mad dogs & co
(Phan Ma Ba, 1988)
By the same author :
The Judgment
An ordinary story (and others less so)
Time
Carrion floating by
lead-up
The sea at
that time had turned pitch-black and glossy. Bulgy monsoon clouds blurred the
sky above. Vicious blasts of wind pounced on the beach, relentlessly driving
rain and waves to the shore. An army of huge waves, gloomy walls of coiled-up
water, crashed thunderously on the seafloor upon reaching the shore. Wave after
wave crashed in a ceaseless, caroming cannonade, assaulting the beach and
forcing it to recede, but the beach stayed put and refused to yield. Instead,
they retreated in a sizzling slush of seawater, leaving behind white foam that
smeared the sand with telltale signs of defeat, but still more impetuous waves
came rolling in, doomed yet undaunted.
The sun had gone into hiding, as if it didn’t
want to know what was raging on below.
There wasn’t a human soul in sight on the wide
open stretch of the beach, which was strewn with driftwood, torn nets, plastic
bags, rotten fish and garbage swept up and thrown onto the sand, as if the sea meant
to tell the beach it didn’t want any of this rubbish.
Three or four local dogs were foraging for food
on the beach, undeterred by the raging downpour. The smallest of them stood
gnawing at a dead fish while snarling at the other dogs and soon a war started
under the pelting rain.
Way beyond the beach luxuriant rows of green
coconut trees bowed low in terror of the wind. It was as if they were putting
their last energies into a fight to survive the monsoon and make it to the next
dry season, when they would stand still, merely flicking the tips of their
fronds as they played with the breeze.
Amid the shaking coconut trees a little hut
nestled in a recess of the hill. It seemed to be trying to keep out of sight,
but the wind and the rain were unrelenting. At times, violent gusts made its
thatched roof flap.
A small red-earth track ran from the main road
to the beach, parting neatly the long rows of coconut trees into two sections.
In the hot season, this track was full of tourists of all nationalities, but
now the rain was its only custom.
At a junction, down the better part of the track
to the beach, was a large lean-to that had been turned into a food shop. Only
the kitchen at the back had walls. The thatch of the roof had been covered with
nets as protection against the wind. The floor had been built at a slightly
higher level than the road. A thick, dark-green awning was stretched across the
side of the shop exposed to the rain, and the wind shook and slapped it
deafeningly.
A short distance from the food shop was a small
gift shop that sold souvenirs to tourists. It was so simple it looked more like
an ordinary hut. On the red-earth landing in front of it, an ancient motorcycle
stood basking in the rain, leaning on one side. Its paintwork was so flaky it
was hard to see any trace of the original red.
The souvenir display case was made of a wooden
frame around a chessboard with a glass lid. Under the glass covered with
raindrops, one could see a few shells gathering dust. It looked like the shop
was abandoned. Above the display case, a small brown board with gold lettering
in Roman script read ‘OTTO.’
Outside, the rain kept thrashing down and gave no sign of letting up.
A motor made itself heard over the roar of the
rain and wind. A passenger vehicle came chugging along the red-earth track. As
it drew closer, one could see it was a pickup van whose double row of metallic
passenger seats at the back had been replaced with wooden benches to transport
more goods and people, and by the same token its bodywork had been dolled up
with stripes of garish colors, which said something of the crude tastes of the
locals.
The vehicle stopped in front of the gift shop. A
man with a backpack jumped out and ran straight to the door of the shop, which
was tightly closed.
The pickup revved its engine and moved away,
leaving behind a cloud of reeking gray smoke.
“Otto! Otto!” the man shouted as he shook the
bamboo-stripped door.
He was drenched from head to foot. His beautiful
long hair had been soused. He was dressed in a pair of faded jeans and an
off-white T-shirt, both dripping as if he had just fallen into a river. He
pressed himself against the door to escape from the pelting rain.
“Otto! Otto!” His hand, which wore a surfeit of
rings as his wrist wore a surfeit of bracelets, banged on the doorjamb. He
called out as if he was certain there was someone inside because the key was
not in the door.
“Otto! Otto!” he yelled into the keyhole.
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you,” came out the drowsy
groan of someone just woken up. The man stopped banging on the door.
“Hurry up, I’m cold,” he shouted.
“Just a sec. Who is it anyway?” asked the voice
inside.
