Rubicons

[MrX]

This all happened along time ago in Bar-time. We had not yet crossed the Rubicon; just petted aimlessly stage-side and went home to our respective lives undisturbed by any knowledge of the weathers to come.

 

One night last September I was greeted by ?Isaan Princess, she mai sabai, she mai sabai maak ma? she have accident? Pisow, who worked as dekserve, bent my ear with an urgency usually reserved for confidants, almost beside herself. Try as I might though I could not find out from anyone what was really happening except ?motorcyke? was repeated over and over. ?She mai sabai maak ma or mai sabai nit noi?? I asked. But there was nothing to be done, nothing more to be learned that first night. I went home miserably and slept badly.

 

The next evening it was clearer. I was told that she had fallen off a motorcycle taxi while coming to work two days before, not wearing a crash helmet, had hit her head disastrously on the unforgiving concrete and had been hospitalized for nearly three days now. But what to do? I was nonplussed. After all I knew her hardly at all, apart from feeling up her pussy a dozen times or so times and even this scant knowledge was confined to the stigmatized taboo-ridden world of the bar. I could only guess at what cans I might open up by stepping outside.

 

I would step outside however though. I contacted my old friend Mon and in a coffee bar down on the street near the escalator that leads up to the Emporium shopping Mall I told her the story and something of my anxieties. Mon was darkly suspicious. She knows my life, my wife, our son. She loves our family, prays for it intact. Why hadn?t I told her about IP before she demanded to know. ?Thai lady no good? she said darkly. ?Thai lady think falang have money maak ma,. no good? She repeated. Though I had already told her about Nit and taken to The Bar to meet her as a kind of inoculation against god-knows- what, and even if with her she had grudgingly accepted our protestations of platonic love, a second woman was way too much. ?How old she anyway?? Mon asked, enemy of Achilles. I told her and she shuddered, ?Same same, my son? tossed contemptuously.

 

But she accompanied me anyway to the Lerdsin, playing truant, risking the wrath of the grumpy cashier who is effectively her Boss. Though as we approached SalaDang BTS getting ready to alight I was ready not to go through with it. Mon could sense my discomfort. ?Pen ally?? she said half mocking. ?What you afraid?? as I gripped the hanging straps tighter.?What she do to you?? Really I knew I was up against my life but I just said. ?Its that I don?t know her? maybe she has boyfriend, maybe her parents will be visiting? or maybe they don?t know she works bar. What they think of her ?. visited by a falang?? And while all these question were Ok, the truth was, this was a Rubicon, not the coital Rubicon for sure, but a pretty fine tributary nevertheless. .

 

We got in a taxi and stop?started down Silom toward the river. ?Ok, I go up and see her first, if everything Ok I come down tell you? She threw a lifebelt and I clutched. We got out of the taxi outside the hospital. I was dizzy as we consulted the crummy folded paper where the policeman cum doorman of The Bar had written the ward number, hospital wing, hospital name and Bangkok district just to be sure. We walked through the car park, along side the main building nearly as far as we could go and stopped. ?Here? Mon said, indicating the turquoise colored elevator door ?Floor 12? squinting at the paper ? ?You sure you no want come??. I waved her away and she disappeared behind the door. I mentally smoked two cigarettes, maybe three before the turquoise door disgorged Mon again. She was walking quickly, swept me along, ?Come Romp ? she said. We went on a few steps and stopped, troubled she said. ?She say she no know you.? Panicked, I sought the best interpretation. ?its Ok, Ok ?..she have many customers, I don?t say name many times? It was unconvincing. ?You sure you see IP, not some other lady? I said. Mon looked away, ridiculous. ?You want go up?you can, nobody go see her ..I ask nurse already? . The pathos of it! I hesitated long and hard before this Prufrock moment until I could feel her impatient. ?No, Lets go somewhere? I said, coward that I am.

 

 

My visits to the bar became cavernous and lonely. The women?s bodies could no longer comfort me. They told me IP was getting better though. First they said, she would never work again in the Bar, which I could hardly bear, then that she would be gone for 2 months to convalesce in Surin, then one month, then after 3 weeks the call came.

 

?How are you Romp?? I couldn?t speak.

 

?I go bar tonight, I want you come? Straight out

 

?Ok? I said just flat. Nothing I put in my voice could possibly be enough.

 

 

 

 

On the way I drew 10,000 from the ATM..

 

She was sitting in a love seat with Pisow beside, protective. Hair short , body smaller than I remembered .She got up slowly, her youth shadowy now, and walked over.

 

 

? You Ok?? I said

 

?Yeh??.I Ok.? Drawn out slightly, her signature only just off key.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bar fined her immediately that night and for the first time ever we walked out, went to a noodle stall, sat down, awkward as young kittens?.

 

 

What more to say? Just that as I peeled off the notes slowly one by one: Another Rubicon

[..]

Another good one. Thanks. Check for a PM...

 

Cheers,

SD