When World's Collide

[Guest]

The sky had turned into a giant cunt and it was going to eat the world. As it descended towards the Earth blotting out the sun the slim brown lips parted opening up a reddish pink vortex which would consume everything. People in the streets were running and screaming. Cars skidded and crashed into other cars. Yet I felt a kind of glorious inevitability and stretched out from the roof of my apartment building to meet my inevitable doom.

 

When I woke up I knew I had to see Nam.

 

It was already night. The humming of a city in full throttle. China Dolls blared out joyful but mindless pop from a nearby room and yet even beneath this I could hear the traffic flowing like fine wine through unclogged streets.

 

A girl shunted along the corridor past my door wearing furry animal slippers. She glanced over my way and smiled one of those sweet smiles that seem loaded with sexual promise but which, in fact, are just friendly. Her lovely face looked drained of all blood as a face that wears too much make-up by night can do but it was still lovely. ?Khun Turk. Pay nay maa ?? Where had I been.

 

?Drinking.?

 

?Oooh. Pay haa phuuying ruu ??

 

?No... I?ve been avoiding them.?

 

I heard her slink into her own room where her Thai boyfriend was waiting. I listened to their conversation as I got myself together. She told him about some murder that had happened a few blocks away. He grunted the occasional response. I didn?t know either of their names but their conversations were as familiar to me as the BBC World Service news reports.

 

I headed out to meet, or try and meet, Nam. I needed to talk to her. I noticed a pile of dirty plates just outside the room next door. Every door had something. Either the plates or shoes. Only the stupid farang would return a plate back to the restaurant himself and wear shoes past his own front door. Through another doorway a man with no shirt lay on the bed with his remote control pointed like a gun at his TV.

 

The lift was out of order so I went down the stairs. A couple of kids were racing slinkies with great excitement. When I passed one yelled ?Khun Turk pay nay ?? How many years before you get used to everyone constantly asking you where you?re going and where you?ve been.

 

?Pay wat farang? The farang temple. In other words the bar. Most of the kids here were the kids of prostitutes. They all had the nature of the farang male, and most Thai males come to think of it, down pat. We worshipped at the bar. The bar was our religion. The bar got a tithe of all we earned.

 

At the bottom of the stairs I was met with an uncomfortable mass of energy as a group of girls aged around ten or eleven were practising a dance routine and miming to the song Barbie Girl which I hoped they thought was actually about the famous doll. They had a professional flourish to their moves like most Thai kids and could have gone on to audition for Junior Showtime.

 

A plume of blue stir fry smoke filled the air as the girls who had boyfriends or cell-phone customers laboured industriously over a wok. I knew that if I hung around I would be a beneficiary of all this. They always made too much food and they always shared it with the farang immersed in the third or fourth communal litre of Saeng Som at the table nearby. For all the noise and fights and madness and theft and suicide bids that were a part of daily life at my apartment building this sense of community and generosity made it the only place I wanted to live. It was a temptation to go and join the party but I had other things on my mind. I just headed straight down the narrow soi to Petchburi Tat Mai.

 

From the saigog vendors to the newsstand guy who always offers me an under the counter Japanese sex comic everything about Petchburi Tat Mai feels like home. There were a few other people stood at various positions in the street trying to hook a taxi. I watched them all successfully grab one and then had to wait a few minutes as I stood alone trying not to look too conspicuous. A bargirl in full make-up walked out of the soi and got a cab straight away. Eventually a car did stop for me. ?Soi Cowboy.? I said.

 

?Soi C?boy? He reiterated as if it was the most popular farang request of the day. ?Yii?p et ruu Yii?p saam ?? A choice of which end.

 

?Yii?p Saam.? I said. I don?t know why. Nam?s bar was closer to Twenty One. Maybe I just fancied the extra few yards exercise before I went to meet my doom.

 

The Soi Cowboy was buzzing with women who confidently hawked outside bars trying to drag in the poor hapless and semi drunken men who passed by. Girls of one petite size able to snatch at men of every shape and size imaginable with the routine but deeply convincing handsome man line. Just one little peep through those curtains at the flesh gyrating against an aluminium pole was usually enough. A guiding hand helped. And if the scenes you saw in the street were more reminiscent of eleven year olds playing kiss-chase than the universally declaimed trade of prostitution it was probably something to do with the fact that on this little street few seemed to care much for sociological gravity. Life was what it was.

 

Outside her bar Nam was sitting by her darkened glass reflection. She wore a silken robe drawn at the middle that, with a small movement, would have revealed her breasts to anyone wit the courage to look. She was holding a cigarette erect between her thumb and forefinger and the smoke curled from its glowing tip like a slow ejaculation in warm clear water. She watched me sit opposite her. Just a table between us. She stubbed her cigarette out into the ashtray.

 

?Why I know you come see me tonight ?? She said.

 

?Because you?re psychic.?

 

?Psychic.? She had no idea what it meant but she wasn?t going to ask. She pushed hair from her eyes. Her hair was different. She?d had it cut straighter. Had that Khmer kink ironed out of it so her face was framed in a way that made her look unlike herself.

 

?I wanted to talk with you.? I said.

 

?Talk with me. Why. Why talk when we can fuck ??

 

?Can we go somewhere. Get away from here. I?d feel better if...?

 

?You want take me go somewhere. You have to pay bar.?

 

?Okay. I?ll pay the bar.?

 

?Then we can go room. I can smoke you all night. You want ??

