Gonezo

11pm. Here I sit in my apartment, drunk, and my ‘girlfriend’ just left after we had a few drinks and then lengthy sex. She left in a silent angst, with frustration that I decided not to go out to a ‘hip hop’ club with her and her two friends. She wanted to show me off I believe. I feel like a piece of meat. But hey, at least I manage to get laid. Women use me, sure. But I have to remind myself, it could be worse. At least I get laid.

I feel like I am bragging. I’m not trying to brag. My life is not fun at all really. It has proven an adventure, yes.

But happy? Content? NO. Not even close. Tragedy nags me. I view life itself, plagued by unobtainable desires and existential crises, as a short road to a tragic yet meaningless end. In the grand scheme of things, my life matters as much as that of the cockroach I stepped on with purpose last night as I walked home from Silom to my place off Sathorn.

I throw my ‘girlfriend’ in quotes because this Thai lass has taken our liaison from 0-60 (for those on metric think 0-100) in a blink of the eyes. I like her. A lot. I care about her, deeply. But only some kind of idiot could think we actually know one another, well. It has been just over two weeks. Not a chance we are a package. We hang out, we have fun, and we want the best for each other perhaps. But relationships build over time.

We bang. We tussle. And when I ask her what she wants from me, she says ‘anything’. I can put myself there, in the mind of an Isaan girl that bent her back to pick rice as a child but has managed (she reports) to avoid the scene. I can sympathize, I believe. Just a different perception of the passage of time really.

So now I sit alone. No I did not want to make the trek all the way to Kao San road to party at a ‘hip hop club’.

“If you’d like to sit down and have a few drinks and a chat with your friends at a bar, sure, I’m down,” I told her.

But hip hop club? No. Maybe I am getting old. I used to love such venues. I used to prefer to communicate through movement over words, to grind up on some lovely lass till dawn. But now I am just plain tired.

So here I am, alone and drunk, and I ponder what to do with my night. Since I live so close to Silom I entertain the thought a venture there. But the place seems so damn off-puttingly gay. Walking down Silom road one has to suffer through a gauntlet of vendors with tables of dildos, male lingerie and blokes with tight clothes on hand in hand. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but yuck.

What happened to the place really? Surely I missed the Silom bus. I adore living near Lumpini for the morning park strolls, but for nightlife the more distant Cowboy and Nana look really nice right about now in my soused state.

I read online about how the heyday of Patpong has since come and gone. And walking through there, as I have done MANY times over this past month that I have lived nearby, I get this idea in my head that the time has long passed for the area.

Sure, when I turn off Silom road onto Patpong it is still a breath of fresh air. Only 50% ladyboy, as one hawker said, but I believe the ratio is better than that. Some incredible coyotes dance in a few of those establishments still. Yet, the ancient signage, the burned out vibe. It smacks of depression and desolation. How in hell do all these places stay in business anyway?

I am veritably trashed right now, and the night is young. Cowboy, here I come. I hope to meet up with a gal I already chatted with there, but as they say, ‘plenty of fish swim in the sea’. My ‘girlfriend’ even said during the first or second chat we had that she got over her prior breakup fast because there’s so many other people in the world.

Tomorrow I will feel that emptiness, that alienation I always do. No I do not want to meet a new gal. I want to build my relations with the one(s) I already know. But something about modernity seems to always drive us apart.

Thanks to Ishiro, for his kind and articulate writing. And I hope this helps Stick, who mentioned a lack of submissions from readers lately.

Now I see that I am at 745 words. So I need to keep writing. Not a daunting task when one has alcohol coursing through one’s veins, wouldn’t you agree? Hunter Thompson relied on exogenous chemicals for a reason. They aided him in his plight to get all gonzo. Godspeed, gents. Life is anything, of course, except easy. Even if you were born into old money.