THE GULF STREAM

The Gulf Stream's warm and swift current runs swiftly from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Atlantic, where it splits at about 40°0′N 30°0′W to effect the North Sea and the ocean off Africa. According to Wikipedia the Gulf Stream is typically 100 kilometres (62 mi) wide and 800 metres (2,600 ft) to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) deep. The current velocity is fastest near the surface, with the maximum speed typically about 2.5 metres per second (5.6 mph).

The sea off Fort Tilden, the Rockaways is swimmable thanks to the Gulf Stream.

As are the breakers off the Montauk Cliffs.

Atlantic rollers off the shore of Nantasket Beach.

But nothing melted Newburyport slush in the winter of 2015.

Not even the Gulf Stream.

But I'm always ready for a swim off Palm Beach.

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.

Sirens Of Soi 6 # 5

The rainy season had lasted longer than most Thais could remember. Many of Pattaya's roads were inundated by the overflow from the sewers. One polluted pool stretched 100 meters along Soi Buahkhao. No cars or motorcycles were navigating through the floodzone. The black water was knee-deep, but Nai was in a hurry. His girlfriend was waiting for him at Soi 6 and she hated waiting. He drove his Yamaha scooter into stinking lake only to have the motor die halfway from the high ground of the other end.

Shopkeepers laughed at his plight from behind walls of sandbags.

"You think bike jetski?" A motorsai taxi driver shouted from a stand atop a stack of cinderblocks.

Nai's blood boiled to a vapor and his eyes narrowed to murderous slits. One more word and the taxi driver would have a knife in his chest. The bystanders correctly read the twenty-three year-old's vicious mood and everyone said nothing, as Nai pushed the bike to dry land. His struggle to kickstart the bike was futile. The carburetor was soaked beyond rescue. An enterprising repair shop was already servicing the other fools in a hurry. They wanted 300 baht for a new part. 50 baht was the only money in his pocket, but the ten ja-bah pills would give him 3000 baht and his girlfriend on Soi Six said her friends were in desperate need of a boost.

Business was good.

Nai decided to leave the bike before a farang beer bar. It should be safe there and he started walking toward Soi 6, his jeans dripping water with every step. At Pattaya Klang Road the rain fell in clots. His telephone and the speed pills were wrapped in plastic. The phone was vibrating against his chest. It could only be Oom. She was angry all the time now. Angry in the morning. Angry at night. The only time she wasn't angry or moh-hŏh was when she smoked ja-bah. The drug took her someplace other than her here and she needed some ja-bah now.

Nai thought about jumping on a motorsai taxi, but opted to catch a baht bus or songthaew on 2nd Road. He might need the 50 baht in his pocket later and picked up the pace. The traffic light at the busy intersection was red and Nai bit his lip, thinkikng about his life.

His dream to be a pop star seemed set with his job as a singer at a karaoke bar on 3rd Road. Older women flocked to the club to hear the handsome Sakhio native sing Thai love songs. One had even said he sounded like Bird McIntyre, the #1 star in Thailand. That night she gave him a 2000 baht tip. Another night a gold necklace. Three days later the Yamaha scooter. Oom wasn't jealous as long as he wasn't jealous or huung about her customers from the Chic Bar.

"Farang only kak." She used the slang word for customer rather than bor-rí-pôhk to show her disdain for her clientele. "Same old lady only rent you. Not same me. I steal our heart."

Oom was right. He was only in love with her. She only had him. The old lady wanted to pay for a session in a music studio. His friend had written a great song KHITUNG TER SA-MER or I THINK ABOUT YOU ALWAYS. Two musicians were contacted to play as the band. He even had a name for the group. STRANGER. The bright lights of Bangkok were only 150 kilometers away from Pattaya and KHITUNG TER SA-MER was the ticket.

The light changed to 'walk' and Nai stepped into the street only to have someone grab his shirt. He fought to free himself. The hand was too professional to be a street thief after his ja-bah. Nai shut his eyes and surrendered his fate.

"Nai, what you doing here?" The chubby undercover police officer was not alone. His acne-scarred partner sat on a Yamaha 400cc SR. They had confiscated from a farang marijuana dealer.

"Going to Tops." Nai pointed to the supermarket on the opposite corner.

