PURE AS THE RAIN by Peter Nolan Smith

Fuck the seventy-seven virgins, give me Pattaya - Pascha Ray

One night in August the monsoon was having its way with the Eastern Seaboard. Sleets of rain slashed through the few remaining palms on the back street between Soi Bukhao and 3rd Road. The Happy Lodge inn served as a refuge from the crowds of Walking Street. The pool tables were level, the beer was 5 baht less than my regular haunt, the Buffalo Bar, and no one came down the deadened alley, unless it was to avoid an old girlfriend or boyfriend.

The monsoon rains were pounding the corrugated roof with increasing intensity. The girls were shivering from the cold, but the rising water level threatened to flood the Happy Lodge Inn and they fought the overflow by clearing the cluttered gutters. I was the only farang in the bar.

A motorsai taxi pulled underneath the awning and Natalie jumped off the bike.

Every year thousands of Thai women flock to Pattaya, seeking the gold in the pockets of farangs. Some are old, some are young. Few were as sexy as Natalie.

The fake orgasm was part of the bargain.

Nathalie liked her customers happy. They came back for more with a smile. The sexy vixen was the heart and soul of Pattaya.

The twenty-five year old was sexy even without her piercings or tattoos. Her second skin of libertinism was a prime asset for a Pattaya bargirl and her unleashed libido telegraphed the message of desire to every male within eyesight. One look and they understood the cost of a single night on both financial and physical terms, because riding Natalie was like driving a Ferrari on ice.

And if her customer's performance dropped below Formula One standards, Natalie didn’t complain as long as her customer had paid 2000 baht at the end of her hour-long lap of lust. Natalie was soaked to the skin. She wasn’t the type of girl to wearing lingerie other than a G-string. Natalie's doe-soft eyes turned to me and she sat on the stool next to me, dripping water from her long hair.

The monsoon rains battered the corrugated tin roof with increasing intensity. The girls shivered from the cold. Nathalie came over to me and asked, "Can I wear your jacket?"

"Why not? It probably looks better on you than me.” My long-sleeved shirt was keeping me warm.

"Everything look good on me, but look better if I wear nothing." Putting on my blue-tinted glasses transformed her to a Hollywood starlet.

"I have no argument with that.”

"Tequila." Nathalie wai-ed like a schoolgirl. The older farangs loved that act. She killed the tequila in one go and I signaled the bartender for another. I was good with my San Miguel beer.

"You want to go short-time. Have room next door." She snuggled into me like a boa after a rabbit.

"No, I have a girlfriend." Mam and I were a thing. We were having a kid. I had eyes only for her.

"Your girlfriend lucky. You good man." Nathalie downed the next tequila and sat up straight.

"Sure." No male in Pattaya was good.

We had several drinks. The rain intensified and the water rose an inch across the bar's floor. It came from the Indian Ocean. I tasted a drop.

"Good."

"Not salty."

"Not same you." Her index finger smoothed over my skin and her tongue licked at the tip.

"You think clean?"

"Come from the sky is clean."

"Not sure." Natalie lifted her feet. Her high heels were brand-new.

"I know your story."

"My story?"

"Yes, your wife she leave you for Thai friend. You have broke heart."

"Many farang have same story." Nu and I had a daughter. She had said Angie wasn't mine. I knew better. She just wanted to hurt me.

"Many Thai too. Many lady say you good man."

"It's easy being a good man in Pattaya." It was the last Babylon on Earth, so a little good went a long way in this town.

"Once I good girl. I not like this," she said knocking back a tequila.

"I know. Everyone was a young once." I ordered another round of tequila. The rain had drummed on the bar’s tin roof like gorillas dancing the polka. None of their feet were in synch. The water climbed an inch higher.

"I come here I maybe 15. My mother work bar." She downed the second shot and signaled for a beer chaser. Her pouting belly is showing the early signs of this repeated investment in beer.

"You don't need to tell me this." I had heard the story before. It didn’t have a happy ending.

"Tell you. Not tell you. Same." Her hand caressed my thigh. She was never not on the game.

"Same. Girl come to Pattaya. Have boyfriend. Boyfriend leave her. She work bar. Then she can’t love anyone, but me." Angie's mom had followed the script without diversion.

"Not same story me. 15 not have boyfriend. No man leave me. Not me. I too sexy. My mother have friend want virgin."

I figured Natalie for 25.

"And you were a virgin?" Ten years ago I was living with Vee. My one-eyed mistress. She was no virgin.

"Never kiss a boy.” Her hand moved higher on my thigh. "Borisut."

"So why you want to have sex?"

"Not me. Maih want big money." Natalie swung between pidgin and perfect English. She had lived in the UK twice and Sweden once. "Maih needed money."

"For what?" I wondered how many times she had told this story to a Kak or customer. Usually the money was to bail out a drunken father or a stupid brother. Poverty crushed the Thai lower-class and there was no escape.

Young girl gone bad for her mother the aging whore.

"Krai lu?" she answered with resignation. 'Who knew'.

A Thai daughter has to obey her mother.

No matter what.

No explanation was necessary.

"Man give 5000 baht."

"5000 baht?" It was little over $100.

"Small money for farang. Big money for Thai."

"Big money for everyone."

"It not hurt. Man know make love virgin. I not like first time. Second time too. After that. Love it all time. You want me show you?" Her hand rested on my crotch. His fingers tickled my balls.

"Trick my mother." I knew her mother back in the early 90s. I couldn't tell Nathalie that. They looked too much alike for my good.

I go with many men. Sometime three in day. Never not two. Sometime more. I too sexy."

The math worked out to six hundred a year times ten years equaled six thousand men.

I knew her mother back from the early 90s. I couldn't tell Nathalie that. They looked too much alike for my good.

You still are sexy." She would have stopped traffic on any street in America.

