To Live in Pattaya

Pattaya isn't what it used to be. The coconut plantations have been replaced by luxury villas. Interpol and the Thai Police hunt fugitives and the Russians have taken over the hills.

Two summers ago I moved north to Sriracha. It was a quiet town. Too quiet some nights and Fenway's mom doesn't mind my visiting old friends in Pattaya. I worked hard in the USA. My trips are basically to see her and Fenway, but Thais understand the concept of fun or sanuk better than westerners. She knows my heart is hers and hers alone, swearing that my longtime fidelity has nothing to do with a magic potion.

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

Mam is right. I love her for her and she loves me for me. No one else can handle either of us.

"You want go out. Go out. Not get too drunk." Mam worries about my getting into an accident more than cheating on her. At my age I'm too lazy to butterfly, so I called Jamie Parker and we arranged to meet at an old haunt. I kissed Mam and my son good-night and caught a slow bus to Pattaya.

40 minutes later I walked into Chez Michel on Soi Buffalo Bar. Jamie Parker was on his first beer. He had always been thin, but the new gauntness was worrying.

"I know whast you're thinking, but I'm okay." The exiled New Yorker explained that he had goen on a six-month Ice binge with little Ort, the 23 year-old go-go dancer from the Paris A Go-Go. "It's all over. Ice, Ort, and not eating food."

He ate three courses; salad, steak, and dessert.

Afterward we walked to the Buffalo Bar for a nightcap at a slow pace. Jamie was in a New York state of mind. “Tomorrow will be nine years since 9/11. Remember everyone saying how it would change the world. Nothing’s changed. Nothing at all.”

He paused and a second later a woman’s body hit the pavement with a soft thud. We looked up to see from where. A second-story balcony. A groan reverted our attention to the woman. Her fall hadn’t been fatal. Jamie knelt down to help her.

“Pai ke ki.”

She didn’t want our help. Two women came from the small restaurant. They regarded us as assailants, until seeing the woman’s face. She was no stranger to them. I would late find out the jumper was one of the other woman’s lover. She had found out about her seeing someone else. Her leap to the street had been an act of love. The police took the failed suicidist to the hospital and Jamie helped me hobble into the Buffalo.

“If she had wanted to kill herself, she would have jumped from the roof.”

“Have a little heart.” People jumped to their death frequently in Pattaya; mostly jilted lovers and bankrupt farangs.

“She broke her arm. That’s all and you know what day today is?”

“September 10th.” I couldn’t recall anything significant about the date.

“World Suicide Prevention Day.” Jamie ordered two Chang beers. They were stronger than Heineken. “I read about it in the Bangkok Post. She was trying to kill herself on a day like that.”

“Suicides aren’t interested in dates only a relief from their misery.” Last year during my black period I had contemplated killing myself, although only with a gun and rejected jumping as too messy.

“Then she should have picked another day. The terrorists from 9/11 did.”

“9/10/2001 was rainy. Ceiling visibility in New York was a 1000 feet.” no way they could have found the World Trade Towers in that slop.

“I know but the real reason they didn’t pick 9/10 was that it was World Suicide Prevention Day.”

“You really think 19 Arabs had any idea about that.” I had never heard of World Suicide Prevention day until Jamie mentioned it.

“Yeah, I do. If you’re going to drive a plane into a building then you want things right. Everything. They did it on 9/10 out of respect for what they were about to do. Suicide.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Then you give me a good reason why they chose 9/11.”

“It had nothing to do with 911 being the telephone call letters for many countries.” I sipped the beer from my glass. The ice made it nice and cold. I had actually researched the numbers once and said, “9 is the first cube and 11 symbolizes threat in numerology. Revelation 9:11 warns of destruction. George Bush Senior declares the creation of The New World Order on 9/11/2000. Eleven years later 9/11 and 9+1+1=11. September 11 is also the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11.”

“Stop it before you go mad.”

“They’re only numbers.” I wondered how many times 9/11 had been said since 9/11. Billions of times a day. Those numbers added up to no good. “But not if you consider GW Bush as the anti-Christ.”

“And you do?” Jamie’s eyes rolled in his head like a broken slot machine.

“I don’t believe in anything, but I think I’ll keep trying to kill myself with beer.” No God. No country. No Santa Claus. Just my son, my wife, and beer. I lifted my finger to signal we wanted two more Leos. “Is that all right with you?”

“It’s not like we have a choice.”

“Beer.” We clinked glasses. “The only way to go.”