The Mysterious Bronx River

Donald Trump has been unstoppable in his assault of nature from defunding the EPA to banning the term 'Global Warming' in government releases, and rolling back the protective codes enacted over the last half-century. The GOP are happy as pigs in shit by the end to environmental strictures against pollution of water, air, and land. Liberals are outraged by thius assault on Mother Earth, yet few people are changing their consumption patterns.

The Bronx River is a good example.

The native Americans fished and ate oysters from the "Aquehung".

During the 19th Century industrial mills along the twenty-four mile waterway fouled the river.

A major contributor was Lorillard Snuff Mill manufacturing tobacco products since the 1700s.

The water quality improved in the 1900s, however the spread of the city surpassed the abuse of industry and the river died in the Bronx.

People did this.

Nothing lived in the river.

But people have repair the damage to the Bronk River.

Millions of oysters have been seeded at the mouth and recently residetns have sighted a beasver in the stream.

A beaver.

What has been done will be undone by Mother Earth, but only with help from Mankind.

Deconsume, you slobs.

It's the only way to save this planet.

ps Also resist Trump every step of the way.

Star Of David

The origins of the Hexagram Star stretch back to Egypt and disappear into the mist of history.

The Israelites adopted the six-pointed figure consisting of two interlaced equilateral triangles as the Star of David or Magen David, although some scholars claim that King Solomon favored the symbol after he deserted Yahweh for the worship of Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians.

HIs marriage to foreign women and idolatry turned his kinsmen away from him and a civil war haunted his kingdom to his death.

The Star of David was claimed by the Juhahites and became a Jewish icon during the First Millennium.

The Star of David graced the oldest surviving complete copy of the Masoretic text, the Leningrad Codex, dated 1008.

The Nazi forced the Jewish of Europe to wear a yellow Star of David.

They packed ghettoes with the Juden and massacred them by the millions.

The Magen David is worn proudly by modern Jews.

The Bigger the better I say.

"Never again."

Sleeping Tiger

British actress Patricia Laffan starred as Nero's wife Poppaea.

The director required her to sit with a leopard during a lavish dinner sequence.

Big cats are notorious fickle with their favor, but she shows no sign of fear.

Neither did I at Nong Nooch Gardens with a junkie tiger.

He didn't even bother to snarl and laid his massive head on my lap to nod out in peace.

Good tiger.

They are really quite sweet on a full stomach.

Unlike Patricia Laffen in 1954's DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS, where she plays a latex dominatrix without mercy.

I like hanging with the Noog Nooch Tiger better.

Eating On The Run

No animal eat on the run.

Not lions, tigers, or bears.

Cows, sheep, and goats meandered as they grazed, but only humans walk and eat at the same time and most of those achieving this dubious goal are Americans.

Every day I see people on the go holding hands with a cup of coffee or else stuffing their faces with a bagel. I was probably guilty of the same sin in inetiquette prior, but have cut down the occasions to the rare scarfing down a slice of pizza, when I have to be someplace.

Even I'm not perfect.

We are what we eat and even more so how we eat.

Fast food makes for fast eating and fast eating makes for fat people.

The Old Man In The Mountain

The Old Man in the Mountain was first sighted by Europeans in 1805. The craggy profile had been carved by the glaciers of the last Ice Age and sculpted by the centuries of harsh weather crossing the White Mountains. Over the years millions of visitors have viewed the natural wonder popularized by Daniel Webster's words, "The Old Man was famous largely because of statesman Daniel Webster, a New Hampshire native, who once wrote: "Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."

In May of 2003 the stone formation collapsed down Cannon Mountain.

The profile is merely a memory, but has been replaced by the silhouette of Eric Mitchell, star of stage and screen.

Kudos to the new Old Man of the Mountain.

May he grace the skies forever.

Drinking Yourself To Death

Every week the Pattaya Media highlights another farang leaving this mortal coil from suicide. Favorite methods of self-demise tend to be jumping from a condo, poison, or hanging yourself with a plastic bag around your head, but few people ever comment on the most popular technique ie drinking yourself to the grave, since the process takes too long to be considered suicide. Still you do hear friends saying about the decreased, "He drank himself to death."

While drinking yourself to death might not be pretty, it's certainly not as ugly as hitting the pavement from a 7th floor balcony plus you're in good company.

Oliver Reed for one and the church can't ban you from a churchyard burial at which your friends will say, "At leat he went doing what he did best."

So for those desperate souls seeking solace in a final solution.

Get yourself a beer.

Maybe twelve.

A bottle of vodka and one of gin too.

At worst the near-death experience will scare you back from the edge as long as you don't get on a motorcycle during this binge, then you'll have people saying, "What was he thinking trying to dirve in that condition?"

And we can't have people speaking of the dead like that.

Out Of It

Last week my head wasn't straight.

Without work my money went to zero and this destitution acted as an effective deterrent against writing.

Writer's block.

I feared for my life, but have come out the other side.

Because whatever doesn't kill you will make you wish you were dead sometimes.

The courage of an anti-suicide is to fight off the obvious choice and continue living.

We only have one life.

Stranger Stranger

Family.

Sigh.

Maybe I remember the better moments of life.

I don't think so.