"For what?" The officer was going through his pockets. It was only a matter of time until he found the ja-bah in his belt. He pulled out Nai's phone and unwrapped the plastic. The telephone rang and the officer handed it to Nai. "Must be Oom. She must be thinking about you."

The fat cop Uan liked Oom. She said he never went with him. Nai believed her about the farangs. Uan was a different story. The tam-luat or police always got what they wanted from women or men.

"Answer it." Uan shoved him hard. The police in the traffic booth watched the confrontation without interest. They were only after motorcycle drivers without helmets. 200 baht from each pôo bàat jèp or prey. Easy money. Uan was after more. "Answer it now."

"Hello."

"Where you?" Oom was furious.

"Not far." Nai lifted his shirt to facilitate Uan's search. "But have to wait nid-noy. Your friend Uan is talking with me."

The tam-luat's name provoke a silence.

"She want to speak with you." Nai held out the phone. Oom would know what to say to get him out of this mess.

"Don't go away." Uan walked around the corner.

Nai thought about dropping the ten ja-bah tabs in the gutter, except Uan's partner was watching him with a greedy vigilance. The older policeman was rumored to have killed three drug dealers during Thaksin's war on drugs. None of them had been big men. Nai closed his eyes and mumbled a prayer to his favored spirit promising to change his life if he escaped the monkey house. The prayer was short, for Uan returned to the curb. His giving back Nai's phone should have been a good sign.

"You're lucky it's the beginning of the month and I like Oom."

"Why?" Nai asked knowing the word was already written on his destiny.

"Because I only want 5000 baht. Not 10,000." Uan smiled with a flash of gold. Two teeth were capped with 22K. "If end month. Maybe 20,000 for ja-bah you have in belt. Not look surprise. I know everything about you. About Oom too. get the money. Tomorrow and tell Oom I'll see her later."

Uan punched Nai in the stomach. Hard. The impact emptied his soul and he dropped to his knees. The two cops drove off toward Beach Road. Someone helped Nai to his feet. A farang man in his 50s. No Thai would have interfered with police business.

"Thank you."

The old man's face was covered in tattoos. A criminal on the run. Oom said many of them came to her bar. They told her stories of gun, robberies, and drugs. Many were hiding from their own police.

"No troubles. Fucking filth."

Nai didn't understand the words, but the tone was unmistakable. He hated the tam-luat too. All they ever did was steal from people in trouble and he was in big trouble now. Not only with Uan but with Oom too. He wai-ed the farang and walked in the direction of Soi 6.

The lights of Bangkok seemed very far away.

A distance not to be measured by kilometers.

But by luck.

He had his looks and ja-bah and Oom.

Between the three of them something good had to come his way.

He could only hope it was the good he wanted and not the good someone else thought he deserved. Only tomorrow could tell what good that was.

THE TEMPTATION FOR MAN by Peter Nolan Smith

Several years ago my good friend Jamie Parker was seeing a go-go girl from the Paris A Go-Go. Ort was skinny and crazy. The ex-con from the Bronx was smart enough not to have Ort as a girlfriend. The twenty-three was better as a geek, but the 52 year-old from the Bronx couldn't resist the siren call once she mentioned 'ice'. Jamie liked his drugs. He liked his sex too. The two of them went on a binge. A month later Jamie developed a heart murmur. His lungs were shot with holes. The New Yorker had dropped twenty pounds.

"I had to let her go.” Jamie had changed his telephone and was planning on a trip to Laos. His survival was at stake. "She's a sweet girl."

"Sweet." I wouldn't have described Ort as sweet. I knew the temptress from Soi 6. We had had an affair that lasted more than a year. She had been my geek too. Ort had several other men at the same time. Her drug habit was voracious. She was irresistible and I feared a phone call.

I could not say ‘no’ to drugs and sex either.

Ice, sex, more ice, and more sex were 21st Century formula for disaster.

A day went by and then two without a call from Ort. It appeared I was off the hook. Several of the dancers at the Paris A Go-Go said Ort had travelrf to Singapore with a Chinese businessman. Jamie canceled his trip to Luang Prabang. I offered a silent prayer for her good luck and thanked the stars that she was gone.

Ort was nothing, but trouble and we all loved trouble.

