Square S&M / The Castle - Pattaya 2007

Back in 2007 the Castle opened for business providing hardcore sex across from the Buffalo Bar on Pattaya's 3rd Road. The dress code was black. I was more interested in drinking beer and sat at the bar, but the Buffalo's bar girls watched young women exit from the S and M bar at the end of the night to mount new motor-scooters driven by their Thai boyfriends. None of them girls looked none the worse for an evening of hard work.

"2000 baht for 30 minutes." Tuk told me, then added. She was everyone's #1 girl at the Buffalo. "No sex. Only beat man. Good money."

Later that week Nick was sitting with Tuk and he asked me, "What you think happens in there?"

"The usual. Whips, chains, handcuffs, fetish stuff." I had read on Stickman.com that the Castle was quite a nice place. "Do you want to share them with mates?"

"I don't see why not?"

"Because you don't want to know what you like. Pattaya is where place where you indulged your innermost fantasies.

"If you went there, what would you do?" Nick pointed to a man leaving the Castle, as if he had a plug up his ass.

"I don't know."

"You must have some hidden desire?" The Tottenham Spurs fan wasn't letting me off easy.

"None that I can think of." It was the truth. My only fantasy was lying in bed with Mam, my wife.

"Whipping a nurse?"

"No."

"Getting whipped by a nurse?"

"No." I lifted my finger to stop him, then wracked my brain for an answer. "I'm stumped."

"No sadistic menage a trois fantasies or masochistic domination wishes?

"No." My mind was a sexual wasteland.

"That can't be possible."

"Sad, but true, I'm a square." I was shocked by this admission and drove home to Mam in Jomtien. We made love and I felt her belly. Our baby was growing inside her.

I fell asleep in her arms, but two hours I woke with a scream.

"What wrong?" Mam was used to my snores.

Not screams.

"Nothing." I couldn't tell her about a dream of S and M Thai girls chasing me around the Castle. Thai women are very jealous, even of ghosts in your dreams. There was only one way to exorcise this monster and a week later I departed the Jomtien apartment in a black shirt and black jeans.

"Who die?" Mam was suspicious.

"No one. I just want to wear black."

"You look like mafia."

"Thanks." I kissed her. "I'll be back early."

"I wait you." Mam knew once I had two beers, that I wasn't going to fool around and I had already finished two Leos.

I rode my Vespa over to 3rd Road and parked two hundred years from the Castle. I didn't want anyone from the Buffalo Bar seeing me enter the S and M establishment.

Stickman had warned that the Castle wasn't cheap.

Anything went there as long as there was no blood, so?1000 baht an hour?was a bargain, especially since back in the USA a good dominatrix could charge a $1000/HR.

Darkness was my friend and I touched my wallet. I had 5000 baht on me, however the security guards from the Buffalo spotted me. "Pai ngai?"

I pointed inside and they shouted out 'good luck'.

I opened the door. The bar was dimly lit with receding settees. The girls lounged at the bar. One set were vinyl dominatrixes, another slave girls in school uniforms, and lingerie-clad submissives. On stage a stocky dyke in black vinyl dripped hot wax onto her farang victim. His screams of pain sounded real. The matronly mama-san came to my table and explained the rates as well as the options.

"Drink with lady 250 baht. One hour with lady 3000 baht. Extra cost more. Up to you."

"If you want longer, girl can take it." The mama-san was proud of her girls. "Most farang come here English, German, Kohn Nippon. Khon Nippon like tie up girl and then whip her. German like sick thing and England man like spanking. What America like?"

I had the money and the time, yet no idea what I wanted from a woman who would do anything. "I don't know."

"You not know? Ask what you want."

I was about to repeat my previous answer, when a big-breasted dominatrix in black leather emerged from the back room leading a fat German by a chain. Her hair was cut like Betty Page and she was no stranger, for I had been admiring Cochise for the past three years. She had a vicious French boyfriend. Yves was a pimp from Marseilles. He had recently been recently deported from Thailand for selling phony credit cards.

"You like Cochise?"

"Maybe." I wasn't willing to admit yes.

I'll get her for you." The madam gestured to the hardened pro.

Cochise freed the German and then kneeled before the mama-san to kiss her boots. She looked up at me and I whispered my request to the mama-san.

"She never slave."

"I don't want her to be a taa-see.If she says no, then it's no, but ask her."

I gave her a purple bill.

500 baht got the mama-san to tell Cochise my request.

Cochise nodded yes and sat by my side.

Her skin smelled of unwanted sex.

"I see you before. At Welkom Inn." She leaned over to touch my thigh

"I saw you there too."

A lady drink arrived at the table and Cochise sighed five seconds, "I not slave."

"Me too." I wasn't so sure that Cochise was telling the truth, since I had seen her sporting black eyes from her Froggie boyfiend, then again that was love and this was commerce.

"So what you want to do?"

"Chain you and have sex." The couple on stage had moved onto a paddling. The smacks ringed in my ears. I didn't want to hurt anyone.

"No whips."

Cochise nodded her agreement.

"Only one hour. 3000 baht. Have customer come later. He slave. Easy work. You maybe not easy. Maybe you do before."

Cochise signaled to the mama-san she was heading out back.

"Maybe you want other girl."

"Want you only."

"Barg wan." She walked down a small corridor into a white room. Chains hung on the wall. The cuffs were leather.

"No sweet talking. The truth." I wanted her, but only really like this.

She stripped off her leather. Her breasts and small nipples. She was also not really a woman, but a ladyboy. She kept hiding the truth.

"You can be master now." Cochise kneeled on the floor. Her hair hung over her face. Her pose and the darkness of the room transported us back a hundred years when most Thais were slaves. Royalty could do with kee kao or slaves as they liked. For an hour or two I could do the same and that's the beauty of the Castle, except I wasn't into it.

"What wrong?"

"I can't do it." Mam was in my mind. I had never cheated on her.

"You love your lady." Her laugh was a whip.

"Chai." I gave Cochise her money. She waii-ed respectfully and said, "Maybe lucky can be your slave again or mistress."

She slapped my ass with a strength born of a rebel.

Two minutes later I left the castle and walked over to the Buffalo.

All the girls wanted to know. "Khun penh taat reu naii?"

Master or slave?

Tuk most of all.

"Kwam lap." No one needed to know my secret.

"Khun penh ajaan sadeet." A bargirl accused me of being a sadistic teacher.

"Not even close." I had realized her fantasy. Then again Tuk played a lot of roles for farangs.

I bought her a drink and a gin-tonic for me.

After three gin-tonics Cochise was out of my mind, but not 100% gone until I got back to Mam.

I was her slave and she was the mother of my baby, which meant I really was a square, but if you're looking for something a little different, visit the Castle. It ain't cheap, so bring cash since they don't accept Visa.

RATES

1-year membership for 15,000 baht

Non-members

900 baht entrance fee includes one drink.

Next drinks 300 baht

Bottle 7000 baht includes mixers

MEMBERS get 50% off

Lady Drinks - 250 baht

Dress code - black shirt required.

Hours 5:30 till closing.

Website http://www.the-castle-pattaya.com

THE CASTLE THIRD ROAD PATTAYA

visit their website

https://www.the-castle-pattaya.com/map-the-castle-pattaya

Thai Tattoos Too -2007

Pattaya must be the per capita capitol of farangs with tattoos. Shirtless westerners parade the streets to exhibit the beauty of their body art, despite the collateral damage to the colored flesh from the tropical sun. Most tattoos are eagles, dragons, and declarations of never-ending love to go-go girls festooned with vows of fidelity to previous girlfriends. Occasionally you come across tattoos of incredible stupidity.