Then again I am far from a perfect person.

As anyone can judge from this missive from my cousin.

"I think of you all every day, unfavorably and with sorrow. It is, I suppose, kind of you to contact me but, sadly, too late, too little, too meaningless. I remember how I was there for you for Michael and for Angie. But you were not there for me following David's suicide. A wonderful, joyful childhood, rich in cousinly play and adventure, evaporated into nothingness. Memories betrayed and made distant. Of the lot, only Gina retains any claim to ethical conduct.

Nevertheless, I wish you happiness and prosperity, as I would any stranger."

I was her brother's friend.

The Bishop and I played B-Ball together.

I spoke to him a week before his deciding to end it all.

I think about Davie all the time.

I am not a stranger.

Not to the Bishop.

THE SEA OF ICE by Caspar David Friedrich

Anthony Bourdain died this week in the small city of Kaysersberg, France.

The police said there were no signs of violence, but little else was revealed to the media by the public prosecutor.

Most people assumed he had killed himself.

I don't know, but I do know the darkness and little is darker than THE SEA OF ICE by Caspar David Friedrich.

No one escapes from that desolation alive.

WAVES by Kate Teale

I love Kate Teale's work in pencil.

To see more of her work, please go to the following URL

http://www.kateteale.net/

LOVE YOU LONG TIME - CHAPTER 6 by Peter Nolan Smith

Two thousand years ago Cato wrote that the deadliest trap for a man is the one that a woman weaves with her tears. Every bones in my body said throw out Ae. Regrettably I was bound by a love potion much stronger than love and I was beyond saving myself from the sinking sands swirling around my ankles.

I had only one ally to stave off my self-destruction and slowly devised the Italian Plan. Her Italian would show up one day. He would call Ae. She would say he was a friend. I would let her go see him. The rest of the future was written beyond my sight, but I would be saved from a fool’s fate.

Unfortunately nothing happened.

No phone calls.

No family crisis for Ae.

Nothing.

Something wasn’t right and two days before my birthday, Ae announced she was going on holiday to Chiang Mai with her youngest son. She hadn’t ever mentioned any family up north and this sudden departure sounded suspiciously like a discreet rendezvous with the Italian. The morning of my birthday she packed a bag with her best clothes and asked, “You angry?”

Telling the truth gained nothing. “Angry? What for? You go. Have fun.”

“And what will you do?” She stood at the door. Her bag and son was on a motorcycle taxi. The fat driver worked the corner of her father’s soi and had helped Ae leave other men. She would go with him. I would be alone. Life would be simple.

“I think about you.”

“I think you too.”

Ae ran to the motorcycle and two seconds later she was gone. I walked to the house. It was quiet. I put John Coltrane on the stereo. No one complained about the jazz. I packed Ae’s clothing into a big box, swept the floor clean of her hair, dumped the sheets in the trash, stuck her pictures in a drawer, and called Sam Royalle, who suggested a birthday tour of the go-go bars. “You can drown your sorrows in drink.”

“I’m going to have a quiet one. Men after 40 should only celebrate birthdays ending with zero.” I opted for a two-hour rubdown at a legitimate Thai massage parlor. After listening to my tribulations, the masseuse said, “Pattaya have many bad lady. You free. Can be butterfly. Have fun.”

Sanuk remedied any woe for the Thais. Pattaya had go-go bars, beer halls, and discos. Girls went home with you for a smile. Drinks were cheap. I intended to bury myself in fun and I left the massage parlor with my muscles al dente.

Night had fallen.

Girls rode pillion on motor-sai taxi to Walking Street. The pi-dogs made love in the bushes and the mechanics from the motorcycle shop drank with their wives around a plastic fire.
In the nearby karaoke lounge a lone police officer sang a drawn-out Lao love song to a video of dancing girls in a rice paddy. Like him I always ended up alone and this self-pity wasn’t healthy on birthdays or Christmas.

Turning the corner onto my soi I spotted balloons hanging from the wall and fairy lights strewn through the trees. A dozen motorcycles were parked in the street and a cloud of smoke rose from a fish barbecue. Twenty Thais, Sam, Mark, and shouted, “Surprise.”

I got off my bike wearing the stupidest grin on the face of the Earth and Ae ran up, laughing. “Surprise. You not know 100%. Big joke.”

“I’m a big kwaai.” Everyone enjoyed ridiculing the birthday ‘Buffalo’. We ate and went to Marine Disco. I imagined things might work out. Ae had to love me. When I wobbled to our bike, Ae asked, “You think I leave you on your birthday?”

“No.” I wondered whether we ever told each other the truth. “Thank you for the big surprise.”

Ae and I made love that night. She said she wanted life with me alone and sent Dtut to her grandmother’s house. The crisis seemed to have passed and our little house surrounded by the swamp became a Garden of Eden under Ae’s care.

In mid-June my cousin returned for a week’s holiday. Bish brought a book BLACK MASS about the South Boston Mafia, and a Boston Bruins t-shirt. Ae appreciated the bottle of perfume and promised to find him a wife. He waved his hands in the air like an air traffic controller warning off a 747.

“I’m not the marrying kind.”

