Smiles
November 27th, 2011, 10:48
Found this story on an old ( very old ) remote hard drive that I thought had seen it's last days long ago. But no ...
It was written quite a long time ago ~ 6 or 7 years at least ~ and is a story of first-meetings that might well be a small antidote to the horror stories of long term relationships with Thai guys ... both successful ones and (mostly. apparently) failures. The cynical will hee-haw, the positive-realist-sceptics may well get a much-needed boost of the "it-can-happens".
I've edited it a bit (there were many spelling mistakes), mostly to get a better flow of time . . . back then I was writing about a time length together of 4 years or so (and that only on my holidays). Now it's 11 years (5 of those living here): an anniversary coming up on December 10, so the time seems right to celebrate publicly what apparently is a very successful long term relationship with the same old Thai man.
Many of you will remember this story, but many of the newer members have not. Please to indulge me for celebration sake. :alc:
__________________________________________________ ______________
Once again Jay Handel went into that evil night in the damp, rain-foresty back woods of British Columbia, the swirling fire-red glow filling the view through the truck windshield.
Jay had made more than one deal with the Devil in his lifetime, this last being simply the most despicable.
As Jay sat in their driveway in his pickup with his lovely wife Sonya (now sobbing ~ soon to be screaming) beside him, he watched his trailer home burn to the ground and he attempted one last pathetic gesture by slowly sliding the hunting knife across his own throat. He thought he'd pressed hard enough to accomplish the task, thought he's sharpened that knife long enough. But apparently not, and the worst that could be said was that the car seat was being slowly besotted with his blood.
Against the background of her screaming, Jay had ~ only a few moments before ~ told Sonya that their six kids were still in the flaming trailer, but not to worry, they hadn't suffered because they were already dead . . . he had visited there some hours before and one by one, strangled or shot each one of his own children to death: " ... they're safe from YOU now!! ... " he said through clenched teeth just before pulling out the knife, and just before Sonya flung open the passenger door and fled into the night.
What had made Jay choose a path like this, when at least many others were open to him?
What sorrowful delusions addled his brain so badly that in order to punish his wife (for an affair? for wanting to leave him?), he walked hand in hand with Lucifer to murder all his kids and burn their bodies in brimstone?
What do men think on when choosing which fork in the road to take when encountering their own Crossroad?
When delta blues maestro Robert Johnson came to his personal crossroad back in 1930's Mississippi the choice then was Light-and-Happiness тАж or The Devil.
He chose the Devil then, but at least the consequences of that pact ended up being a gift of the best Blues music ever written ~ as long as it was accompanied by a life filled with copious booze-and-drugs-and-whores: the price of the Deal.
As for Jay . . . his crossroad choice is so horrific, so awful, it can hardly be comprehended by mere mortals. And and sure has no sweet music tagged on the end as mitigation.
His fork in the road ended up in a Vancouver courtroom ~ a murder charge laid heavily amongst the ghosts of his dead children floating ethereally as backdrop. A murderer confronted with his own ghastly letters written to Sonya and his other tormentors ... all the time assuming he would be dead from his own hand by the time they were read.
Gutless: This sad killer faints dead away in the prisoner box ~ a swooning actor in some taudry Hollywood tale ~ when the guilty verdict is read out aloud to a jury and the whole country.
He got life in this death-penalty-less country, but rest assured Beezulbub will not be with him to hold his hand.
He'll be off somewhere else laughing his ass off.
__________________________________________________ ____________________
Jump to: Bangkok some 11 years ago now (December 2000 in fact) . . . and Smiles was commiserating with himself over a few beers in Balcony Bar that in fact he had been a rather hopeless butterfly after all.
The many Thai guys he met in that 3-week holiday he assumed would be subject to being cynically conquered, used, abused, flipped-over, turned upside down, examined orifice-wise, shamelessly exploited, called up by number, groped, then thrown aside ~ with a steely laugh ~ like some tired sex-flotsam. But by departure date such fantasies had simply not materialized. Needless to say, not exactly what he had intended when he first bedded down in the Boystown of Patong Beach.
Certainly it wasn't for the lack of opportunity ~ these willing guys were eveywhere in Sex Paradiso (Thailand version тАж no subtitles). But the will within Smiles was missing ~ the Gogo Bars all ended up as the same dingy figments of his expectations.
He intensely disliked The Vacant Stare, the deadly seriousness of the leering, sweaty Farang as the boys earned their keep by thrusting their crotches a foot from their customer's noses (often closer, for тАШextraтАЩ) . . . the embarrassing predilection of the creepiest and most joyless Farang to plunge heavily down on a seat so close to the stage so that the bulge in the boys white underwear hung perilously close to the piggy face and the multiple chins.