Several years ago I spotted a twenty year-old Brit with the name DAVID tattooed down his spine.

"Why David?" I asked him.

“So people know who they just saw.”

"You're David?" Conventioneers wear a simple name tag to say hello.

"The one and only." A name tag through his pierced nipple would have been a more effective form of introduction.

"If you say so." David is the second most common name in America. The same has to be true for Britain.

Later I mentioned the stupidity of this particular David to my friend, Jamie Parker. We sat at the Buffalo Bar on Sai 3. More than a few of the girls had tattoos and a trio of British lager louts bore years of blue ink on their forearms, necks, and faces.

"Can't you imagine Michelangelo's Statue of David with a tattoo?"

"Good, unless it wasn't on that little acorn of a penis." Jamie hated male nude statues and their mini-cocks. "You know that I don't have any tattoos. "

I didn't say anything about the tracks on his arm. Jamie had been clean for ten years now.

"Me neither." The nuns at Our Lady of the Foothills warned their students that any skin art banned them from heaven. I had none, even though my faith was atheism. The sisters were excellent teachers.

"Last thing I needed as a kid was an identification scar or body marking." Jamie had been a criminal in his younger years. "In prison cons tattoo to their bodies out of boredom or rebellion. I was always thinking that one day I'd be on the outside and I intended to stay on the outside, but a couple of months ago I was taking a whitewater rafting trip at the Sabaii Massage."

"I know the place." Whitewater rafting was the local euphemism for a soapie with a naked girl or two.

"This one spinner had the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE to the American flag tattooed on her back. Being with her made me feel a little patriotic."

"I can imagine the feeling." Neither of us had been back in the USA for years. "I have a friend who had MADE IN THE UK tattooed on his forehead."

"Stupid place for a tattoo."

"Even worse his mother told him he had been born in Poland."

"Dumb Polack."

"What about Thai tattoos?"

"I don't talk about that. I'm a guest of this country and those tattoos are magic." Jamie had a healthy fear of red-lom.

"Traditional Thai tattoos or 'sakyant' are supposed to protect the wearers from misfortune and evil spirits and anyone getting men tattooed are asked to obey the five following rules; honor your parents, be faithful to your wife, no drugs, don't eat any fruit from off the ground, and no oral sex with women."

"I'm good with honoring my parents, faithful to my wife, and fruit off the trees, unless you're hungry."

"I'm good with most of them too." The oral sex was impossible." "My problem with tattoos has been finding one I could live with the rest of my life. 69, Born to be Wild, Mom, the name of my son or daughter might have fit the bill."

"But not the Pledge of Allegiance."

"Not a chance." I don't need to prove my allegiance to the USA."

"I doubt that poor girl knows what she’s wearing."

"Probably true, but America salutes her patriotism."

We lifted our beer glasses to toast her.

"USA USA USA."

The Brits at the bar glared at us. Jamie glared right back. We weren't going to heaven, but we were in Pattaya and as anyone knows who has lived in the Last Babylon for more than two weeks it's paradise on earth.

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.

Halloween in Pattaya 2007

In 2007 Pattaya celebrated the old Celtic festival of Samhain with a singularly Thai flavor. Bar girls dressed in skimpy dresses and go-go girls painted fake blood on their faces. Farangs drank more than normal nights. It's a pagan holiday and nothing says pagan better than bar-fining a go-go girls, beer, and a devilish hang-over the morning-after.

That Halloween I got no farther than the Buffalo Bar.

I wore my Ramones outfit.

Torn jeans, Keds sneakers, a Ramones t-shirt, and Ramones baseball cap.

None of the girls made any comment, since I had worn the same outfit to the bar on innumerable occasions.

I drank five Chang beers. 6.9 % alcohol.

I asked three lesbians to short-time with me.

They laughed at my lewd suggestions, knowing I was a faithful farang to my two wives.

The scary thing about Halloween 2007 was my two-minute motorcycle ride home.

Which on five Chang beers was a mighty scary trip.

NAPS OF THAILAND by Peter Nolan Smith

When a Chinese general was asked about how the People's Army were defeated by the Vietnamese in 1979, he replied, "We get up at 5am and they get up at 4."

The draconian work ethic of NVA seemed to have been sapped by the torrid climes closer to the equator, because Thais and Laotians are epic sleepers with an uncanny ability to find comfort in conditions better suited to a CIA rendition camp.

Some farangs attributed this hyper-sleeping habit to oriental lassitude, however their Eurocentric observations are way off mark.

Most Thais wake before dawn to work in the rice fields until the heat hits treacherous body-sapping temperatures and then 'Khon tam khao' retreat from the sun for a good meal followed by a better nap or nge'ep before returning to the fields for the long afternoon.

This rice farming tradition has been transported to the cities where workers labor from dawn to dusk six days a week.

Having lived in the South of France, where siestas are a valued cultural treasure, I often defended the Thais and other Asians' sleeping habits.

"Naps are good for you," I once said at the Buffalo Bar.

"So explain to me why bar girls sleep twenty hours at a clip," an English bar-goers asked in Pattaya. Jim had been here for years. His vocabulary in Thai was limited to orders for more beer and sexual propositions.

"Only can be several reasons." I'd been in the Orient since 1990.

I didn't have all the answers.

Just some of the right ones.

"Like what?" Jim was eying his date. The plump bargirl seemed alert for the moment. The fifty year-old mustn't have paid her yet.

"First is that she's exhausted from having sex with you." Many farangs in Thailand exist on a diet of Viagra and alcohol.

"Could be." The bar-goer smiled with pride.

"Second, she could be on ja-bah and crashes after sex." His girl's fatness excluded her huffing meth. She was a healthy eater.

"No way. The cops piss-tested her at Marine Disco the other night. She came up clean."

"Well, that leaves only one other explanation and this comes from a very knowledgeable Mama-san of a go-go bar. She said the reason most of these girls sleep so much is that they're trying to escape the reality of having to have sex with a fat farang and would rather live inside a sleep world until they have enough money to rejoin other Thai people. Of course this couldn't pertain to you since you're such a sex hero."

Jim tipped the scales over 280 and his age was a 20th of Methuselah. No one had called him 'sexy' since he was in his teens and that person had probably been the parish priest. For an Englishman Jim had good smile considering he had half his front teeth.

"I'm not so sure about that." Even Jim recognized that he was no Apollo.

Me neither, but I like hearing girls tell me I'm the best I ever had.

It's a lie which improved with age and I sleep in peace content to accept a well-intentioned lie.

Sleeping well is a talent an old man admires with age.

Those damn Thais.

There is nothing like a good nap and as Carrie Snow once said, “No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap.”

Ching ching.

86ed from the Buffalo Bar - 2012

From 2012

I first walked into the Buffalo Bar in 1997. The bar on Sai 3 became my local in Pattaya after I moved to Soi Bong Koch in 2002. The beer was cold, the open-air atmosphere was a welcome change from the go-go bars' tobacco-reek, beer lout falangs, and more than a few of the hostesses were desirable. My ex-wife understandably hated the place and didn't buy my excuse for frequenting the bar.

 "I only go there because it's not far from home."

It was less than two minutes away by motorcycle.

Telling a lie would have sounded better, but the truth was much easier to remember.

