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The rain was coming down lazily in big, fat globs. The street salespeople were pulling their carts and wares further under the metal awnings that stretched in front of their concrete homes and shops. The steam from noodles and grilled meat was bubbling up in contrast to the cool falling rain. No one was in a rush or panic about this precipitation or thought it would precede a coming downpour ? which it certainly would. It was the time of year for afternoon showers, so it was not particularly surprising to these local folks that the rain had come. It was just the time of day to get beneath cover.

“What’s going on in the street?” Golf asked me, pulling a beer from the refrigerator.

“Everyone is pulling in out of the rain.”

“Are there any girls running for cover?”

Golf loved to look out of my balcony as much as I did, but he never looked for anything but ladies. I suppose you could say he was a bit girl crazy, especially when he was without a girlfriend which was most of the time because he had a sort of a peculiar sense of singularity ? a kind of loner mentality that he had become complacent about changing despite often mentioning that he needed to do so. He enjoyed chasing young ladies, admiring them usually from afar; but after dating them, especially if he slept with them, he’d lose interest quickly and become distant and absent-minded about them.

My seventh-floor apartment gave us a view to a long soi (a small street just larger than an alley) that stretched out to Vipavadee Road, one of the busiest streets in Bangkok running four lanes one way and then four lanes the opposite way, divided by cement barriers and giant concrete pillars that supported the toll expressway above.

“Running” is a poor way to describe Vipavadee since normally the traffic is so bad that most cars just sit while the flower and newspaper sellers walk between them pushing their merchandise window by window. They remain motionless, probably cursing their frugal decision not to pay the 40 baht (Thai currency that would usually exchange at about 40 to 1 US dollar at that time) it would cost to zoom at full speed on the expressway above or steadfastly proud of their discipline in keeping their money in their pocket while the free-spending, high-society types above waste their children’s inheritance simply to arrive somewhere a few minutes earlier. Forty baht, after all, could buy two bowls of noodles with fish and what’s the big hurry, anyway?

In contrast to Vipavadee, our little soi — a lane so small I thought for more than a year that it was nameless before discovering one day that the locals called it “soi seven” — never stopped moving and seldom had more than one or two cars on it. The traffic was from motorcycles and pedestrians who were heading out to catch a taxi or a bus on the main road or walking into the soi to go to one of the two giant office buildings that had been erected on the site, seemingly cut right from the middle of a cluster of shacks and low concrete buildings. Now the office buildings, glass and stone monoliths were encircled by the remainders of these dilapidated places. My apartment building was just out of the shadow of these skyscrapers and a new construction as well, mostly housing office workers who had had enough of the traffic and wanted to live within walking distance of their work.

“There are no girls under 20,” I told him.

He plopped down on the tiny couch in front of my TV. The politically correct description for him was a heavy-set guy, but in Thailand people just said he was fat. The idea of being politically correct so as not to hurt the feelings of others seems sort of odd to Thais because saying something in a different way doesn’t change the reality and so, in most situations, they describe things as they see them — black is black, old is old, fat is fat. “Then nothing worth looking at,” he declared while getting comfortable.

Golf and I were a contrasting duo. He was Thai with dark skin one shade lighter than black, and his body was plump and round. I was American ? tall, husky in the shoulders but thin at the waist. I had white skin that might reach a light shade of tan after a trip to the beach but which faded quickly. Golf’s hair was thick and black, but mine was thin and brown. Every day, I looked in the mirror and saw more of my scalp and a bit less of the hair especially around the temple where I was getting a little too shiny. Golf, however, had no such worries.

“Maybe you should date a girl your own age,” I teased.

“You’re one to talk. I’m 29 years old and my last girlfriend was 24. You’re HOW old, 35, and your girlfriend is 23.”

“24 next month, besides she’s mature for her age.”

He was in a drinking mood. His first gulp took half of the bottle and his next finished it. I handed him another beer, the last one.

“I’m sick of being broke,” he mumbled while prying the bottle cap off.

“Yeah, you’d think we’d have gotten used to it by now. What’s it been, a year? When does a guy get used to it?”

“I just miss the wild nights at Forte. Those beautiful girls dancing on the bar ringed with fire, the wine we could afford to drink.”

“Well, we’re on a Thai budget now and not a tourist budget, but it’ll change, Golf. Good things always go bad and bad usually turns to good if you give it enough time.”

“Is that one of your dad’s sayings?” he asked.

“Yeah I think so. He always liked to spin things toward the positive. Actually, my mother called me today.”

“How is she doing?”

“She’s doing pretty well, considering. She’s really after me to come home for Christmas this year. She says both my sisters and all my nieces and nephews will be back and she’d really like me to be there too.”

He was rolling the bottle across his forearm in an attempt to cool off. “How long has it been since you’ve been back to the States to visit?”