The man outside knew from the movement of the
boards under his feet that the person inside was walking to the door. He didn’t
answer the question but stood there with a smile on his face.
The door opened. The man who had opened it stood
in his black underwear. “Well, if it ain’t that sonofagun Chuan!” Otto sounded
astonished. All signs of drowsiness cleared from his face. “When did you arrive?”
“This morning,” the man said, stepping inside.
Otto moved aside to let him through. “You came
alone?” he asked, looking at his friend’s face.
“With lots of others,” the friend said casually.
Otto went to have a look outside. The rain
struck his face but he wiped his eyes and looked from side to side. “Where did
’m mothers go?” he asked his visitor, screwing up his face. He was thinking
that they were playing a joke on him. His friends were always up to weird
pranks.
“How would I know? When we got off the coach,
everyone went their own way,” Chuan answered with a smile.
“Where’d they go?”
“Who?”
“Oh, come off it. The people you came with. Who
are they?” Otto looked at his friend in a ‘What the hell are you up to?’ way.
“How could I ask for names? There was a full
busload of them. When we arrived, everyone split.” Chuan laughed heartily. Otto
laughed a little too. He closed the door and bolted it. “You bastard,” he
swore.
Chuan leaned his backpack against a large table
set against the wall. Otto did his work on this table and it bore a mess of
things—thermos flask, bottle of water, flashlight, pot of glue, leather
off-cuts, bottles of liquid plastic for joins, spools of thread, patterns for
bags, chopping block, cutter, and an ashtray placed next to a packet of
cigarettes.
The boards were thick with dust and trails of
footprints as if they hadn’t been swept or cleaned for months. There was
nothing to sell inside the shop. The clothesline was empty too. The
bamboo-plaited walls, once used to display gifts, now displayed cobwebs.
“Your shop’s gone bust, right?” the visitor
asked after he took the place in.
“You and your mouth. You’ve just arrived and
you’re already busy badmouthin’,” Otto said with a smile. “There’s no one
around this time o’ year, man. I packed the stuff away and stopped sellin’ more
than two weeks ago. You’re lucky you came today. A few more days and you
wouldn’t ’ve found me.”
“Why? Where’re you off to?” Chuan asked as he
opened his backpack and foraged inside.
“I was gonna go and see you in Bangkok.” Otto
laughed.
“It was raining hard in town too,” said Chuan to
change the subject. He pulled out a towel and started to dry his hair. “I don’t
get it. It really rained like hell in town, but why are the eaves of the
buildings so goddamn short? You can’t shelter from the rain under them. If I
were the governor, I’d put a roof over the whole town.” He hung the towel on
the clothesline.
“It’s pissin’ down almost every fuckin’ day this
time o’ year. What’s the time?”
“Around eleven I guess,” Chuan said, pulling off
his T-shirt.
“Had anythin’ yet?”
“If you mean food, yes, I’ve eaten.” Chuan
kicked off his thongs and pealed off his jeans. “Wash your face, and let’s have
a morning drink together,” he said with a smile as he hung his jeans on the
clothesline.
“Wash! What the hell for? I’ll just put on some
pants and we can go.” Otto turned and walked into his bedroom at the back of
the shop.
“You don’t have to, you know. You can go like
you are,” Chuan shouted behind his back.
“Yeah? You think I wouldn’t?” Otto shouted back.
Chuan smiled but didn’t answer. He pulled
blue-green Chinese-style trousers and a white T-shirt out of his backpack, then
took off his white underwear, hung them near his jeans on the line, and put on
the fresh trousers and T-shirt.
To say that a diminutive can tell something
about someone’s character isn’t often true, but when it comes to a nickname,
there is no way for the owner to ignore it. “Chua” means ‘evil’. The man’s name
was Chuan (‘invite’, ‘induce’). He got “Chua” as a suffix because when he drank
to the point that he felt he no longer feared anyone, he ransacked the shelves
of Buddha images in his friends’ houses. So his friends gave him the nickname
of “Chuanchua” (‘the evil-inducer’), and whenever someone asked “Which Chuan?”
if the answer was “Chuanchua” they knew who they were talking about. Although
he had stopped behaving badly, the nickname had stuck with him.
Otto came out of the room. He wore red-and-green
shorts and a T-shirt that had once been white. Printed on it was a picture of a
red sun, with a row of black coconut trees inside the sun, and the words in
English “PHUKET—THAILAND” printed below it.
