The Demon in Meung Thai

[MaiLuk]

Christmas day. They say a farang was born from a virgin on this day.

 

I too was born on Christmas day. I was not born of a virgin. I was ripped from the stomach of a whore. In her prime my mother fucked enough farang to fill up a regiment of US soldiers. And she could out-drink most of them, all the while scamming every last satong of their leave pay.

 

But never mind my mother. On this day of the virgin birth, I?m sitting in the temple reading a manuscript handwritten by an american man whose body was burned here today. All day the smell from the burning has hung in the air like mud stirred up in a pond. At first it was the nauseating smell of burnt hair, then it got worse. On this Christmas day the temple- the power center and headquarters of the Buddhist faith- smelled like the inferno.

 

___________________

 

I was born the son of a working man. Ten years in the military, an infantry sergeant by trade. But all of that meant SHIT! My real life did not commence until my boots landed on the dirt in Vietnam, and even then the true beginning did not unfold until I buggered out after three tours of duty. Desertion is a capital fucking offense under the uniform code of military justice. The day I chose not to go back to my unit, my life history became meaningless. I am a fugitive whose moorings to the world were severed in 1973.

 

I was certain at that time my life would be cut short. Someday I would be found, finished off. I did not care. Only one thing mattered to me, one person on this Earth who meant more than my own life.?

____________

 

So begins the story of a man who died on my birthday. His life was not cut short, he lived on for decades in exile and wasted away slowly in the end. I never knew the real story about this man. Not until I inherited his manuscript, the only thing he possessed of any value for me. His lifelong habit of twisting the truth was finally kicked in the end, when he wrote down this story in his last weeks, churning out pages and pages of crystal clear truths.

 

His words poured out of the manuscript like a desperate confession, written at the same time his liver gave up filtering out the decades of accumulated bile. These words of truth were not written for me. The lies he spoke to me while living will never be erased.

 

Just before dying, the american forced Doctor Siriaporn to swear on the life of the Buddha and the lives of the doctor?s wife and children that he would have the document shipped to the american?s brother in the USA, and allow no one else to see it.

 

That was the doctor?s explanation to me when he refused my request for the document. He had treated the american for years, and intended to carry out the man?s last wish. But I know that an educated thai man is soft and will easily change his mind. The doctor instantly changed his when he felt the blade of my knife pressing against his throat.

 

The story of my father?s life means nothing in the great scheme of things. My aunt Nattaya called his attempt at an auto-biography a pile of rubbish. For me, his story is a revelation of biblical proportions, a rendition of the genesis of my life. This document is the only chance at uncovering meaning to the life of the son of a deserter and a whore.

 

Doctor Siriaporn had some advice for me as I was leaving his office: ?Pravith, burn the manuscript. It holds only the false perceptions of a farang, his Karma is not yours. It is full of

delusions that will poison your mind, like the sting of a Scorpion. You are not him, you are not farang.?

 

The doctor knew only one side of my father. He only knew about his drinking binges, his endless debts, the beatings of my mother. He could not know the other side, how he stayed with me day and night when as a child I was in the hospital for days. He could not know that my father took me places, taught me how to swim, to fight and to shoot. And how he lied and bribed my way into the farang schools.

 

My father's efforts were wasted on me. I am worse off than if I never laid eyes on him. I?ve never felt the bite of a scorpion, but I know its venom somehow found its way into my veins long ago. Now I want to experience the sting left to me in my inheritance.

 

*****************

 

My father was thirty years old when he deserted, he had no excuse that he was just a child, no magic explanation to pull out of his hat and use for sympathy. A deserter from his unit, a coward in the eyes of his country and family. My family. The ones who know nothing of my existence.

 

He had to suppress his old identity, lock it into a vault inside his brain forever. Thirty years of my father?s life became worthless, irretrievable overnight. And a freakish re-created life began.

 

__________

 

She was sitting at an outdoor café eating and drinking with her friend. She was wearing shorts that deserved the name. Thai woman have skin that is smooth as a baby?s ass. And their bodies are put together in a way that is nothing less than a miracle.

 

But this young lady stood out even amongst the jewels of thailand. The tables and chairs were some kind of handmade wood contraptions that looked like they would not support a plate of rice. I took a chance anyway, pulled up a flimsy chair and sat myself down at their table. The lady looked at me for a moment, then looked at her friend, then smiled down at her bowl of spicy soup. That is when I knew. I knew this girl would be different from the others, she would be special.

 

?You want to go with me?? I asked with a big smile. She said nothing at first, just kept eating.

 

After a moment of silence, her friend said with disgust ?We eating, you not see with your eyes??

 

I wasn?t going to be deterred. I sat watching her eat, trying to ignore the noise of the motorbikes zinging by and the sweat streaming down my face in the relentless heat.

 

Her face was shaped like the paintings you see of egyptian princesses, her eyes had that far away look you see sometimes, like she was not part of this world. The noise and the heat were of no concern to that ethereal face, and so far I was the same as the noise and heat.