"Now I go with man old. Easy money. Only worry that they die on me."

"Anyone come close?" Viagra, 60 year-old, and a young was a common fatal combination in Pattaya.

"No, but sometime think man die." She puffed out her cheeks. "Luat-keung-nah."

"Blood makes their face go red." I waved for my check-bin.

Rain or no rain.

I was leaving before I got into trouble.

"Like red light." Natalie didn't want me to leave.

Not without her.

There are no other men with obey in sight.

Only me.

"You go with me?"

"Wish I could.” My mistress was waiting for me in Jomtien. She was six months pregnant and I loved her in my own way.

"You think wife come back.”

"Khai lu?”

Anything was possible in Thailand, except for the impossible.

I gave Natalie 200 baht. "For kin khao."

She wai-ed gracefully as a 12 year-old virgin and said,"You can run, but you not hide. One day show my pierced clit."

"I'm sure you will." I escaped before a new downpour drenched the streets and I came home to my mia-noi and my son Fenway. They were both asleep. Mam sniffed at me.

"You speak with lady."

"Yes." There was no use lying.

"Go with her?" I had been faithful to her since day one. Not an easy task in the Last Babylon.

"Never."

"Good." She kissed my cheek and returned to sleep.

One day we would have to live together. She will never know how hard I try to be good.

It was never easy in Pattaya.

My head settled onto the pillow.

My dreams of Nathalie unfolded in slow-mo.

14 rpm and then rewind back to her at fifteen.

Back before the six thousand men she was as pure as the monsoon rain.

A good girl waiting to go bad.

Same as me at 15.

A good boy waiting for the bad.

There was no going back.

Not for me.

Not for Natalie.

Not for anyone.

BURN CHELSEA BURN

In the early 1970s Chelsea, Massachusetts on the north bank of the Mystic River exemplified a failed post-industrial city. The Expressway split the city in two and thousands of people had moved out of the working-class community throughout the 50s and 60s. The coffin was nailed shut on October 14, 1973, when the rag shop district burst into flames, burning eighteen blocks into ashes.

That windy Sunday I left my Brighton apartment after finishing my college studies and traveled on the MBTA to dine at my parents' house on the South Shore. My cousin Cindy was visiting from Quincy. During the meal WBZ Radio reported that Chelsea was ablaze.

"Fire." My older brother loved the stuff.

"Ssssh," my father quieted the table. He had fought the Great Maine Fire of 1947 and liked a good fire.

The radio reporter announced that the Mystic River Bridge had been shut down and the governor had called out the National Guard.

"This I have to see." My older brother had almost torched our house in Maine playing with matches and at 14 we had set the nearby woods on fire toasting marshmallows. The school psychiatrist said that his pyromania was a release of anxiety or a search for euphoria. My mother thought Frunk's perchance for arson as a threat from Satan.

"Fire is a tool of the Devil." My mother was a serious Catholic.

"God spoke to Moses from a burning bush." I had argued, but didn't mention Vulcan had been spawned from a spark in his mother's womb and fire symbolized purity to the Zorasterians, since my mother had little patience with pagans and knew nothing of my devout atheism.

"I just want to see." Frunk was her first-born.

"From where?" asked my mother.

"Just from the top of the hill."

The Blue Hills behind our suburban neighborhood were the highest elevation on the South Shore.

"From there and nowhere else," my mother commanded and my older brother nodded with averted eyes, for he had another destination in mind. "Yes, m'am."

"I'm coming too." Cindy attended an all-girl college. We protested the war on Boston Commons, but a love of fire ran in our family.

"I want to go," said my younger sister, who was a year behind me at BC.

"Not a chance. It's a school night." My mother refused Gina's every entreaty. My father knew better than to intercede. My mother wasn't losing any daughters to the Devil.

"I'll drive Cindy home afterwards. Him too." Frunk pointed to me. I had early morning classes at college and Cindy lived on Beacon Hill.

I kissed my mother good-night. She blessed me with her rosary and slipped me a twenty, which was enough for a week's worth of Labatt Beer.

My older brother drove his VW to the parking lot below Chickatawbut Hill.

Cindy, Frunk, and I climbed to the old CCC tower. Gusts of wind rushed through the trees. Atop the stone tower two teenagers in leather jackets drank beer and smoked cigarettes.

"Good fire."

My brother gazed through my father's binoculars.

"Is it bad?"

"Take a look." Frunk handed me the glasses.

Fiery tongues of yellow and red leapt through the black smoke into the sky. Fire engines raced along the expressway. Chelsea needed help or else the city wouldn't exist in the morning. I passed the binoculars to Cindy.

"Ooo, that's big." The twenty year-old coed was impressed by the conflagration.

"I want to see this closer." Frunk descended the stairs. Chelsea was miles away, but the fire was a powerful magnet to an arsonist.

"From where?"

"From closer." He ran to the VW. I hadn't seen the law student this excited since he talked the cops out of arresting me at a college anti-war protest.

"Closer?"

"Chelsea." He turned to Cindy. "I'll drop you off first."

"No, you won't." The willowy brunette studied ancient history at Harvard. "It isn't every day that you get to see a city burn like Rome.

"I hosey co-pilot." My sense of direction was the best on either side of my family and I held open the door for Cindy. She jumped in the back and I sat in the front. My brother screeched from the parking lot and I pulled out a Massachusetts map, plotting a route to Chelsea.

Frunk turned on the radio.

The WBZ announcer said that the wind-blown fire was out of control. The city's hydrants failed to provided enough water for the hoses. Fire companies from all over the Bay State were descending on the burning city. The National Guard was stationed on Everett Avenue.

"You know anyone in Chelsea?" asked Cindy, as we sped on the inbound Route 3.

"No one."

"Then let's make up a name, so that if the police asks us about why we're there, then we can say we're the_____what?"

