Chek Bin Carpe Diem - 2011

Three weeks ago Fabo and I sat at the garden bar of the Welkom Inn on Soi 3. I hadn't seen the Belgian oil explorer in a year. Both of us had suffered long exiles from Pattaya. His place of banishment was the North Sea for the last three months. I had been stuck in Luxembourg for six months. We were equally glad to be away from either.

He greeted me with a kiss on the lips. The girls on the patio regarded the gesture with disgust. They only liked straight men. Preferably newcomers to Thailand. Newbies spent money like bankers on a cocaine binge.

"Papa." Fabo thought that we resembled each other.

"My son."

I didn't see the likeness, but I drink San Miquel. It's made in the Philippines. Heineken is my pseudo-fils' preferred beverage. He was 31. I had been in Brussels at the age of 36 in 1988, a year before his birth. A Walloon girl had taken me back to her parents’ house in the working-class neighborhood of The Marolles. Her mother had made breakfast croissants and cafe creme in the morning. Her daughter wasn’t Fabo’s mom.

"Welcome back home." His skin was tanned from the sun's reflection off the China sea. Fabo looked healthy. He had gone a month without a drink. We ordered more beers. The time was noon. The popular Thai band Loso was playing on the radio. Fabo’s months on the oil rig boiled own to six words.

"No fun. No beer. No girls."

I also had six words to describe my months away from Pattaya.

"New York. Cold beer. No girls." Six syllables to his seven. The economy of age. I was faithful to my wife. Too lazy to not be.

"One plus. Two negatives." Fabo had once shown a photo of his mother. The skinny punk girl with wide eyes looked familiar. I still didn’t think I was his father.

"Now we're here." Too many accidents and fights had mashed his nose, but his eyes were arctic blue. Mine were high Nordic steel.

"Paradise." Saying that I felt like Adam waking on the day after his Maker created 'woman', except the almighty hadn't the heart to destroy his previous failures. The line-up at the Welkom Inn's entrance offered a woman for every man's desire.

"You can say that again." I was blind to their allure. Mam dominated my libido. She was too nah-lak or lovely for words. Fenway's mother knew that I was here. Trust. I had no choice, but to be true. I ordered another beer. The first bottle died after forty-seven seconds. The heat of May on the Gulf of Siam gave any human a thirst.

"Paradise, and I blame it on our position." He didn't speak about his wife or her German ex-. It was better to not say SS Tommy's name. "So close to equator?"

I had heard his hypothesis on more than many occasions. My one attempt to explain the menage-a-trois to Mam, my wife, had met with her contempt. She had little patience for 'tawh-lay' or bullshit. All women say the same about men.

"Only 1200 miles south of here."

"I know." I had crossed the equator in the jungles of Sumatra. The relative speed of the Earth's rotation is meant to send more blood to your head. "Speed."

"Not speed. The reformulation of the theory of gravity." These words were spoken in French. Fabo loved the idea, but recognized his conjecture was full-on mad or 'bah mak' as say the Thais.

We argued about acceleration measured in m/s2, air resistance, and the downward weight force. The 3rd beer cured the affliction of banality. We were happy to sit at a bar. Happy the phone wasn't ringing. Happy heading toward drunk. The afternoon sun stretched into the west.

We watched the men run the gauntlet of bar girls at the entrance of the Welkom Inn's bar. The interior was night. The mama-san played any song from any year. The male clientele liked 1977. No matter what the nationality everyone knew the words to Abba’s DANCING QUEEN.

Four Middle Eastern men entered the garden. Jeans. White shirts. No robes. Arabs normally frequented the smoking bars at the end of Walking Street and never ventured this far north, but they weren't Arabs.

"Egyptian." Fabo sniffed the air. Strong tobacco.

"Turkish." They weren't speaking Arabic. Neither did I, but I had heard enough Arabic in Paris to know the difference. I bet Fabo 500 baht on their country.

An hour later they exited from the bar. They had barfined eight of the hostesses. One produced a bottle of Sky Whiskey. Half-empty. Another man flourished a handful of banknotes. The colors were strange.

Not dollar green or the green, blue, red, and purple of Thai currency.

One girl looked over her shoulder. Prueng. A shortcake angel with soft hair and small breasts. The tomboy was almost twenty-four. Six years older than the first day she worked the Welkom.

