Thai Thoughts And Anecdotes 27

NOW IT IS TIME TO SLEEP

I'm truckin' down soi 4 and I'm headed for the Nana hotel. I am on the right hand side of the soi. This is the dangerous side because there is no room for pedestrians in the street or on the sidewalk. But I'm doing it for a reason. I am in absolutely no mood for hookers. And hookers are always hanging out in the Nana parking lot on the left hand side from the street right on up to the lobby door. I have found that if I cut in the right hand side of the parking lot–dodge behind the meridian strip of trees and taxis–and then sprint for the door; I can avoid the whole freelancer issue. The trouble is that if you go in the left hand side of the carpark there are smiling faces lined up on both sides all the way to the door. It's like you are a captured Colonial running a gauntlet of Huron Indians. No way are you going to get through untouched. And God forbid there is some little irresistible cutie; I'm a dead man. I can't say "No!". Plus some of the women are old friends. If I see them I'll fold. One named 'Boom-Boom' just steps out of line when she sees me and takes my arm. She knows it's a deal. Because of this freelancer parking lot venue I've probably saved 12,000 baht recently in barfines. In bargirl frequent-hooker miles–that's about 7 bargirls. Real money. But not tonight. Tonight is different. Special. Noteworthy. And very frightening.

Due to a successful personal cocktail of legal over-the-counter male performance enhancing products; I have had an erection or an erection on command twenty-four hours a day for the last 10 days. This always sounds like a good idea until I get to the end of the 10th day and then things start to go wrong. The various body systems start to collapse and fail and call attention to themselves. My body is starting to crash. I have been through this before so I know the warning signs and I know what I have to do. I have to STOP. I have to get to the other side of my hotel room door at the Nana and just sleep and chill for 24-36 hours. Sleeping in the tub or on the carpet or in the bed or on the cool tile of the bathroom floor. A little reading and TV. As I stumble towards the Nana my chest is starting to inflate with fear and panic control. I like Thailand but I do not want to have an aneurysm or a heart attack or be stricken with blindness or have a stroke here. I have an infarcted heart as well as other circulatory and blood pressure challenges. I am now way out on the end of the health limb. And I especially do not want to be stricken with the psyche destroying medical affliction known as priapism. And if I get sick there are not just the obvious health issues to contend with. There are also social issues.

There is not one single member of my species who values me enough or cares for me enough or loves me enough to take care of me. My disfigurement and degradation would not be just physical but also social. Corruption of the flesh would be allied with social embarrassment of suicidal category. I would have pushed all the chips to the middle of the table and I would have lost. If you looked up the word 'fool' in the dictionary you would see a picture of me. So for abundant and obvious reasons I must regroup, retreat, recharge, rethink, and sleep and sleep and sleep.

I'm pushing hard now and shuffling fast down the soi. People and things that normally would appear clear and interesting now appear fuzzy and uninteresting as if I am seeing them through a rain soaked window. The Nana is now more than a hotel. It is the womb I must crawl into to live. It's dig down time. Under NO circumstances can I even think about freelancers. Number one it might kill me, and number two it would represent an abdication of my rational self, and number three it would tip me over the line into the category of whoremonger. A category and a description I find personally offensive. So for a plethora of reasons there is no rational or medical or dignity reason that I can consort with prostitutes now. The die has been cast and nothing will break it. I am a psychic laser beam of focused, willed personal mission as I head for the Nana on this night. All I want to do is feel the blast of cold air as I enter the lobby, get some nuts and candies at the gift shop, and then fall into a coma in my room.

As I leave the soi and cut into the right hand side of the parking lot, I bounce right off a hooker. What the fuck. . . ! There are never women here! But I just keep going. Only thing is–I don't keep going for the door of the hotel. That plan has been temporarily ditched. Instead, I cut behind the Nana Hotel sign and hide. Now: if I just step back a little bit; I can get another private, undetected look at her. She nails me! She knows that when I crashed into her, that she got the tranquillizer dart in. She is standing there full frontal and drilling me with her eyes. Now she shakes her hair and her head. She smiles. Her motor is running. I walk over. I have never seen a woman that looks like her before. She is skeletal. I don't mean no ass-no breasts thin that Thai women sometimes are. I mean she is just bones and sticks and twigs. She is so without mass that I ask her if she is Thai. She looks like someone that you would see in a Somali refugee camp.