"Dwight Evans Volunteer Brigade." The Red Sox right fielder had a good bat and a strong arm to the plate.

On the way into the city my brother pulled over twice on the Expressway for convoys of fire trucks guided by State cruisers. Frunk followed one and drafted on the tail of a ladder truck from Marshfield. Over the radio the Chelsea Fire Chief requested that spectators stay away from the city.

"He's not talking to me." Fire branded my brother's soul, but it was a love for flames not Satan pulling to the burning city.

The Artery was jammed with fire trucks and at the Sumner Tunnel I said, "Get off the Expressway at Chinatown."

Frunk obeyed my directions. We cut through the Combat Zone and climbed over Beacon Hill.

"I don't see any smoke." My older brother peered into the night sky.

I pointed through the North End towers to a wavering orange glow. "Wait till we get to the river."

As we passed the Charles Street Jail, an awesome glare pulsated beyond the Bunker Hill. The sun was setting over the Charles. People lined the Longfellow Bridge. Cars slowed for the drivers to rubberneck the spectacle, but the police were setting up roadblocks on the Cambridge side of the river and Frank asked. "How are we going to get there?"

"Turn onto Memorial Drive."

I piloted him under the trolley viaduct across the railroad tracks to New Rutherford Avenue past the site of the old Charlestown Prison, which had been replaced by Bunker Hill Community College.

We skirted fire barricades and were surprised by the extant of the conflagration upon reaching the Alford Street Bridge over the Mystic River. Red and gold flashed off the water underneath a plateau of the fire trucks' spinning lights. A single Chelsea cop car manned the other end of the bridge. The officer leaned against a light-pole smoking a cigarette.

"We live in Chelsea. We got to get our dog and we're with the Dwight Evans Volunteer Brigade," I said quickly.

"I love Dewey. Where do you live?"

"Everett Ave." It wasn't close to the fire. "I'll cut across Riley's Way to get there. Is there fire there?"

"No, but you be careful." He looked exhausted and ordered, "Take a right on Beachem Street."

"Thank you, officer."

The back road skirted a huddle of fuel tanks.

"If these caught fire, it'd really going be something." Frunk's eyes shined with hope.

"Don't even think about it." Cindy knew my brother well.

A line of cops guarded the street at the end of Island End River.

The police were too tired to enforce the no-go zone.

"Park the car here."

Flames rocketed into the night. Oil-soaked rags and drums of rancid oil fueled the conflagration. An explosion rattled the cobblestones like fallen domino tiles. Fire hoses snaked north of Second Street. A fireman glanced at Cindy. The pulsating lights heightened her Irish beauty.

"The cops say the fire started over there." The long-haired townie pointed to the left. "In the rag warehouses."

Firefighters aimed jets of water at a lost building and another townie said, "I heard on the other side of the fire, hoses are running all the way from Bellingham Square. That's almost a half-mile from the frontline."

A boom rocked the air. Two fireballs whooshed into the sky. My skin felt the heat from three hundred feet away and Frunk said, "Let's get closer."

Embers soared overhead. Ashes rained on us. I expected to see Godzilla breathing lava on Chelsea.

"This is far enough for me." The townie stopped before twin columns of fire.

"The burning bush of Chelsea." Frunk was drawn forward in a hypnotic trance to where the walls of flames rose overhead to form a hellish tunnel. There wasn't a fireman in sight and I grabbed at his arm. He shrugged off my hand.

"And I'm not seeing my brother barbecued."

"I'll be fine. Heat rises. C'mon. You'll never see something like this ever again in your life. It's like Chelsea had been bombed by the Luftwaffe."

"Or Hanoi by the Air Force," I sneered, since Frunk had voted for Nixon to end the war.

"That too."

I stared into the fiery maw. The wind shifted and the enflamed corridor opened to the stars, but the gauntlet's intense heat baked my skin and a face grew in the fire. I was a lifelong atheist, but the eyes belonged to the Devil. He called my name. Frunk's too. We were wanted in Hell and I had no idea why, but shouted, "Run."

I waited for Frunk and Cindi to go ahead of me. I was the fastest, but didn't want to show my fear to the Devil.

At the end of the block firefighters shook their heads. I had wanted to be one when I was a kid.

Not anymore.

"Where did you come from?" a black-faced fireman asked, ready to spray us down.

"From there." Frunk nodded over his shoulder.

"Stupid hippies. Get out of here."

This night was for professionals.

"What did you see back there?" Cindy asked as if she might have seen something.

"Nothing and you?" I asked Frunk.

He didn't say the word.

Cindy and I walked him back to the VW. Ambulances idled on the road. No one had been hurt in the fire, but Frunk was in a state of shock. I took the keys and drove us to Charles Street. I parked the car and we went into the Sevens. Frunk liked Brothers better, but this was my choice. I ordered us three beers and we sat at the bar. My brother watched Patriots highlights on the TV. There weren't many. The home team had lost to the Jets 9-7.

The barman sniffed at us.

"You start a fire?"

"No, but we saw the one in Chelsea." Cindy was seeing an Englishman and had a nice way of saying 'Chelsea'.

"No way."

He expected a report and I told him everything.

"No one died, but that city is burned toast." I left out of the face in the fire, because I was happy with atheism and sipped at my beer, because while there might not be a God, other creatures haunted the flames at night especially when a city burns to the ground and wherever they lived no beer will not be served throughout eternity.

Of this I was sure after surviving the Great Chelsea Fire of 1973.

PHOTOS FROM THE GREAT CHELSEA FIRE OF 1973

fotos by Stanley Foreman

Where is Tankman?

%

A Chinese protester blocks a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Cangan Blvd. June 5, 1989 in front of the Beijing Hotel. Twenty years ago a single man stopped a convoy of tanks near Peking's Forbidden City one days at the Tiananmen massacre. Cameras and videos captured the young man's defiance of governmental power.