Her kathoey or ladyboy girlfriend worked at a big hotel. Preung saved money to pay for her girlfriend's penis operation. 200,000 baht. She lifted a thick fist of money in the air. Her co-workers cheered her order for more whiskey.

Five minutes later she brought two glasses of whiskey-coke to the bar. Preung slapped a big pile of foreign money on the bar. Zaïre Francs. Value almost zero. Fabo sat frozen on his seat. Belgium had ruthlessly ruled the Congo now Zaire under their King Leopold II. A horror.

Someone had to pop her balloon. A bottle of Spy Whiskey was close to 500 baht at the Welkom. I was down to 300. Preung reached for the free drink bell. There were about over thirty people with the range of its peal.

Drinks for everyone.

"Don't."

I read the finance section of the Herald Tribune, studied currencies, and studied Karl Marx's Manifesto. An exchange rate came to my head.

“62 baht per million.”

Preung was holding ten million.

The imagined git of a buffalo herd for her father was kidnapped by disappointment. Her daughter remained banished in the hicks or ban-nok. Her girlfriend stayed a woman. 600 baht for a short-time trip to heaven was the asking price at the Welkom. Her math was good.

"I not win. I not lose." Preung dropped her hand from the rope hanging off the bell.Like most Thais they accepted things as they are. Especially for Isaan people, Thailand's poorest region.

"Where were they from?"

Preung answered. Neither of us were right.

"Nice rich one minute. You want go short-time?" Preung was asking me, but Fabo seized the gauntlet. He had been at sea three months. Six words. No fun, no beer, no women. I was one hour late for Mam.

"Another step closer to a million." His arm encircled Preung's waist. She was no longer an heiress. A common girl. One with a good heart and smooth skin. Fabo paid the bill. 300 baht was tomorrow's breakfast or five beers tonight.

Paradise.

I was heading home. Fabo and Preung strolled to room 101. It was the closest. He did look like me me from twenty years ago, if I had a broken nose. I had been only forty-four the year of his birth.

Not young, but younger and therefore rich, because youth was always worth billions in both dollars and baht. And never in Zaire Francs.

Golden Smile

Fabo got fucked up in his motorsai accident. He's lucky to be alive. A dentist replaced his lost smile. His teeth are all gold. In the afternoon he faces the west and his smile lights the soi of the Welcom Inn, where the the girls call him 'yim thong' or Gold Smile. They know their business. I wish I was there to know what they know. it makes an old man feel young.

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.

Health Advice For Beer Worshippers

Over the last ten years the Bangkok-Pattaya Hospital on Sukhumvit has expanded east, west, north, and south as well as up into the sky to handle the expanding community of western and Thai retirees making up a greater segment of the resort's population. One extension had been named the Gra-dai teung sawan or Stairway to Heaven Wing and last year I spoke with several Thai doctors about the influx of sick farangs.

Most believed that the new wing could only help the health of the Pattaya residents, although one doctor bucked the entire trend of health addicts and wrote up the following advice to the bar stool sitters of Pattaya.

HEALTH QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION

Q: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this
true?

A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it... don't
waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your
heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the
life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?

A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay
and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than
an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need
grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy
vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended
daily allowance of vegetable products.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?

A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine,
that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more
of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?

A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one
to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular
exercise program?

A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No
Pain...Good!

Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?

A: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!!... Foods are fried these days in
vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more
vegetables be bad for you?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around
the middle?

A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger.
You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?

A: Are you crazy? HELLO Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It's
the best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?

A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

Q: Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?

A: Hey! 'Round' is a shape!

The doctor ended this session with the following advice.

I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have
had about food and diets.

And remember:

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather
to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other -
body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO, What a
Ride"

Even the Bad get to Be Good

My friend Fabo has heart of gold. This young Belgian is happiest with a Heineken in his hand and his eye on Gai, the Rubenesque beauty of the Buffalo Bar. He’s loved her forever. She loves him too in her own way. A long time.

I like drinking with Fabo, because he doesn’t talk the usual line of bullshit or merde, since we converse in French. He’s lucky enough to work on a oil exploration ship. One month in Pattaya. One month off-shore.

His haunts are the same as mine.

Welkom on Soi 3 daytime. Buffalo Bar nights.

Last month I found him in Welkom Inn’s garden in the early afternoon. Several empty Heinikens on the table. Alone. All the day shift girls keeping their distance.