My constant companion was my little dog Champoo. She sat on the bar and lap at a small bowl of Heineken. The girls loved my Szhi-Tzu. They knew her name, but not mine, but nothing nice lasts forever.

Eddy, the fortyish owner took up with a young Belgium thug. She relinquished the daily running of the bar to Sandy, an old crow from Isaan, Thailand's poorest province. The mama-san's constant cawing grated on the ears and she insulted the best girls like Cinderella's stepmother realizing her beauty had faded for good. They left in droves.

Only Tuk remained, which was enough for me.

She had plenty of salacious stories from her past and present.

One night I sat with Tuk and Champoo. My dog was having her usual. Champoo didn't like Chang. It was either too strong or bitter. She's been doing this over three years. Everyone loves her, but this night Sandy tells me to get Champoo off the bar.

"Dog dirty. Dog smell. Dog not come to bar."

I thought about it a little. I had been coming there for years. Buying drinks for everyone. Never complained when they added a little chisel onto the bar bill.

I wasn't having anyone speak to Champoo like that.

"Just give me the bill. I'm leaving. You know what. I'm never coming back here as long as you work here."

"Good." Sandy didn't own the place. She only worked there.

"Good for me too. Save money. And I tired of hearing you speak."

"Good you go too." Sandy screeched with her eyes wide. She was angry at me and Champoo. "You not special. You same all farang. Come and go. Come and go. One day die.

"And you're the same as all women. You get old same."

The tone of the conversation descended down a slope slippery with expletives in Thai and American. The bouncers rushed into the bar, ready to throw out an unruly foreigner. Seeing me they stopped in their track. I bought them pizza. Sandy gave them shit.

"Don't worry boys, I'm leaving."

"And don't come back." Sandy shouted from behind a phlanx of bar girls.

"No problem."

Outside the bouncers begged me to incite Sandy to a fight.

"You slap her no problem." Dao the head of security winked at me. She was no one's friend, but my mother didn't raise me to hit women and to be honest Champoo was a little dirty, although no more than most of the old farangs haunting the Buffalo or me. At least she never sweats. Not even when she's drunk.

So there ends a beautiful relationship between me and a bar. Funny, not sad at all. Then again there are 3000 other bars in Pattaya. One of them has to be right for me, but in the end I knew Champoo and I would come back to the Buffalo.

After all it was right down the street and neither Champoo nor I liked driving home drunk.

ps THe BUffalo Bar was still there in 2022.

46/30 Mu 9, Pattaya Sai 3 Road, Bang Lamung, Chonburi, Pattaya

Tuk (Buffalo Bar) 2006

From May 2006

Tuk works at the Buffalo Bar. Has been there on and off since 2001. She was 19 then and sexier than a bar filled with go-go girls, mostly because she was crazy and didn't mind taking off her clothes to be groped by older men. She took her revenge by letting them fall in love. They would shower her with gold, money, attest their never-ending love. She would reward them by soaking them for every baht. My friend, Dave, invested in a fashion shop selling sexy clothing. It went bust. He declares now, "She's a nutter."

 A German muscle builder had a kid with her. Thought he could change her ways. Sorry Otto, you were wrong. Tuk is still sexy as ever and more dangerous than a snake in bed. I like her, if only because she is the wildest girl I know in Pattaya.

Gai (buffalo bar) 2006

From May 2006

I've known Gai about 5 years. She's worked at the Buffalo bar on and off. Off when she had a boyfriend. On when she didn't. My cousin went with her once in 2001. My friend AJ in 2002. he dated my friend Fabo in 2004. The number of men in between couldn't be counted on our four hands. Gai is a very popular girl.

She's statuesque for a Thai and reminds me of Jayne Mansfield. She used to get naked a lot of the parties. I think I can remember licking salt off her breasts after doing a shot of tequila. She thought it was really funny. Me too.

86ed from the Buffalo Bar

I first walked into Pattaya's Buffalo Bar on Third Road in 1997. It became my local after I moved to Soi Bong Koch. The beer was cold, the open-air atmosphere was a welcome change from the go-go bars' tobacco-reek, and more than a few of the hostesses were desirable. My ex-wife understandably hated the place and didn't buy my excuse for frequenting the bar.

 "I only go there because it's not far from home."

It was less than two minutes away by motorcycle.

Telling a lie would have sounded better, but the truth was much easier to remember.

I'd go there with my little dog Champoo. She'd sit on the bar and lap at a small bowl of Heiniken. The girls loved my Szhi-Tzu. They didn't even know my name, but nothing nice lasts forever.

Eddy, the fortyish owner, had taken up with a young Belgium thug. She relinquished the daily running of the bar to Sandy, an old crow from Isaan. The mama-san's constant cawing grated on the ears and she insulted the best girls like Cinderella's stepmother realizing that her beauty had faded for good. They left in droves.

Only Tuk remained, which was enough for me.

She had plenty of salacious stories from her past and present.

One night I was sitting with Tuk and Champoo. My dog was having her usual. Heineken. She didn't like Chang. It was either too strong or bitter. She's been doing this over three years. Everyone loves her, but this night Sandy tells me to get Champoo off the bar.

"Dog dirty. Dog smell. Dog not come to bar."

I thought about it a little. I had been coming there for years. Buying drinks for everyone. Never complained when they added a little chisel onto the bar bill.

I wasn't having anyone speak to Champoo like that.

"Just give me the bill. I'm leaving. You know what. I'm never coming back here as long as you work here."

"Good." The old harridan didn't own the place. She only worked there.

"Good for me too. Save money. And I tired of hearing you speak."

"Good you go too." Sandy screeched with her eyes wide. She was angry at me and Champoo. "You not special. You same all farang. Come and go. Come and go. One day die.

"And you're the same as all women. You get old."

The tone of the conversation descended down a slope slippery with expletives in Thai and American. The bouncers rushed into the bar, ready to throw out an unruly foreigner. Seeing me they stopped in their track. I bought them pizza. Sandy gave them shit.

"Don't worry boys, I'm leaving."

"And don't come back." Sandy shouted from behind a phlanx of bar girls.

"No problem."

Outside the bouncers begged me to incite Sandy to a fight.

"You slap her no problem." Dao the head of security winked at me. She was no one's friend, but my mother didn't raise me to hit women and to be honest Champoo was a little dirty, although no more than most of the old farangs haunting the Buffalo or me. At least she never sweats. Not even when she's drunk.

So there ends a beautiful relationship between me and a bar. Funny, not sad at all. Then again there are 3000 other bars in Pattaya. One of them has to be right for me, but in the end I knew Champoo and I would come back to the Buffalo.

After all it was right down the street and neither Champoo nor I liked driving home drunk.

COME ALL YE FAITHFUL by Peter Nolan Smith

Pattaya is not a city known for monogamy.

Promises of fidelity last, until you leave the room, because this city on Thailand’s Eastern Seaboard offers temptations by the thousands and those temptations rarely say no.

Bar girls, rent boys, ka-toeys, booze, and drugs added up to damnation according to Reverend Joe Stannis of the Holy Revival Church located down the street from my old soi. The born-again Christian preached through a megaphone to passing motorists.

“You are all going to hell.” The black-suited minister of the faith liked shaking his fist. Thais thought he was 'bah' or a fool.

Attached to his concrete chapel was a sign pointing the way to the Angel Inn, the nearest ‘Love Motel’, where rooms rent by the hour or day.

Anytime I drove past the reverend I shouted, "Heaven on Earth."