“I think run in family.” Ae wasn’t smiling and I shrugged defenselessly, “We’ll get married when I sell my book.”

“Why you not ask me marry?”

“Now’s not the right time.” Her drunkard father asked to a dowry price of 50,000 baht and was not impressed by my counteroffer of 5000 baht and a bottle of Scotch. “And you get married before.”

Ae stamped her feet on the floor. “Englishman not marry. Say marry. Have monk come. Family too. Have food. Have drink. Englishman not come. UK suck. Man United ki.”

Bish hadn’t come to Thailand to hear a domestic squabble and sought refuge at his hotel. I spent an hour trying to prevent Ae from self-injury and finally when she was calm, she said, “You go with cousin. Go see lady. Go. Pai ke ki.”

“I don’t want to go with him,” I explained that my mother had asked me to look after Bish. “He’s family.”

“Sure?” Her anger was quelled by this explanation. Family was everything to Thais.

“Sure 100%.” My mother had never mentioned go-go bars.

“You go out with him. I go with friend. Maybe cousin go with she.”

“I’ll see you at the TQ.”

I met Bish at the Sabaii Lodge pool. He ate a club sandwich, while I tucked into laab gai, a spicy Isaan dish. After a second beer, I told him about Ae’s Italian lover.

“What else can you expect? You’re going out with an ex-go-go girl with two kids. As your counsel I have to ask for your own good, what are you gaining from this affair? I mean you’re a little old to confuse lust for love, aren’t you?”

This question held merit and I replied, “I know what I'm doing.”

“So why don’t you ask Ae to get married?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I was afraid she’ll say yes.”

My heart was too suspicious to accept anyone loving me now.

“Me too.”

I shook my head and told him about Ae’s secretive phone calls.

“None of my relationship have had a good landing.”

As much as Bish enjoyed our nights out with Ae, he saw her for what she was. “You should thank your lucky stars, if some stupid Italian can take her away, plus you haven’t been faithful.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t sleep with Mrs. Carolina anymore?” He had me on the witness stand and expected the truth.

“We’re friends.”

“What about Sherri?”

“We’re family.”

“But not blood like you and me.”

“We’re just friends.” He would never accept the porno star as family. He had seen her first movie THE ABDUCTION OF CLAUDIA.

“Isn’t that what Ae said about the Italian?”

“Yes.”

“And that cute hostess, Nu.” Bish arched an eyebrow.

“I haven’t touched her.” No points were awarded for monogamy on the Bight of Siam.

“Not in your mind.” Bish had been taught by the nuns that sins in the mind were as dangerous as those of the flesh.

“It’s not the same thing.” I recognized why he was a successful lawyer in Boston. He was relentless in seeking the truth. In Pattaya the pay-off wasn’t the same.

“Of course not.” He signaled for the bill. The evening sky above the palms was ablaze with stars and Bish said, “You’re my cousin. Having a bad landing doesn’t mean the pilot has to die in the crash.”

“I’ll walk away from the crash.”

“Like that bike crash with the pick-up truck.”

I held up my wrist, which had healed bent. “Only a little battered.”

“Better than dead. Where we meeting your tee-lat?" Bish was picking up bar Thai.

"At the Tahitian Queen a Go-Go. It dates back to the Vietnam War. She danced as a showgirl after her English husband had run off with a karaoke waitress. She told me she went with up to three men a day. Four if she was lucky."

"To take care of here family?"

“Some gave her 2000 baht for short-time.”

"And how much are you give her?"

"I guess not enough."

"Love kill lust. Just remember that."

Ae was waiting at the TQ bar, wearing pink hot pants, a sheer bra, and high heels. A thick layer of chalky blush heightened her Chinese features and her hair had been teased to a ridiculous height. She looked ready for the prowl and the mama-san asked Ae to dance.

She ignored my scowl and jumped up on the stage. Her body rippled around a fire pole to a Brittany Spears’ hit. Slattern eyes were riveted to her reflection on the mirror. She dropped the straps from her shoulders to expose her breasts. This routine was out of her normal skein of bad behavior and I scanned the object of this deviation, when the mama-san handed a note to a skinny young falang with a big nose. His two young friends glared in my direction. The three sported Milan AC football shirts.

“I think it’s the Italian.” Ae had pointed out other “Friends in the past. None had studied her every move so intently and I gripped my beer.

“Do yourself a favor and don’t start anything.” Bish was on a vacation

Ae was 24, had two kids, an ex-husband, a criminal family, no concept of money, no education, and no ambition beyond having sanuk versus her beauty and our sex. The equation had only one solution.

“Bish, you said the best option would be let Ae go with the Italian.”

“Save you a lot of trouble in the end and in the middle too.”

“Cut bait and run.” It had worked for Ronald Reagan after the Marine barrack bombing in Beirut.

“At this point you can walk. Later you will have to run.”

Ae bared her breasts to the young man.

“I’m opting for the Italian plan.”

“It’s a wise decision.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s why it feels like the wrong thing to do.”

Ae sashayed off the stage at the end of the song with a long strand of hair whipping across her spine, challenging the young Italian to maintain his invisibility.

“I still dance best.”

“Yes, you would win the bar fine prize every night.” I said, but she missed my sarcasm and said, “Thank you, tee-lat.”