Later, after winging it away on Thai Air away from that beach, he settled down in The Big Mango for the last two days before the longer leap across the Pacific and back to white-bread Canada. Sitting bemused, cuddling a Leo in Balcony Bar in Silom that night he thought to himself that he was not cut out for this flittering life.
Earlier ... that day out in Bangkok had actually been wonderful, having the night before met a very nice young man ('Ken' by name) and bargained with him to ferry him around Bangkok the next day showing as many sights that could be seen in 8 hours or so.
They had gone back that night to the small guest hotel that was his abode for 2 days and had had a reasonable time. Nothing special, but Ken was accommodating, friendly, and spoke English well enough for Smiles to believe the trip around Krung Thep the following day would be well worth the effort (he was, to be perfectly frank, getting world-weary from the trip, and looking forward to the flight home).
But Ken had turned out to be a marvelous guide, and they got along. They traveled the tourist obligatories as well as the secret bowels of hardly-seen-Bangkok from 9 AM to around 11 PM when Smiles found himself back in Balcony Bar, alone, tired, but not unhappy. (Ken had just said his farewells and "... have a good life Dawit ... " ),
The realization that his assumption of himself as an all-conquering butterfly was but a mirage made him smile to himself as those all around were carousing and screaming and partying and drinking and he was feeling a gentle peace. His solitariness made him comfortable.
Smiles downed his beer and dashed quite dangerously across Silom, turned left down Convent Road and walked the 20 minutes back to the hotel. His flight was leaving from Don Muang at seven the next morning: Did he really need a hangover?
He had been greeted there at his hotel 2 days before by seemingly the only person in the place: The handsome young desk clerk who checked him in, picked up all his bags ( " ... no no I take all, no problem ... " ) and bundled them, and him, off to his room. ('It' being a small, intimate hotel, with only a dozen rooms or so and after all he had arrived at 11 AM ~ the Dead Zone in most hotels).
The clerk had a sweet face made ever more sweet by a seriously lovely smile that pushed his cheekbones up high and exposed an excellent set of white choppers which for some reason got Smiles' upper lip to a-sweatin'. ( The upper lip embarassment was a sadly regular dead giveaway with him ... always had been, and he was often so mortified by it's spontaneous eruption that he had once contemplated going into therapy ). He pushed a healthy tip into the clerk's hand ~ 'hmmm, hanging on a little too long, he thought' ~ and was then left alone to take a leisurely shower, indulging in which the remembrance of the wide parting smile of the clerk left a marked impression. The Thai Guy had poked his head back in the door for a few seconds and gently asked "... you like massage? ..." before disappearing. But he was not in the mood and had just as gently said "... no thank you, maybe next time ..."
So ~ that night, back from a Bangkok bar for the last time ~ Smiles found himself standing outside the closed gates of the hotel thinking of life-in-general and things-accomplished-and-not on this holiday.
It was not a sad moment, simply a contemplative one.
He used his key to open the big spiky-metal gate, walked a few paces up the red-brick and mossy sidewalk and came to a fork in the walkway . . . a crossroad if you will.
The sidewalk divided in two at that point . . . one branch leading to the rear of the building where his room (and bed) were waiting comfortably, the other leading into the lobby and bar of the hotel.
Smiles stopped dead in his tracks at The Crossroad and for what seemed like a rather long time (in retrospect) and pondered a bed-or-beer dilemna. Gauging the time left, his knowledge of his own abilities (hangover-wise), and the sweet Hollywood Moment being presented to him, he chose to sip One Last Beer for symbolism's sake ... a last dramatic Jack Kerouc moment in the tropics.
So instead of the right turn to his room, Smiles turned to the left and marched into the hotel bar.
The moment in fact was typically Bogart melodramatic (the тАШRickтАЩ in Casablanca), as the place was dead-empty of customers ~ the only living soul in view being the bartender.
Smiles sat himself down on a bar stool and said "sawatdee krup" to the up-turned ass of the barman who was at that moment bent over doing some clean-up work behind the bar.
A latent ~ or was that "too late" ~ butterfly moment swept over him for a second or two at the view, but he shrugged it off quickly. The bar guy rose up, turned around, and well glory-be, if it wasn't the same handsome fellow who had carried his bags to his room the day before! Thinking to himself that these guys certainly do work long hours, he ordered a beer, and as well asked the guy whether he'd also like one, as this was his last celebratory act ~ not only in this bar, but in Thailand.