"And damnation to you." Born-agains have no sense of humor, especially in a city whose motto is written on tee-shirts, whose manufacturers transformed Mae West’s epithet. “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go anywhere they want.” to “Good men go to heaven. Bad men go to Pattaya.”

Nevertheless this doesn’t mean everyone in Pattaya was a sinner.

Even Sodom had one good man and my friend Richard claimed to have never cheated on his wife.

Several years back Richard, Nick, and I were sitting at the Buffalo Bar. Beers were before us. The DJ was playing HOTEL CALIFORNIA. Richard explained his faithfulness. His girlfriend was at his side. Lee was old school, but her beauty was a mystery after 10 years in Pattaya.

“I’m too lazy to be unfaithful and it’s not in my nature.” Richard was a contractor from the UK. He worked 10-12 hour days. Lassitude only pertained to matters of the heart, but the Brit doesn’t know that his Thai wife sleeps with another man. His friends never tell Richard either. It's considered bad form.

“No one is faithful in this town.” Nick was a Tottenham Spurs fan. They were his only love. His girlfriend worked as a service girl at the Buffalo Bar. Fen was too pretty for words.

“Fen has a German boyfriend. He pays for her schooling. She sees me when he leaves town and considers herself ‘faithful’ to both of us. Fen never asks me for money."

And you think you get free sex?"

“Nothing is free in Pattaya.” Everything had a price, even if it was marked ‘free’.

“So is Fen your mia noi?” Richard asked Nick.

“No, she not mia noi. She geek,” Richard’s girlfriend explained waving for another gin-tonic.

“What’s the difference?” Richard was clearly confused by the demarcation of fidelity. The question was directed at his girlfriend. The seeds of suspicion were worming into his trust. Lee stammered for an answer. Nick saved her from having to tell the truth.

“A mia noi you take care. A geek is someone you have sex with and care about but only a little. You see her when you see her and it’s no big deal.” Nick obviously had been educated in the difference.

“But your girlfriend doesn’t think she’s your geek?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that.” Nick was hardly defensive with this answer. “Fen is what she is.”

“So you never say the love word?”

“No.” Nick shook his head. “It’s a sex thing.”

“So she is a geek?” Richard couldn’t fathom why people sleeping together for purely sex.

“No, not geek. Not mia noi. Not friend.” Richard’s girlfriend was exasperated by the his husband’s density, but he only wanted to know where Nick’s girl stood in the scheme of things.

"You like her?"

Yes, but I'm in love." He had told me many times that he wasn’t faithful to her. Not like she was to him or Richard was to Lee. I got up and left to avoid any examination of my situation.

Jamie Parker sast at the other end of the bar.

When I told my friend about the discussion, the New Yorker smiled slyly and said, “This is not a town for the pure of heart. Some women here regard their husbands as faithful if they don’t bring anyone home or aren't seen with another women by their friends. Other women think you’re cheating if you look at another woman or think of one. Men will believe any story by these bar girls to grant them immunity from a life of sleeping with complete strangers. I call it the Eliza Doolittle syndrome. I can rescue her from this life of sin. Ha, but it’s not the farang boyfriend most men have to worry about. It’s the Thai ex-. They never die, even if the girl says his husband was killed in a motorcycle accident.”

“I’d heard that story twice.”

“Bet every man in Pattaya has heard it at least once. We are all bad men thinkng we are different from all the other bad man.” Jamie had little use for stories. His girlfriend had worked on Soi 6 three years. Ort liked being a bad girl and so did Jamie. “Everyone has been unfaithful in either thought or deed and I don’t know what’s worse. Thinking about it and doing it.”

“Doing it.”

“Yeah, but at the end of your life are you going to be sorry about not doing it or doing it?”

“Regrets I have a few but then again too few to mention.” There had been twins at the old Blackout a Go-go. I had been faithful to my previous girlfriend. She left me for an Italian.

“Sinatra the Philosopher.”

“Aristotle to be is to do. Kant to do is to be.”

“And Sinatra do-be-do-be-do.” Jamie crooned off-key and several bar girls stared his way, as if he was a dog with his paw stuck in a door. “Are you thinking about going home with someone from here?”

“No way.” I lived two minutes from the Buffalo. Mam was my steady. We had been seeing each other for over a year. I hadn’t been with anyone in that time. Something was wrong with being faithful in Pattaya and I thought that maybe she had dowsed me with a love potion.

“Is Mam that jealous?”

“She’d cut it off and feed it to the ducks.” Castration was a favorite punishment Thai women inflicted on philandering males. So much so that Thai doctors had become the world’s premier saviors of amputated penises. Accordingly Thai women cast the severed member to the duck pen, since quackers, unlike pigs, eat anything.

Even cock.

“Better to keep your sins in thoughts and not deeds.” Jamie advised, for Ort was equally vicious when it came to a roaming eye.

“Deeds we can save for the after-life.”

“Or secrets we never tell anyone else. Is it a sin if no one knows?”

"In this town everyone knows sooner or later."

My fidelity depends on my drinking. Mam also knows that once I’ve had two drinks all I really want is a couple more drinks. She accepts this fallibility as the least of all evils and I went home to surf through the ennuidom of international TV. Mam was off playing cards with her friends. She wasn’t answering her phone. The night was still young, but I shut off the TV and went to sleep with dreams of becoming a saint.

At least in deed.

Thought was another story.

We’re all going to hell.

At least according to Reverend Joe Stannis of the Holy Revival Church and that preacher knows sin.

COME ALL YE FAITHFUL by Peter Nolan Smith

Written Mar 26, 2016 at 11:35

Pattaya is a city not well known for monogamy. Promises of fidelity last until you leave the room, because this city on Thailand's Eastern Seaboard has temptations by the thousands and those temptations rarely say no.

Bar girls, rent boys, ka-toeys, booze, and drugs added up to damnation according to Reverend Joe Stannis of the Holy Revival Church located down the street from my old soi. He preached in a black suit to passing motorists.

A megaphone in hand.

"You are all going to hell." Only in English.

The Thais thought he was crazy, because attached to his concrete chapel was a sign pointing the way to the nearest 'Love Motel'.

The Angel Inn.

The rooms rent by the hour or day for Heaven on Earth testifying to Pattaya's motto.

"Good men go to heaven. Bad men go to Pattaya."?

This quip was borrowed from Mae West's epithet. "Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go anywhere they want."

Nevertheless this doesn't mean everyone in Pattaya is all sinners, because even Sodom had one good man and my friend Richard has never cheated on his wife in Pattaya.

Several years back we were sitting at the Buffalo Bar.

Beers before us.

The DJ was playing HOTEL CALIFORNIA. The Englishman's girlfriend was at his side. Despite working the bars for ten years Lee's undying beauty was a miracle and Richard explained his faithfulness.

"I'm too lazy to be unfaithful and it's not in my nature."?

Richard was a London contractor working 10-12 hour days, so his lassitude only pertains to matters of the heart.

Thankfully he doesn't know that his Thai wife sleeps with another man. His friends never tell Richard, because the Englishman feels good about himself for being good.

After Richard and Lee left my friend Nick said, "No one is faithful in this town, unless it's to their football team."

Nick was a Tottenham Spurs fan. His girlfriend worked as a service girl at the Buffalo Bar. Fen was too pretty for words and too pretty for just one man. The lanky Brit explained, "Fen has a boyfriend. He pays for her schooling. She only sees me when he leaves down. She considers herself 'faithful' to both of us. Fen never asks me for money, so I'm the only man in Pattaya getting free sex."

"Nothing is free in Pattaya." Everything had a price, even if it was marked 'free'.