Three days after her disappearance Mam returned from seeing her children near the Cambodian border. She checked my phone. No calls from strange girls. I didn’t go out to the bars, because during low season the clientele tends to be as old as extinct creatures and I’m scared shitless of catching olditis, if these wizened geezers farted dust in my direction.

I played good man or poo-chai di. Mam got my undying devotion and I drank 3-4 Leo beers a day instead the usual onslaught of 10-12 Changs at the Buffalo. Sleep came early like in the country with a book lulling me in the direction of Nodville.

Several weeks later I lay in bed. Mam was downstairs preparing us food. The phone rang in my pocket. I answered without hesitation.

"Hello tee-lat." It was Ort.

"Where are you? Singapore?" I cupped my hand over my mouth. Mam has good hearing, even from five stories below.

"No, can't get a flight. I in Pattaya. You have time for me."

"No, I'm with Mam." I had told Ort about Mam. "Come see me. I have Ice and want you to play my master." Ort was also a masochist. She didn’t know why other than to say that she liked it rough. "Sorry, I don't have any money." The 10 K in my pocket was for Mam and me, not a dirty weekend in a cheap hotel. There was also another problem.

"You see Jamie. He is my friend. I don't do that to friends."

He not know. Same your wife. She not know. She not care. Have Ice. I want you. Not have to have sex. Can only talk."

"Talk?" The devil was trying to buy my soul for a free night of sex with a demon. I sat up in bed. I was hard. 'Ice' and Ort tempted my soul.

"I talk to you and you talk to me." Ort's third language was 69.

The DVD of her plans played within my brain at 32 times the speed of light. She would smoke her pipe and then mount me cowboy-reverse, telling me not to move until she finished with brown eyes rolling into her skull. I was as hard as a 40 year-old on Viagra.

"You know you want it."

Ort knew how to sell the truth.

I'm fairly sure my final destination is down rather than up and I'm sure that on my death bed I would be ruing refusing Ort this favor, but I said, "Sorry, I can't, Mam is coming. Bye.



I shut off my phone and went to the TV room.

Mam looked at me with a smile.

"Good movie."

"Okay. You watch with us." She had my son on her lap. Fenway was my little superstar.

"Why not?" It was a Thai soap. Thais loved the story. Poor girl. Rich Boy. Love. Someone get hurt. Go hospital. Get better. Love.

It wasn't like I had a choice.

I was a man in love.

Time to go home

Chris Rock does a piece about why men get married.

"You don't want to end up the old guy at the club."

The old guy at the club.

Pattaya was filled with them.

Drinking, drugs, chatting with girls, going to sin here and there.

I'm a witness. I like the night life. Always have. My wife hates it.

She tolerates my going out, because she knows after two drinks I'm devoted to the paganism of drinking. Not sex. I'm a failed writer, a poet, and half-Irish. Booze runs in my blood and I don’t really speak with any farangs during the week.

As i got on my bike Saturday night she told me to drive safely and I head to Waking Street to meet my friend, Sam Royalle, at Heaven's Above.

This go-go is run by Patrick, who owned a pimp club in East St. Louis. He has great stories about the 70s and has revive the legend of his old club at his place on Soi Diamond.

The upstairs bar is decorated in white like the Milk Bar from CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The dancers are temptations from Satan. My will is weak and I quickly order a drink. It goes down in two minutes. Thee next in five. I’m saved from any threat of infidelity, especially after Sam orders tequila shots. His girlfriend collects strays to accompany us to Casino. We drink more. It’s past midnight.

I try to escape, but Sam grabs my arm.

"One more drink."

I'm easy and drink until someone pulls my stool from under me.

I fall through a gaggle of go-go girls. My hands clutch at them. Bras snap off their bodies. I hit the next table and then the ground. The bar staff help me to my feet. Someone laughs. A pretty girl says, "Mao."

Drunk. Damn right. Drunk.

Chris Rock is right. It was time for this old guy to go home.

At home my wife asks, "What time is it?"

"Dunno." I didn’t have that many fingers."

"How much you drink?"

"One bottle of beer."

"One big one."

"Very big."

"Go shower."

I do as I'm told.

Any man in my condition at 3am would, if they know what is good for them.