“Ain’t they rockin’? Feast your eyes.” Otto pulled on the hems of his shorts to spread them out.
“Rocking indeed.”
“Know what? Them mothers’re killin’ me.” Otto
laughed.
“Who?”
“Them shorts. Fuck, man: I had a dozen of ’m
made. At first, a farang* gave me a pair and asked me to
make him some. I thought they were nice, so I had the shop make me a dozen.
Reckoned I’d make a killin’. But dammit! I haven’t sold a single pair, so I’ve
got to wear ’m myself.” He had this funny way of talking, as if he didn’t
really care about anything. “How ’bout puttin’ a pair on? You’ll be doing me a
favor.”
“No—the colors scare me.” Chuanchua shook his
head in mock fear, although he was fascinated.
“Met Khanun took some. He looked real funky in
’m, man, I’m tellin’ you.” Otto was still trying.
Chuanchua thought of Met Khanun, who was short
and round and dark, and imagined him wearing garish red-and-green shorts. Quite
a state, definitely.
“Are we going then?” Chuanchua asked.
The rain was still pouring down and gave no sign
of stopping. It sizzled on the roof in waves under mighty gusts of wind. Yet
the two men remained undeterred.
Chuanchua opened the door. The rain flushed in,
and both of them bolted out. Otto locked the door then ran along the path
through a curtain of water.
1. booze babble
The
morning binge for both men began at the food shop next door. They were the only
customers. They chose a table looking out onto the veranda in the open shop
front. From there, they could see the downpour from the eaves and the white
haze of the rain beyond.
With the first glass, they began to tell each
other how they were getting on, taking turns to ask and taking turns to answer.
Each took a gulp or two until it became a glass or two. There was nothing to
measure the progress of their drinking but their own sense of well-being.
“When are you goin’ back?” Otto asked his friend
as he blew out smoke.
“When my work’s over, I guess.” Chuanchua prized
off a chunk of fried fish with his fork.
“Then keep the key of the shop with you.”
“Why?” He looked up and stared at Otto.
“I’ll go back to Bangkok in a day or two. I’ve
got nothin’ to do here. It’s a fuckin’ drag. There’s hardly a farang around any
more, so I’ve got no one to sell to. If I stay here, I’m afraid I’ll end up
with sweet fuck all.” Otto smiled at his friend, raised his glass and watered
his inner self.
“Why don’t you stay here and keep me company?
Stay until we’re both left with sweet fuck all.” Chuanchua laughed at his own
offer.
Otto stopped to think for a while, but he didn’t
say yes. He was thinking of what fun it would be if he stayed to keep Chuanchua
company. “Did you stop by to see Samlee on the way here?” he asked.
“Yes. He said he’d come over after work.”
“Don’t believe that bum. He’ll be here right
after noon. He won’t be able to stand it, trust me.” Otto sounded confident.
“He stops work at ten. If he can wait till his work’s over, then you may kick
my ass.”
“At ten?” Chuanchua repeated the words as if he
didn’t believe what he heard. “What time does he start, then?”
“Nine in the mornin’.”
“What kind of a fucking work is that? Thirteen
hours a day!” Chuanchua poured himself another glass.
“Yeah, but it’s a cool job. He stays in an
air-conditioned room all day long, watchin’ and tapin’ videos. I used to go and
hang out in his shop to watch blue movies. Cool. No sweat really. The only sore
point is, the bugger has little time left for boozin’.” His voice sounded full
of sympathy. “When his work’s over, the silly fool just gets pissed. Think
about it: he stops work at ten, and as soon as he’s out, he has to drink quick
because there’s so little fuckin’ time and he’s afraid he won’t get drunk. By
the time he’s plastered, it’s two or three in the morn’ so he goes back home to
sleep. He wakes up early to go to work. So, the idiot has a hangover all day
because he sleeps so little. If he had to dig trenches under the sun for a
livin’, he’d be dead by now!” Otto stressed the word “dead.” It sounded
horrifying.
“Why? What’s he so worried about that he boozes
so much?”
“Worried my ass! Guys like us ’ve got nothin’ to
worry about. He used to tank up regular in the old days, but now he’s better
because he listens to his doctor.”
“His doctor warned him off, did he?”