Steel versus flesh. After a conversation with the driver of the first tank, security forces hustled him away into the crowd. He has never been seen since and his identity remains a mystery, although some journalists have declared that his name was Wang Weilin, a 19-year-old student, who was later charged with "political hooliganism" and "attempting to subvert members of the People's Liberation Army". This claim has been refuted by many sources as have reports that Tank Man was executed by a firing squad several months after the incident.

"I can't confirm whether this young man you mentioned was arrested or not." said a CCP secretary, leading to rumors that the young man is hiding on the mainland.

Whatever the truth the world owes this man the greatest honor for his courage in standing for truth along with the thousands of students in Tiananmen Square. Their memory has been obscured by the Communist Party and the two months of protests hasn't been ignored by all the young of China. They want freedom. They only want freedom. Same as the rest of the world.

We can't have everything.

But I honor the man on the tank.

He's my hero.But I honor the man on the tank.

Watch this video;

One man against the power of the state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-nXT8lSnPQ&

Everything Versus Nothing - Lazurus II

Everything I thought about life disappeared with my first death.
On a hospital operating table
I was Michael Jackson on profopol.
Feeling
Nothing but nothing
And the promise of more nothing throughout eternity.

The hereafter was exactly as I had expected.
A wasteland.
White.
Formless.
Nothing.
No God.
No gods.
No Satan.
No heaven or hell.
No purgatory.
No fear.
No pleasure.
No pain.

Then
I sensed something else.
More nothing.
My math education taught
That nothing times something equal nothing.
Nothing was more powerful than everything
And I was okay with eternity with nothing.

Year ago in Thailand
My father had once appeared in a dream.
In his fifties. Strong. Not old. Not young.
I complained about my problems.
He stopped me.
He knew something I didn’t know and said clearly, “Don’t worry. When you’re dead none of those problems will mean nothing.”
I believed him without question.
He had never lied to me.
I wish I could have claimed the same.

I had lied to me all the time.
In this white nothingness that didn’t matter.
The nothingness absolved me of everything.
I searched for something in the nothingness and found nothing.
My humanness argued there had to be something.
Not true.
I had no eyes, nose nose, no ears, no skin, no tongue,
Yet I could feel the nothingness,
Even though it was nothing.
I couldn’t shut off the nothingness.
It felt like forever, then I segued to a dream.
I was on a cutting block. In London
The Smithfield Market.
Butcher's chopping my body.
My guts scattered across the wood table.
No pain.
No terror.
Simply a vacation from the nothingness,
Except it was something worse.

I emerged from death.

Snap.

My eyes opened.
My body on an operating table.
Profopol fading.
My abdomen opened to transplant a liver.
There were no guts to be seen.
No butchers either.
Nurses surrounded the OR table..
“Are you okay?”
The voice from behind me.
I croaked out yes.

Life.
Not death.
Not nothing.
Breathe.
Feel drugs.
Morphine.
Maybe Dilaudid.
I recall saying no Oxys.

This was not a new life.
I had not died.
I had lied to myself.
The nothing was not real.

A doctor
“Everything went well.”
Everything?
But what about the nothing?
Both were simple answers on morphine