“Let’s go someplace more interesting,” Bishop suggested and we left TQ'S to view Hot and Cold a Go-Go’s midnight live show. He loved the fire show. Ae’s cousin worked the lesbian act and Bish barfined her for the night to balance out the third wheel.

By 2am I was ready for sleep.

Mem was not tired. “I want dance one more hour.”

“One hour?” Thai time was not measure by a clock.

“One hour. Not more.” She had plans with the Italian.

“Have a good time.” This would finish us and I would be a free man. I kissed Ae goodnight and she said, “Go Marine with cousin and Bish. Come home soon.”

I watched TV until 3. The phone hadn’t rung and I called Ae. Her not picking up had a million possibilities. I settled on one and drove my bike to my cousin’s hotel. The desk clerk said that Bish had gone to his room ten minutes ago. Possibly Ae had returned home and I drove to my soi in less than five minutes. It might as well have been ten. The house would have been empty either way.

Pattaya was not a big city. She wasn’t at the Lao coffee shop or the karaoke bar across the creek. No one had seen her at the Marine discos. I rolled up to the biggest disco in the city. The motorcycle attendants asked where my mia was, which meant either she wasn’t here or they were covering up for my ‘wife’. I went inside to discover it was the former and I walked out feeling better, until Ae arrived on the Italian’s motorcycle.

She said, “Don’t talk now.”

Her plea came about an hour too late.

“I take care of you for a year and the second this punk comes into town you go off with him.”

“Why you talk same this?” She slipped off the bike with her eyes clouded with confusion. Her favorite band Loso was playing inside and this boy on the bike was young. “He friend.”

“Who’s this?” the Italian asked in clipped English.

The prospect of two falangs fighting over a dok thong had become a cartoon for the scores of Thais before the nightclub. Their laughter horrified Ae, but she remained by the Italian’s side. His friends bracketed him. It was three against one. The love potion's power came on strong and my veins burned with the lava of jealousy.

“Please don’t fight.”

The music from CHAO MOTORSAI boomed from the disco and her words ricocheted inside my skull. She had chosen this young man. Her khun gair was out and I said, “You fucking bitch.”

While non-fluent in gutter American, she started crying into her hands. The Italian realized his trespass into an unexpected relationship and apologized, “There are a hundred women in Pattaya. She can go with you.”

“No, you can have her.” I pressed the electric starter and roared out of the parking lot.

This was not Romeo and Juliette.

Back at the house I fought to sleep. I had ignored the warnings and nightmares exhausted me by dawn.

In the morning her brother picked up her clothes and drove away without any explanation. Over the next few days I heard the stories from a dozen sources.

She was with a younger man. He had offered a trip to Italy. His father had given him $10,000 to process her visa. The Italian intended on marrying the ex-go-go dancer, whereas I was content with living in sin. It was Ae's middle name. Mine was farang. I could have been anyone to Ae, but Ae was Ae to me.

Sin.

Pure and simple.

As a witch's curse.

LOVE YOU LONG TIME - CHAPTER 7 by Peter Nolan Smith

Despite the success of Italian Plan I obsessed on Ae all the time. I drank beer with her father and brother. They said she was crazy. They also had new clothes and watches. The Italian had bought their loyalty with more than beer. I had to get out of town before I did something monumentally stupid.

An overnight train carried me north to Chiang Mai. I rented a 400cc bike from Australian Jim. Toby was gone. The guesthouse had burned down the previous year.

I drove into the mountains.

I would cross into Burma at Mai Sai. A full tank of gas was enough for a ride halfway through the Shan State. No one checked your passport until Kengtung. China was 90 miles to the North. I revved the engine to 120 kph. My eyes saw nothing of the arid countryside. Only the image of Ae lying with another man and I heard only one word.

"Murder."

I drove north fast to the bridge spanning the Thaton River.

Thai army vehicles crowded the shimmering road. Conscripts nervously studied the northern ridge. The previous day Burmese regulars had shelled orchard project sponsored by King Bumiphol. The 110mm barrage had injured several fruit trees and the Third Army commander was spoiling to avenge this insult to the King in order to get a cut of the cross-border amphetamine traffic from the Red Wa.

The heat mercilessly hovered around 100F, which horrible temperature for killing strangers and the sweating sergeant at the checkpoint warned, “Lawang-si. Big shooting this morning. Two soldiers die.”

“Khon Thai?” As an illegal resident in the Land of Smiles I favored the home team.

“Ban thi.” the sergeant stated noncommittally in fear of the departed souls.

"I die on this road before." I showed him my snapped wrist.

"Motosai?"

"Chai."

"Motosai not same bullet."

"True, but I'm not scared." Any fear of stray bullets was superseded by the necessity to forget my doomed affair and I asked the NCO at the bridge, “May I go to Doi Mae Salong?”

The sergeant honored my request with typical Thai indifference.

“Law ke khun.”

Yes, it is up to me."

I saluted my thanks and the NCO ordered a drowsy private to lift the barrier. The bike accelerated across the bridge. The roadside towns were deserted and not a single car or truck traveled in either direction. The absence of farmers tending crops on the steep slopes was disconcerting, for these people were no strangers to danger and I stopped on a curve to ponder the wisdom of this trip.