Hellish Weather

%

The world has been experiencing record temperatures from Death Valley 129 F to Romoe 107F and 104 in Thailand. Climate experts have claimed that the root cause of the current weather pattern is man's insatiable appetite for consumption. I see New Yorkers wandering thr streets and subways with a coffee cup their right hand and a cell phone in their right, plus earphones plugged into their Aural Passages. They no longer exist in this world, but in the meta-sphere.

The other day i was entereing a subway train. A young woman wearing headphones blocked the doorway. I said, "Excuse me."

Three times.

Lost in her internet bliss.

I gently nudged her aside and she responded by berating me for disturbing her online coma, I love telling irate people who think they have been mistreated to calm down. Inst@nt heightening of tension from this woman and I said,""Sorry, but you don't live in this world. I can't hear you."

Scowl.

I retorted with a smile, satisfied to havee ruined a small part of her day, and she muttered under her breath. My intrusion into her space had been recognized despite her detachment from society. We have to see and hear and feel what is around us.

People, places, and things.

This is our world.

We are us. All of us.

But not them.

2 X The Man 3 X The Woman

Yesterday I was at the Tuesday Wat Chai market looking for bootleg Bugs Bunny DVDs for my son. There were none and I left the open-air square, heading for my tailor. Pinky was making a new jacket for me. Cut to size.

Walking down Pattaya Tai a woman called my name. The pseudonym. It was Ort, Jamie Parker's ex. The go-go vixen was alone. My friend had fired her after discovering she was seeing a British body builder. He was better off solo and I said, "I have no idea where Jamie is."

"Not look for Jamie. We friend. Not more." Ort was wearing a sleek hot pants set. She was as seductive as the first day that Jamie and I spotted her at the Paris a Go-Go. The years 2006. She said that she was 20 then. Jamie found out later the truth was 18.

"Where's your boyfriend?" The Brit construction worker had retired her from the bikini squad, bought a house in Prichit, given her a brand new car and 10 baht of gold. "I thought you were going to England."

I glanced around the market for familiar faces. Mem was up in Sriracha, but she has spies or jah-rah-chon everywhere. Sometimes I suspected that she had planted a GPS bug under my skin.

No, my boyfriend leave me for a ka-toey." Ort wasn"t wearing any gold. The odds were that she had hocked them to the jum-jam or pawnshop.

Sure it wasn't for seeing other men?" A year ago i had last seen Ort entering the Marine disco. Her date wasn’t her muscle-building boyfriend.

"No, no, he leave me for lady-boy." She seemed on the verge of tears and I led her into a t-shirt stall. I didn’t want people getting the wrong impression. "I not understand. I stop pretty." Ort was never really pretty. But she was sexy with a sleek baby seal body.

"No, you're still beautiful."

"Then why he leave me?"

"Your boyfriend goes to the gym?" I didn’t have the answer, but could with the right information.

"Yes."

"He use a needle?" I had seen him twice. Muscles like his didn't come naturally in Pattaya. Ort nodded to admit he was a steroid juice junkie.

"He likes to have sex?" I felt like a palm reader divining the truth. "Many times."

"And ate Viagra?" Most steroid muscle-builders can't get it up without it, but also use ketamine to get a buzz. All too chemically ugly for an old stoner like me.

"Yes, and he want sex too much. He hurt me too much."

"And that's why he left you for a ka-toey." Thailand unlike the States didn’t have a real hang-up about transvestites.

The Miss Tiffany World Show is televised live and the presenter is usually Miss World Thailand. The greeter at the biggest hospital in Pattaya is a ka-toey and the most beautiful women on Walking Street are the lady-boys hanging out at the Jennie Star Bar.

"I not understand." She wouldn't because she's a woman.

"Your boyfriend is a sex maniac. He wants sex all the time. But a woman can only have sex 3-5 times a week. Not so a ka-toey. A lady-boy can have sex all day long, because she’s a man and has man's muscles and wants sex like a man."

"How you know this?" All women are distrustful of a man wanting to tell them what he thinks of as the truth.

"Because I'm a man too." Ka-toys have a tough life. Men thinks them sissies and women view them as a threat. The only good defense is a better offense and Ka-toeys were twice the man most men were and three times the woman women were. Even that edge couldn’t save them from abuse.

"And you've been with a ka-toey?"