Two nights later Richard asked Nick at the Buffalo, "Is Fen your mia noi?"

"No, she not mia noi. She geek." Richard's girlfriend answered for Nick and waved for another gin-tonic.

"What's the difference?" Richard's question was directed at his girlfriend. The seeds of suspicion were worming into his trust. Lee stammered for a second, but Nick saved her from having to tell the truth.

"A mia noi you take care of along with having a mia leung or first wife. A geek is someone you have sex with and care about, but only a little. You see her when you see her and it's no big deal." Nick obviously had been educated in the difference.

"But your girlfriend doesn't think she's your geek?"

"No, Fen is what she is."

"So you never say the love word?"

"No." Nick shook his head. "It's a sex thing."

"So she's a geek?" Richard couldn't fathom why people sleeping together for purely sex.

"No, not geek. Not mia noi. Not friend." Richard's girlfriend was exasperated by the his husband's density, but he only wanted to know where Nick's girl stood in the scheme of things.

"I like her, but I'm not in love. I'm not faithful to her either. Not like you and Lee."

I got up and left to avoid any examination of my situation.

Jamie Parker was sitting at the other end of the bar.

When I told my friend about the discussion, the New Yorker smiled slyly and said, "This is not a town for the pure of heart. Some women here regard their husbands as faithful if they don't bring anyone home or are seen with another women by their friends. Other women think you're cheating if you look at another woman or think of one. Men will believe any story by these bar girls to grant them immunity from a life of sleeping with complete strangers. I call it the Eliza Doolittle syndrome. I can rescue her from this life of sin. Ha, but it's not the farang boyfriend most men have to worry about. It's the Thai ex-. They never die, even if the girl says his husband was killed in a motorcycle accident."

"I've heard that story twice."

"Bet every man in Pattaya has heard it at least once." Jamie had little use for stories. His girlfriend had been working on Soi 6 three years. Ort liked being a bad girl and so did Jamie. "Everyone has been unfaithful in either thought or deed and I don't know what's worse. Thinking about it and doing it."

"Doing it."

"Yeah, but at the end of your life are you going to be sorry about not doing it or doing it?"

"There were twins at the old Blackout a Go-go. I should have taken them home, except I was been faithful to my previous girlfriend. She left me for an Italian."

"Regrets I have a few but then again too few to mention."

?"Sinatra the Philosopher."

"Do-be-do-be-do," Jamie crooned off-key and several bar girls stared his way, as if he was a dog with his paw stuck in a door. "Are you thinking about going home with someone from here??"

"No way." I lived two minutes from the Buffalo. Mam was my steady. We had been seeing each other for over a year.

"Are you still faithful to her?"

Yes. Maybe she gave me a love potion."

"Maybe she did, because there's something wrong with being faithful in Pattaya. You're not scared, are you?"

"Of what?"

"Of Mam cutting off your penis and feeding it to the ducks." Castration was a favorite punishment Thai women inflict on philandering males. So much so that Thai doctors had become the world's premier saviors of amputated penises. Accordingly Thai women cast the severed member to the duck pen, since quackers, unlike pigs, eat anything. Even cock.

"Better to keep your sins in thoughts." Jamie advised, for Ort was equally vicious as Mam when it came to his roaming eye.

"Deeds we can save for the after-life."

"Or secrets we never tell anyone else. Is it a sin if no one knows?"

In this town everyone knows sooner or later. Mam also knows that once I've had two drinks all I really want is a couple more drinks and I went home to surf through the ennuidom of international TV. Mam was playing cards with her friends. She wasn't answering her phone. The night was still young, but I shut off the TV and went to sleep with dreams of becoming a saint.

At least in deed.

Thought was another story, because anyone in Pattaya is going to hell.

At least according to Reverend Joe Stannis of the Holy Revival Church and a baptist knows Sin when he sees it and so do I.

5 Things Thai Bar Girls Like About Farangs

WRITTEN 2009

Most surveys are conducted with scores, if not hundreds of people. Personally I go for the one person who is most representative of the subject group and several years ago when I was thinking about the five qualities a Thai bar girl required from her farang boyfriend, I immediately went to Gai, the Buffalo Bar's version of Anna Nichols Smith.

Gai has been loved by scores of men over her five year career and spent the night a few more. My cousin was one of them. Few had complaints other than Gai really didn't want to settle down with most of them. After plying her with several drinks, I asked, "Why?"

"Farang men like Thai men are no good. Say one thing, do the other."

The lights of Pattaya don't attract the best catches on the planet, but there are some nice guys.

"What do you look for in a man?"

"The opposite of what a man wants." Gai ordered a Heineken on my tab. No one's time is free and I waved for another Chang Beer. I like drinking with her.

"Which is?"

"Sex, love, fun, freedom, and faithfulness."

"Sounds about right." My top choice after her first is someone having my back or a woman on the same team.

"Most farangs kee-nok think they are the best thing to happen to a Thai girl. Look at them. Bald, fat, unable to find a woman in their own country, cheap, except when it comes to getting drunk, then they are just like thai men. Drink everything they have and end up in bed with another woman or lady-boy."

"That's a little hard." But not off the mark in Pattaya. "So all the women her are angels."

"Not angels. Women. Nothing more and they want something most men can't give them. Security is #1."

"Money."

"Without money I not take care of my baby."

"I would say truthfulness, but no man can tell the truth more than second hours in a row. All you have to do is ask them what they are thinking."

"The answer is usually nothing."

"And you expect a woman to believe that."

"Men have minds like dogs."

"And women are cats."

"So what's second?"

"Fun and laughs. No sense in being with a man if he is no fun."

"What about choice #1. Money."

"Only if there is no other choice."

Unfortunately during low season the options were reduced by 50% and bar girls had to make do with the dregs. Sam Royalle calls this time after Songkran the Brad Pitt season, when bar girls call Saudi hunchbacks with mohawks sexy. Gai was lucky enough that she can be choosy most of the time.

"So far we have money and fun."

"Only two." Gai lifted her fingers. The nails were long and painted fire-engine red. Respect for family."

"Meaning your mother and father." I knew how important that was, since many bargirls started off in brothels to pay off their father's rice debts. I can't respect the old men, but the girls understand that the needs of the family supersede their dreams.

"Yes." he finished her beer and waved to a good-looking farang entering the bar. His smile said he was her first pick for tonight and she finished the top five. “Next comes sex. Good sex is good. Bad sex is good too as long as it's fast. Last comes love, because you can't eat love.

"And you can eat sex?"

Sex pays the food."

"So it's money, fun, family respect, sex, and love." I tipped her a 100 baht and Gai kissed me on the cheek.

Her choices were not the same order as men. Maybe other bar girls would have a different order, but somehow I felt that Gai was on the money, especially knowing Pattaya's farangs.

After all I'm one too.

NAPS OF THAILAND 2007

When a Chinese general was asked about the defeat of the People's Army by the Vietnamese in 1979, he replied, "We get up at 5am and they get up at 4."

The draconian work ethic of NVA seemed to have been sapped by the torrid climes closer to the equator, because Thais and Laotians are epic sleepers with an uncanny ability to find comfort in conditions better suited to a CIA rendition camp.

Some farangs attributed this hyper-sleeping habit to oriental lassitude, however their Eurocentric observations are way off mark.

Most Thais wake before dawn to work in the rice fields, until the heat hits treacherous body-sapping temperatures and then 'Khon tam khao' retreat from the sun for a good meal followed by a better nap or nge'ep before returning to the fields for the long afternoon.