The bartender thanked him and cracked open one for himself.
An hour later ... (three beers each later!) ... the bartender was showing off his family photo album and in general making easy conversation in very reasonable English.
But it was time to go. By now, only a few more hours of sleep were available and at least two more drinks than he had originally planned had been consumed. Smiles got up, touched the bartender's hand, paid the bill, and said goodbye and how nice it was to talk with you. He walked some paces away . . . . but he felt the white hot stare of the barman on his back, and felt a wettish upper lip.
He shut his eyes (all Hollywood again!), stopped in his tracks, sighed, swung around to face the barman (who's nickname ~ now known ~ was Pot), and asked quietly "... oh, um, is that massage offer still OK ...?".
Pot smiled the smile of the angels and said "... of course, you wait, I just close the bar ..." (A Cecil B DeMille moment: Fade to black)
____________________________________________
Pot turned out to be 31 years old then. A terrific lover and friend, and still with me now in 2011 ~ against all the odds I suppose, and contrary to much suspicion on these boards . . . certainly not all, I freely admit, completely unjustified.
Worked at long and hard; taking into consideration all the difficulties that culture and distance throw up; given a very open-hearted and easy-speaking man as one's 'chosen' ... a relationship with a Thai man can be as fulfilling as any kind of truthful relationship can be. (Use of the word 'truthful' being rightfully important to many on this board, including myself)
In our case at least, I believe those very difficulties make the bond even more heart-felt.
All it took was a stark fork in the road. Choose the wrong way, and he and I would have never met the man I still live with. It was that close. Stopping at the fork was not planned. The opposite in fact: from the moment the gate was opened until that short hesitation I was going right ... right to sleep. It was the last few hours before flying away from Thailand. Serendipity.
Jay made his own horrible choice of roads to take and created a murderous havoc rarely seen in this neck o' the woods.
But there are other ~ far less dramatic ~ Crossroads available to most of us. In retrospect, I thank the Spirits ~ whichever one's you wish ~ I chose the left fork into a near-empty bar that long-ago night.
__________________________________________________ __________________________
Then & now: the Thai man in the story.
Top shot is 2001 (a bit worse for the wear after being in a wallet for 9 years) ... bottom shot 2010 in Hua Hin.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Message%20board%20posts/10-year%20post/age3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Message%20board%20posts/10-year%20post/mrpot1.jpg
It was written quite a long time ago ~ 6 or 7 years at least ~ and is a story of first-meetings that might well be a small antidote to the horror stories of long term relationships with Thai guys ... both successful ones and (mostly. apparently) failures. The cynical will hee-haw, the positive-realist-sceptics may well get a much-needed boost of the "it-can-happens".
I've edited it a bit (there were many spelling mistakes), mostly to get a better flow of time . . . back then I was writing about a time length together of 4 years or so (and that only on my holidays). Now it's 11 years (5 of those living here): an anniversary coming up on December 10, so the time seems right to celebrate publicly what apparently is a very successful long term relationship with the same old Thai man.
Many of you will remember this story, but many of the newer members have not. Please to indulge me for celebration sake. :alc:
__________________________________________________ ______________
Once again Jay Handel went into that evil night in the damp, rain-foresty back woods of British Columbia, the swirling fire-red glow filling the view through the truck windshield.
Jay had made more than one deal with the Devil in his lifetime, this last being simply the most despicable.
As Jay sat in their driveway in his pickup with his lovely wife Sonya (now sobbing ~ soon to be screaming) beside him, he watched his trailer home burn to the ground and he attempted one last pathetic gesture by slowly sliding the hunting knife across his own throat. He thought he'd pressed hard enough to accomplish the task, thought he's sharpened that knife long enough. But apparently not, and the worst that could be said was that the car seat was being slowly besotted with his blood.
Against the background of her screaming, Jay had ~ only a few moments before ~ told Sonya that their six kids were still in the flaming trailer, but not to worry, they hadn't suffered because they were already dead . . . he had visited there some hours before and one by one, strangled or shot each one of his own children to death: " ... they're safe from YOU now!! ... " he said through clenched teeth just before pulling out the knife, and just before Sonya flung open the passenger door and fled into the night.
What had made Jay choose a path like this, when at least many others were open to him?
What sorrowful delusions addled his brain so badly that in order to punish his wife (for an affair? for wanting to leave him?), he walked hand in hand with Lucifer to murder all his kids and burn their bodies in brimstone?
What do men think on when choosing which fork in the road to take when encountering their own Crossroad?
