Chapter 8

Childlike, Jatupon had assumed that togetherness, firecrackers, celebration, and the proud moment of that manly initiation of cold beer (not that it was his first) to be the ending of negative events. The day had resurrected him the way Kazem had once pulled him out of the lake on the outskirts of the city, Kanjanaburi. He was wading then in gradually deepening waters when the sludge beneath his feet suddenly dipped and he was thrust off the precipice into a watery abyss. He was just a boy then but one who owed his life to his brother. When he was older and they had returned to Kanjanaburi on a two-hour train ride, Kazem refused to allow him in stagnant waters. This was fortunate since a few days later two people died from a protozoan infection. Kazem had saved his life in both occasions and delivered his spirit on this one. He had never deserted him. Unlike Kumpee who despised work, Kazem could have gotten a slave labor position by signing an employment contract for construction work where he would have found himself assigned to one of such places as Taipei or Abu Dhabi. A few years there would have added a solid savings that he could have used for vocational training that would have broadened his opportunities. Broadened opportunities and a bit of a savings beneath him would have provided a chance of luring a woman who wasn’t a noodle worker. Instead, while knowing escape was an option, he fulfilled his high shepherdly calling.

As he entered the basement cell that they lived in, Jatupon couldn’t remember a time more linked in fraternity than this one except for the memories of early boyhood. Boyhood was summarized in that one photograph Kazem had salvaged out of a box of pictures that were thrown out with so much from the move. It was a photograph that prompted a solid memory (imagined or real). It was of the four boys. Jatupon, three years old and fully nude, trailed behind. Kumpee led the way. Kumpee had on a cap with the visor inverted to the back of his head. The four of them were walking down a sidewalk that went along the canal. Immediately to their left and across the canal were row houses of tiny wooden cabin shacks with metal roofs that housed residents and their scavenging businesses. The four of them were going to purchase some candy.

—They are copulating?

—Yes, and he has just awakened from the brother’s penetration of him on the basement floor. The belief that the world has been resurrected in pure and gentle intentions has been thwarted. His brain waves are still discombobulated from the liquor and none of what he is presently experiencing seems real. It is though. Innocence has been disgorged like a squeezed tube of love oil in a ride more painfully and physically intimate than any intimacy he has yet experienced.

His head was spinning and he couldn’t grab himself in all of the spinning images: sounds, smells, and visions all spun randomly. Finally there was a bit of a shape and texture to his thinking and he dressed himself. He wanted to use the wave of consciousness to exit.

—My dear, pain and pleasure have become inseparable in his young mind. In this act a few minutes ago-maybe a few hours ago—there was a yearning for this violation. The abuse was aggravated by too much alcohol consumption but it wasn’t entirely unwanted. Being a creature of habit and addiction, Jatupon yearned for his brother-only his brother-since he vaguely felt that sexual experiences with two people are totally unique and the physiological and emotional feelings his brother induced could not be duplicated by any other person. The madness of wishing to be overtaken, however, was confuted by painful sodomized lances and an ejaculation of the one who did his stress workout within him. In other experiences like this one Jatuporn, as they call him, always masturbated to allow the desire to peel back like a tide but this time his highest hopes were limp like a noodle. He is opening the door. He is glancing at himself to make sure that he isn’t wearing his underwear outside of his pants. Now he is outside as insentient as a fleeing animal after it has been attacked. Here he is feeling better in the open air. He is returning.

Jatupon reentered the room. For the first time, since awakening, he noticed that Suthep had not returned. He had not come “home”-whatever that word meant. Jatupon scavenged the pockets of his brother’s pants that were wadded in the corner near Kazem’s sleeping head. In it was money and a sheet of paper. He put it all in his pockets. He got on the first bus he could and paid the ticket salesman. The idea crossed his mind that being a coin collector on a city bus was not anyone’s best choice. It would be much better to be one of the few men who jumped onto the piers or docks to tie the city boats. Such a Bangkok Metropolitan Authority would give three brief whistles so the boat driver would give a backward thrust as he tied it down for the customers to enter or depart. He could picture himself whistling once, untying the boat he was assigned to, and jumping onboard at the last possible second. The second mosquito spread out its wings and copiously fluttered them about femininely. Jatupon began to be a little conscious of himself as a man coming out of anesthesia.