I hadn’t really wanted to admit it, but it had been too long. “Four years come the twentieth of December. I came here just a few days before Christmas.” Arriving in Thailand, a Buddhist nation that only pays lip-service to Christmas in the form of malls having Christmas sales and promoting gift giving, was not an accident on my part. Had I been in America, I would have had to spend my first Christmas at my parents’ home without my father. At the time, it was an unbearable thought. My father was Christmas personified ? the spirit of it, the love of it, the generosity and purity of it. Most adults cling to Christmas spirit, if indeed they bother to try, through the wonderment of children’s eyes, but in our family it was through our father’s excitement about the season that we all kept our hope. He loved giving and loved being a Christian, so this was truly his day. He’d begin by having one of his children read the nativity story (birth of Jesus Christ) in the King James version of the Bible. This was to remind us all that Christmas was not just about gifts but about praising God. But then, a split second after the story had been read, the entire family would set upon the unwrapping of and cooing over gifts. My parents were not wealthy, but it might have been Christmas that kept them from becoming financially set. They always over-spent and seldom skimped, as Mom would darkly hint at each Thanksgiving meal that they might have to do. Even though Mom was the sensible one — the one who knew to save for a rainy day and to invest and plan for the future — her love of her husband forbade her from stopping his incessant gift purchasing. All year long, he bought Christmas gifts, and each time he saw something perfect for one of his kids it would upset the balance for the other two so he would keep his eye out for something for them so that no one would get too many gifts or too few. So on Christmas morning my eldest sister, Debra, and my middle sister, Samantha, and I would sit on our long couch with a pile of gifts and all of us would hear, while we feverishly unwrapped our stash of goods, our mother say blushingly, “Your father went a little overboard for Christmas again, but don’t expect so much for your birthday this year.”

My sisters were much older than me, but my mother assured me I was not a mistake even though Samantha swore to me that I was. Debra was 11 years my elder and Samantha, my father’s favorite, was nine years older. By the time I was 9 years old, both of them were out of the house and attending college ? Debra at the University of Nebraska and Samantha at Chadron State College. Each was about a five-hour drive away, giving them enough privacy to enjoy their college experience, while being close enough to run home once in a while for some home-cooked meals, some cash from Dad, and some rest. To me, especially at this age, they were not sisters in the traditional sense. I saw them as my aunts, or rather my mother’s sisters who would giggle with her in long conversations that I neither understood nor cared to. However, oddly, they were always daughters to our father thus making them some sort of meld between aunts and sisters. One thing I always knew is that they would be home for the holidays bringing tales of college that I’m certain, were tamed down for the genteelness of our parents’ ears, and in my honor they would tell stories of how they tormented me when I was just a little brat who they could throw around at their whim. By the time I was 9, tossing me about would have been quite difficult for them, not because they weren’t stout young ladies — they were my father’s daughters and very strong indeed — but because I was husky for my age and a bit plump.

If Dad had been a wonderful Christmas host when it was just the five of us, many years later when the grandchildren joined the holiday, his laughter seemed to hang from every corner of the house. He found joy in observing his grandchildren perform even the simplest of actions. A somersault would set him slapping his knee with joy. When his 6-year-old grandson wired his Playstation to the TV set he chuckled — despite the fact the boy had unhooked the VCR that sent Mother into a panic — proudly and said, “The picture is perfect for this game. He must have fine-tuned it even. That’s amazing from just a little squirt.”

He hadn’t laughed as much when he was just a father, but as a grandparent he was able to indulge his good nature with no guilt that he might be doing a disservice to their upbringing by being so lenient. Discipline and judgment were for parents. He no longer had to worry about that once we were grown, so praise and laughter were all he wanted to give his grandchildren and it was why they loved going to Grandma and Grandpa’s more and more every year.

“Four years is a long time, Duke. You owe your family more than that,” Golf said. Golf, despite our juvenile conversations, had a youthful wisdom that most people mistook for experience. During his mid-twenties, people always assumed he and I were both in our early thirties because I looked the part and he acted it. He joked with me the way he would have if he had an older brother, but with most people, he loved to offer advice and common sense as if he were much older than he actually was. His love of reading self-help books and successful people’s biographies and then quoting from these works mystified most of our acquaintances who were not particularly well-read folks. They had no idea these thoughts were not coming from his own experiences, something Thai people respect far more than book knowledge. Within his circle of friends, family, and co-workers, he was a man people went to for advice on a wide variety of predicaments.

“Well, yeah, but going back to the States during the holiday season with all the traffic, extra security at the airports, cancelled flights, snowy weather, it sounds like a recipe for misery,” I complained. “I’ll go back to see her when the commuting is a little less difficult. Besides, you know I don’t have the cash to be flying halfway around the world.”

“Well, you still have a few months to decide.”