I splashed a little water on my face and gazed out on the valley stretching west to distant hills.

Fifty years ago the mountain were covered by tall teak trees and wild elephants roamed the jungles. Tribes clustered atop the misty peaks far from the modern world. They grew opium to soothe their aches. These people had been happy in their ignorance, until the warlords commercialized the drug trade to help the French finance their war in Indochina.

Forests were cleared to grow more opium. Roads were built to connect distribution centers. Bribes were paid to the police. Addiction became a way of life and the plague worsened with the coming of the DEA.

Crop eradication led to wholesale deforestation to raise land-intensive crops on margin hillsides. Opium was refined swiftly into heroin. The hill tribes and Thais turned to shooting smack. Needles were swapped and HIV spread through the mountains. Thailand had a full-blown AIDS epidemic on its hands, because a country on the other side of the world has lost control of its people’s drug addiction.

None of this was visible from the road to Doi Mai Salong nor was any of the damage from the ya bah trade. The morning haze camouflaged the progress and the hot wind crawled on my skin like Ae’s caress. Her magic had traveled the length of Thailand. I had to go further to leave her.

A machine gun’s distant tat-tat-a-tatted from the west. Plumes of earth rose above a low ridge and the distant mortar explosions were the rumble of a giant’s footfall. The breeze shifted to carry a shuffling hiss through the dry grass. The sudden peace offered no comfort.

An ache shivered in my left wrist and I touched the scar indented into my forehead. A deja vu chilled my spine. I had died on this very spot and hadn’t recognized it until now. I hadn’t died then and wasn’t going to die now. I tried Ae’s number. No answer. She was either sleeping off a night at the Marine Disco or ignoring my call.

I clearly saw her on Walking Street with her Italian lover. I jumped on the Honda Super 4 and rode away with a hell-bent acceleration on a narrow road, because my reserve of self-preservation had reached empty. The Honda’s 400cc engine generated enough power to reach 160kph.

No cars ever came my way and about ten minutes from Doi Mai Salong my cellphone vibrating in my pocket. I stopped by the side of the road. The elevation was over 1700 meters, yet the temperature hadn’t dropped a single degree. The leaves of the trees hung lifeless. I checked the number on the LCD. It was Ae’s. I pressed “Yes. And she asked, “U ngai?”

Her speaking Thai indicated the Italian was within earshot and I asked myself why she bothered calling an ex-lover before saying, “I’m in Chiang Mai.”

“Khun mi puying?” She sounded, as if she cared. I should have lied, instead said, “I don’t have any woman.”

“Ching-ching?”

“Yes, it’s the truth.” An Akha woman was traversing the opposite slope to a grass hut.

Hanging up was the best safeguard for my sanity, yet I listened to her whisper, “Miss you, tee-lat. He not same you. When you come?”

I should have said never. Something stopped my saying that word. I remembered the green liquid in the beer bottle. I had been sick for three days. The words of LOVE POTION # 9 jumbled in my head and I told Ae, “Maybe tomorrow.”

“You come. Call me.”

It was an order and I pushed the END button. One substance could erase Ae from my life and I drove the final kilometers to Doi Mai Salong with a krait’s poison running through my veins. The Chinese troops fleeing Mao’s Communists in 1949 had chosen the mountaintop as a refuge.

Its remoteness had guaranteed little interference with the opium trade from the Bangkok government. The completion of a paved road had forced the KMT to legitimize their local enterprises with tourist endeavors and the tribal morning market had been replaced by Chinese merchants selling teas and herbal cures.

It was all a front.

Fin or opium and China White #4 heroin were freely available across the border. I parked my motorcycle by the basketball court and wandered through the alleys in search of opium. No one had any. They fingered me as DEA. I installed myself on a restaurant terrace. My dark mood drove any trinket hawkers from my table.

Beer accompanied my wait. The waiter jealously frowned at my ordering a fourth beer. It wasn’t even Two O’clock. I sang along to Lasso’s chorus and two Akha girls giggled at my rendition of CHAO MOTORSAI, then a teenager sauntered onto the terrace.

His eager eyes and skin stretched tightly over his bones like a witch doctor had shrunk him in the wash identified his addiction to ya bah. He sat at the table, licking his lips.

“I have ganga. 100 baht. Ao, mai ao?”

“No, get me opium. Ma. Horse.” I gave him 500 baht as a test. He went off and stayed away. I was too drunk to drive that night, but couldn’t sleep in the small guesthouse. The sweat from my skin smelled like the green slime smeared around the beer bottle.

Getting a Thai woman out of your system was like cutting gum out of your hair. There was always some left. I needed another woman. There were none in Doi Mae Salong. The ride to Chiang Mai took three hours. I couldn’t wait for the bars to open and caught an afternoon flight to Bangkok. I spoke to Ae twice on the taxi ride to Pattaya.

Both times in English meant she wasn’t with the Italian. She was waiting at the house. Forgiveness rekindled our passion. At midnight she announced she was meeting this Italian. “I tell him it’s over and come to you.”

“How long?” I gulped, wishing I had thrown away my cell phone, never let her out of my sight, and ever having met Ae.

