The End of Babylon

Pattaya had long been recognized as the world's leading destination for sex addicts and lowlifes attracted to the sordid city on the Gulf of Siam by the countless bars, the easy women, lax enforcement of law, crooked police, rampant drug use, stunning ladyboys, and young boys. My ten years in the Last Babylon furthered my research into the darker side of life without any desire to reform a single sinner. My first years were a scandal, but somehow Pattaya became home and I chilled my satanic jets. My friends remained men on the run from the banality of western life. Our pasts were forgotten as long as our pockets were filled with baht. We were rich men in the Orient and we thought that this anti-Eden would last forever.

Sadly my booming fake F-1 enterprise was shut down by the Thai cyber-police. My website posting as # 1 on Google had gained the attention of Ferrari. Even the famed racing team was second to f1-sporting.net. The police treated my crime as a misdemeanor, but suggested that shutting down my business was in my best interests. Without this income I was forced to return to the USA. New York to be exact. I resumed selling diamonds on 47th Street and traveled frequently to Thailand to see my children and wives.

Both my families had also decamped from Pattaya. My time was split between Chai-nat and Sriracha. The allure of a go-go bar offered no competition with my kids, plus Mam, Fenway's mom, was the only woman in the world for me. She swears that she didn't dose me with a magic love potion or sa-neh-haa.

"I am cute. I not need magic to make you love me."

She has that straight and I spent most of this last sojourn in Thailand with her along the Cambodian border visiting her two other children. My step-kids; Fluke and Noy. They call me 'papa' and I call them 'luk'. Saying they aren't my kids are fighting words and I have a short temper.

We returned the direct route. 4 hours flat from a little north of Aranya Prathet to Sriracha. I dropped Mam and Fenway and a cousin at the small house west of the town and headed to Pattaya to drop off the rental car to Pisan, who has a spot in front of the Buffalo Bar. I was six hours late and when asked how much extra I should pay, the Thai mechanic said, "Up to you, but I want small pack of beer."

400 baht and 4-pack of Leo beer was a bargain.

His repair shop was located in a shrinking swamp off Soi Bongkot. I had lived six years on the neighboring complex. The wetland was a haven for birds and mosquitoes. The owners landfilled most of the marsh to build shophouses and a short-time hotel. I arrived to find Pisan and his son burning old tires. The toxic black smoke was a crime in the USA. Pattaya had no such law and it was a Sunday. The police were sleeping off their hang-overs. I handed the beers to Pisan and we drank talking about the old times, as his 18 year-old son tended to the mad blaze at the water's edge.

"Nothing same. Puying old now. Not beautiful. Only have farang old too and Russian and Arab. No fun." Pisan shook his head, thinking as much about the loss of Babylon as his youth. Neither of us could pretend to be young anymore except with a younger woman. The coconut groves had been razed to provide retirees over-seized bungalows. The corner restaurants serving spicy Isaan food had been replaced by KFCs and 7/11s. Condos shadowed the Beach Road and huge shopping malls dominated the tourist market. Babylon was falling under the onslaught of gobalization, but a few places remained true to the tradition of a-tham-ma or lawlessness.

"You want to meet at the Buffalo for a beer later?" We didn't drink in the bar. The stools were reserved for farangs. A warped bamboo bench along Sai Sahm was our spot.

"Sorry, I stay here. Live here. Go nowhere. For what?" He was paying 8000 baht for a elevated patch of land. His shop had no fences to protect against thieves. This was home. He even had some chickens in the back. I thanked him for the rental and headed off to my tailor on Sai Song, calling several friends from the back of a baht bus.

Sam Royalle was busy with his kids up at his house on the reservoir, but Big Al and Ulf were available.

"Meet me at the Buffalo around 6."

My suit was ready. dark grey for business. I had an hour and a half to kill. I took another baht bus to Soi 3. A short walk to the Welkom Inn. I had been a faithful afternoon customer for years. None of the girls at the front recognized me, although the service girls in the garden asked for my dog Champoo. I never left home without her. The farangs at the bar were bland and I wondered whether the Welkom had always been like this.

"No way," I told myself and walked along the Beach Road to Soi 6, the wickedest street in town. The bars were each fronted by a pack of short-time girls. Not one of them caught my eye. They were more interested in stuffing food in their mouths than a single older male. I was no longer 'sexy man'.

A motorsai taxi driver drove me to the Buffalo.

This bar had been in business for over 20 years. It was around the corner from my house. I drank there nightly. The girls behind the bar greeted me my name. I was not a forgotten man here. I bought a round of drinks for my old favorites; two lesbians no longer in love. Big Al showed up first. He commented on my weight.

"Better watch out for your gut." Big Al tipped the scales over 300.

"I can still see my feet." My BMI was a little over the edge, but I sucked in my gut. I hated looking fat to someone as big as Big Al.

"As long as you can still touch your dick, it's okay." An ex-extreme fighter he had left the USA for good, although his businesses had failed in the past two years. "Even worse my wife found out that I went short-time with someone her family knew."

"That's not good." I was 100% faithful to Mam. Not that she believed any man could be 100% faithful in the long run. I couldn't believe it either considering the playboy nature of my younger years. Mam was running me on a long lease. She hadn't called once

"I should have known better." He explained that his wife was more pissed at his spending money on another woman than being butterflying on her. "I calm her down, but I got to get something together."

He told me about a film project about a detective in Thailand.

"It's a long shot." Making movies require money. Big Al had none. He wasn't even drinking beer.

Ulf showed up at the bar. The German had traded Pattaya for the Phillipines. Running a bar. He had returned to my old business. Selling first-class motor-sport gear.

"It almost killed me. Trinken, trinken, trinken." Ulf enjoyed a good time, but six nights a week was a deadly pace for men like us. He had been with me the day that I met Mam. We had been toasting a fallen comrade after the temple service. Mam had smiled my way. I had been her prisoner since and happy about it too.

"A friend of mine had offered me a job running a bar here."

"And?"

"I turned him down." I wanted to reach 60. Go-go girls and drink would lead to drugs. A fatal combo. "For health reasons."

I excused myself from the two men to go to the bathroom. They were a little alike. Both ex-convicts. Reformed in their ways. I returned to the bar. Neither of them were speaking to each other. A girl grabbed my arm.

"Where you go?" She was about 23. Long-legged and beautiful. A decade before she would have been mine if only for the night.

"Home to my wife." I didn't have a watch, but I knew the clock was ticking back in Srirahca. I bid farewell to my friends. "I'll see you in the new year."

I got back to Mam's house before 7.

She looked surprised to see me. Fenway was happy with the toy I brought him. I kissed Mam on the cheek.

"You go short-time?" She had to ask.

"Not one second." And it was the truth.

Happy to say it, but sad that the Last Babylon is gone.

Same as 42nd Street.

A shopping mall for fat people, but it doesn't really matter, because as the Wicked Witch of the West rued as she melted at the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ.

"Who ever thought a little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? Ughhhh!!! What a world. What a world!"

What a world indeed.