"No. I've drank with ka-toys." The cul-de-scas of my sex life were my secret, but back in 1978 I had been at a Halloween party for Paloma Picasso. Black-tie. I was ordering a drink when a gay boy bumped into me. He was being bullied by a jerk from Jersey. Bigger than the fag and bigger than me. I said, "You mind not pushing him around, while I'm trying to get a drink."

The Jersey boy turned his attention to me. "What are you going to do if I don't?"

The little queer took this as his cue to stage exit in any direction. The jersey boy clenched his fists. I wasn't going to talk about this and popped him in the face. Blood spurt from his lip. It has been my best shot but hadn’t stopped him. I weaved through his punches and counter-jabbed without success. Luckily the bouncers broke up the fight and threw him out.

Two ballerinas toasted my victory and invited me to a party uptown. I escorted them outside and hailed a taxi.

I never saw the Jersey Boy's sucker punch to the back on my head. I dropped into the gutter KO. He beat me senseless as I lay on the street like a discarded rag doll. A gay photographer stopped the thug's from inflicting serious injury, although the chain worn around his fist bloodied my face.

The ballerinas had pirouetted out of sight and I weaved down the street near like a Bowery bum.

A beautiful woman in a satin gown and spectacular high heels washed my face with her scarf. Her TLC ministrations stung, because she had wet the scarf with vodka. Once the angel spoke, I realized she was no woman, though she called herself Dove.

We became friends after that night and she was always asking me to go home with her. "Other men aren't so picky."

"I don’t want to ruin our relationship."

"It’s only sex and no one has to know." I wasn't too sure about that and remembered the old line about riding a Vespa.

"They're a lot of fun until one of your friends sees you riding one." It was equally applicable to TVs.

Yesterday I was at the Tuesday Wat Chai market looking for bootleg Bugs Bunny DVDs for my son. There were none and I left the open-air square, heading for my tailor. Pinky was making a new jacket for me. Cut to size.

Walking down Pattaya Tai a woman called my name. The pseudonym. It was Ort, Jamie Parker's ex. The go-go vixen was alone. My friend had fired her after discovering she was seeing a British body builder. He was better off solo and I said, "I have no idea where Jamie is."

"Not look for Jamie. We friend. Not more.” Ort was wearing a sleek hot pants set. She was as seductive as the first day that Jamie and I spotted her at the Paris a Go-Go. The years 2006. She said that she was 20 then. Jamie found out later the truth was 18.

"Where’s your boyfriend?" The Brit construction worker had retired her from the bikini squad, bought a house in Prichit, given her a brand new car and 10 baht of gold. "I thought you were going to England."

I glanced around the market for familiar faces. Mem was up in Sriracha, but she has spies or jah-rah-chon everywhere. Sometimes I suspected that she had planted a GPS bug under my skin.

No, my boyfriend leave me for a ka-toey." Ort wasn"t wearing any gold. The odds were that she had hocked them to the jum-jam or pawnshop.

Sure it wasn't for seeing other men?" A year ago i had last seen Ort entering the Marine disco. Her date wasn’t her muscle-building boyfriend.

"No, no, he leave me for lady-boy." She seemed on the verge of tears and I led her into a t-shirt stall. I didn’t want people getting the wrong impression. "I not understand. I stop pretty." Ort was never really pretty. But she was sexy with a sleek baby seal body.

"No, you’re still beautiful."

"Then why he leave me?"

"Your boyfriend goes to the gym?" I didn’t have the answer, but could with the right information.

"Yes."

"He use a needle?" I had seen him twice. Muscles like his didn't come naturally in Pattaya. Ort nodded to admit he was a steroid juice junkie.

"He likes to have sex?” I felt like a palm reader divining the truth. "Many times."

"And ate Viagra?" Most steroid muscle-builders can't get it up without it, but also use ketamine to get a buzz. All too chemically ugly for an old stoner like me.

"Yes, and he want sex too much. He hurt me too much."

"And that’s why he left you for a ka-toey." Thailand unlike the States didn’t have a real hang-up about transvestites.

The Miss Tiffany World Show is televised live and the presenter is usually Miss World Thailand. The greeter at the biggest hospital in Pattaya is a ka-toey and the most beautiful women on Walking Street are the lady-boys hanging out at the Jennie Star Bar.