“Not sure. He love me too much. I cannot hurt him same I hurt you. He young man, not old man.” She was dressing in skimpy shorts and a chiffon throng bra. It was not a good-bye outfit. I gave her taxi fare and waited for her. She came to the house at 3am, saying the Italian was smoking ganja with his friends. “I can stay three hours. We make love long time.”

I obeyed with the helplessness of a slave lying under quicksand so his mistress won’t soil her feet,

Afterwards she slept fifteen hours straight. Her telephone rang every thirty minutes. The Italian obviously was unaware about our arrangement. If I answered, he might leave us alone. I looked at the long black tentacles of hair strewn over her face and her mouth agape, as if she were on the verge of taking her dying breath.

A knife to her heart was almost as tempting as a pillow over her face. A couple of seconds and it was over. While violence smoked in my blood, cold-murder wasn’t simmering in my brain and I let her live.

I was no killer.

At least not yet.

And the word for 'fuck' in Thai was 'yet'.

LOVE YOU LONG TIME - CHAPTER 8 by Peter Nolan Smith

The nuns at St. Mary’s of the Foothills had taught their students that on the Judgment Day every soul from the past, present, and future will be assembled to witness a replay of your life, after which God will decided whether you spend eternity worshipping him in Heaven or burning in Hell. With some souls he’ll make in a snap decision. I think of myself as a marginal case, yet the most frightening aspect of this apocalyptic judgment is that billions of soul will have to view my behavior in the month following Ae’s departure to Koh Samui with the Italian.

“Thailand is the best place to break up with a woman,” Sam Royalle stated in the Carousel a Go-Go. Two naked girls were lathering each other with soap. They were beautiful and willing. “You want both?”

“A mere $50 paid for a night of pleasure. I waved off his offer, saying, “Neither.”

“Neither?”

Both girls fully dressed would have caused car crashes in London.

“I’m not in the mood.”

“When a man is tired of fucking in Pattaya, then he’s tired of the world.”

“Sometimes it’s not all about fucking.”

Sam ordered two more vodka-tonics. “You are in bad shape.”

“The operative word is pathetic.” I drained my glass. "I'll see you tomorrow." ll

I hadn’t eaten anything in that period and ended up a Nu’s restaurant. She ordered food for me. I told her about leaving Ae. She knew all about my disaster with Ae. Everyone did, because Thai girls love gossip, especially about tragedies. Nu wasn’t sure that I had left Ae for good, but I started seeing her.

Nothing more serious than going out to eat after she finished work. She refused my advances, saying Pattaya was a big town with over five hundred bars, discos, and go-gos, yet every town gets small, whenever two men fight over one woman and I was about to find out how small over the next few days.

Ae threatened her with a hammer at the restaurant on the Beach Road.

"Why you see woman. You belong me."

Nu stopped answering my phone calls and I was furious with Ae.

We argued at her old bar on Soi 8. There was no love lost between us.

“You have another man. Why do you want me?”

“Because I have two roads. One go Italy. One go you.”

“You have one road now.” She probably managed an entire highway system of men. “Ciao Bella.”

“Scatzo.” She tramped away in a where’s rage.

“Have a good life.” We were finished, and then she showed up at dawn in tears.

“Why you look other woman?” She broke a bottle to slash her wrists. The cuts were diagonal. I wrestled away the bottle. “Stop it.”

She cried, “I love you. Only you.”

We went to the nearest hotel. She used tricks she had learned with other men. Each was a hook to my libido. She resisted no perversion. I tested her endurance. She passed each test. When she left in the morning, Ae said, “I go one hour.”

I could have followed, but after two years in Pattaya I had an extensive spy network. Her cousin from Hot and Cold confessed that Ae dealt ya bah. A motorsai taxi driver from Tony’s Disco said that every night the Italian bought girls for her Thai husband, whom he mistook for her cousin. I might have laughed, expect I had accepted her sah-mee as her brother.

A policeman from Soi 9 intoned that the Italian was dealing ecstasy and Ae was consuming the profits. Her old mama-san from the Tahitian Queen told me at a happy hour. “Ae beautiful, fun, she no good. Her mother leave her____?”

“I’ve heard the story.” A bad childhood didn’t excuse her wickedness.

A travel agent passed on information about her getting an Italian visa. Her leaving was simply a matter of time. I should have been relieved, but one morning after she had shown up unexpectedly for sex, I asked, “If you love me, why are you leaving with this Italian?”

“I not want go, he tells his father he marry me. He send money and I take care of my babies.”

She wiped away her tears. Her lips had kissed the Italian earlier in the day and perhaps her husband as well. Her treason was unforgivable. She didn’t accept my resistance and crawled against my legs. Her skin smelled of cheap perfume and cigarettes. I carried her upstairs.

Magic was magic. It lived on another plane than reality.

We made love five times in the space of two hours.

Afterwards we lay tangled in each other’s limbs and she said, “I not finish with him. Not one time. He have small penis. Not big same you.”

“So you’ll live with me?” The words felt like they fell from another person’s mouth. It was the magic. I couldn’t puke it out or sweat it out. It was stuck in my gut was a stupid question, for the tourist police’s ledgers are filled by the good intentions of ex-working girls paving the road to disaster for thousands of farangs.