He did not look happy. Most farangs flee sad stories in Pattaya as if sooner or later they would be asked for a loan. Fabo had a good job and I was broke, so there was no danger of my having to shed money for his company. I sat down and asked, “What’s the problem?"

“Poo’s been arrested for ja bah.” Poo was his wife. Ex-entertainer at the Welkom Inn. Fabo explained the police had come to their house to quell a family disturbance and Poo had been tested positive with the color purple showing for her urine sample. Straight to jail. The telephone rang and lifted his finger. “I have to go. My German cousin is helping me get her out of jail.”

The German was no cousin.

I said nothing as Fabo got on a motorcycle to meet the German.

Better him than me, because the German had a hair up his ass for me.

Why?

Because he came from Hamburg.

The German was Poo’s ex. He had left his Doberman with them, because pets weren’t allowed in his apartment. The German showed up every few days to make sure the dog was okay. It was a strange arrangement. Pattaya has thousands of them. Something sounded familiar about Lucien and when Fabo had a birthday party for Poo, I realized what upon seeing him.

Lucien was my height, but pumped by a gym. No steroids. Gym only. He was no fake tough guy. His body looked like he had been dropped through a meat grinder. His left arm bore the scars of many knife fights. His nose followed the route of an alpine pass. His eyes bore the perfume of murder. I greeted him in German.

“Why do you speak German?” His voice reeked of suspicion.

“I lived in Hamburg in 1982. Worked at a nightclub for a pimp. Nigger Kali.”

“Nigger Kali?”

I didn’t say the name often.

Nigger Kali was a pimp for the Gmbh. Hamburg’s biggest gang. He had been shot too many times to die from anything other than a peaceful death. “Yes, he worked for Thomas Bond.”

“Thomas Bond was my teacher.” Lucien’s eyes narrowed to razor blades.

“You stay here. You not go away. Are you police?” His fingers dug into my thigh like icepicks.

“No, I was the Tursteher.” I had earned my living as a doorman in New York, Paris, London, and Germany. I was no criminal. Maybe smalltime, but small time only. I had lived in Hamburg for a year. Summer was sunny and warm. Winter was dark and wet. Despressing too.

Nearing Christmas a pimp, SS Tommy, presented a bill for 20,000 Marks.

For sleeping with a girl.

Her never saying she worked for him didn’t matter to SS Tommy. He wanted his money. I gave him the keys to my VW and said I would have the rest tomorrow. I caught the midnight train to Paris that evening. I didn’t mentioned his name to Lucien.

“I don’t believe you. You are maybe police.” He stared at me with his head tilted. “You can’t look me in the eyes.”

“I never lie.” I could only see one eye. “Telling the truth is easier.”

The leader of a Thai motorcycle gang showed up. Lucien stood up to wai his comrade. I decided this was time to leave.

Fabo later said Lucien missed me.

I missed him too like anyone misses someone wanting to kill them, for he was a man to avoid and be seen avoiding, however after that teary departure at the Welkom Inn, I met Fabo at the Buffalo, which he calls ‘le campange’ or the country. It had once been surrounded by coconut trees instead of the townhouses of today.

He was in a better mood.

“Now I can tell you story.” Fabo ordered us beers. “You know Lucien leaves dog with Poo. He comes every day. Friends of Poo are no good. They do jah bah. One day they start fight with Lucien. he beats them up. They decide that if they kill the dog, Lucien won’t come see Poo.”

“That’s some stupid thinking.”

“I did not say they were smart.” Fabo shrugged pleasantly, as if he acknowledged he was glad not to have seen this scene. “Lucien discovers his dog is dead and beats up the boys again. The police come. They are friends with Lucien. They arrest the boys, who say that Poo is taking jah bah.”

The story was getting sordid and it was heading toward more sordid.

“She had to go to jail. Now she comes out. 20,000 baht. have to be clean one year. If not, back to the monkey house. Lucien helps me with the judge. He knows everyone.”

“Good.” I could have told him the truth. ie that Poo won’t be able to say off the gear for a year. No sense. He knows that already, but I was surprised at how good Lucien had been through the entire affair. Fabo had been driven back and forth to Chonburi prison on the German’s bike. Many times.

And they say there are no good Germans.

Even the bad ones are good sometimes, especially if they make my friend Fabo happy.