 

?Nam.?

 

?You can give me how much money ? I look you but I think you very poor man. I think maybe Nam too expensive for you.?

 

?Nam...?

 

?But if you not pay have big problem.?

 

?Nam...?

 

?I have man cannot pay me one time. Long time ago. Him not pay so I cut him face. I cut him because all farang look same me and if him come my bar again I want remember not go with him... I want him have scar I can remember. So if you cannot pay then maybe is better you don?t think about Nam.?

 

I gave up and she smiled. ?You think me same another phuuying work bar. You think you can walk away from Nam. Cannot.?

 

?I just want to talk with you.?

 

She opened her hands ?Talk now. Is easy to talk. Is okay... Can say what you want say now. Talk.?

 

I felt a sick feeling deep down and she looked at me with mock tenderness. ?Ohh. Tirac. I look your face same you hurt your heart. I know. You miss Nam too much. Is same for every man. Man kiss my pussy one time and him want eat me forever. You miss me tirac ? You miss Nam. You try go fuck around but is not good for you because same you only want me. Now you have to come back for Nam.?

 

?Yeah that?s right. That?s exactly right. Everything you say is right. You win. Really ! In every way you win. You got me. You are the winner.?

 

She laughed and shook her head. ?Bullshit.?

 

?I wanted to talk with you. I wanted to go somewhere and talk. That?s all. Not fuck. Not get my cock sucked. Not get taken to the arsehole of the world to see someone beaten to a pulp in front of my eyes.?

 

A waitress came out of the bar and asked me what I wanted to drink. Nam told her and the waitress went back inside. Nam met my eyes. It was odd. For a moment, and this may have been well calculated, but for a moment I thought I saw tears form. Obviously she blinked them back. She wasn?t going to let anyone see her tears fall. She placed her small harmless looking hand on my hand. ?You care about me tirac ? You care about Nam ? If you care about me you wait me here. I have to go dancing.?

 

She undid her the belt on her robe and slipped out of it so she was naked to the whole world. She was wearing nothing at all. At the sight of her I felt my heart leap into my throat. She handed me the robe and brushed past me to walk into the bar like she was the queen of the world and nothing could touch her.

 

In a second or two the waitress came back out with my drink. I saw a few people, other bargirls mainly, giving me strange looks. From the bar came the fusion-jazz-prog-rock strumming of Joe Satriani and I could see Nam, in my mind?s eye, making love to a ten foot aluminium pole. Her soft flesh kneading against cold metal. I was in trouble. And all the joy of the Soi Cowboy churned into a kind of mockery of me.

 

I sat there drinking fixing my eyes abstractly on neon signs and fairy lights. Watching fellow drunks and wishing I could get back to that blissful state where all this seemed wonderful and none of it could touch me or hurt me. Turk Fist did not fall for bargirls. And if he did it certainly wouldn?t be a bargirl as hardcore and evil as Nam. Maybe it was true. Maybe she had worked some kind of Khmer magic on me. Maybe a visit to a really great witchdoctor could lift the magic. Maybe the chemicals in my brain were just all out of whack. Maybe if I did just take Nam to a hotel and screw her for a night or two I?d be miraculously cured.

 

The waitress brought me another drink even though I hadn?t ordered it. The waitress said ?Nam... She want you know she very sorry, but have farang pay bar for her already.?

 

So I drank my drink. And I watched the world passing by as if it was a time-lapse movie. The squid sellers and flower sellers and all kinds of crap sellers came and went. Girls I half knew came and ate food with me. Shared their food with me. I guess I was just waiting to see Nam leave with whatever farang she had chosen for the night. She never did.

 

I walked into the bar to use the toilet. In fact I was really just looking around to see if I could see her in the sea of faces. I couldn?t and I didn?t really know why I was even looking.

 

I hung around the Soi Cowboy for another couple of hours but I just couldn?t get in the mood.

 

There were still a hardcore of farang sitting outside drinking when I got back to my apartment complex. I enjoyed a few late night drinks as we poured over international affairs as if the opinions of a few drunken whorefuckers in Bangkok mattered. After this I drifted up to my room.

 

Nam was standing outside my apartment talking to my neighbour. There was a big suitcase outside my door and Nam was wearing a simple violet dress and the simple jewellery of a heroine from some Thai soap.

 

?Maa laaw.? Said my neighbour.

 

Nam saw me, cried ?Darling,? and threw her arms around me as if she was my wife and she hadn?t seen me for ten years.

 

I didn?t know what the fuck was going on but, for some strange reason, I felt quite prepared to go along with whatever it was.

 

[Redbaron]

Good to see you back again Turk. Well done. Gotta love the Nam.

[Guest]

Well worth waiting for. THank you........again.

 

[Pharcyde]

ahhh...and now I wonder how Turk is gonna get rid of Nam...

 

Good weekend to you, too.

 

PC

[sky brow]

Hi ,

That was a good read.It could only be written by someone who,s been amongst it.Good discriptions of the settings and real characters.Had me thinking I was their. Well done mate.

 

cheers sky brow.

[dvarpala]

Great stuff, Turk. As always.

 

That Nam is a work of art, isn't she?

 

Thanks....

 

[Oldtimer]

Great Khun Turk.

 

This evening I am sitting here many thousands of miles and kilometers away from Bangkok, but the words that you string together sum up the essence of the LOS scene.

 

Who needs mekong and/or yaa baa when you can read the Tale of Nam?

 

Thank you.