Stickman Readers' Submissions November 23rd, 2005

The Harvest

Joe had finished his final set of examinations in law at university and eagerly awaited his final results, deep down he knew that they would be good. It had all gone very well for him and he had always been lucky. Over the past year he had worked hard
at university and during the weekends at the restaurant he had managed to save very carefully in order to take some well earned time out and backpack for 6 weeks through Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and then finally Australia. He would have to
travel alone as his good friend Sam had dropped out at the last minute. A good job offer had come through for Sam, and he dare not risk losing it as he also had bigger loans for his education to pay off.

Joe understood this and it was no problem or worry for him to travel alone. Who was going to pick on a 6 foot 2 giant with chiseled looks gained from good diet and upbringing? Joe would wait to send off his applications for work as he had
already had some offers in but knew good results would bring more. He was a top A student and he was aware that many law firms in the city already had their eye on him.

He Clinic Bangkok

Joe’s mother and father drove him to the airport for the flight to Bangkok on the first stage of his travels, and as a parting gift, his mother presented him with a beautiful silver SOS Talisman bracelet. She hoped in her heart that
it would never be required with the loving information about Joe that she had placed in it, she knew Joe was sensible but still this trip worried her. Joe thanked her with a big hug and a promise to ring home during the trip to let her know all
was well.

Joe had, as in this studies, read up well on the countries he would be passing through with a week spent in each of the first 3 and the remaining 3 weeks spent in Australia. He had made a plan of where to go, the sites to be seen and what
to do and more importantly, what not to do. The LOS interested him very much and he was looking forward to experiencing the culture. Joe was well read up on the tricks that were lightly to be pulled in the various countries as the path he would
travel was well worn by many fellow backpackers from the university and he had the full rundown. Joe settled into his plane set with a copy of Private Dancer, a present given to him by an old friend who had returned from the LOS some 4 weeks earlier.
Yes he was well prepared for his trip.

Money and travelers checks were concealed under his Timberland boot inlay soles and he had a money belt in his backpack for when he would need to take his shoes off and be away from them for any length of time.

CBD bangkok

On arrival in Bangkok, Joe made his way of course to Khao San Road, paradise for all backpackers, where he found lodging for the next 5 days he would spend in Bangkok. The room was sparse but clean and had cost him only 220 baht per night.

On his first night in Khao San Road Joe wanted to take in the nightlife and find a bar and watch the people come and go. Joe wanted to sit and feel the Thai street culture and to expand his already broad outlook on life and maybe meet up
with other backpackers for friendly chats and gain advise about there experiences.

Fon at 26 was still very cute, her work from an early age in the bars of Bangkok had not given her the tell-tale hard looking eyes, instead she had used her time well and learnt fast how farang minds worked and this had given her the knowledge
needed for the work she now did. She spoke 5 languages fluently, 3 of which were European.

Fon had meet Boo, her long time boyfriend, during the early years in her stay in Bangkok and they shared the same apartment building. As they fell more in love they moved into the same room together. Boo had not minded her working the bars
as it provided them with things that they needed. The small grant he got from the government hardly covered his living expenses for his 3rd year in medical studies. She was a bargirl but Fon was his bargirl – her heart would never belong to anyone
else.

wonderland clinic

Boo had come to Fon with the idea that he and 3 other medical students had come up with. Boo and his friends were clever and top A grade students. They were clever enough to realize that all the sacrifices they had made in medical school
would never pay them the vast amounts of money they craved after. Planning was easy and there were many questions asked back street medical facilities they could use for there new venture. Their customers would be mainly of Arab origin, a culture
that understood how money talked and got what was needed done. Anything was available in Bangkok for the right price, you just need to know who to ask…..the money this was now netting them now far exceeded any of their initial expectations.