2008 Stunner

After New Year’s Day of 2008 my 'wife' packed the car with Angie, Champoo, and her fat sister for the return drive to Chai-nat. Her week stay for Xmas had been torture. My every word was met with visible disdain. She told my daughter that I was a worthless drunk. My restraint had been tested to the limit. My young daughter and I celebrated her birthday together. Angie refused to choose sides and cried getting in the car. I hugged my daughter and said, "I’ll see you soon." Chai-nat was a five-hour bus ride from Pattaya. My online site for selling fake F1 merchandise required daily attention, but I had come to Thailand to be with Angie and not flog second-grade copies to racing fanatics. “You take care?” Angie’s mom spoke little to no English. Thais are the French of the Orient and even the lowest caste have a very high opinion of themselves and their country. The former factory worker considered farangs ‘so-kapok’ and we were only one step above Arabs. “I’ll be fine.” I kissed my daughter good-bye. Her mother and I had not been intimate since before her birth. Our sole connection was our daughter and she had said on more than one occasion that Angie wasn’t mine. Her ex-boyfriend had disappeared weeks ago. Pi-et was no magician and the main prop for his vanishing act had been a bus north. Chai-nat lay in the same direction. Murder constantly paced the corridors of my mind and accordingly we maintained a defensive distance. The Toyota backed out of the driveway. Angie waved from the backseat. She had my mother’s smile, crooked teeth and all. I swallowed a lump and went inside my rented house to open a can of beer. It was twenty-three minutes short of noon. I thought about calling Angie’s mom to come back, but my words had lost their magic. They had a full tank of gas and 2500 baht, which was more than enough to last two days, then again if I had learned one thing in Thailand, “It’s never enough.” The beer tasted strong on an empty stomach. I was once more being deserted to my own devices in Pattaya. I turned the TV onto Fox News. Bill O’Reilly was praising GW Bush for saving America after 9/11. As I got up for another beer, my mobile phone vibrated on the coffee table. The volume of the ringing was turned down to avoid to avoid unwanted phone calls. My wife suspected the worst and a woman was never wrong about a man. I answered the phone It was Mint. 22 years old, thin as a runway model, and convinced that I could never love her. “Is she gone?” “Back to Chai-nat.” “And her ‘feend’.” The Thai word for lover sounded very much like friend. I had discovered my wife sitting on Pi-et’s lap. She had said that they were just friends in Thai. I had chosen to accept the lie for the sake of my daughter. “Yes.” “We have to talk.” “About what?” Mint and I had been lovers for over a year, but we had never spent a night in bed together. Our encounters were pure afternoon or early evening. “I tell you when I see you.” She shared an apartment on Jomtien Beach with a gay friend. Glai was very jealous of our relationship. The hustler liked it better when I had been a customer. Mint felt the opposite. “Can’t you tell me now?” I hated mysteries. “No. Not now. I see you. I tell you.” If it can’t be said over the phone, then it wasn’t about money. She wasn’t shy about asking for money, but neither was Mint greedy, despite having two kids. They cost money. I gave what I gave. It also was never enough. Mint probably had another boyfriend to bankroll her life. She was an ace at pretending desire. Her faithful clientele from her years on Soi 6 and the Mona Lisa Massage in Bangkok were legion. She juggled her time with us like a crap shooter hoping for the best roll. I drove the back roads to Jomtien. Pattaya attracted thousands of long-timers. Coconut plantations were giving way to holiday villas. The vanishing wetlands behind Jomtien Beach put a good distance between my house and Mint’s apartment, diminishing the possibility of my wife and Mint running into each other. I hated confrontations. By the time I reached Thraprassit Road, the sun had burnt through the morning haze. The cold front had slunk down from Siberia. Thai beachgoers reveling in the sea. Russians waddled out of 7/11 with ice creams. It was a too nice a day to hear goodbye twice. I turned off the Beach Road and rolled up to her semi-abandoned apartment building. The Doors’ ’THE END’ played in my head like this scene was the beginning of APOCALYPSE II. Mint sat on a stool in front of the building. She was wearing a loose dress. A bottle of beer was on the table weigh two glasses. “You want drink?” She averted looking in my eyes. “Yes.” Beer protected me from everything. She poured beer into the two glasses. Neither of us took a sip. Mint had her hands folded on her lap. I sat down and asked, “What is it?” “I’m pregnant.” She lifted do-it-yourself pregnancy test. Two red lines indicated mint was carrying another life. I had thought the recent weight gain had come from beer. “Pregnant?” I was old enough to be Mint’s father, who’s actually two years younger than me. Angie had been a surprise. This neared a shock. “Yes. Two months. It is yours.” “Mine.” Two months ago had been Loy Krathong. I distinctly recalled a long afternoon in bed. The math worked out to 1+1=3. “I not go with other man.” She had been faithful to me. I was the same to her. “I know.” I wasn’t brought up to accuse a woman of entrapment. It wasn’t like I was the pick of the crop. “Chai.” Her morning sickness and expanding belly should have been signs of impending fatherhood. I was too absorbed in my problems to notice the obvious. “A baby.” Walking away from a woman was easy in Thailand. Marriages dissolved like sugar in the rain. Men were free to come and go as the wind. Women were glad to see them go too. Mint was well aware of her position. Pattaya was the Last Babylon. It was every man for himself. The father of her two children had left her penniless at 18. Her beauty had saved them from starvation. I lifted her head with two fingers. Tears dotted the corners. She had been here before, but not with me. “Two months pregnant?” “Chai.” She was expecting a repeat of bad luck. “What you want to do?” “I want have baby.” Mint wanted to make me happier. She was too crazy to do that all the time, but she had heard the sadness in my voice, as I told her about Angie’s mother singing the name of the father to Pi-et. The Thai authorities would never reverse that signature. Mint wanted to have the baby. She wanted it to be mine. “Baby girl be cute.” “That’s the truth.” Looks were the least of our problems. “How do you know it’s a girl?” She certainly had not done an ultra-sound. >”Old lady see my neck and say if blood move up and down sure to be girl.” Mint indicated a pulsing vein on her neck. “Old lady say maybe I have two.” “Twins?” 30 seconds was not enough time to digest the first news let alone the second. “Not sure. What you want do?” There was only one choice. Abortion was out of the question. It was illegal and while I accepted the freedom of choice for a woman, I was old-fashioned enough to regard every life as sacred. “If it’s a boy, can I chose the name?” I was a 55 year-old American living in Thailand. Going back to the States was not in the books. “Yes. What about your wife?” “We were never married.” Her numerous betrayal had cancelled that event. “I not want be mia noi.” Her smile was half-hearted. The second wife or mia noi usually ends up standing in the rain outside the house of her child’s father. Thai TV soaps loved that scene. “You won’t be a mia noi.” I couldn’t guarantee how her countrymen would view her, but Angie and her mother were living up-country. They weren’t coming back. My cash flow was threatened by the global slow-down. The big house in Pattaya was an unnecessary expense. Two families were an obligation for a real man. Jomtien had the beach. Mint and I could live small. “You and me will be one.” “I not want much.” Not much sounded good today. Much would be spoken later, because kids cost money. “Only me.” I felt good saying it. Believing it was not as easy, but Mint held my hand and said, “Only you, me, and babies.” And I wouldn’t have it any other way. You never do when there’s only one choice. For better. Never worst. ps my son Fenway was born in July. So much for the old lady’s prediction.

Like Father Like Son

Fenway took a fall in the bathroom.

Lots of blood. 8 stitches. No longer perfect.

Everyone says his mother beat him. Mam would never touch him. Me maybe, but like father like son. My black eye is from a street fight in Pattaya.

"It was a good fight, ma, but I lost."

In fact I did not land a punch.

But I didn't quit too.

Same as my son.

Fenway Superstar.

A Comprehensive List of Sex

My research of sexual terms has been extensive over my seventy-one years. More for a good joke or to outrage a dinner table of stodgy American than to liberate my own sexuality, however my confidence in my prurient knowledge was shaken by a list of sexual perversions floating on the internet.
Reading this following list could be a voyage into the vast abyss of useless knowledge, then again I once read a Superman comic book which told me that lemons contained citric acid. This fact was on a test a year later in gramar school, so you never know how what you know might prove useful.
Beware some terms might shed a light on that dark corner in your libido.
Personally I am only familiar with 46 of the terms.

