Pattaya Redux

"Have you lost your Pattaya fever?" My friend Chas asked in his air-conditioned office on Sukhumvit Road last January. He had been a resident here for over 20 years. His internet service company was doing well, despite the current economic downturn. His wife had cut her hair. The boyish coif was very attractive. He was a lucky man.

"Not really." I had two families here, but I had moved back to New York after six years here to earn enough money for both clans.

"Reading Mnagozeen I sensed a little disenchantment." Chas ordered cappuchinos from his wife.

"My life isn't the same as before." I had had a flourishing Internet business and a nice house off 3rd Road. I wasn't hurting anyone. "Now I'm a tourist instead of a resident. My days in paradise are shorter now."

"You could always come back and live here."

Chas had survived hard times in Pattaya. I probably could have too, except neither of my wives were too supportive. #1 wanted money and strangely enough so did #2. Not many other reasons for a woman in her 20s to be with a 50ish man, although some woman still consider me sexy in the right lack of light.

"Maybe I should have stayed, but it feels like Pattaya's time has come and gone."

"Not at all, mate." Chas beamed with the happiness of a man who has found his niche in life to be very comfortable. "You have to get it together in the States and come back out for another try."

"What and teach?" 30K a month for keeping spoiled beasts from burning down the school.

"No, there are plenty of other jobs."

"Like running a go-go bar?" Sam Royalle had offered a position as manager of his new bar. 60K/month plus commissions on the barfines and drinks. Maybe 100K in total. "Only one problem."

"You butterfly around too much?"

"No." I was relatively faithful to my wives. "I tend to drink and at a bar I tend to drink more. My body couldn't handle more than 6 months in a go-go. Not to mention having to listen to 40 girls' problems and stupid farangs all night."

"Maybe you weren't cut out to be a pimp?"

"I'm not saying that." Pimp would look good on my colorful CV. "Just I'd like to do something straight."

"You weren't always that way."

"Getting arrested by the Thai police tends to narrow the path."

"Arrested?" Chas laughed with derision. "You were held in custody for two hours. You sat in an air-conditioned office with beer. The police put you on national TV. Your bail was only $1000. No one asked you for a bribe. That's not being arrested."

"It was awfully easy."

"I'll say." Chas knew from his experience of being held by the Bangkok police due to a case of mistaken identity. They thought that he was who he was and Chas told them that he might be, but he had never done whatever they thought he had done. It was all a set-up by his business partner, but Chas had to spend a night in jail. "I paid $20US for a chair. No fans. No beers. No nothing."

"Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about." Chas proposed a rendezvous with our old crew. Walking Street and go-gos. "When a man's tired of Pattaya, then he's tired of life."

"I might have a few more lap dances in me."

Any man would once he hit the street without his missus.

What happens in Pattaya happens in Pattaya and nowhere else. I don't even bother to tell my stateside friends what, because they would believe me and neither do I some of the times. Some things are better off if they never change.