“Yeah. In the past, he had so many accidents
ridin’ pissed even his damn motorcycle got fed up with him. Have you seen his
face lately? It’s full of scars. His moustache is like a retired john brush. He
used to have this handsome handlebar of a moustache, all black, but now it’s as
scruffy as the hair of a mangy mutt. Every time he’d go to the clinic, the
doctor would ask, ‘Back again?’” Otto laughed.
“And what did the doctor warn him about?”
“The doctor gave him a choice. Give up drinkin’
or if he couldn’t do that, give up ridin’ his motorcycle. One or the other—so
he gave up ridin’ his bike.” Otto smiled. Chuanchua laughed.
“You’ve come off your bike too, haven’t you?”
Chuanchua said, smiling.
“For fuck’s sake! Once in a while. I’m just an
amateur tumbler, you know, not a pro.” Otto laughed. “How did you know?”
“I know—that’s all.” Chuanchua smiled knowingly.
“Who the hell told you?” He looked at his
friend’s face, waiting for an answer.
“Lit’l Hip told me.” Chuanchua smiled
conspiratorially.
“What’s he doin’ now?”
“He’s gone back home to Chainart.” Chuanchua
took the tongs and picked up ice cubes, filling his glass to the last chunk. He
lifted the ice bucket and called the waiter over.
“What the hell for? Such a prick! What’s he
gonna do for a livin’ there?”
“He had to go back to take care of his parents.
His pa isn’t well.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“He’s allergic to pork.” Chuanchua laughed.
“It’s true, you know!”
“Allergic to pork! Never heard that one before,”
Otto said with a smile.
“His pa used to eat pork a lot, boiled pig’s
leg, you know, fat and all. The doctor said he had a build-up of fat in his
arteries that left him partly paralyzed. Lit’l Hip told me his pa ate pork at
every meal. Even had it cooked at home. He’s grown pale now. The doctor ordered
him to give it up,” Chuanchua said, warming to his story.
“Did he take him to the Krabork cave* to kick the habit?” Otto
asked.
“Sure, but he hasn’t fully recovered yet. Lit’l
Hip told me his pa still cooked pork and offered it to the monks everyday. I
think he’s planning to eat pork again in his next life.” He received a bucket
of ice from the waiter and mixed himself another drink.
“I bet that before he offers it to the monks, he
sniffs it.” Otto laughed. “Father addicted to pork; son addicted to grass.”
Otto laughed out loud at his own choice of words.
Chuanchua, too, shook with laughter as he
stirred the whiskey and soda in his glass with the tongs. He said, “Maybe it’s
difficult for him to find grass at home.”
“Come on. Thailand and marijuana—you can get it
everywhere. An expert like Lit’l Hip can always score. When the guy stayed
here, he tried everythin’, even paper.”
“What paper?” Chuanchua put the glass down after
taking a sip.
“Acid, you know. A farang gave him some. Piece
of paper this size.”
Otto put his thumb under the tip of his little
finger to demonstrate. “He was spaced out all day.”
“Have you ever tried it?”
“Sure, why not?” He flicked the ash from his
cigarette outside the shop.
“What’s it like?”
“Not bad at all. It sharpens the colors. Like
when you look at the tree over there—” He pointed at a tree outside the shop.
“You get a darker green than what you see now, then you feel fuckin’ cold. I
tried it with Lit’l Hip. We walked along the beach, but we needed to wrap
ourselves in blankets. We must have looked real crazy! We couldn’t eat anythin’
for most of the day.”
“Why not?”
“We went into a food shop and sat down but we
didn’t dare order anythin’. We just kept laughin’. We saw the shop owner’s
face, and everythin’ else for that matter, distorted, stretchin’ and then
shrinkin’ like in a cartoon. The people there were starin’ at us as well, so we
had to walk out.” Otto laughed as he told the story.
“Find me some so I can try.”
“I don’t know if it’s available right now. But I
think it’s nothin’ compared to the high you get out of toadstools. There’s
plenty of ’m this time o’ year. You should try ’m. They’re great.” He laughed.
“Talkin’ of bein’ stoned on toadstool makes me think of Larn.”
“Why?” Chuanchua asked. Instinct told him this
must be a juicy story.
“The idiot likes to walk around naked when he’s
stoned.”
“In the day or at night?”
“Shit, at night anyone can do it. You don’t need
to be stoned. He did it in broad daylight. In front of Lueang’s shop, with
lotsa people around.” He lifted his glass and drank.
