He never wanted to be here anyway. He just wanted to get his girlfriend back to bed. Who could blame him.

 

Five of us sat over Yung as she slept. The Thais seemed to be nursing her while I did nothing but they kept on saying that I was a good man and I took good care of my girlfriend. When it was first light she woke up and drank half a two litre bottle of water and then went back to sleep.

 

It was about Ten AM the next day when she woke up properly. She seemed as right as rain. No ill effects. No hangover. I felt like shit. I felt like I wanted to sleep for a hundred years. I took her home and while making myself coffee asked her about the previous night. She said she was sorry that she had been so sick.

 

?You acted really weird. Like you were possessed.?

 

She laughed and said ?Kit maak? gently rapping my head with her knuckle. I decided it was perhaps best not to talk about it too much.

 

A few days later I was sitting around the table in the courtyard. A number of my fellow resident farang were enjoying a bit of social intercourse over a series of large communal bottles of Saeng Som which we mixed with coke and ice from a big bucket had to be continually replenished as the sun ate into our cubes. There were a couple of Thai girls around too. In fact there was a second table of plastic set up right by ours at which Thai girls and a couple of Thai guys made and shared food. Food was always shared with us and we always offered them drinks. It was a kind of cultural exchange between alcoholics and diners.

 

I told the story of the party and what Yung had said. As I told this story I noticed that the girls were getting more interested.

 

One of the girls who had just made me try some of her special fried bananas said ?What she say again ??

 

?What you come her for ??

 

She gave me a look halfway between pleasure and horror and said ?Siaow? meaning it gave her a shiver.

 

?Why ??

 

?The night Tan die she say same. She say before she jump. ?What you come here for?? Like that. Sue tell me. She say everyone too scare.?

 

?Sue was there ??

 

?Now she stay another apartment. Prakanong. She say she never come here again.?

 

Of course you have to take all this with a pinch of salt. I never heard anyone else tell me that Tan said this. In fact I didn?t really talk about it too much after this.

 

As expected Yung got herself a proper boyfriend and left me for him. I was a bit upset but wished her the best. Really. She would be the perfect Thai wife as long as she kept off the liquor.

 

I don?t know if I believe in ghosts or not. I don?t know if I believe their is any link between all those deaths on the tenth floor. All I know is that you?ll never see me taking a room up there. I wouldn?t even live there if it was free.

 

[Guest]

Ah, you'd make Stephen King jealous.

 

Well, done, just the right touch of macabre.

[Central Scrutinizer]

Turk,

 

Thanks. I love Thai ghost stories. They are a superstitious lot, but then maybe in their beliefs they keep the spirits alive in some way. If I'd expect to see a ghost anywhere it would be in the LOS. Great story, thanks again.

 

Cent

[Central Scrutinizer]

LaoHuli,

 

Actually I like these stories better than King's! :-) And would prefer to shell out the money for a TurkFist book over another badly ended King story! Although I may be prejudiced toward the story settings of TF's stuff.

 

Cent