This rice farming tradition has been transported to the cities where workers labor from dawn to dusk six days a week.

Having lived in the South of France, where siestas are a valued cultural treasure, I often defended the Thais and other Asians' sleeping habits.

"Naps are good for you," I once said at the Buffalo Bar.

"So explain to me why bar girls sleep twenty hours at a clip," an English bar-goers asked in Pattaya. Jim had been here for years. His vocabulary in Thai was limited to orders for more beer and sexual propositions.

"Only can be several reasons." I'd been in the Orient since 1990.

I didn't have all the answers.

Just some of the right ones.

"Like what?" Jim was eying his date. The plump bargirl seemed alert for the moment. The fifty year-old mustn't have paid her yet.

"First is that she's exhausted from having sex with you." Many farangs in Thailand exist on a diet of Viagra and alcohol.

"Could be." The bar-goer smiled with pride.

"Second, she could be on ja-bah and crashes after sex." His girl's fatness excluded her huffing meth. She was a healthy eater.

"No way. The cops piss-tested her at Marine Disco the other night. She came up clean."

"Well, that leaves only one other explanation and this comes from a very knowledgeable Mama-san of a go-go bar. She said the reason most of these girls sleep so much is that they're trying to escape the reality of having to have sex with a fat farang and would rather live inside a sleep world until they have enough money to rejoin other Thai people. Of course this couldn't pertain to you since you're such a sex hero."

Jim tipped the scales over 280 and his age was a 20th of Methuselah. No one had called him 'sexy' since he was in his teens and that person had probably been the parish priest. For an Englishman Jim had good smile considering he only possessed half his front teeth.

"I'm not so sure about that." Even Jim recognized that he was no Apollo.

Me neither, but I like hearing girls tell me I'm the best I ever had.

It's a lie which improved with age and I sleep in peace content to accept a well-intentioned lie.

Sleeping well is a talent an old man admires with age.

Those damn Thais.

There is nothing like a good nap and as Carrie Snow once said, “No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap.”

Ching ching.

O FOR FIVE by Peter Nolan Smith

Tottenham Nick and I were watching the riots in London at Maggie's Bar on Soi Concrete. The dissatisfied were burning down his local Pizza Hut. Next up was McDonalds.

"Wankers will be crying tomorrow about not having anything to eat." Nick was a Hotspurs fan. The rioters could burn down Buckingham Palace for all he cared. White Hart Lane Stadium was another matter. "England ain't England no more. Too many wankers. White, black, and the in-betweens. Can you put something else on the TV? Don't matter what."

The bargirls were more than happy to change the channel. A Thai soap opera at low volume. A trio of old-timers mumbled about their choice. Tottenham Nick gave them a snarl. They went back to drinking their beer and we continued reminiscing about the good old days in Pattaya, when your mates were bank robbers, fugitives from justice, and gamblers.

Two beers later Convict entered Maggie's covered with sweat. The mid-day sun brutalized Soi Concrete. Convict sat at the bar and ordered a whiskey and coke. The forty year-old Aussie was no beer drinker. He wasn't a convict either. Nick called all Roos 'convicts', because of the decades of penal transportation from England. The only non-convicts were the Abos and 'convicts' hated the real Australians.

Convict had attempted to bend his bloodline by joining John Hop. His career as a police officer ran off the road after he had accused his fellow Blue Meanies of corruption at a Bushie pub after drinking a slab of beer. The toe cutters at Internal Affairs wanted him for questioning. The other coppers were eager to teach him the path of righteousness. Convict was lucky to get out of the Lucky Country alive.

"How it go last night?" Nick asked pulling out a cigarette. Public smoking was banned in Pattaya. Nick felt that he could burn a fag, since his arrival in the Last Babylon predated most laws.

"Buffalo Bar, Soi 8, Walking Street. Drunk as a Pommie bastard." Some of the sweat oozing from his reddened face was excess alcohol. "But I was toeier than a Roman sandal and decided to find a Map of Tassie."

"Could you speak English, you Aussie cunt?" Nick had a fly's patience with dialects other than his native London.

"I was looking for some female company." He downed his whiskey in a single go.

"Not an impossible mission in Pattaya." Success ratio was 100-300% depending on your stamina.

"Last night was," Convict spoke in a hushed voice and signaled the skinny bartender for another drink. "I was shot down 5 times."

"Five times. You must have been pissed drunk." Nick was shocked by Convict's admission.

“Once or twice I can see, but five times.” Back in 2007 I had been told by a Phnom Penh bargirl a woman that she didn’t go with men. I had accepted her excuse with disbelief, since she had visited the upstairs recreation room with another gent earlier in the evening. It was no loss of face, although Nick had been with me and he loved retelling the story.

“The first rejection was on Soi Eight. I bought the girl a couple of drinks and then invited her back to my place. She said she had a sick aunt in town and couldn’t go.” He sipped at his whiskey with a wounded expression.

“At least she lied to make you feel better.”

“I figured I could've right this situation by going to a go-go bar on Beach Road. A cute girl was dancing naked on the stage. I asked her the same question. She said she could go short time. Went to get her things, and then disappeared with a Japanese man.”

Convict shrugged and signaled for another whiskey. The first one had gone down fast.

“That’s only because she wanted more money.” Nick never went home with go-go grips. They were more trouble than a truckload of cats.

"The girls never turn down a Jap. They pay more and come like a rabbit on crack. Working girls say only Chinese men cum faster."

“She asked for 2000 baht.”

“And you countered with 1500.” Nick and I were of the same mind, but basement bargaining for a girl’s body cut against the grain. “So this was a financial disagreement. What about #3?”

“I went to the Street behind Tony’s. There was a girl at a beer bar. She had nice eyes. I like bar girls better than go-go girls anyway.”

The trio of old-timers were surreptiously listening to Convict. This wasn't the usual bullshit story

“I bought her a drink and then after the appropriate amount of chitchat popped the question about coming back to my place to watch some movies.”

“Art films?"

Convict’s porno collection was as legendary as his museum of dildos.

“They help set the mood.” Convict smiled impishly. “She said she would love to, but she was working as the cashier. Couldn’t leave.”

“Cashiers rarely go with farangs.” I’d hit on many and gotten nowhere.

Convict agreed that he had been fooled into thinking she was into the game. “It was getting late and decided to go back to soi 8. Maybe the first one would change her mind. She wasn’t there. The mama-san said she had a sick aunt. Another girl started talking to me. I popped her the question. She said she would, but had her period. I said I didn’t care if she was on the rag.”

“Rejection #4.” Convict’s night was like my trawling the bars in Manhattan. A land of No followed by a taxi ride to an empty apartment. “But you didn’t give up.”

“No, but I had one more try in me.”

“Where?”

“I’m not saying.”

Nick had heard enough and shouted, “The last one was at home. Even his hand wouldn’t fuck him.”

The bar laughed and so did Convict. There were plenty of nights I didn’t want to go home with me after drinking myself into near-oblivion.

“No, I’m not saying who #5 was.”

The bar begged for a confession. Convict locked his lips. “I’m not saying.”

I was the only one who caught the eye of the girl behind the bar. She was missing a front tooth, but was pretty in a bony way. This bar was on Convict's way home. She smiled with a slyness betraying who was #5.

“Guess it’s over to Soi half-dozen.” Convict was headed to Pattaya’s notorious short-time bars. “No one gets shot down there.”

We wish him luck, but no one accompanied him to Soi 6.