"I not understand.” She wouldn't because she's a woman.

"Your boyfriend is a sex maniac. He wants sex all the time. But a woman can only have sex 3-5 times a week. Not so a ka-toey. A lady-boy can have sex all day long, because she’s a man and has man's muscles and wants sex like a man."

"How you know this?" All women are distrustful of a man wanting to tell them what he thinks of as the truth.

"Because I'm a man too." Ka-toys have a tough life. Men thinks them sissies and women view them as a threat. The only good defense is a better offense and Ka-toeys were twice the man most men were and three times the woman women were. Even that edge couldn’t save them from abuse.

"And you’ve been with a ka-toey?"

"No. I've drank with ka-toys." The cul-de-scas of my sex life were my secret, but back in 1978 I had been at a Halloween party for Paloma Picasso. Black-tie. I was ordering a drink when a gay boy bumped into me. He was being bullied by a jerk from Jersey. Bigger than the fag and bigger than me. I said, "You mind not pushing him around, while I'm trying to get a drink."

The Jersey boy turned his attention to me. "What are you going to do if I don't?"

The little queer took this as his cue to stage exit in any direction. The jersey boy clenched his fists. I wasn’t going to talk about this and popped him in the face. Blood spurt from his lip. It has been my best shot but hadn’t stopped him. I weaved through his punches and counter-jabbed without success. Luckily the bouncers broke up the fight and threw him out.

Two ballerinas toasted my victory and invited me to a party uptown. I escorted them outside and hailed a taxi.

I never saw the Jersey Boy's sucker punch to the back on my head. I dropped into the gutter KO. He beat me senseless as I lay on the street like a discarded rag doll. A gay photographer stopped the thug’s from inflicting serious injury, although the chain worn around his fist bloodied my face.

The ballerinas had pirouetted out of sight and I weaved down the street near like a Bowery bum.

A beautiful woman in a satin gown and spectacular high heels washed my face with her scarf. Her TLC ministrations stung, because she had wet the scarf with vodka. Once the angel spoke, I realized she was no woman, though she called herself Dove.

We became friends after that night and she was always asking me to go home with her. "Other men aren't so picky."

"I don’t want to ruin our relationship."

"It’s only sex and no one has to know." I wasn't too sure about that and remembered the old line about riding a Vespa.

"They're a lot of fun until one of your friends sees you riding one." It was equally applicable to TVs. On New Year’s Eve I attended the opening of a transsexual circus club outside Times Square. The main act was TVs on the trapeze. Dove was dressed in haute couture. She was every man’s #1 pick, but she was determined to seduce me with a jar of cocaine. I remained strong until seeing the Jersey Boy with two gay boys.

One was the boy he had been pushing against the bar on Halloween. They looked like lovers. My heart pumped out a tattoo of vengeance and I grabbed a beer bottle to break and slash his face.

"Don't." Dove stopped me. "I'll take care of this."

She lit a cigarette and walked up to the Jersey Boy, bumping into him clumsily. He turned to face her, ready for a fight, but not the cigarette she stubbed in his eye. No one had seen a thing and she came back to me and said, "That about evens the score. Now what about taking me home?"

I couldn't rightly say no, but short-time hotels were safer than your own bed.

Nothing happened. I was too loaded to have sex. Saved by my drive for excess.

So I’ve never really had a problem with TVs. I understand the medicines they take make them crazy. The psychological shift from man to woman isn’t easy either and I told Ort, “I wouldn’t trust one though. Not with money or your life, because they are between sexes and work with a different set of rules involving survival, but they tell me they can have sex all day long. Just what your boyfriend wants."

"I hate ka-toys." Ort's eyes narrowed to daggers. She was unforgiving tothe competition.

"You shouldn’t be too unhappy. You got a house, car, gold and let's face you didn't love him, right?" She was beyond listening to reason or excuses. “Love him for what? He stupid farang.” Thai girls say that about a lot of men. "I go back go-go. Meet new farang. Not love no one. Only my baby. You want mia noi?"

Ort was 22. Her body was a solace for a middle-aged man search for youth. A fool I am, but not enough to fall for a girl thinking all men stupid. I wished her luck. Whatever man fell for her next would need it. On New Year's Eve I attended the opening of a transsexual circus club outside Times Square. The main act was TVs on the trapeze. Dove was dressed in haute couture. She was every man’s #1 pick, but she was determined to seduce me with a jar of cocaine. I remained strong until seeing the Jersey Boy with two gay boys.