“How do you eat the toadstools? Boil them?”
“You cook ’m in an omelet. Delicious. With a
dash of chili sauce, it’s out of this world, man, especially if you keep drinkin’
as you eat. Actually, I don’t know what gets you first, the booze or the
mushrooms.” Otto laughed.
“So what happened to Larn?”
“He totally flipped out. Well, you know how he
is, always afraid of not gettin’ drunk. You must’ve noticed: when there’s only
a little liquor left, he gulps it down as fast he can. He’s afraid of not
gettin’ drunk. But toadstools, it takes time before they take effect. The first
few mouthfuls nothin’ happens, right? So the bugger starts complainin’, ‘I
ain’t high yet. I ain’t high yet.’ And he goes on wolfin’ them down, and before
long, the toadstools begin to work.” Otto laughed. “He—he sat still for a bit,
twitchin’ and mutterin’. Then he said he couldn’t sit still any longer, he was
gonna take a dip. I told him, ‘Sure, no need to tell me. You do what you have
to.’ I had just finished sayin’ this when the twit starts takin’ his clothes
off in the shop. I told him off. Fuck, man, I’d never thought it’d turn out
that way. But he wouldn’t listen, just went on undressin’. Imagine—the shop
packed with people, all those farangs in there. That damn Samlee kept saying,
‘Let it be! Let it be! Let him do what he wanna do.’ Everybody was starin’ now,
but there he was takin’ his clothes off, not a bit embarrassed, and when he had
shed all his gear, he walked out lean and mean with the whole bunch after him.
Luckily enough, he had kept his glasses on, otherwise he’d’ve been totally
naked!” Otto laughed, and so did Chuanchua. “He didn’t quite make it to the
sea. He walked from just about here to the middle of the road over there, and
then he lay down on the sand and started to swim like a child. His fuckin’
hands sent sand flyin’ as he swam breaststroke across the dune. Everyone was
lookin’. He carried on for hours until he grew tired and fell asleep. Lueang
then covered him with a blanket. I don’t know if he was afraid Larn would get
sick or if he was afraid the farangs wouldn’t come to his shop.”
Chuanchua laughed until he choked on his cigarette.
After he stopped coughing, he said, “Larn told me you don’t like his wife.”
“That’s right. His wife’s fuckin’ cracked, man.”
Otto laughed. “When he went to stay at his wife’s place, none of us wanted to
have anythin’ to do with him. We hate her. She’s fuckin’ nuts. His
mother-in-law didn’t want him to hang out with us either. Whenever we went to
see him, they always told us he wasn’t in. And Larn’s fuckin’ crazy too. I
don’t know how the hell he could stand livin’ with ’m. The goddamn house was
like a jail.” There was anger in his voice. “The sonofabitch’s crazy about his
wife.”
“Is she so good-looking that he’s under her
spell, or something?”
“Good-lookin’ my ass! I wouldn’t take her even
if I got her on a plate. You know what? I went to see him once when he was
still here, in Phuket. Wherever I went in the house, his fuckin’ wife kept
followin’ me with a broom in her hand and she kept sweepin’ up after me. I
don’t know what she wanted to keep the place so clean for. So I never went to
see him again, I’d’ve gone mad if I had.”
“Where did he meet her?” Chuanchua asked.
“In a temple.” Otto lit a cigarette, his face
now somber.
“No!” Chuanchua looked Otto in the eye as if to
see if he was joking.
“Yes. I was with him that evenin’.”
“You mean they did it in the temple?” Chuanchua
asked.
“No—his wife was a nun,” Otto recalled with
alacrity.
“What’s the story? Come on, tell me.”
Otto lifted his glass, drank, put the glass down
and drew on his cigarette. He blew smoke out of his nostrils as he started
telling the story.