We do some negotiating–forget the candies and the nuts and the long bath. Then she starts in on an impassioned story about something. I don't really understand her and it seems to be something very important to her. And she ain't moving towards the hotel until I understand. Finally, I get her. I understand. We can not go in the hotel together. She wants me to go in first and then she will come in a little later and join me. THIS WOMAN HAS BEEN BANNED FROM THE HOTEL. How does a hooker get banned from the Nana for God's sake? That's like telling a soi dog he can't come into the dog pound. That is why she was hiding in the dark on the wrong side of the parking lot. She didn't want any Nana hotel people to spot her. Am I nuts!? Why am I even considering this? I'm the guy who had a set-in-concrete plan that included no hookers. Now I am considering a half-starved, wild-eyed, mentally unstable dangerous woman who looks as if she has Aids. I'm interested. So I go in alone and sit at the bar where I can watch the elevators. Minutes go by. Then she shows. We go up. When she takes off her clothes I get surprised. She looks nice. I learn something. She is fun. We can't do missionary style boom-boom because my pelvic girdle feels as if it is being stabbed with knives from her bones. But there are many other wonderful things that consenting adults can do to make themselves happy. Then she is gone.

Now it is time to sleep. . .

GERM THEORY

Surgeons in Thailand will tell you that it is not uncommon when operating on Thais for there to be worms. Some worms. Lots of worms. Only a few worms. Little worms. Long worms. Worms are not supposed to be in the body. This is not a good thing. Usually it is with rural Thais or rurally raised Thais. If you visit a village in Thailand you will see people going barefoot. The ground and road surfaces are covered with animal faeces. The food is contaminated. The water has parasites. Etc. If you volunteer the information that this lifestyle is unhygienic and dangerous; it is suggested that the farang shut up and go to the store and get some whiskey. They have been living this way for thousands of years; blah, blah, blah. So you might assume that the average Thai has never even had a glancing blow with the subject of germ theory. You would be wrong.

To wit: when you go to temples you will be instructed to take off your shoes before you go in. Some temples now have provided shelf units with little cubicles for the shoes. It is organized. On one side of the entrance is a shoe holder that is for the Thais. And on the other side of the entrance is a shoe holder that is marked Foreigners. You can't mix the shoes. If you are a foreigner you can't put your shoes in the Thai shoe holder. They don't want foreigner shoes contaminating Thai shoes. See. They do have a germ theory!

HOW WAS MY WEEKEND?

How was my weekend? Well, there isn't much to say. Noi and I and the kids just got back from London and Paris and Hua Hin, and boy am I glad to be home. London was for my feet and Hua Hin was for my wife's relatives (I refuse to think of them as my relatives) and Paris is where things went very wrong. The trip was originally intended as a weekend in London. I needed to go to H.W.Foale & Sons on St. James Place to have cedar foot moulds carved for my feet so that I could mail order the alligator and ostrich and crocodile casuals that I have grown accustomed to. While I was having shoe things done, Noi was to take the girls Nooki, Sooki, Dooki, and Looki to the zoo. Unfortunately, at the zoo Noi met another Thai femme fatale and was sold on the idea of having a dress mannequin made in Paris. I hate the French and the French hate me. We went to Paris. It rained. The children (did I tell you their names were Nooki, Sooki, Dooki, and Looki?) got cranky. Noi spent money like a drunken bargirl and flirted with chain-smoking men with accents. I had to carry all the packages. The girls all have little overpriced backpacks purchased earlier from the weekend market in Bangkok, but I was informed by little Miss Suay Mark that packages in the backpacks would make the backpacks look lumpy. So daddy carried all the stuff. At Customs in Paris the agent asked me if I had anything to declare. I said, "Yes, I declare that the French stink!" I was strip searched. Noi cried. When we finally pulled up in front of the Boston townhouse on Beacon St. I could see that Noi's best friend's second cousin who acts as our butler had gotten into the sherry again because all the brass had been polished with silver polish leaving a dull, grey sheen. Overweight, undersexed, blue-haired ladies from the Beacon Hill Historical Committee were already on the sidewalk taking pictures and writing things on clipboards. The neighbors will complain and I will have to go to a hearing. And how was your weekend?

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Happy Holidays Guys–I Love You All

Stickman says:

I really do not know what to say about Dana's musings anymore…