One was the boy he had been pushing against the bar on Halloween. They looked like lovers. My heart pumped out a tattoo of vengeance and I grabbed a beer bottle to break and slash his face.

"Don't." Dove stopped me. "I'll take care of this."

She lit a cigarette and walked up to the Jersey Boy, bumping into him clumsily. He turned to face her, ready for a fight, but not the cigarette she stubbed in his eye. No one had seen a thing and she came back to me and said, "That about evens the score. Now what about taking me home?"

I couldn't rightly say no, but short-time hotels were safer than your own bed.

Nothing happened. I was too loaded to have sex. Saved by my drive for excess.

So I've never really had a problem with TVs. I understand the medicines they take make them crazy. The psychological shift from man to woman isn’t easy either and I told Ort, "I wouldn't trust one with money or your life, because they are between sexes and live under a different set of rules involving survival, but they tell me they can have sex all day long. Just what your boyfriend wants."

"I hate ka-toys." Ort's eyes narrowed to daggers. She was unforgiving tothe competition.

"You shouldn't be too unhappy. You got a house, car, gold and let's face you didn't love him, right?" She was beyond listening to reason or excuses.

Yesterday I was at the Tuesday Wat Chai market looking for bootleg Bugs Bunny DVDs for my son. There were none and I left the open-air square, heading for my tailor. Pinky was making a new jacket for me. Cut to size.

Walking down Pattaya Tai a woman called my name. The pseudonym. It was Ort, Jamie Parker's ex. The go-go vixen was alone. My friend had fired her after discovering she was seeing a British body builder. He was better off solo and I said, "I have no idea where Jamie is."

"Not look for Jamie. We friend. Not more.” Ort was wearing a sleek hot pants set. She was as seductive as the first day that Jamie and I spotted her at the Paris a Go-Go. The years 2006. She said that she was 20 then. Jamie found out later the truth was 18.

"Where’s your boyfriend?" The Brit construction worker had retired her from the bikini squad, bought a house in Prichit, given her a brand new car and 10 baht of gold. "I thought you were going to England."

I glanced around the market for familiar faces. Mem was up in Sriracha, but she has spies or jah-rah-chon everywhere. Sometimes I suspected that she had planted a GPS bug under my skin.

No, my boyfriend leave me for a ka-toey." Ort wasn"t wearing any gold. The odds were that she had hocked them to the jum-jam or pawnshop.

Sure it wasn't for seeing other men?" A year ago i had last seen Ort entering the Marine disco. Her date wasn’t her muscle-building boyfriend.

"No, no, he leave me for lady-boy." She seemed on the verge of tears and I led her into a t-shirt stall. I didn’t want people getting the wrong impression. "I not understand. I stop pretty." Ort was never really pretty. But she was sexy with a sleek baby seal body.

"No, you’re still beautiful."

"Then why he leave me?"

"Your boyfriend goes to the gym?" I didn’t have the answer, but could with the right information.

"Yes."

"He use a needle?" I had seen him twice. Muscles like his didn't come naturally in Pattaya. Ort nodded to admit he was a steroid juice junkie.

"He likes to have sex?” I felt like a palm reader divining the truth. "Many times."

"And ate Viagra?" Most steroid muscle-builders can't get it up without it, but also use ketamine to get a buzz. All too chemically ugly for an old stoner like me.

"Yes, and he want sex too much. He hurt me too much."

"And that’s why he left you for a ka-toey." Thailand unlike the States didn’t have a real hang-up about transvestites.

The Miss Tiffany World Show is televised live and the presenter is usually Miss World Thailand. The greeter at the biggest hospital in Pattaya is a ka-toey and the most beautiful women on Walking Street are the lady-boys hanging out at the Jennie Star Bar.

"I not understand.” She wouldn't because she's a woman.

"Your boyfriend is a sex maniac. He wants sex all the time. But a woman can only have sex 3-5 times a week. Not so a ka-toey. A lady-boy can have sex all day long, because she’s a man and has man's muscles and wants sex like a man."