Fon first spotted Joe as he held up the fisherman pants in the shop and she quickly noticed the Talisman bracelet. From that moment on she followed Joe from a discreet distance as he walked from shop to shop down the soi. This was made easier
by his height and the bright green T shirt he was wearing. Some 30 minutes later Joe walked into a side street bar with many young farang backpackers sitting in small groups. He chose to sit outside at a table nearest to the road so he could sit
and watch all go by. The young Thai waitress came quickly and took Joe’s order for a Singha beer as Fon walked through to the inside of the bar and quietly waited near to the bar area for the waitress to start her return with Joe’s
order.

As the waitress turned from the bar to busily walk back to Joe’s table with his drink, Fon walked quickly up to her “hey Nong, is that one for my boyfriend the tall Farang with the green top……if it is I want a Coke as well,
did the lazy kwai not order that for me? The waitress hands Fon the beer and gets her a Coke and hands her the paper tab. “I will make sure he leaves a good tip for you, Nong”, and Fon walks over to Joe’s table and
gives him his drink and tab then walks way as if she is also a waitress and the Coke is for another customer.

Fon had carefully slipped the 10mg liquid into Joe’s drink while she was walking to deliver it. On previous occasions she had used Rohypnol but now the manufacturers had put blue dye into it to try to stop perverts using it in night
clubs or at least make them search harder for anyone drinking blue lagoon cocktails.

Ketamine or special K was her choice these days and was clear in colour in its liquid form and only left a drink very mildly cloudy with no detectable odor or taste. It was perfect for her purposes. Its use in vetienary practices and the
fact that the average vet in the Kingdom never knew if his next customer would be coming with a kitten or an elephant made it easily obtainable. Described as a "unique drug" because it has hypnotic (sleep producing), analgesic (pain
relieving) and amnesic (short term memory loss) effects – no other drug used in clinical practice combined these three important features that she need to make her task a success. One draw back is that blood pressure rises by about 25% which was
a risk but not her main concern at the moment in time, others later on would have that worry.

Joe carried on sipping his drink and Fon kept a close watch. Correct timing at this point was crucial and as 10 minutes goes by from when Joe first started sipping his beer, she approached his table and easily starts conversation with him.

Joe had loosened up and he talked to Fon with such ease and seemed glad of female company. Some 10 minutes later Fon had ordered a second drink for Joe and herself from the same waitress and this time it was much easier to slip in a further 15mg of Special
K.

Role on 40 minutes and Fon has Joe back in his small room and gives him a further 20mg of Special K. It always surprised her how easy it was to pursue them to do almost anything after the first 10mg had been taken.

Fon knew well that some of the girls working in the Bangkok bars often hit a customer on a slow night with the odd 5mg or so to get a barfine paid, punters drinking out of a bottle covered in polystyrene cover made this so easy to do and
gave the girls the odds of an even chance of making money even with the hardest nosed customer.

Fon looked down at Joe slumped half on the floor and half on his bed in the room and opened the Talisman bracelet carefully. She saw immediately Joe was Blood group 0+. A hit she smiled to herself, this was an easy hit

Noi Phoned Boo to come and pick her up in his blackened out Toyota mini van which was kitted out inside with restraining webbing just in case Fon had got her calculations on the initial dosage wrong for the hour's drive to their destination.

When the request was made Fon knew it would be an easy job as the blood group required was one of the 2 bigger ones. When this job was finally finished the total payments they would receive would amount to 3.5 million baht.

There are four main blood types: A, B, AB and O. with each blood type is either Rh positive or negative. Types A + and O+ always gave her a 40 % equal chance of finding a hit, anything outside of these 2 required a more complicated method
of search.

Information of injured travelers was given to her for a very small price from one of her contacts at the 3 selected hospitals' accident and emergency wards. Fon knew well that the beach areas of Thailand gave the best result for travelers
injuring themselves through the perils that the LOS offered for those in search of a little exotic excitement. She had information flow on any single foreigner admitted to the hospitals. Her contacts were in with one of the rarer blood types.

Tam had got up a little earlier than usual to check his fresh water prawn fishing nets as the last couple of catches had been poor and it had been worrying him. He had found the barely live body of a young farang dumped by the foot of the
river in a blood stained dirty white gown, his face and arms badly bitten by ants and mosquitoes.

