Tik's customer

[MrX]

Slipping out of Long Gun after catching the show on one of the slowest nights ever I sauntered down the street toward The Bar, slightly mechanically patting my pockets all the while, checking the unfamiliar arrangement of essential objects necessitated by Songkran. Don?t forget, I thought: no passport tonight, plastic-wrapped phone top left breast, and plastic purse with cash and cards top right breast, and gave myself one last pat.

 

Isaan Princess (IP) wasn?t sitting outside at the shabby refectory table the girls make their own when the tedium of listening to the tired old songs and being groped by the customers inside the bar gets too much. Perhaps this was a bad sign. Our appointments have always been laced with chaos and entropy. If we possibly can misunderstand one another we do. She suggests a time and I think she is joking, I arrange for tomorrow morning and she takes it as twelve hours later or she simply doesn?t answer the phone because it doesn?t work or the bill hasn?t been paid. But I went in anyway, through the red-curtained doorway, without checking my stride, passing the powder smeared ?hello girls? and the off-duty policeman who doubles as bouncer and usher with barely a nod so as to sit down on the first available stage-side bar stool

 

First entering a bar is never anxiety free, rather like stepping through a mirror into a different frame. The enveloping gloom of the interior and the volume of the music is a shock, which apparently cannot wear off, even though I have tasted it a hundred times. There is eros too, which suddenly burns, through the dancing girls nudity and though in a second this corrosion is gone and everything becomes vaguely transgressive fun, in that first moment something of the fabric is rent and then almost instantly seamlessly resewn.

 

The waitress comes over quickly and though she knows very well which beer I drink she presses her mouth near my ear and says ?Heineken?? I nod or give the thumbs up and the evening roars off. I glance around wondering who is here tonight and see familiar faces in the crowd. Some customers I know quite well by sight but with whom I have never spoken and the girls who lives are becoming strangely, inextricably, entwined within my own.

 

I wait for Isaan Princess. I know the news of my arrival is being rapidly telegraphed. This deft cooperation is the nuts and bolts of how the girls survive. It is part of their art and will bring her to my side faster than any new girl can ask for a lady- drink. The girl dancing nearest to me, with whom I have sometimes shared a Suki, cups her hand to her mouth and mock megaphones ?IP not here? and my heart sinks but a moment later Miss Surin walks over and says ?IP upstairs, she come now?. I offer Miss Surin a drink, which she bounces off to get.

 

Slightly to my left at about 11 o?clock with his back to the pillar and to me I see Tik?s regular customer and Tik attending. I think he adores her though she not him exactly

because he is not free and she can never forget it and perhaps forgive . She looks tired tonight I think, her face a little darker than when she is rested and her movements almost imperceptibly slower. He has been away more than a week and I suppose their reunion important enough to deliberately avoid catching Tik?s eye even though I could easily do so and I can feel her looking at me.

 

Miss Surin comes back, settling on my left side, gives me the checkbin and palming her lady drink receipt discreetly asks. ?How are you tonight??? Fine? I say slightly irritably, suddenly aggressively weary of these opening moves. Right side, I am aware IP has arrived, diffident as ever and holding herself just a little further away than bar-girl-with-customer body language conventions dictate. She is always like this. I know I must build bridges quickly. I have tarried before. I put my arm around her waist firmly and the dance begins.

 

Miss Surin moves away as she must according to the mores but not before asking for a tip, which surprises. She doesn?t usually hustle me like this. Is something wrong?

IP looks away, which is probably a kind of disdain bordering on disapproval for the whole vulgar business because she herself never asks for money. I snap judge Miss Surin unkindly. ?No ? I say and she winces slightly then ?Its OK? she says, placidly and is gone. I see Tik is waving and somehow I am free to signal back now since I am with IP and everything is in its place, eros is almost back in her cage. There is however something not quite right about Tik?s customer?s back which is all I can see of him. He is not sitting right, things are not loving right. I have the distinct impression of that.

 

IP gets restless quickly, she always does and I recognize this impatience by a change in the frequency of the slight tremor in her right leg, which forms part of the aftermath of her motorcycle accident last year. ?Let?s go? I whisper so she can just hear and she wordlessly moves away to get her bag and I gesture wistfully goodbye to Tik.

 

 

We go out and about, eat something together, laugh and smile, enjoy Songkran for and hour or two and wander back to the bar slightly intoxicated by the beer and each other.

 

Tik?s customer is sitting alone outside, next to the refectory table, with too many checkbins in the tab holder. We sit down uninvited though he regularizes this, by asking us if we want to sit down. ?Thank you? we say. More drinks are ordered and Tik arrives form inside the bar. The street is hotting up. Falang and Bar girls are harassing each other with water guns. The music from the next-door bar is suddenly bongo drums played badly. We are a foursome. Tik is canoodling with her customer and though I have hardly spoken to him before from things she has said I feel I know him already. I can see IP likes him too because she is a little declamatory when speaking, contrasting her usual deference and shyness. I look across to Tik who I have loved mutely for so long now and her face is even darker and her energy is not right.

 

Suddenly Tik breaks away to go into the bar, hardly glancing back says ?I go upstairs to sleep, see you later? and without a word IP follows. Tik?s customer and I are now awkward and unscripted. He says, ? She is a nice girl but she drinks too much. I tell her many times.? I don't know what to say because I slightly doubt that she is really drunk and anyway if she is, why is that, I wonder. Mercifully IP comes back though looking unsettled.

I feel I really cannot manage all this, do not like it in any way and say to both of them ?I go inside look at lady? and to IP ?want to come??. She gestures ?no? and I peel off alone past the red curtain into the bar.

 

After about twenty minutes IP come into the bar and we are together again. Tik?s customer is seated five stools away, facing me, and I can see from his face he is not OK.

?What is happening? I ask IP ?Why Tik no stay with customer?? she answers in a torrent of English which I cannot understand. Something about, ? I go upstairs ask her and she tell me?? a moment later I catch ?same same problem you me? and then all sense is gone again. This is impursuable. The evening is winding down anyway, I can feel the energy draining from of it. Out of the corner of my eye I see Tik?s customer moving disconsolately off. IP wants to go home too. She says ?see you tomorrow one o?clock, do water fighting? and is gone and I am just left wondering whether she meant morning or afternoon.

[uk101]

Great story Rompandadam This forum is getting is getting better and better with writing of the highest quality.

[MaiLuk]

Nice writing style, something that is well worth the time you put in. Hope you keep it coming because i can see story lines developing that already have my attention.

[MrX]

Thank you uk101 and Mailuk for your feed-back.

[Central Scrutinizer]

Rompandadam,

 

Let me add my thanks here too Romp. Good story. I hope to see more when you have the chance to post 'em here. These are some of my favorite type of stories. Thanks.

 

Cent