Nick lifted his beer.

“Last thing I need is Convictitis. I get enough of that back in London.”

“And New York.” Within a month I’d be back in Manhattan. I didn’t hear any nos until then, because I was faithful to Fenway's mother and she had a headache and it’s never a good time to ask for love when Mint has one of those.

Not if I know don't want to be refused for the 5th time in a week.

CIRCUS LIFE by Peter Nolan Smith

Whenever a married couple or single mother and kid visited me in Pattaya, I took them on a tour of the various tourist points of interest; the Khao Keo outdoor zoo, the Temple of Truth, the biggest wooden structure in the world, and Nong Nooch Gardens. while steering well clear of my usual haunts i.e. the Buffalo Bar, the Welkom Inn, and Heaven Above a Go-Go.

None of these family fare attractions were far away from my house on Moo 9 and they don’t give these innocent visitors a clue as to why you really came here, which was to partake life in the Last Babylon.

Sin sin sin.

I showed them flowers, temples, and elephants.

Back in the early part of the 21st Century my young nephew, Fast Eddie, and I went to see the Nong Nooch elephant show. We bought 50 baht of bananas from a vendor before the pachyderms entered the arena, The two of us sat in the front row under the shade. The music announced the first elephant. A giant tusker chained at his back feet. The beast took one look at our bananas and charged the stands. The minders had no chance of controlling him. I chucked the bananas at him and grabbed my godson’s hand before we were trampled by the rampaging behemoth. The crowd both Thai and farang laughed at our timidity, but even a 400-pound gorilla. The ape will get out of the seat to let the elephant sit down if it knows what is good for the ape.

Angie's mom was angry at me.

"Khang kill you. Who take care Angie?" We weren't on the best of terms, but I was staying with her for my daughter.

Angie started crying. She was scared stiff of elephants. Especially the ones from the tourist safaris who would strip our mango tree of fruit. Even the mahouts couldn't stop them from sating their appetite.

When I mentioned this story at my local, my French friend Bruno said, “You are lucky. Two years ago an English woman tried to hide the bananas and was stomped by the elephant. She was killed and the elephant fled the scene to Isaan.”

“That’s nothing.” An old-timer said putting down a glass of Mekong whiskey. “Back in the last century a circus dwarf was swallowed by a hippopotamus in a freak accident. He was a trapeze artist and dismounted onto the trampoline. The angle was bad and his disappeared into the mouth of a hippo. Hippos will eat anything and the beast swallowed the dwarf. Fucking audience applauded thinking it was part of the act. The handlers were unable to free the dwarf, but said the hippo was a vegetarian.”

No one laughed at the punchline, but Bruno muttered under his breath. “I heard that story before only the dwarf landed headfirst in the hippo’s asshole.’

“No.” This was starting to sound like an urban legend.

“Quais, and the dwarf survived, but quit because the circus owner wanted him to repeat the act every night.”

Which goes to show there’s no business like show business.

MUNICH 1972 REDUX by Peter Nolan Smith

The Buffalo Bar on Pattaya's Sai 3 attracted all types in the late 00s. Bank robbers rubbed elbows with Interpol officers, miners drank beer with environmentalists, and gamblers took bets from football hooligans. Every nation showed their flag and the faithful clientele an appearance was rewarded by the gracious hosts with cheap drinks and a plethora of beautiful women.

The Buffalo Bar's girls let my little dog drink beer on the bar. Champoo preferred Heineken to Khang. There was no accounting for a Shih Tzu's tastes.

Not all the regulars appreciated a floppish lapdog lounging on the bar. Some of them were my friends like Bruno and Fabo, who ridiculed Champoo as a girl's dog, but I loved my puppy more than any of the drunken farangs in Pattaya.

Two English hooligans called Champoo a rat.

I let the air out of the tires of their pick-up and they stormed into the bar accusing me of fucking with their vehicle. The girls stood behind 100% and a middle-aged German took my back. Something about his stocky stature said Polizei.

The hooligans retreated from the confrontation with my back-up. The girls at the Buffalo were killers with a swung high heel.

"We'll get you one day." The thugs promised to catch up with me.

"I'll be here waiting." The Buffalo was my home away from the house that I had rented to raise my daughter. Sadly Angie's mom had done a runner to her family home in Ban Nok and now the only women in my life were my girlfriend Mam and Champoo.

I went over to the German to thank him for his support.

"I see you every night with your dog." English came out of his mouth with hesitation, as if he had learned the language late in life. He introduced himself as Erik. "They were wrong to say such bad things. This is a nice bar. No fighting."

"I like it too." I had a tendency to get mouthy with assholes and Eddy the Thai owner had a little patience with trouble-makers. They cost her money. "Can I buy you a drink?"

"Of course, but only if the next drink is on me." The stocky German's unnaturally orange hair revealed repeated failures of correcting his dye mixture.

"I'm drinking Gin-tonic. What about you?" My hair had suffered a serious whitening after Angie was taken north by her mother and the damage wasn't restricted to my head.

"The same." Erik probably could have used professional hair help, but as Manny, my old boss at the diamond exchange liked to say, "Better gray than nay."

"Are you living here?" It was a simple question.

"About half the year. There's nothing in Germany for a man my age."

"You're not old." I pegged him in his late 40s to early 50s.

"Not to you or the girls of the Buffalo Bar." More than a few of the bargirls preferred old guys, because geezers are easier to manage than proud young bucks, who tend to be heartbreakers. "But back in Deutschland I don't stand a chance with a woman."

"You have a wife?" I had never seen the thick-chested leave with a Buffalo girl.

"An ex-wife is living off alimony back in Germany, but why get married here, when you can have a honeymoon every night." His laugh mocked my question. "You had a wife here and she left you."

"How do you know that?" His infringement of my privacy caught me off-guard.

"Sorry, but a few of the girls told me your story." He bent over to scratch Champoo's head. My puppy appreciated the tenderness of a strange hand. She was a real whore that way. "Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about. You didn't leave me." We clinked glasses and I asked in German, "Wohin kommst du?"

"Munchen." His singsong Bayerische dialect transported me back to my high school German class and Bruder Karl's voice charred by his chain-smoking. "Have you ever been there?"

"No." Munich conjured up beer hall putsches, mad kings, the Oktoberfest, and the 1972 Olympics. Compliments about someone's hometown put them at ease and I said, "Ein schon stadt from what I've heard."

"Du sprichst Deutsche?" His voice trembled with incredulity.

"Jawohl." My German wasn't as good as his English.

"Du kommst von Amerika?" My country was better known for speaking tongues than foreign languages.

"Ja." My Boston accent played havoc with my annunciation. "New England."

"And you learned German?" He was amazed at this linguistic skill as the Thais were gobstruck by my caveman Thai.

"Naturlich. Ich hatte Deutsche in hoch schule gelearnt." Brother Karl had spent three years forcing German into my brain. "Some of that schooling actually took root. The old Bavarian brother told me, "Du sprechst wie einer schiesskopf."

I wasn't a shithead, only a terrible student. I failed German three times. Brother Karl didn't hold a grudge. He sent me a Christmas card for several years after my graduation from high school.

"But your accent is not so bad."

"Viele danke." I'd bet the remaining limit on my credit cards that I was the only student from that school still speaking German. "I also lived in Hamburg for six months."

"The Beatles played at the Star Club." The city was most famous for an unknown British rock band's two year stint in the clubs of St. Pauli.
"I managed a nightclub run by the pimps from the Reeperbahn." The red-light district was dominated by the pimps of the GmBH gang. Its enforcer had been a black pimp in a very tough town.