Tam called the police to come who immediately in turn called for the ambulance which unfortunately was being driven that day by a fully qualified mai pen rai certified driver and took forever to turn up at the scene and then drive
to the hospital

Close to death, Joe is admitted into the accident and emergency ward and is fortunate to be viewed by a good doctor on call still early that morning.

The doctor was at first very confused by the huge loss of blood and knife slash wound to the left side of abdomen which has been poorly stitched up and admitted him straight into the well equipped intensive care unit on full blood transfusion
and life support, while tests were carried out.

The police filed in their simple report with little or no consultation with the doctors at the hospital.

“Pob farang mai thap chue non mod sa ti tee rim mae nam sapap mai suam suea me bad plae tuke tang tee lung . Mai pop laktan sadang wa pen krai reu gern tid tau. Kad wa ard kerd pak seng lae chok toi nai bar. Rong payaban tee hai kan
rak sa beang ton mai tong kan tee ja rak sa neang jak kad wa kon kai mai samart tee ja jai ka rak sa payaban dai. “

‘Unknown farang semi clothed with no identification or money on him found unconscious at the foot of the river with slash wound to the back. Probably caused through disrespect in a bar fight. The hospital that gave initial treatment
also unknown and probably one of the less reliable and only patched him up as he more than likely did not have means to make payment”.

Joe lay in intensive care for the next 5 days, the first 2 of which had been crucial to his survival. He had 3 drips in his arms and a heart monitor. When on the 6th day he started to wake the doctor that had first treated him was once again
called.

What’s your name asks the Thai doctor …….

Joe is disorientated and as he tries to open his eyes a little further he can see very bright lights and the whiteness of the room is overwhelming. His mind is working hard to understand where he is, then he feels the numbness running through
his body as if he had been kicked by a horse and the parched dryness in his mouth and thumping pain in his head.

What’s your name asks the doctor again.

Joe……. comes the almost faint reply.

Where you from Kun Joe.

England…..

“I want you to rest Joe, just rest as the doctor lightly pats Joe on the arm”…

The hospital administrator calls the British Embassy who in their cost cutting wisdom send a junior consular to visit the next day. He finds Joe just out of intensive care and in a secluded room still under close observation. Joe is a little
more lucid and the consular asks him for personal details and an account of what happened.

“The bar, I remember a bar. There was a girl I was with, a girl."

“A Thai girl?" asks the consular.

Yes Thai girl……. I’m sure

Did she have a name, did she work in the bar….

I can’t remember….

Joe drifts off to sleep after only 5 mins.

The following day the consular arrives once more to visit Joe and finds him still very weak but a little more coherent

Joe, we contacted your family. They are very worried andtomorrow your mother and father will arrive.

“I don’t want them to worry”, Joe exclaims.

What’s happened to me….? do you know please tell me” asks Joe “no one here will tell me anything…… any thing at all.

“You were robbed” informs the consular.

Did they get my boots? Where are my boots?

Ummm yes Joe they got your boots

“There was almost 2000 USD in them.”

No Joe, you don’t understand, it’s not the money they were after. They got well paid for what they did. The doctors here say the incision in you could have been a lot bigger if they had wanted to take a short cut. You were lucky.

“I don’t understand” exclaims Joe

In fact Joe the doctors are saying that the work has been very skillfully done this is one of the things that saved you along with you strength. If the harvest order had been bigger who knows what may have happened. We know of 3 other people
in the past months that were not as fortunate as you.

“What are you talking about?” asks a more frustrated Joe

Have the doctors here not told you anything…

“No nothing they won’t tell me a thing”….

OHHHHHHHHHHHH

Joe I don’t know how to tell you this…. OK ….. look you were very lucky, most men who come over to the LOS only lose their hearts to the bargirls.

You lost a kidney to the bargirl you meet.

Stickman's thoughts:

Nice story, but truth be told, I have NEVER heard of anything like this happening in Thailand.


nana plaza