Invitation

[Guest]

I have a friend called Jack. Of all the friends I have in Bangkok he?s the one I?ve known the longest. Jack has a good job handling large scale investments for one of the major banks. He works hard every day and when every day is through he goes to the gym and spends an hour working out. After this he may go for the odd drink or two but normally he?ll go straight back home to his wife of nine years. His wife, Ning, is beautiful and charming. A bit naive maybe but only as much as most men would like their women to be. He lives for her. While other men go out on pub crawls bar hopping and sticking their tongues down the throats of go-go dancers Jack takes Ning out to swanky night clubs and expensive restaurants. Even though their garden is a picture out of a seed catalogue Jack nearly always brings home cut flowers for her to wear in her hair and offer to the Buddha. He isn?t the kind of man to talk about his sex life but I imagine it?s splendid. All of which should lead you to hate the guy. Hate him worse than Superman. But the hell of it is is that Jack is so charming that after five minutes in his company all resentment falls away.

 

I am the Anti-Jack. Back in Farangland I did come close to one of those exclusive marriage type thingies. I was with this one girl called Sarah for a few weeks short of four years. I didn?t bring her cut flowers every day but I thought I did okay. It didn?t really work out. I think I first noticed that things were going awry when Sarah started coming back from her all-girl bridge club with the smell of spunk on her breath. That?s the difference between Farang women and Thai women a Thai woman would have brushed her teeth. Things got worse and there was one occasion when, after a particularly drunken bridge club she collapsed in bed leaving me to peel her gluey underwear off the bathroom floor. Someone was telling me how he knew his ex-wife was having an affair when the phone rang and clicked off whenever he answered it. My clue was spunk flavour kisses and underwear that would stick to a wall like well cooked spaghetti.

 

I wouldn?t say that this left me bitter about women or the possibility of finding the perfect partner. I?m sure there are millions of people who are able to enjoy the bliss of going through life with their one true soulmate. It?s not the Turk Fist way but I?m sure it?s fine for some. Jack is proof of that.

 

I learned at a joyfully early age that I preferred whores. I trust whores, or, at least, I trust the fact I can?t trust them and in not trusting them I can trust them more than women I might be fooled into trusting and would then send me into a three month bout of depression when they turned out to be completely untrustworthy. If you follow.

 

And not every whore is always lying when she says she loves you. I would say I?ve known love as true as anything is true in the arms of whores. Just because you pay someone doesn?t mean they don?t love you. The good thing about paying is that by playing a customer you are still quite within your rights to expect them to leave without too much of a fuss in the morning. You aren?t obliged to keep things going and start sending money to her buffalo.

 

When I talk like this Jack just shakes his well barbered head and laughs as if I?m living in denial and my own version of Ning is just round the corner. Jack doesn?t get it and that?s one of the things I love about the guy. He thinks everyone else is just like him except for this perverse attachment to suffering. I know for a fact he thinks that our friend Bob goes with katoeys because he hasn?t met the right real woman yet.

 

?I know you don?t really want to spend your life like this.? He said one night at that big riverside restaurant by the Oriental.

 

I poured him a glass from the overpriced but very average wine we were drinking. ?Like what ?? I said. ?I?m living the life of my dreams.?

 

?Yes. Of course. You?re dreams involve getting beaten up by thugs and spending four months a year on penicillin.?

 

?Occupational hazards. Besides. You have to pay the price for your perfect life. All those hours you spend in the gym take years off your life you know.?

 

?I like going to the gym.?

 

?Yeah. You only do it so you have those funny little cubes on your stomach. You should get yourself a paunch. Be a man. Get a beergut.?

 

?You haven?t got a beergut.?

 

?Yeah. But that?s because I mostly drink whisky. I do have an exceptionally dodgy liver which does partly make up for it.?

 

He raised his glass ?Cheers.?

 

I didn?t meet Jack all that often. But when we did meet it was always somewhere respectable. We were surrounded by high class tourists clinking their knives and forks. Japanese men in suits taking endless photos and elderly American couples in Hawaiian shirts talking a little too loud. I had this adolescent desire to come here with five of the ropiest Thermae slappers and tip the waiter to bring us chicken feet and takkataan.

 

?You think you?ll stay here ?? Said Jack.

 

?In Bangkok ? Yeah. Obviously you can?t tell the future. Anything could happen. But given the choice I?ll happily see the rest of my life out here. What about you ??

 

?Maybe. I?d like to take Ning round the world. Show her everything. Then I?d like to take a partial retirement. Have kids. Maybe move out of town. Get away from the pollution.?

 

?And lowlifes like me.?

 

?Of course. Ning was saying I should invite you to dinner again some time.?

 

?That?s nice. Could I bring a girlfriend ??

 

Jack smiled. I smiled. See that was the thing about Jack. He was smart enough to know that the best Thai women, and that included Ning, were incredible snobs. Her family liked Jack. That was why it was okay for the risk that their daughter might be seen in the same light as other Thai women who took Western boyfriends. Jack was so utterly presentable that few would maintain this prejudice after meeting him. Ning knew enough about me to know what kind of woman any girlfriend of mine would be. She could tolerate, even like, me because I was Jack?s friend. This would not be extended to any of the women I hung around with. No matter how polite a hooker may be, in Thai eyes, she?s still a hooker. And I loved hookers. I loved the old ones, the young ones, the fat ones, the think ones, the liars, the victims, the demons and the angels. I?d been with incontinent whores and frigid whores, whores who had places no man could touch and whores who wanted it every which way imaginable and a few ways unimaginable. I?d hang on to this life until I ran out of money or got murdered (an event that was seeming increasingly plausible).

