Evolution of Man

Last week Jamie Parker and I were sitting on Pattaya Beach two afternoons. We hadn't seen each other in five months. He had sworn that he was never coming back to the States and I had to work to support my family. Something that wouldn't result in the Thai Cyber Police Squad arresting me at home. Selling diamonds on 47th Street was as good as I could get.

"Do you miss living here?" Jamie had been trying to open another go-go bar. The owner of the Carousel off Walking Street was dead broke. The Iceland volcano and the red-shirt anarchy in Bangkok had scared off most of the casual sex tourists. The go-go bar sounded like a good deal, except neither of us had any money.

"Every day I wake up and it's cold and my bones creak." My son Fenway was playing in the sand. Mam his mother was digging up small clams from the edge of the sea. The beach vendor brought over a big bottle of Leo. "I'd love to stay, except I'm busted too."

"Most everyone is after four months of chaos." Jamie had a little money coming in monthly from his veterans disability. His body showed no scars or bullet holes. For a man of so many tall tales he had never told the one why the Pentagon considered him worthy of a pension.

"If it was only me,then I could scramble for cash." Not eating for a day or two didn't bother me as long as I could get a beer, but Fenway needed his milk.

"Yeah, kids aren't made for the sporting life." Jamie had never spawn an heir to his empire of hustles and scams. He was the last of the Parkers.

"Not unless they're Gypsies." I settled back into the cloth lounge chair. The breeze off the water was cool and the beer cold. "What I don't miss about Pattaya are the plastic condos, the big discos, and fat Russians."

"They're the only foreigners not scared of coming here."

"Or the sun." Neither of us dared to challenge the sun, although every Russian had slathered their pasty bodies with sun oil, as if they were the Sunday pig roast.

"You know I don't believe in evolution." Jamie poured his beer into a glass and then added ice. Most British lager louts considered that sacrilege. We didn't care what those exiles from the Costa Brava thought. Cold beer is colder with ice.

"I more believe in de-volution." A quick glance at the sun bathers attested to this belief. The vacationers had trouble walking and only could communicate through cellphones.

"That's part of it too, but look at these monsters. Darwin is cited as having said that we evolved from apes, but most of these Russian women's ancestors appear to have mated with walruses. Or sea lions at worst."

"I've heard this spiel before." In fact I was the one who told him it. "Along with there being no fat people in the Rolling Stones movie GIMME SHELTER.

Actually the only fat people at Altamont were the lead singer from Canned Heat, a cop, a Hell's Angel, and the naked fat guy who gets killed in the afternoon.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Jamie covered his eyes.

Two Russian men walked past us, sporting g-strings like BORAT extras.

"It's a disgrace. And I heard today that this fat woman in Texas had a baby and she never knew she was pregnant. Her name was April."

"Not an ex-stripper at Pig Pens?" Jamie's go-go in Pattaya for chang noi or little elephant dancers had lasted a week before the police shut it for moral indecency. Fat girls really like to talk dirty.

"No, I said an American." Jamie gets a little cranky behind a few beers and knows I like riding him in this state. "This cow goes into the hospital complaining about stomach pains and the doctors tell her she's having a baby. She weighed something like 420 pounds."

"The baby?" 420 pounds was over twice my weight.

"No, April. The baby was normal weight."

"420 pounds. How could they have sex?"

"Sex?"

Both of us watched two obese Russians waddle past our table. It was like watching gigantic Jell-O figurines coming to life. We downed our beers and ordered two more. It would take a lot more than beer to shake off that image of fat people in coitus. More like vodka. It's fat-free.