“Sure, I love you 100%. I tell him about you. We live together. Same before.”

She rose from the bed and starting dressing. She asked for 1000 baht and I realized she was working two shifts for her family and husband, gambling that her body could control two westerners’ lusts. I had rolled snake-eyes. “How long before you come back?”

Ae looked at the clock on the wall.

It was 10pm.

“Midnight. Give me one hour.”

“You come by midnight?”

“Stay with you forever. You not go out. I not want him fight with you after I tell we finish. Okay?”

We both knew she wasn’t saying goodbye to the Italian in two hours and I didn’t bother to watch her walk down the street, nonetheless I waited for her call. Midnight passed without the phone ringing. An hour later I shut off the TV and went into the garden. The karaoke bar was pumping out an N’Sync hit.

Ae had been dancing to the same song our first night.

My wisest choice was to go inside to bed and let the Italian Plan run its course.

Unfortunately the vengeful snakes inside my skull were hissing too loud to allow any insane man sleep. I got on my bike and rode to Walking Street.

I was once more cursed to dance alone and no one cared about another crazy farang.

Not in the last Babylon on earth.

LOVE YOU LONG TIME - CHAPTER 9 by Peter Nolan Smith

Walking Street was crowded with drunken marines, dok thongs, Englishmen on Ecstasy, tattooed go-go girls, shouting Arabs, Amazonian transvestites, and wide-eyed Chinese tourists. These diverse groups threaded through the gauntlet of dueling music from various beer bars and discos. The heat was driving everyone insane and alcohol was behind the wheel. The collective madness left me in the dust and I realized vengeance was better suited for the Bible. All I really wanted was a cold beer.

Sam Royalle was at Hot Tuna with his wife.

"How's it going?" Sam Royalle glowed with love.

"Everything is fine." I resisted asking, if they had seen Ae.

They would never have said yes or no, for a strange etiquette in Pattaya is that no one ever snitches, if someone’s girlfriend or boyfriend is with someone else.

I ordered a beer.

It went down fast. The next three disappeared even faster. Two tequilas and a whiskey broke my laughter dam. I played snooker against the owner, and beat Pi-ek three games to none. The most beautiful girl in the bar invited me home or to a hotel. I was drunk enough to think it was for my looks.

Pi-ek nodded to warn of approaching danger and I turned to see Ae strut on high platform shoes into the bar. A hair stylist had affixed waist-long hair extensions. Her red satin short shorts left nothing to the imagination and a scarlet halter top covered her flat chest. Her nipples showed through the gauzy material. They were aroused by anger and she demanded, “Why you go with other lady?"

The free-lancer recognized her services for the evening were required elsewhere and fled the beer bar. I should have followed her, but this scene had been rehearsed too many times in my head to not let it play out with my body.

"She only friend."

I had heard someone tell me this before. I was too drunk to remember who.

"Why you not wait me?” Her eyes were on fire.

“Are you fucking mad?”

“Bah? I not crazy.” Ae spat with slurred hatred.

"Not crazy. I'll show you crazy."

A demon was demanding Ae’s sacrifice. The word murder strangely reversed into “Red rum.” Jack Nicholson had said something similar in THE SHINING and I remembered an editor of Heavy Metal magazine introducing me to the author as a fellow Mainiac.

Stephen King had sneered upon hearing I came from Falmouth Foresides, as if anything south of the Bath Iron Works wasn’t Maine. I never read his rip-offs of HP Lovecraft afterwards and wasn’t going to kill anyone with “Red rum” rummaging through my brain.

“You better go with your Italian.”

"You no love me no more?” She was surprised by my surrender.

If I kept my mouth shut, she might walk away, instead I said, “No, I don’t anymore.”

“Ko-hok.” She knew I was lying too and wheeled away onto onto Walking Street in triumph over another crushed heart.

"I'm not a liar."

"You lie me. You lie you too." She gave me the finger. People laughed at me. This scene was played out on Walking Street several times a night, if not more. My audience waited for the one of the two typical responses. The first was to beg her to forgive me, but I had done nothing wrong.

At least that's what I told myself, so I opted for reaction #2.

I grabbed my beer bottle from the bar.

Her Italian stood on the opposite sidewalk. His two friends were laughing at him and me and Ae. So were two transvestites. I didn't see the humor of the situation and drained my beer.

I was free of Ae. I bore no more responsibilities to her or her family. I was the God of my future.

"Good-bye."

"Fuck you, 'good-bye'. You not done me." She stuck out her tongue like a 12 year-old girl threatening to run away from home.

"Fuck you too." I chucked the beer bottle in her direction. The bottle shattered against the wall across the street. Ae ran to the Italian. He held her in his arms. It was the last thing I wanted in this world and it was all my fault.

Time hit fast-forward speed, when he charged the bar. His friends scrummed with Pi-Ek and Sam Royalle, plus several of the bar staff. The Italian threw an overhead punch. I partially blocked it with my forearm. His fist cracked on my cheek. He had a hard hand. Stars fluttered in my eyes. Ae stopped his second punch.