—But the instinct of a man is to fight off predators. Is Jatupon never tempted to take a knife and slit his brother’s throat?

—No, not for the most part, my dear. He loves his brother; and in some ways there is intense intimacy and pleasure involved in the novel act that he would hardly rid himself of despite the pain and humiliation that is involved. I explained that earlier. Were you sleeping when we discussed this issue?

There was nothing. There was movement while he sat in a city bus.

All elements had burst out of the Big bang. All things (even ideas) were conceived violently in movement. And so he moved, switching to busses only when the former ones parked and all passengers had to leave. He did not know where he was. He didn’t care. In one bus ride he suddenly became sentient to the feel of stiff paper in one of his pockets. He pulled it out and looked. It was his uncle’s name and address. That was no surprise. The bus was stalled in traffic. Riders of busses who were near their destination began oozing out of them like leaking oil. He realized that he was on a bus going on a street that he had traveled on earlier in the day.

“Ajarn, Do you know what street this is?” he asked a monk.

“Sukumvit” the monk said.

“Which soi are we passing?” asked Jatupon.

“Forties or fifties” said the monk. “I really don’t know.”

Jatupon looked at the sheet of paper. It read, soi 51 Sukumvit Road. He got out and ten minutes later he was standing at the wall of the opulent mansion that Kazem had stood at. He didn’t stay long. He needed to go to the bathroom. He didn’t want to wet his pants and he didn’t think that being a distant relative with a hangover and urine splattered pants would be very impressive to the senator. In a bathroom at a KFC he looked at his face. It was of a dark Laotian or Khmer. He was from a family with the last name of Biadklang from the North. His face was as dark as the soil. He looked into the mirror. Just with the amount of light, darkness, or expression one appeared like a totally different person from one moment to the next.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked the reflection in the mirror.

“To Sanam Luang to see more of the kites” the reflection said.

On the bus ride to Sanam Luang he had to stand. He noticed the other people. They were also wistfully discontent for their own personal reasons. They wished to sit down when the space was congested and there was nowhere to sit; and in times of sitting they yearned to have vacant seats next to their own so that they would be free from having to sit next to strangers and could have a little area of their own to monopolize. They were all so petty and he told himself that he did not want to be like that.

At Sanam Luang he bought a kite from a mendicant kite salesman. Feeling chagrin that the forlorn child within him had taken over his thoughts instead of the man, he flew his kite in a more obscure area. He was somewhat relieved to find an innocent pleasure to engage in. A half hour later the child diluted into his manhood and there he was in full embarrassment of himself. So he reeled in the kite and sat down on a park bench. A sidewalk salesman smiled at him.

On a rug this mendicant had six-inch motorcycles crafted from bamboo. Nobody knew the art of a smile like the people in the Land of Smiles. Toothless as babes they contrived smiles with the curl that has distinguished a smile from a bite with a full opening of the mouth. Thai infants and toddlers knew. They intuitively knew that with enough naughty actions a toss into the trashcan was not inconceivable. They intuitively knew big sister would be sold off to a man when she turned 14 and the fetus that was little brother or sister had been forced out by deliberately rowdy sexual liaisons, making his or her exit no different than menstruation. With enough shaking of the can of soda pop all beings disgorged the same when the tab was opened. Thai babies knew. They had their instinct to smile because of the cellular replication planned by the DNA architect who made all Thai babies the same as an American subdivision. How gullible was a human to the wish of being struck down with pleasant feelings. When a mendicant salesman with teeth sparkled them from his tanned face even an impoverished Thai couldn’t resist the inclination to buy. It was the congenial feeling more than the product itself that a consumer wished to gain. Consumers bought to get a fuzzy feeling and forget the hostile 9 to 5 working world (9 to 9 Thai time). How manipulative were the benevolent lies of Thais in the business of survival. Jatupon bought one of those purposeless products. He argued to himself that he could put it on a shelf-that is, if he had a shelf to put it on.