>FORMICOPHILIA: Enjoyment of the use of insects for sexual purposes has to be a Thai favorite.
ACHLUOPHILIA: Love of darkness
ACMEGENESIS: Orgasm
ACOMOCLITIC: Preference for hairless genitals
ACOUSTICOPHILIA: Arousal from sounds
ACROPHILIA: Arousal from heights or high altitudes
ACROTOMOPHILIA: Arousal from amputees
ACTIRASTY: To become aroused from exposure to sun?s rays
ACUCULLOPHALIA: Circumcision
ACYESIS: Female sterility
ADAMITISM: Going naked for God
ADOLESCENTILISM: Cross-dressing or playing the role of an adolescent
AELUROPHILIA: Deriving gratification from cats
AGALMATOPHILIA: Attractions to statues or mannequins
AGAMIC: Asexual; parthenogenic
AGENOBIOSIS: Married couple who consent to live together without sex
AGONOPHILIA: Person who is aroused by a partner pretending to struggl
AGORAPHILIA: Arousal from open spaces or having sex in public places
AGREXOPHILIA: Arousal from others knowing you are having sex
AISCHROLATREIA: Worship of filth, smut; obscenity cult
ALBUTOPHILIA: Arousal from water
ALGOLAGNIA: Sexual satisfaction resulting from giving or receiving pain
ALIPHINEUR: Person using lotion to arouse a partner
ALLOERASTY: Use of nudity of another person to arouse a partner
ALLOPELLIA: Having orgasm from watching others engaging in sex
ALLOTRIORASTY: Arousal from partners of other nations or races
ALPHAMEGAMIA: Attraction to partners of another age group
ALTOCALCIPHILIA: High heel fetish
ALVINOLAGNIA: Stomach fetish
AMAUROPHILIA: Preference for a blind or blindfolded sex partner
AMAXOPHILIA: Attraction to riding in cars and motor vehicles
AMELOTASIS: Attraction to absence of limb
AMOKOSCISIA: Sexual frenzy with desire to slash or mutilate women
AMOMAXIA: Sex in a parked car
AMPHIEROTISM: Capacity of erotic reaction toward either sex
AMPHIGENTIC INVERT: sexual activity with persons of both genders
AMULIEROSIS: Result of sexual privacy
AMYCHESIS: Act of scratching partner during sexual passion
AMYCHOPHILIA: Deriving sexual pleasure from being scratched
ANACLITISM: Arousal from items used as infant
ANASTEEMAPHILIA: Attraction to a person because of a difference in height
ANAXIPHILIA: In love with a loser by someone who should know better
ANDROIDISM: Arousal from robots with human features
ANDROMANIA: Nymphomania
ANDROMINETOPHILIA: Arousal from female partner who dresses like male
ANILILAGNIA: Sexual desire for older women
ANISONOGAMIST: Attraction to either older or younger partners
ANOPHELORASTIA: Arousal from defiling or ravaging a partner
ANTHOLAGNIA: Arousal from smelling flowers
ANTHROPOPHAGOLAGNIA: Rape with cannibalism
ANTHROPOPHAGY: Pleasure derived from the ingestion of human flesh
APHEPHILIA: Deriving pleasure from being touchedA
PHILOPHRENIA: A feeling that one is unloved or unwanted
APODYSOPHILIA: Feverish desire to undress
APOTEMNOPHILIA: Person who has sexual fantasies about losing a limb
ASCETICISM: Religious self-denial often including celibacy
ASPHYXIAPHILIA: Arousal from lack of oxygen
ASTHENOLAGNIA: Arousal from weakness or being humiliated
ASTYPHIA: ImpotenceASYNODIA: Celibacy particularly due to impotence
AUTOEROTIC ASPHYXIA: Oxygen deprivation with risk of dying
AUTOGYNEPHILIA: Arousal from crossdressing
AUTOMASOCHISM: Inflicting intense sensations of pain on one?s body
AUTONEPIOPHILIA: Sexual attraction from being treated like an infant
AUTOPEDERASTY: The insertion of one?s own penis into their anus
AVERING: A boy?s begging in the nude to arouse sympathy
AVISODOMY: Breaking the neck of a bird while penetrating it for sex
AXILLISM: The use of the armpit for sex
BELONEPHILIA: Arousal from pins or needles
BIASTOPHILIA: Pleasure from forcible rape of a terrified stranger
BLISSOM: To copulate with an ewe
BROMIDROPHILIA: Arousal from bodily smellsC
CALLIPYGIAN: Having shapely buttocks
CANOPHILIA: Turned on by dogs
CATAGELOPHILIA: Love of being ridiculed
CHASMOPHILIA: Attraction to nooks, crannies, crevices, and chasms
CHEIMAPHILIA: Deriving pleasure from cold or winter
CHREMATISTOPHILIA: Arousal from being charged for sex or robbed
CHRYSOPHILIA: Arousal from gold or golden objects
CLAUSTROPHILIA: Love of being confined in small placesC
COPROPHEMIA: Obscene language
COPROPHILIA: A fancier of feces
CRATOLAGNIA: Arousal from strengthCRUROPHILIA: Sexual arousal from legs
DACRYPHILIA: Arousal from seeing tears in the eyes of a partner
DORAPHILIA: Love of animal skins
DYSTYCHIPHILIA: Deriving pleasure from accidentsE
EMETOPHILIA: Arousal from vomit or vomiting
EPISTEMOPHILIA: Abnormal preoccupation with acquiring knowledge
EREMOPHILIA: Maniacal desire to be left alone
ERGOPHILIA: Love of work and labor
EROTOPHOBIA: Fear of sexual love
EROTOPHONPHILIA: Sexual satisfaction from murdering complete strangers
ERYTHROPHILIA: Becoming aroused by blushing
FORMICOPHILIA: Enjoyment of the use of insects for sexual purposes
GAMOPHOBIA: Fear of marriage