 

I tried to justify my presence by asking: ?Where are you from??

 

?Mai lu? she said in a raspy voice. I realized then that she was very young and I felt even more hot under my shirt.

 

Another long moment passed. She finished eating, casually pushed her bowl away and stared right at me. She then took the lead, started talking in her falsetto english, and the spell of her innocence disappeared quickly:

 

?What you want me do? You sure you take care me? I do anything you want, you pay me good OK??

 

____________

 

 

When I was a kid my mother knew how to get paid good. She would send me to pick up the cash from the drug deals, no one would ever suspect a kid carrying all that money in a bag, no chance of a ripoff, and I could walk right past the police and smile. But at six years old, I was too small. I fell into a ditch during a storm, couldn?t get out and almost drowned. Was in a hospital and did not wake up for three days. Lost all the money. When my father found out Mom was dealing drugs, he beat Mom. She put a curse on him. He always laughed about that.

 

 

My father?s name was John Loyale, and I took his last name. While attending farang schools in Bangkok, the other farang could not pronounce my thai name, they would call me the Loyale Dog. Now that I know my father deserted the US army, the irony of his fake name is almost a laugh.

 

John had a compulsion for young ladies that came from a place inside of him that Mom must have known all about. She was eighteen and looked fifteen when John fell hard for her. No matter, during the time Mom was pregnant with me, John would go into the bar areas, stay away for days at a time.

 

Mom knew how to take care of herself. She and I stayed in a one room house she rented, and money was always to be had somehow. John didn?t ask where Mom got her money from, he only knew that she had a place for him to stumble home after a hard night. Hell would break loose when Mom wasn?t alone, but it would always pass. Until the next time.

 

After the soldiers left for good, drugs became the new cash cow, though many thai men would come around and ask me if John was at home before going to see my mother. My Mom would do anything to get money. She wanted me to get an education. I got one, even went to university, and use it as I see fit. There is money to be had in thailand, and for the son of a whore and a deserter, the way is not without violence.

 

I didn?t know about John?s real life and he sure as hell knew nothing about mine. A man like me can survive, even get rich in thailand. I know how to move things. I know how to talk to buyers from around the world. I speak english better than any thai person I have ever met, because at one time I cared about learning to speak perfectly. Now I care about keeping the men with greedy eyes out of my business. And I don?t care about dying to do it. Or killing. My life can burn the same as John?s body, it all means nothing to me.

 

I fuck the girls I meet, the same as John endlessly fucked prostitutes. No one seems to care that my mother was a whore, but I?m half farang and people care a lot about that. Some like to talk about it. If one talks too much about it he might end up dead. People fear me, that is good. My business runs better when people have fear. But too many thai people don?t care about dying, someday they will take me down. Before they do, I want to know why I am who I am. Among my thai friends I am the only one who thinks about this shit, I wake up and go to sleep thinking about it. This fucking question screaming at me is like a giant cyst that cannot be cut off without blowing my brains out.

 

I think about my mother and her life and why the fuck she loved John all those years, a farang who could not keep his farang dick zipped up for more than a day. For what reason did this deserter stay with my mother, a fucking whore for money to the very center of her being?

 

I remember we read the bible at one of my schools. Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, she was thought by the people in her village to be possessed by demons. Why not? I?ve seen prostitutes here go crazy. This prostitute from the bible used her hair to wipe clean the feet of the farang who was born from a virgin. She stayed at his side until his last days. And when the government killed this man, she was the first person he went to when he arose from the dead. Why the

fuck did he do that? What did this man see in this whore named Mary Magdalene? And she in him?

 

I remember long ago my mother once told John that a rich farang wanted to take her away from Thailand, that he would also take me and care for us both. That it was an opportunity she could not let pass. John said nothing, went out to the hammock he had made and slowly laid down. He stayed there like he was asleep. I got behind the tree and watched. I saw tears on his face.

 

There are no tears in my life. Taking what I want is how I survive. Why the fuck would my father cry over that? Why not take what he wanted, and get rid of the rest? My father would have been stepped on in my business, people would laugh at him before killing him. This life is not for a man to cry.

 

 

 

 

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To be continued

MaiLuk

[Searcher]

Excellent start! My compliments

 

Looking forward to the next installment.

 

Searcher

 

"Living Well Is The Best Revenge" - F. Scott Fritzgerald

[Central Scrutinizer]

Mailuk,

 

Whoa! Excellent! Please continue. Very, very, well done! This has the beginnings of a great story! Excellent writing. Thanks for posting it here.

 

Cent

[MaiLuk]

Thanks for the compliment Searcher and Cent. I was trying to come up with some theme about "evil" for my 666th post, the story never quite got there, it just went in its own direction.

[kamui]

Great Story!

[Zorro]

very good indeed......hope you can keep it up