“The woman was broken-hearted and tried to kill
herself. She swallowed some fuckin’ pills but she didn’t die, so she became a
nun. Well, she happened to be a friend of Samlee’s girlfriend. At the time,
Samlee and Larn were runnin’ a T-shirt printin’ shop together. One day, Samlee
was invited by his girlfriend to visit a friend of hers who was a nun in a
monastery. Samlee asked Larn to go along as well. They were both drunk, of
course. Well, when Larn was told all about her, he felt for the woman. You know
as well as I do that the sonofabitch had never had a girlfriend, what with
bein’ drunk all the time. As soon as he saw her, he fell in love with her. The
woman was broken-hearted, so he felt for her all the more, wantin’ to heal her
wound and all that—” Otto laughed. Chuanchua smiled as he sipped his drink. “He
asked me to go and see her with him, but I refused. It was none of my business,
and goin’ into a monastery isn’t my idea of fun. The bastard plied me with
drinks, and when we were drunk, of course I couldn’t say no. So we went, ridin’
this bike, Toby here.” Otto pointed at the motorcycle parked in front of the
shop. “When we got there, he went up to see the woman in her cell, and left me
downstairs. I sat there on my own and at some point I fell asleep. By the time
I woke up, it was fuckin’ dark already. I went upstairs to tell him it was time
to go. But the motherfucker was asleep as well. He wasn’t just asleep: he was
holdin’ the nun’s hand in his, actually, and snorin’ too. Anyway, I woke him up
and told him we had to go. Later, the woman left the nunhood and lived with
him. And the monastery won’t allow men to visit the nuns anymore, all because
of our goddamn Larn—”
Chuanchua burst out laughing. His laughter
competed with the rain.
Otto interrupted himself briefly in order to
raise his glass and drink. “That bastard Samlee pulled Larn’s leg. He said he
shouldn’t let the authorities know about what happened, because if they found
out about it, they wouldn’t allow him and his wife to stay together, and he’d
be sued for subvertin’ religion and risk the death penalty.”
“And what did the woman do?”
“Nothin’. After she left the monastery, she
stayed at the shop until she ran into problems with Samlee. Well, actually, she
was the problem. Every time we had a drinkin’ session, she walked round us
makin’ a nuisance of herself. The goddamn woman sure got on our nerves, but
what could we do? She’s the wife of a friend, after all. Eventually, Samlee got
so pissed off he decided to close down the shop. So Larn went to stay at his
wife’s place and busied himself designin’ patterns and lockin’ horns with his
mother-in-law,” Otto concluded in a bored tone.
“He’s back in Bangkok now. I guess his
mother-in-law hasn’t followed him there.” Chuanchua smiled. He had spoken half
in earnest and half in jest.
“Yeah, that’s his reward for gettin’ himself
outa jail.”
“Was it as bad as that?” Chuanchua said in mock
disbelief.
“Hell, you’ve no idea, man. The old bitch was
worse than a witch. She wouldn’t let Larn enjoy himself with us at all, you
know. She said we were good for fuckin’ nothin’ except gettin’ her son-in-law
drunk.”
“Maybe she was stuck on her new son-in-law?”
“Stuck my ass! She just wanted him to give up
drinkin’. But then do you think a guy like our friend Larn can fuckin’ well
stop drinkin’?” Otto looked at his friend.
Chuanchua merely nodded. “So what did he do?”
The question was hardly finished when Otto
added, “He kept drinkin’ on the sly, in the house. Every time he left the
house, he’d take along a roll of drawin’ paper, and on the way back he’d hide
the bottle in it. If he just went out to buy noodles, he still had to take that
roll of paper along. Think about how much hassle he had to go through!” Otto
laughed.
“That was his retribution for trying to
undermine religion,” Chuanchua said with a smile.
“He stopped comin’ out drinkin’ when he was with
his wife. Nobody had the guts to invite him. It wasn’t until Italy Tui arrived
that his mother-in-law let him out.”
Chuanchua believed what his friend was telling
him and that Italy Tui would free Larn from the clutches of any demon and he
wondered which magic spell Tui had used. “How did he manage to free Larn?”
“He was just back from Italy. After a few days
in Bangkok, he came here, so we all celebrated. He asked about Larn, and we
told him the whole story. He asked someone to point out where Larn’s house was,
sayin’ he was gonna take Larn out by himself. I took him over there on my bike,
while Samlee’s gang sat drinkin’ at the shop, waitin’ for us. That damn Tui had
asked the shop owner to bring one more glass and plate, because a friend was
about to join us. When we arrived there, Larn’s mother-in-law was sittin’
downstairs. Tui went up to her and told her real nice he had come to see Larn.
She said, ‘He isn’t here.’ Tui said, ‘If he’s not here now, I’ll sit and wait
for him.” But then she said, ‘You can’t wait for him here. I don’t know who you
are.’ Tui flew into a rage, and said, ‘Do you know General Karn? I’m his
son.’—”
“Which Karn?” Chuanchua asked.