"How you know this?" All women are distrustful of a man wanting to tell them what he thinks of as the truth.

"Because I'm a man too." Ka-toys have a tough life. Men thinks them sissies and women view them as a threat. The only good defense is a better offense and Ka-toeys were twice the man most men were and three times the woman women were. Even that edge couldn’t save them from abuse.

"And you’ve been with a ka-toey?"

"No. I've drank with ka-toys." The cul-de-scas of my sex life were my secret, but back in 1978 I had been at a Halloween party for Paloma Picasso. Black-tie. I was ordering a drink when a gay boy bumped into me. He was being bullied by a jerk from Jersey. Bigger than the fag and bigger than me. I said, "You mind not pushing him around, while I'm trying to get a drink."

The Jersey boy turned his attention to me. "What are you going to do if I don't?"

The little queer took this as his cue to stage exit in any direction. The jersey boy clenched his fists. I wasn’t going to talk about this and popped him in the face. Blood spurt from his lip. It has been my best shot but hadn’t stopped him. I weaved through his punches and counter-jabbed without success. Luckily the bouncers broke up the fight and threw him out.

Two ballerinas toasted my victory and invited me to a party uptown. I escorted them outside and hailed a taxi.

I never saw the Jersey Boy's sucker punch to the back on my head. I dropped into the gutter KO. He beat me senseless as I lay on the street like a discarded rag doll. A gay photographer stopped the thug’s from inflicting serious injury, although the chain worn around his fist bloodied my face.

The ballerinas had pirouetted out of sight and I weaved down the street near like a Bowery bum.

A beautiful woman in a satin gown and spectacular high heels washed my face with her scarf. Her TLC ministrations stung, because she had wet the scarf with vodka. Once the angel spoke, I realized she was no woman, though she called herself Dove.

We became friends after that night and she was always asking me to go home with her. "Other men aren't so picky."

"I don’t want to ruin our relationship."

"It’s only sex and no one has to know." I wasn't too sure about that and remembered the old line about riding a Vespa.

"They're a lot of fun until one of your friends sees you riding one." It was equally applicable to TVs. On New Year’s Eve I attended the opening of a transsexual circus club outside Times Square. The main act was TVs on the trapeze. Dove was dressed in haute couture. She was every man’s #1 pick, but she was determined to seduce me with a jar of cocaine. I remained strong until seeing the Jersey Boy with two gay boys.

One was the boy he had been pushing against the bar on Halloween. They looked like lovers. My heart pumped out a tattoo of vengeance and I grabbed a beer bottle to break and slash his face.

"Don't." Dove stopped me. "I'll take care of this."

She lit a cigarette and walked up to the Jersey Boy, bumping into him clumsily. He turned to face her, ready for a fight, but not the cigarette she stubbed in his eye. No one had seen a thing and she came back to me and said, "That about evens the score. Now what about taking me home?"

I couldn't rightly say no, but short-time hotels were safer than your own bed.

Nothing happened. I was too loaded to have sex. Saved by my drive for excess.

So I’ve never really had a problem with TVs. I understand the medicines they take make them crazy. The psychological shift from man to woman isn’t easy either and I told Ort, “I wouldn’t trust one though. Not with money or your life, because they are between sexes and work with a different set of rules involving survival, but they tell me they can have sex all day long. Just what your boyfriend wants."

"I hate ka-toys." Ort's eyes narrowed to daggers. She was unforgiving tothe competition.

"You shouldn’t be too unhappy. You got a house, car, gold and let's face you didn't love him, right?" She was beyond listening to reason or excuses. “Love him for what? He stupid farang." Thai girls say that about a lot of men. "I go back go-go. Meet new farang. Not love no one. Only my baby. You want mia noi?"

Ort was 22. Her body was a solace for a middle-aged man search for youth. A fool I am, but not enough to fall for a girl thinking all men stupid. I wished her luck. Whatever man fell for her next would need it. "Love him for what? He stupid farang.” Thai girls say that about a lot of men. "I go back go-go. Meet new farang. Not love no one. Only my baby. You want mia noi?"

Ort was 22. Her body was a solace for a middle-aged man search for youth. A fool I am, but not enough to fall for a girl thinking all men stupid. I wished her luck. Whatever man fell for her next would need it.