When delta blues maestro Robert Johnson came to his personal crossroad back in 1930's Mississippi the choice then was Light-and-Happiness тАж or The Devil.
He chose the Devil then, but at least the consequences of that pact ended up being a gift of the best Blues music ever written ~ as long as it was accompanied by a life filled with copious booze-and-drugs-and-whores: the price of the Deal.
As for Jay . . . his crossroad choice is so horrific, so awful, it can hardly be comprehended by mere mortals. And and sure has no sweet music tagged on the end as mitigation.
His fork in the road ended up in a Vancouver courtroom ~ a murder charge laid heavily amongst the ghosts of his dead children floating ethereally as backdrop. A murderer confronted with his own ghastly letters written to Sonya and his other tormentors ... all the time assuming he would be dead from his own hand by the time they were read.
Gutless: This sad killer faints dead away in the prisoner box ~ a swooning actor in some taudry Hollywood tale ~ when the guilty verdict is read out aloud to a jury and the whole country.
He got life in this death-penalty-less country, but rest assured Beezulbub will not be with him to hold his hand.
He'll be off somewhere else laughing his ass off.
__________________________________________________ ____________________
Jump to: Bangkok some 11 years ago now (December 2000 in fact) . . . and Smiles was commiserating with himself over a few beers in Balcony Bar that in fact he had been a rather hopeless butterfly after all.
The many Thai guys he met in that 3-week holiday he assumed would be subject to being cynically conquered, used, abused, flipped-over, turned upside down, examined orifice-wise, shamelessly exploited, called up by number, groped, then thrown aside ~ with a steely laugh ~ like some tired sex-flotsam. But by departure date such fantasies had simply not materialized. Needless to say, not exactly what he had intended when he first bedded down in the Boystown of Patong Beach.
Certainly it wasn't for the lack of opportunity ~ these willing guys were eveywhere in Sex Paradiso (Thailand version тАж no subtitles). But the will within Smiles was missing ~ the Gogo Bars all ended up as the same dingy figments of his expectations.
He intensely disliked The Vacant Stare, the deadly seriousness of the leering, sweaty Farang as the boys earned their keep by thrusting their crotches a foot from their customer's noses (often closer, for тАШextraтАЩ) . . . the embarrassing predilection of the creepiest and most joyless Farang to plunge heavily down on a seat so close to the stage so that the bulge in the boys white underwear hung perilously close to the piggy face and the multiple chins.
Later, after winging it away on Thai Air away from that beach, he settled down in The Big Mango for the last two days before the longer leap across the Pacific and back to white-bread Canada. Sitting bemused, cuddling a Leo in Balcony Bar in Silom that night he thought to himself that he was not cut out for this flittering life.
Earlier ... that day out in Bangkok had actually been wonderful, having the night before met a very nice young man ('Ken' by name) and bargained with him to ferry him around Bangkok the next day showing as many sights that could be seen in 8 hours or so.
They had gone back that night to the small guest hotel that was his abode for 2 days and had had a reasonable time. Nothing special, but Ken was accommodating, friendly, and spoke English well enough for Smiles to believe the trip around Krung Thep the following day would be well worth the effort (he was, to be perfectly frank, getting world-weary from the trip, and looking forward to the flight home).
But Ken had turned out to be a marvelous guide, and they got along. They traveled the tourist obligatories as well as the secret bowels of hardly-seen-Bangkok from 9 AM to around 11 PM when Smiles found himself back in Balcony Bar, alone, tired, but not unhappy. (Ken had just said his farewells and "... have a good life Dawit ... " ),
The realization that his assumption of himself as an all-conquering butterfly was but a mirage made him smile to himself as those all around were carousing and screaming and partying and drinking and he was feeling a gentle peace. His solitariness made him comfortable.
Smiles downed his beer and dashed quite dangerously across Silom, turned left down Convent Road and walked the 20 minutes back to the hotel. His flight was leaving from Don Muang at seven the next morning: Did he really need a hangover?
He had been greeted there at his hotel 2 days before by seemingly the only person in the place: The handsome young desk clerk who checked him in, picked up all his bags ( " ... no no I take all, no problem ... " ) and bundled them, and him, off to his room. ('It' being a small, intimate hotel, with only a dozen rooms or so and after all he had arrived at 11 AM ~ the Dead Zone in most hotels).