“How would I know? When I heard him say he was General
Karn’s son, I thought, that’s the ticket, we’re in for somethin’ big—” Otto
chuckled.
“And then what?” Chuanchua raised his glass and
took a sip.
“—Right then, Larn was comin’ down the stairs.
So Tui gave her hell. The fucker told her, ‘You said he wasn’t here. How come?
Why do you have to lie at your age?’ Larn’s in-law got mad too. She was losin’
face, what with a friend of her son-in-law beratin’ her like that. So, she
demanded that Tui leave her home. Tui said, ‘I’ll go, but I’ll take my friend with
me.’ She refused pointblank, so Tui said, ‘I’ve traveled more than a thousand
miles across the seas just to see my friend, and I can’t even take him out for
a drink! Who are you to stop me?’ He kept on shoutin’ at her until the
neighbors came out to see what the matter was. It was turnin’ into a big scene
all right. Now that there were a large number of onlookers, the fucker wasn’t
gonna back down. He explained to the crowd, ‘This woman keeps my friend under
lock and key. I came from afar, but she refuses to let us see each other. My
friend isn’t a pet or a slave she can keep in a cage.’ You know Tui: he’s never
been shy. So he went on until Larn’s mother-in-law couldn’t stand the
embarrassment any longer and finally let Larn go. Before we left, that damn Tui
pointed the finger at her, and the fucker said, ‘You bitch! You don’t know me
well enough yet’—”
Otto smiled. Chuanchua laughed in delight. He
wasn’t at all surprised that Italy Tui had dared point the finger at a woman
old enough to be his mother and curse her: he had witnessed a similar scene at
least once in the past. Age was no big deal if Tui was hell bent on being rude.
“Tui’s always had this thing about old people.
Once, when we were students, we, I mean Met Khanun, Samlee, Tui and me, we were
sitting having a drink together and this old woman comes along selling hor
mok* and Tui asks her, ‘What’s that you’re selling,
little sister?’”
“The motherfucker! What a shitty thing to say!”
Otto laughed.
“Do you know why he came back to Thailand?”
“He never told me, actually. Why?” Otto was
curious to know. When they had met that day, they hadn’t had enough time to
catch up on each other and by the time he was sober again, he had been told Tui
had already left for Bangkok.
“He’s going to have a bleeding stomach ulcer,
from drinking so much, what else. When he’s home, he downs whatever he can get
his hands on. So imagine what it must be like when he’s abroad. Met Khanun made
a fool of him, you know.”
“What did he say?”
“He told him he was completely ruining the image
of people traveling to Italy.”
“Why? I don’t see the connection.”
“How come? He’s been in Italy for six years and
he hasn’t learned a thing about art. After six years, there’s only two things
he’s come back with.” Chuanchua raised his glass and drank.
“What’s that?” Otto asked with a smile. He knew
by the way his friend was telling the story that these two things Tui had come
back with were not going to be edifying.
“For one thing, the fucker peels potatoes by
pushing the knife toward him. We Thai push the knife away from us, right? But
Tui pushes it toward him. The other thing is, he knows how to empty ashtrays,
and he enjoys doing it. I’ve noticed when I drink with him, as soon as there’s
a few stubs in the ashtray, he gets up and empties it. It’s become a habit.”
“That’s because he’s gotten used to bein’ a
waiter,” Otto interrupted, then laughed.
“Right, that’s what Met Khanun said to pull his
leg.” Chuanchua also laughed.
Outside, the rain was falling as hard as ever,
but neither of them paid any attention to it. They had a roof over their heads
and liquor to drink: why should they worry? In fact, the torrential rainfall
made them feel pleasantly cool and added atmosphere to their drinking binge.
“Do you know the story of Tui finding a gift in a
package?” Chuanchua asked as he stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.
“No, I don’t. Where’d he find it?”
“It happened during his trip to Italy. He went
there by bicycle, can you believe. He was with a friend. They went through
Burma all the way to Pakistan. At the time, the two of them were dog-tired but
they kept going. He told me that, at one point on the empty road, with no house
around, he saw this gift-wrapped package that had fallen by the roadside. He
stared at his friend. His friend said nothing. So they rode on. And then, a
while later, they fucking turned back almost at the same time. They rode to the
box, picked it up and rode far away for fear the owner would follow them and
ask for it back. When they were sure no one had followed them, they stopped by
the roadside and unwrapped the package. The fucker said there were wrappings
within wrappings, so they thought there must be something very valuable inside.