"Yet mung." Ae led him away from the bar. She had lose face, but if the police would show up if this altercation continued any longer and they would be looking for 'sin-bon' or tea money to squash any charges. That money was better in her pocket. She had a family to feed.

"I get you." The Italian was hot. I would have to watch my back until he left town. Once he and his friends accompanied Ae into the Marine Disco, I went over to Sam Royalle and Pi-ek.

"Why didn't you stop me from talking to her?"

"Mate, it's your problem." He ordered the bar a round of tequilas.

"Yes, never step between man and woman. Bad luck." Pi-ek was wise to the ways of Walking Street. “Good, you not hit her. You hit her and have big trouble with police. Expensive. Maybe go to hospital.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Ae’s brothers had killed fellow Thais for 5000 baht. My life was worth more than $125 and I kept telling myself that, as Ae staged several comebacks before finally leaving for Italy in late August. She appeared at my house for sex, while the Italian was at a disco. The hour was usually past midnight. She never stayed for more than an hour.

"Boyfriend smoke too much ganga. Sex not same you." Her body shone with sweat. A shadow against my white sheets. "I not finish with him. Finish with you every time."

"I know." It was a good lie and one I told myself was the truth listening to her pleas for more. Ae was a good actress and I was a better audience.

"I go soon." She didn't know the date.

"I'll miss you."

"Not yet. We do again."

She called two weeks later from the airport. Her plane was leaving in the afternoon.

"Please come get me. Take me back."

"Go outside and get a taxi."

"Can not do. He and friends watch me."

"Sorry." Three Italians versus me was bad odds. Ae actually coming back to me were even worst. I stayed where I was.

"Bonna fortuna."

Ae called me every day from Italy. Her boyfriend was a drug dealer. No one spoke Thai. The food was not spicy.

"Come get me, please."

I would hang up the phone before saying something I would regret, because while she might have left Pattaya, her soul was still in my heart. I went to a travel shop on Walking Street. The agent told me the cost of a ticket to Milan. I told him that I would think about it.

Coming out of the travel agency, I spotted Nu heading to work in her waitress outfit. I called her name. She didn't stop walking and I ran up to her.

"What's wrong?"

"I hear you and girlfriend fight." She shook her head.

“I’m an old fool."

"Big fool." Nu turned her head. Her eyes were filled with disappointment.

"I don't know why I did that. I wanted her to go. I did everything to make her go. It's almost like she did a magic spell on me."

"Magic?" This word stopped Nu from entering her restaurant.

"Yes, like love potion." The words to the Searcher's song LOVE POTION #9 rambled through my head.

"You drink something funny?" Nu was serious. Thais are big believers in magic. Ghosts too.

“I think so too.” The green liquid in the glass. “I drank this water once. It tasted bad. I saw a green stain on the glass."

"You drink aa-kom." She was horrified by this love potion. "Your girlfriend from Isaan. People from there have big magic. Not good magic. Bad magic."

"Do you know how to stop a love curse?”

“Have to have old lady make rice. She stand over rice and let sweat fall into rice. Then you eat. Love potion finished.”

“You’re joking?”

“No.”

Her next day off Nu brought an old lady at her apartment building to cook the rice and stand over the steaming pot. I thought they were joking, but both of them watched with interest as I drank the antidote. It tasted terrible. I didn’t sleep or eat two days, but afterwards I didn’t think about Ae.

In fact I didn't think about any of the women I had loved in my life.

This was good magic, except I still realized how much a fool I had been.

“Everyone can be a fool sometimes. Only all the time is bad.” Nu still refused any intimacy. “I have been a fool one time too. Maybe have big heart. Same you.”

We spoke about the potion, Ae, or us. Nu’s husband had left her for another woman and I wondered whether there were any happy endings in Thailand. She said, “Happy ending are good in movie. But only in cartoon.”

Nu accompanied me to Don Muang Airport, saying in Thai. “Thailand is very beautiful.”

“I’ll remember it that way.”

“Maybe you come back one day and you kiss me.”

It was sweet to hear after my year and a half with Ae. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I’ll pray to Buddha you do.”

“Krup kuhn kap.” I wai-ed her, because she had smoothed over a rough spot in my soul. I couldn’t wait six month. Her lips were tender. The kiss was a short one.

My name was called for final boarding.

Nu smiled and I released her hand. I was going to America. Manny would hire me to sell diamonds for Christmas. Sherri would laugh about the love potion. Ms. Carolina would take me skiing. Maybe Bill could convince Monty to make a movie about the Italian Plan.

I would be back in Thailand for the New Year. All I wanted was a little love. It wasn’t too much to ask from life. Not in Pattaya or anywhere else in the world. Even for a fool, especially after being freed from a curse, then again everyone is a fool when it comes to love.

THAI GLOSSARY

AO, MAI AO - want, not want

A-RAI - what?

BAH - Mad

CHING CHING - True

CHOK DI - Good luck

DOK THONG - slut

FARANG - Westerner

FEN - Boyfriend

FIN - Opium

JEP-HOO- headache

JUM JAM Pawn shop

LAK KHUN love you

KHUN-GARH Old man<

KI shit

KO-HOK Liar

KOR-THOT sorry

KRUP KHUN KRAP Thank you

KWAII buffalo