On the bench he pulled out of his book bag the Lao classic, “Thao Nok Kaba Phuak which in English meant “The White Nightjar.” The back cover said that it depicted the second queen consort’s birth of a bird and her exile from the kingdom. The preface stated that both Laotian queens had prayed that life be recycled in their wombs but only the youngest became pregnant. At the consort’s request, the oldest queen blindfolded her when the labor pains ensued. She solicited the help of the court magician in particular to take advantage of the younger queen’s squeamishness over the sight of blood by using the time to switch the baby for that of a bird. When the child was replaced the soothsayer could then deceive the king by making him believe that the younger consort had had sexual relations with a foul bird months earlier. This was not needed since the consort actually begot a bird. Jatupon stopped reading the preface. It was spoiling the book. He began to read the first chapter. “I, who have composed this narrative fled far away just like the little one for I, your servant, sleep alone; I am very lonely, in my bedroom, with my arms dangling empty. It is destiny that keeps me away and prevents me from embracing my beloved. I am here, without my younger one, since I left my home to go among the Thais where I have no friends...” Jatupon thought about his basic nature. He had lived for 14 years in Thailand but still he did not feel particularly Thai. He wished that he had been born in some other place like America with a nice American family. As he was falling asleep he heard the counterparts:

—What will happen to him on that bench?

—I can’t imagine anything good happening from it. He could apply for a job but instead he plays with his kite and sits on the bench. He wants to be an aristocrat.

—You don’t say.

—Yes, it is true. He thinks that all whores, laborers, and professionals are slaves. He thinks that they all have petty lives.

—How would he gain such conclusions?

—Partly from me. Partly from the amphetamine-poppers under the overpass. Partly from his own original thoughts. I am surprised to see that he is half way intelligent.

—There isn’t much chance of him being an aristocrat.

—No, none. He will soon be accosted.

—By whom?

—By a man desiring to have sex with him.

—Explain this approach.

—The same as any other I presume: hello, hello, how are you, I’m fine and how are you. The man will be thinking to himself, while engaging in small talk, that he’ll put twenty dollars into Jatupon’s underwear when they are alone in his apartment. He will not have any doubts about being able to buy him.

—Just for the feel of human flesh?

—For a human that feel is indispensable. They are gadabouts and they expend themselves in motion as a defense mechanism by which to avoid their own thoughts. It is the same for feeling the silk of other skin.

It breaks them from isolation. They find their thoughts such a prison.

He and Porn had an American style apartment. She was content with it for a few days and then became discontent with the furniture. The chairs and the sofas, despite their padding, were still wicker and stiff. He knew that having the landlord take away the furnishings and using his credit cards fully for the purchase of her wishes would not ameliorate the discontent that all beings had and few could rein in.

He had met her and her mommy on the bleachers of the stadium on Ramkhamhaeng Road while sketching out a field and trees and yet still Nawin felt that she did not know who he was. He went to classes in the morning and from late afternoon he was busy painting. He couldn’t understand how she thought that he should just conjure up images instantaneously with his brush, spend money, and take her places.

He kept avoiding the issue of taking her across the border. She had a student visa since she was technically enrolled in a language school (although she rarely attended) so it wasn’t in fear of her visa status that made him want to avoid the issue of the border. He had his American passport and yet he still had never spent a day there. He told himself that he should. And yet it continued to seem to him like such a dreadful place.

He told himself that it had been a mistake to bring her here. He hadn’t known how far the campus was from the city. In part he chose the location with Noppawan and Porn in mind. Still, it was a mistake and he knew it all along. In Thailand she had seemed so excitable. She was a gadabout and she always made friends out of strangers from adjacent tables in restaurants they frequented. She had seemed so open to the world. Now she seemed like such a Victorian whore, jumping around in motion but prudishly obdurate to change within. She was conventional-this Victorian whore of his. Like virtually everyone else, she was part of the big band and the universe of movement fully cognizant that the most popular and sexy people were the ones who could twist and turn with universal movement.

He was the oddity. This Nawin, the romancer of whores, was all for show. Deep inside was not impetuousness but paralysis. This artistic brooding was not part of the natural course of events and who was he to chastise her normalcy. He just smiled and evaded her wishes.