And when they came to the final wrapping, you know what they found? A fucking
turd, man! The bastard said, ‘Fuck it! I was mad as hell but it cracked me up.
There we were starving to death and all we got was shit!’”
Otto burst out laughing. Chuanchua smiled. He
didn’t find the story very funny any longer because he had told and retold it
many times.
Chuanchua raised the quart of whiskey and
reckoned from experience that what was left at the bottom would just be enough
for one more glass each. He poured whiskey into his glass, then the rest of it
into Otto’s. Otto filled the glasses with chunks of ice and Chuanchua topped
them up with soda. They both raised their glasses to their lips almost
simultaneously.
“Same again?” Chuanchua said after drinking. It
was an invitation that called for no answer. Otto laughed softly.
“One more quart, please.” Chuanchua turned to
the shopkeeper, who sat staring vacantly at the rain. The man got up and went
to get a bottle from behind the counter, then walked over and handed it to him.
“It’s nice and quiet when it rains nonstop like this,” he said casually.
“How ’bout a drink with us?” Otto handed him a
glass.
“No, thanks. Don’t mind me. Suit yourselves.”
“Uncle, bring us soda and ice as well,”
Chuanchua said, speaking just loud enough for the shopkeeper to hear.
The shopkeeper gathered the empty bottles and the
ice bucket and walked back. Chuanchua’s gaze followed him. He seemed to
remember seeing someone like this somewhere before. It wasn’t until the
shopkeeper arrived at the counter that he came up with the answer.
“He looks like Uncle John,” Chuanchua blurted
out.
Otto held back from drinking. “Which John?”
“John from Nai Harn.”
“Oh yeah—” Otto drawled and resumed his
drinking. “He’s been arrested,” he added levelly, sounding indifferent.
“What! What for?” Chuanchua asked anxiously.
“Drug traffickin’. A major case, you know. Just
recently. It was all over the papers. Everybody in Phuket knows.”
“It can’t be.” Chuanchua shook his head as if he
couldn’t believe his ears. ‘How can it be—a man like Uncle John arrested for
drug trafficking? The guy wouldn’t even sell marijuana, so how can he get
busted for trafficking? If it was over a murder charge, well, perhaps, but drug
trafficking—’
The shopkeeper brought the soda and the ice to
their table, then walked quietly back to his seat.
“What an incredible story!” Chuanchua said
almost to himself.
“Why? I don’t think it’s strange. There’s lotsa
people sellin’ drugs.”
“But it’s incredible. A man like him wouldn’t
sell drugs.” Chuanchua raised his glass and took a long gulp.
“Why not?” Otto too raised his glass and drank.
“I liked the guy as soon as I met him. That was
about ten years ago. I came here with Lit’l Hip. We were students at the time
and we went to visit Samlee at his place. Samlee took us for a drink at Nai
Harn. We went to Uncle John’s shop. In those days, the fucking farangs still
slept in hollows.”
“What’s that? I’ve never seen any.” Otto’s
expression was quizzical.
“Hollows in the ground, like long, round
trenches. People could lie in them. Uncle John dug them next to his shop, put a
thatched roof over each. You had to slither inside to lie down and sleep. The
farangs all had sleeping bags, so they slept in them for ten baht a night, dirt
cheap it was, and they kept their gear in Uncle John’s shop.”
“But it’s all bungalows now—”
“Right. But it used to be a large lean-to, like
some kind of inn, you know. In the evening, the farangs came to have dinner.
There was a long table in the middle of the shop with a lantern above it and a
few small tables around it, each lit with tin lamps. The farangs played games or
what-have-you on the long table in the middle and had a good time, and the
small tables were for personal chitchat, giving you some privacy. Samlee, Lek
and me, we sat at a table in a corner, and we felt like we were abroad. Ours
was the only table of Thai guys in the shop. So Uncle John came over to sit and
chat with us. I guess he felt lonely. It wasn’t often he had Thai customers. So
I invited him to share a drink with us. He said, ‘Don’t ask me to drink.
Whenever I drink, I don’t even have five percent goodness left in me.’”
“Sounds just like you!” Otto joked.
“Get lost! Do you want me to go on or not?”
Chuanchua said with a smile.
“Sure, sure.”