The clerk had a sweet face made ever more sweet by a seriously lovely smile that pushed his cheekbones up high and exposed an excellent set of white choppers which for some reason got Smiles' upper lip to a-sweatin'. ( The upper lip embarassment was a sadly regular dead giveaway with him ... always had been, and he was often so mortified by it's spontaneous eruption that he had once contemplated going into therapy ). He pushed a healthy tip into the clerk's hand ~ 'hmmm, hanging on a little too long, he thought' ~ and was then left alone to take a leisurely shower, indulging in which the remembrance of the wide parting smile of the clerk left a marked impression. The Thai Guy had poked his head back in the door for a few seconds and gently asked "... you like massage? ..." before disappearing. But he was not in the mood and had just as gently said "... no thank you, maybe next time ..."
So ~ that night, back from a Bangkok bar for the last time ~ Smiles found himself standing outside the closed gates of the hotel thinking of life-in-general and things-accomplished-and-not on this holiday.
It was not a sad moment, simply a contemplative one.
He used his key to open the big spiky-metal gate, walked a few paces up the red-brick and mossy sidewalk and came to a fork in the walkway . . . a crossroad if you will.
The sidewalk divided in two at that point . . . one branch leading to the rear of the building where his room (and bed) were waiting comfortably, the other leading into the lobby and bar of the hotel.
Smiles stopped dead in his tracks at The Crossroad and for what seemed like a rather long time (in retrospect) and pondered a bed-or-beer dilemna. Gauging the time left, his knowledge of his own abilities (hangover-wise), and the sweet Hollywood Moment being presented to him, he chose to sip One Last Beer for symbolism's sake ... a last dramatic Jack Kerouc moment in the tropics.
So instead of the right turn to his room, Smiles turned to the left and marched into the hotel bar.
The moment in fact was typically Bogart melodramatic (the тАШRickтАЩ in Casablanca), as the place was dead-empty of customers ~ the only living soul in view being the bartender.
Smiles sat himself down on a bar stool and said "sawatdee krup" to the up-turned ass of the barman who was at that moment bent over doing some clean-up work behind the bar.
A latent ~ or was that "too late" ~ butterfly moment swept over him for a second or two at the view, but he shrugged it off quickly. The bar guy rose up, turned around, and well glory-be, if it wasn't the same handsome fellow who had carried his bags to his room the day before! Thinking to himself that these guys certainly do work long hours, he ordered a beer, and as well asked the guy whether he'd also like one, as this was his last celebratory act ~ not only in this bar, but in Thailand.
The bartender thanked him and cracked open one for himself.
An hour later ... (three beers each later!) ... the bartender was showing off his family photo album and in general making easy conversation in very reasonable English.
But it was time to go. By now, only a few more hours of sleep were available and at least two more drinks than he had originally planned had been consumed. Smiles got up, touched the bartender's hand, paid the bill, and said goodbye and how nice it was to talk with you. He walked some paces away . . . . but he felt the white hot stare of the barman on his back, and felt a wettish upper lip.
He shut his eyes (all Hollywood again!), stopped in his tracks, sighed, swung around to face the barman (who's nickname ~ now known ~ was Pot), and asked quietly "... oh, um, is that massage offer still OK ...?".
Pot smiled the smile of the angels and said "... of course, you wait, I just close the bar ..." (A Cecil B DeMille moment: Fade to black)
____________________________________________
Pot turned out to be 31 years old then. A terrific lover and friend, and still with me now in 2011 ~ against all the odds I suppose, and contrary to much suspicion on these boards . . . certainly not all, I freely admit, completely unjustified.
Worked at long and hard; taking into consideration all the difficulties that culture and distance throw up; given a very open-hearted and easy-speaking man as one's 'chosen' ... a relationship with a Thai man can be as fulfilling as any kind of truthful relationship can be. (Use of the word 'truthful' being rightfully important to many on this board, including myself)
In our case at least, I believe those very difficulties make the bond even more heart-felt.
All it took was a stark fork in the road. Choose the wrong way, and he and I would have never met the man I still live with. It was that close. Stopping at the fork was not planned. The opposite in fact: from the moment the gate was opened until that short hesitation I was going right ... right to sleep. It was the last few hours before flying away from Thailand. Serendipity.
Jay made his own horrible choice of roads to take and created a murderous havoc rarely seen in this neck o' the woods.
But there are other ~ far less dramatic ~ Crossroads available to most of us. In retrospect, I thank the Spirits ~ whichever one's you wish ~ I chose the left fork into a near-empty bar that long-ago night.
__________________________________________________ __________________________
Then & now: the Thai man in the story.
Top shot is 2001 (a bit worse for the wear after being in a wallet for 9 years) ... bottom shot 2010 in Hua Hin.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Message%20board%20posts/10-year%20post/age3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Message%20board%20posts/10-year%20post/mrpot1.jpg