BSirs was far from the Eros Center. Nigger Kali used the Clockwork Orange-inspired nightclub as a front for laundering money from his whorehouses. Erik didn't need to know the details, since he dressed a little too straight for Pattaya. Most of the farang residents were in one way or the scum of the Earth and I liked them for that lack of quality. We were running out of places to be ourselves.

"What was your job in Munich?" My hunch that he wasn't a man of the cloth was based on his overt neatness.

"I was a policeman for Bavaria," Erik stated his profession with pride.

"Polizei." The state criminal police had investigated Nigger Kali's activities at Bsirs. Two plain-clothed detectives had interrogated me at my Mittelweg apartment. I had told them nothing as would any fan of the Bowery Boys.

"Das ist rechtig." The German was about my age. He would have been in prime during my half-year in Hamburg. Nigger Kali was a known criminal throughout the BDR. Keeping the black zuhalter's name out of a conversation was always advisable. "How many years you serve the State?"

"From 1970 to 2001."

"41 years. How old are you?"

"60."

Champoo raised her ears in disbelief, then Champoo laid her shaggy head on the counter. She was over her limit.

"I would have thought 50." It was a nice thing to say to a man our age.

"You are too kind." Erik ordered the next round. The lesbian bartender poured measured shots. "Make them doubles."

"Thanks." The reinforced gin-tonics had a solid bite to them

"You look good for your age." He had me by five years. "You must have started during the Baader Meinhof campaign."

"They bombed Munich's Investigation Bureau in May of 1972." Dates of crimes were not to be forgotten by a Bavarian policeman. "Actually they called themselves the Red Army Faction. Munich did not support them like the rest of Germany. Maybe we are too Catholic."

"You must have been at the Munich Olympics." I had been hitchhiking across the USA that September.

"I was with the police rifle squad," Erik whispered in a conspiratorial tone and signaled for two more gin-tonics. The end of his tale deserved doubles. "And I was stationed outside the Olympic village at the time of the attack. My superiors ordered us to take up position with our rifles. None of them were fitted with sniper scopes."

"How did it go so bad at the airport? The Palestinians had the hostages, the planes were ready to go. Everyone died. Why?" I had seen the news report at the time and the recent movie MUNICH suggested a mismanaged rescue attempt.

"I saw everything. The Black September leader went to the plane and found it empty. He realized that the airport was a trap and ran back to the helicopters. We were told there were only five terrorists. There were eight. Our snipers were not snipers, but amateur sharpshooters from the Munich police. The helicopters landed in thevwrongpositions and the snipers couldn't make a killing shot in the bad light." Erik was talking about his unit.

"Where were you?"

"I was atop the airport terminal." His hands were shaking from the memory of that September night, but the retired policeman was too far along to stop the telling. He petted the sleeping Champoo. "We weren't trained for a situation like that. My rifle was for target shooting, not an assault on terrorists. They had machine guns and grenades. We should have done things differently, but orders are orders and we all know how we Germans are about following orders, both good and bad."

Erik drained his glass in one go. His trusting look was asking for my sealed lips and I nodded acceptance of his condition.

Gai came over to sit with us. The statuesque bargirl was a Thai version of Jayne Mansfield. She nuzzled Erik like a cat looking a place to live. Her main geek Fabo would have been angry to see her betrayal of his affection, however the Belgium was on a oil-exploration ship off the coast of Angola.

I could keep a secret and never saw Erik leave with Gai.

Around midnight Champoo and I rode my motor scooter back to the dark house on Moo 9.

I thought about calling a friend in New York to tell him about Erik's story, but decided to respect the retired cop's request. 1972 was a long time ago and it would only get longer for those who lost someone they loved in the massacre.

Both Palestinian and Israeli.

After all they share the same blood no matter what happened in Munich.

THE END OF BABYLON by Peter Nolan Smith

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. Pattaya became home, then again everywhere is home once you buy you're first roll of toilet paper.

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 I thought that this anti-Eden would last forever.

Sadly my booming fake F-1 enterprise was shut down by the Thai cyber-police, who treated my crime as a misdemeanor to the annoyance of the Ferrari representatives. The cops suggested that shutting down my business was in my best interests and I complied with their wishes.

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.

Both families had decamped from Pattaya. My time was split between Chai-nat and Sri racha. The allure of a go-go bar could compete with my love for Angie and Fenway, plus Mam, my son' mom, was the only woman in the world for me and she swore my fidelity wasn't the result of 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 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 to Sri Racha is a little less than four hours flat. I dropped Mam and Fenway and a cousin at our small house west of the town and headed to drop off the rental car in Pattaya.

I was six hours late and called from Sukhumvit to ask how much extra I should pay. The Thai mechanic said, "Up to you, but a small pack of beer would be nice."

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

Pisan's repair shop abutted a shrinking swamp off Soi Bongkot. The wetland remained a haven for birds and mosquitoes. I parked the car under the makeshift awning of corrugated plastic. Pisan and his son were burning old tires. A toxic black smoke floated over the marsh. 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.

Pisan regarded the encroachment on the wasteland.

Pattaya's 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 globalization, but a few places remained true to the tradition of a-tham-ma or lawlessness.

"Nothing same. Puying old now. Not beautiful. Only have farang old too or fucking Russian and dirty 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.

"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 an elevated patch of land. His shop had no fences to protect against thieves. This was home. He even had some chickens in the back.

"Enjoy the beers." 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.

I had an hour and a half to kill and took another baht bus to Soi 3, which was a short walk to the Welkom Inn. I had been a faithful afternoon customer for years. None of the girls in the front courtyard recognized me, although the service girls in the garden asked for my dog. I never left home without Champoo.

"She's good." Champoo was up country with my ex-wife. "How's business?"

"You look. You see what?" She pointed to the new hotels rising over the trees. "Pattaya change. Now city want family. Not want men like you."

"We're a dying breed." The tired farangs at the bar were nursing their beers like they were the last beers in the world. No one was sitting at the tables and I asked, "Has it been like this long?"

"All year." The bargirl put ice in my beer. It kept it cold. "You want lady?"

"No." 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 tip the bargirl and said, "Thanks for offering."

After finishing my beer I walked along the Beach Road to Soi 6, the wickedest street in town. The bars were fronted by packs of short-time girls. Not one of them caught my eye and they were more interested in stuffing food in their mouths than a single older male. I was no longer 'sexy man', but neither was anyone else. The street was dead.

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 old house. 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. I was the only farang at the bar.

Big Al showed up first and 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 and 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." The ex-extreme fighter had left the USA for good, although all 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." Thais hated losing face or nah sia.

"I should have known better." He explained that his wife was more pissed at his spending money on another woman than his 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 bank robber had traded Pattaya for the Philippines, but his bar had failed in Angeles City. He had returned to my old business; selling first-class motor-sport gear.

"Working bad almost killed me. Trinken, trinken, trinken." Ulf enjoyed a good time, but drinking 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, which was a fatal combo for anyone with my vices. "For health reasons."

I excused myself from the two men to go to the bathroom. The two ex-convicts were a little alike and now reformed in their ways. I returned to the bar. Big, Rolf, and I talked about robbing banks. They used guns. Mine were only in thought.

A girl grabbed my arm.

"Where you go?" She was about 23, long-legged and beautiful.

"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 the Last Babylon is gone for me.

Same as 42nd Street, which is now 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.