GENICON: A sexual partner imagined by one dissatisfied with her actual partner
GENOPHOBIA: Fear of sex
GERONOSEXUALITY: An attraction where to object of desire 30 years older
GERONTOPHILIA: Arousal from an older partner
GRAPHOLAGNIA: Maniacal interest in obscene pictures
GYMNOPHOBIA: Fear of nudity
GYNOPHOBIA: Fear of women
GYNOTIKOLOBOMASSOPHILIA: Sexual pleasure by nibbling on a woman?s earlobe
HAMARTOPHILIA: Love of committing sinful acts
HAPTEPHILIA: Arousal by being touched
HARPAXOPHILIA: Getting pleasure by robbery or being robbed
HEDONOPHOBIA: Fear of pleasure
HEMATOLAGNIA: Sexual stimulation from blood
HYPNOPHILIA: Turned on by the thought of sleepingI
ICOLAGNIA: Arousal from contact with sculptures or pictures
.INFANTILISM: Attraction to childhood items
KAINOTOPHILIA: Getting pleasure from change
KAKORRHAPHIOPHILIA: Arousal from failure
KALOPSIA: Condition where things appear more beautiful than they really are
KERAUNOPHILIA: Turned on by thunder and lightning
KINESOPHILIA: Arousal from movement and exercise
KLISMAPHILIA: Sexual pleasure from enemas
KNISSOPHILIA: Attraction to incense-burning
KOPOPHILIA: Arousal from physical or mental exhaustion
LALIOPHILIA: Arousal from public speaking LALOCHEZIA: Talking dirty to relieve tension LEMAN: A mistress or lover LENOCINANT: Lewd LIGYROPHILIA: Turned on by loud noises LILAPSOPHILIA: Arousal from tornadoes LOBCOCK: A large, relaxed penis\ LITHOPHILIA: Attraction to stones, gravel, or mud LOVERTINE: Addicted to love-making LUPANARIAN: Lubricious, lascivious, lewd LYGOPHILIA: Love of darkness LYSSOPHILIA: Sexual arousal from becoming angry or upset
MACHLAENOMANIA: Masochism in women MACROMASTIC: Pertaining to large breasts MACROPHILIA: Attraction to giants or giant creatures MAIESIOPHILIA: Arousal from childbirth or pregnant women MAMMILLATED: Having nipples MANIAPHILIA: Attraction to insane people MANUSTUPRATION: Masturbation MASTIGOPHILIA: Sexual gratification from punishment or being whipped MATUTOLAGNIA: Antemerdian sexual desire MAZOPHILIA: Compulsion for breasts MECHANOPHILIA: Turned on by machines MEGALOPHILIA: Arousal from large objects (not necessarily fat) MENACME: The menstruating part of a woman's life MENOPHANIA: The onset of menstruation; false menstruation MENTULATE: Possessing a large penis; well-hung MERKIN: A pubic hair wig METOPOPHILIA: Turned on by a person's face METROPHILIA: Arousal from poetry MISAPODYSIS: Hatred of undressing in front of someone MISEROTIA: Aversion to sex MOLYSMOPHILIA: Attraction to dirt, filth, or contamination MONOECIOUS: Hermaphroditic MONORCHID: Having one testicle MULIEBRITY: Assumption of female characteristics by a male MULTIGRAVIDA: A woman who has been pregnant more than once MYSOPHILIA: Love of dirt or becoming dirty
NARRATOPHILIA: Arousal from erotic conversations NASOPHILIA: Arousal from the touch, licking, or sucking of a partner's nose. NEANILAGNIA: A yen for nymphets NEBULOPHILIA: Arousal from fog NECROPHILIA: Sexual gratification only by having sex with the dead NEMOPHILIA: Love of forests NEOLAGNIUM: Puberty NEOPHILIA: Arousal from anything new NOSOPHILIA: Love of becoming ill NOTHOSONOMIA: Calling someone a bastard NOVERCAMANIA: Sexual attraction to one's stepmotherNYCTOPHILIA: Love of night NYMPHOLEPSY: Trance incurred by erotic daydreams
OBSOLAGNIUM: Waning sexual desire due to age OCHLOPHILIA: Attraction to crowds OCNOPHILE: Someone chronically dependent on their lover OCULOLINCTUS: The act of licking a partner's eyeball ODYNOPHILIA: Deriving pleasure from pain; masochism OIKOPHILIA: Attraction to one's home OLFACTOPHILIA: Sexual gratification from smells OMBROPHILIA: Turned on by rain or being rained uponONANISM: Masturbation OPHELIMITY: The ability to please sexually OPHIDIOPHILIA: Arousal from snakes ORNITHOPHILIA: Love of birds OSMOLAGNIA: Arousal caused by bodily odors, such as sweat or menses OSPHRESIOPHILIA: An inordinate love of smells
PANTOPHILIA: Arousal from just about everything imaginable PAPHIAN: Erotic; pertaining to illicit love PAPILLA: A nipple PARACOITA: A female sexual partner PARACOITUS: A male sexual partner PAREUNIA: Sexual intercourse PARTHENOLATRY: Virgin worship PARTHENOPHILIA: Attraction only to virgins PECCATOPHILIA: Arousal from sinning or having committed imaginary crime PEDIOPHILIA: Attraction to dolls PEDOPHILIA: Attraction to younger partners PENIAPHILIA: Erotic fascination with poverty PENTHERAPHILIA: Sexual attraction to ones mother-in-law PEODEIKTOPHILIA: Sexual arousal from exhibitionism PEOTOMY: Surgical amputation of the penis PESSARY: A vaginal suppository PHALLATION: Movement of the penis in sexual intercourse PHILOPHOBIA: Fear of falling in love or of being loved PHILOPORNIST: A lover of prostitutes PHRONEMOPHILIA: Turned on by the act of thinking PHTHIRIOPHILIA: Attraction to lice PICTOPHILIA: Arousal only from looking at erotic pictures