 

?How are the ribs ?? Said Jack, referring to my recent injury again.

 

?Fine. Wonderful service you get in these high class hospitals. Almost worth getting beaten up for.?

 

?And the girl ??

 

?Mrs Fist. Haven?t seen her since. I did pop into her bar. Purely out of curiosity of course. But I think she was busy sucking some rich man?s cock.?

 

?A class act your girlfriend.?

 

?She?s not my girlfriend.?

 

?Well. She obviously cares for you a little. Why else would she have had you beaten to a pulp ??

 

?Stop it. You?re cracking me up. Remember I have to be careful of my ribs.?

 

Jack smiled. ?You ought to drop everything a while. Take off. Take a break from Bangkok. Go on an elephant trek. It?s not like you can?t afford it. Or you could go to Chiang Mai and lie in a hammock for a month.?

 

?Good idea. Maybe I should head up to Khao San Road and see if I can find a nice hairy hippy chick to knit hemp shirts with while I?m up there.?

 

?Seriously Turk. I think you should perhaps get a bit of distance mate. Psycho bargirls are dime a dozen. Give her time to stalk and kill someone else.?

 

?Careful she?s probably having me followed. She?ll come after you next.?

 

?Yeah. I heard about that Toby kid. But it was his own fault. Just as it would be your fault if you keep on seeing her.?

 

?I haven?t been seeing her Jack.?

 

?Just popping into her bar every now and then.?

 

?I like the decorations and that great trick where the girls blow little horns with their cunts. Has to be seen to be believed.?

 

?I knew a girl who could do that trick. She had a glass eye and had a pet crocodile she kept in her bathtub.?

 

?I?m all right. And hell. Maybe it had nothing to do with Nam at all. You know Richard. If he?s had a drink he blabs everything. Probably told Bob or Mike or Swedish Vic. And Swedish Vic would have told anyone who asked after me?

 

?I thought you said Richard was on duty.?

 

?Doesn?t mean he wasn?t drunk as a skunk calling everyone up. Show me a sober doctor.?

 

?Good point. Still. I?d avoid that Nam. You?ve got enough trouble in your life as it is. Your liver for one.?

 

?Leave my liver out of this. I haven?t had nearly enough to drink to start talking about my liver.?

 

So, after deciding that the wine came from a vineyard on the wrong side of Chernobyl circa 1986, we ordered whiskies and drank until around 8.30 PM which, I happened to know, was Jack?s bedtime. Jack offered me to share his cab ride home. I declined because it was out of his way anyhow and walked back up to sukhumvit stopping off at a cash point on the way. Walking the way I had walked the night of my mugging I saw the man who had given me a ride to the hospital a few nights earlier. He was playing checkers with bottle tops. I walked straight up. Said ?Sawatdii krap and pressed a thousand baht note into his hand. He looked at it unbelievingly for a few minutes and then shook my arm with two arms realising that I was the guy whose life he had saved. I said this was just for him to buy some whisky. He needn?t thank me because it was the least I could do but I didn?t know what he drank. He was overjoyed and sent someone off on his bike to buy whisky. He invited me to drink with them which I did for a while. We had a happy hour or so sitting by the side of the khlong getting more and more drunk. The man?s wife appeared at some point and made off with his change. I didn?t really understand what anyone was saying but I laughed when everyone else laughed and copied all the correct emotional responses to all the various stories that poured forth. Then I just sat back and enjoyed the way the black water reflected every single light.

 

When I left everyone was wai-ing me and talking about me like I was now one of the family. After I left they may well have been cunting me off but it felt nice while it lasted. I thought how pleasant human beings could be once they had a drink or two inside them then almost got killed by some fucking drunk on a motorbike while crossing Petchburi Tat Mai.

 

Walking to the lift in my apartment building the operator started shouting out to me. ?Khun Turk. Khun Turk. Have some lady come see you. She leave note.?

 

My stomach sunk. I don?t know why it sunk exactly. I just felt a strange certainty that something bad was coming.

 

The note said :-

 

?Tirac,

Sorry I missed you tonight. I hope you will be able to find the time to come and meet me tomorrow night at the bar. Maybe I can hurt you a little bit more. If you do not come I will be very sad and if you make me sad I do not know what I might feel I have to do.

All my love

N A M?

 

She had clearly signed it herself but had got some Farang or, at least, someone with a bit more of an education to write the note for her.

 

I would love to say that I carefully balanced up the pros and cons of going to see her. I?d love to say that I thought deeply about Jack?s advice to leave town for a while and let her find someone else to stalk. But the truth is... And it shames me to admit such a foul thing... I was kind of in love with her. I don?t know what strange masochism made me feel that way. Maybe she?d pulled some kind of voodoo on me. But I would have gone to see her if I hadn?t got the note. The threat to hurt me a little bit more merely added a frisson of curiosity. What did she mean ?

 

The following night I would see for myself.

 

 

 

TBC

 

[dvarpala]

Excellent, as usual - can't wait for part 2.

 

Cheers,

 

dvarpala