PIZZLE: A whip made of an animal's penis PLACOPHILIA: Arousal from tombstones PLANISTETHIC: Flat-chested PLUVIOPHILIA: Sexual stimulation from rain or being rained upon PNIGOPHILIA: Aroused from people choking POINEPHILIA: Turned on by punishment; masochism PONOPHILIA: Attraction to overwork PORNERASTIC: Licentious, lewd, and horny PORNOCRACY: A government by prostitutes PORNOLAGNIA: Desire for prostitutes POTAMOPHILIA: Arousal from streams and rivers PREMENACMIUM: Life before menstruation begins PRESBYTOREAN: An erotic poem PRIAPISM: Persistent and painful erection, usually the result of a disease PRONOVALENCE: Ability to have sexual intercourse in a prone position only PSELLISMOPHILIA: Becoming aroused by stuttering PTERIDOMANIA: An intense desire for ferns PTERONOPHILIA: Sexual gratification from being tickled by feathers PUCELAGE: Virginity PUNQUETTO: A prostitute PUTANISM: Prostitution PYGMALIIONISM: Falling in love with ones creation (a la My Fair Lady) PYGOPHILIA: Aroused from buttocks PYROLAGNIA: Sexual stimulation from watching fires
QUADOSHKA: American Indian form of tantric sexQUEENING: Sitting on the side of a person's face as a form of bondage QUIM: The vagina
RAMMISH: Lustful and horny RANTALLION: One whose scrotum is longer than his penisRENIFLEUR: One who gets sexual pleasure from body smells RETIFISM: Foot and shoe fetishism, including using the shoe for masturbation RETROCOPULATION: Fornicating from behind (Doggie position) RHABDOPHILIA: Finding pleasure in being severely criticized RHYTIPHILIA: Arousal from facial wrinkles RUTTISH: Horny; in heat
SAPPHISM: Lesbianism SCELEROPHILIA: Attraction to bad guys or unsavory characters SCOPTOPHILIA: Voyeurism SCOTOPHILIA: Turned on by darknessSDRUCCIOLA: Copulate
SEPTOPHILIA: Sexual attraction to decaying matter
SIDERODROMOPHILIA: Arousal from riding in trains SITOPHILIA: Deriving pleasure from eating SOCERAPHILIA: Excitement from one?s parents-in-law SOPHOPHILIA: Sexual gratification from learning SOROPHILIA: Attraction to one's sister SPADONISM: Eunuchry SPECTROPHILIA: Arousal from looking at oneself in a mirror SPERMATOPHOBIA: Fear of semen SPINTRY: A male whore STASIVALENCE: Ability to have sexual intercourse only while standing STAUROPHILIA: Arousal from the cross or crucifix STHENOLAGNIA: Arousal from displaying strength or muscles STUPRATION: Rape STYGIOPHILIA: Deriving pleasure from thoughts of hell SUBAGITATION: CopulationSUCCUBUS: A female demon who seduces men in their sleep SUPINOVALENT: Able to fornicate only while lying on the back SYMPHOROPHILIA: Arousal by accidents or catastrophes SYNGENESOPHILIA: Sexual attraction to one's relatives
TAPHEPHILIA: Arousal from being buried aliveTAPHOPHILIA: Love of funerals TELEOPHILIA: Affinity for religious ceremonies TENTIGINOUS: Lascivious TERATOPHILIA: Arousal from deformed or monstrous people THALASSOPHILIA: Love of the sea THASSOPHILIA: Attraction to sitting THREPTEROPHILIA: A fondness for female nurses THYGATRILAGNIA: A father's sexual love for his daughter TOCOPHILIA: Fondness for pregnancy and childbirth TONITROPHILIA: Love of thunder TOXIPHILIA: Attraction to poisons TOXOPHILIA: Love of archery TRAGALISM: Lust; lechery; obscenity TRANSFEMINATE: To change from woman to man TRAUMATOPHILIA: An unconscious desire to be injured TRIBADISM: Mutual genital-fondling between lesbians TRICHOPATHOPHILIA: Sexual attraction to hair
UNDINISM: The association of water with erotic thoughts URANISM: Homosexuality URANOPHILIA: Sexual arousal by heavenly thoughts UROLAGNIA: Sexual pleasure from urinating URTICATION: The use of nettles to create extra sensation UXORAVALENT: Only able to attain sex extramaritally (applied to men) UXOROVALENT: Able to score only with one's wife
VACCINOPHILIA: Turned on by becoming vaccinated VAMPIRISM: Consuming blood of a partner for arousal VICARPHILIA: Arousal from other people's exciting experiences VINCILAGNIA: Arousal from bondage VIRAGINITY: Masculinity in a woman VIRGIN: You really need to ask VIRIMIMISM: Adoption of masculinity

VIRIPOTENT: Sexually mature
VITRICOPHILIA: Sexual attraction to one?s stepfather
WITTOL: A husband who tolerates his wife's infidelity
XENODYNAMIC: Person who is only potent with strangers
XENOPHILIA: An attraction to foreign customs, traditions, and foreigners
XERONISUS: Inability to reach orgasm
XYLOPHILIA: Turned on by wooden objectsY
YELD: Not old enough to procreate
YLOPHILIA: Affinity for forests
YONI WORSHIP: Worship of the female genitalsZ
ZELOPHILIA: Sexual arousal from jealousy
ZOOERASTIA: Sexual intercourse with an animal
ZOOPHILIA: One who is attracted to animals in a sexual, or emotional sense
ZWISCHENSTUFE: Arousal from a person of the same sex

Personally I'm turned on my girls playing electric guitar in the shower