Down below, I spotted my girlfriend ambling her way toward our apartment. Arraya never simply walked when she was in motion. Her entire body moved in a bouncy-stepped dance. Her high-heel shoes propped her long legs up and kept her in a perpetual sense of forward motion — somewhat resembling a lunge — her arms at her side sort of swung out subtly as if she were treading water. She was beautiful. Her long brown hair kinky from a perm played about her shoulders like a child dangling yarn before a kitty. She was blessed with large breasts for a Thai girl, long legs, and a flat tummy. She had the kind of figure cartoon illustrators make a living drawing. Despite her alluring body, her most attractive feature was her smile, an expression that sprang up from her heart with such unabashed ebullience that even when she was angry, it would slip out. In America, girls who look like this are in magazines and riding beside men in BMWs, but in Thailand young ladies like this seem to be standing at every bus stop and they all seem to fall for a man — often older than he should be — and stay with them without explanation or complaint. As David Bowie once sang, “Some things they turn out right.”

Golf set his empty bottle of down on the floor beside his feet.

“You’re two beers ahead of me. Let’s run to Chatuchak tonight. What do you think?”

“Will Arraya go, too?”

“No, but she’s on the way. So we need to slip out or I’m stuck in for the night.”

I watched as she disappeared into the lobby below. I tugged Golf off the couch and led him into the hall. “Dude, wait down there out of sight.”

He moved down the hall and stepped behind the corner. I quickly grabbed my money clip, my building’s security card, and my key and joined him. We watched as Arraya arrived at the door, keyed the lock, and swung the door in, and then when she’d disappeared inside we quickly hurried down the hall toward the elevator. The building was a perfect square which made it easy to stay out of sight if your timing was good.

My mobile phone rang within seconds of our arrival down stairs. Arraya was calling wanting to know where I was. I made sure we were outside the building adding lots of street noise before I answered. “Hello.”

“Honey, where are you?”

“I’m close to work. Golf just met me. We’re going to have dinner,” I said.

“Okay. But, not sure why there are two empty beer bottles here at the home you.”

“Your home,” I corrected her.

“You home, yes — yes at you home.”

Often times I failed to correct her English because it sounded so cute. She was still in the stage of learning English where everything she thought was in Thai and was in Thai grammar — basically the opposite of English grammar — so she’d know the words in English to express her idea but she would still sling them out with Thai structure. I suppose it’s the basic start for all of us while learning any language until we give up on literal translations and begin to think in the second language; and especially being sensitive to idioms and slang, we fail to express our meaning.

“I went home for lunch and felt like a beer.”

“Drink every day, huh? No good, Duke. No good. Day time I never seen you drink. Why?”

I kept moving as Golf and I started into the soi, staying close to the left side so that we would be shielded by the awnings making it impossible for Arraya to see us from the balcony. It was a bit of subterfuge we’d used before.

“Sorry. Just bored. No problem. I’ll call you when we’re done eating.”

“Miss you. Miss you so much. Come home not late na, (a Thai “um”-like expression to emphasize a statement) not late okay.”

“Okay.”

Hanging up I should have felt as if I was a bad guy for lying to my girlfriend and avoiding her for the evening, but, honestly, I didn’t feel bad. My philosophy was to treat her great when we were together, but for me to do this, I needed to miss her a little bit and that meant I needed nights out with others. Besides, Golf was in a drinking mood and who was I to deny my buddy a partner for a Friday night? What kind of friend would I have been? When it came to Golf, I could never say no because he was the kind of guy who never said “no” to his friends. If I needed a lift to the airport, Golf would come through. If my computer crashed, he’d be over in an hour to fix it. When my life in America was falling apart, it was “Stay with me in Thailand until you get on your feet.” “No” was just not a part of Golf’s vernacular.

Chatuchak is Bangkok’s weekend market, only open on Friday evenings, Saturdays, and Sundays. It is the largest outdoor market in the world, a maze of canvas-topped shops, framed with wood or pipe, selling items of every make and description. Truly it is so diverse in its goods it is difficult to explain any real trend, but perhaps it tends to have a majority of oriental wares, pottery, silks, and wood carvings. However, it also has all the western name-brand products that are made in Asia. You can see pets, antiques, art, musical instruments, cock fights, native foods, coffee shops, bars, tile stores, leather shops, cap shops, shoe stores, books, gold, jewelry, house ware, bamboo items, flags, candles, iron art, and the occasional prostitute ? not to mention thousands of tourists from all over the world ? who were what we liked to go and gawk at ? much like the monkeys gathering around to look through the bars at zoo visitors.

Authagol is across the street from Chatuchak. You’ll find no tourists here. It is a simple alley crossway shaped like a plus sign. Tiny bars are all squeezed in together at the crossing in a clump of noise and chaos. Locals drink here and walk between the little joints choosing a spot either by the band jamming in the corner or the DJ who’s spinning. There is never the same number of bars because they often change hands, close, or open anew, but normally it offers about 15 drinking spots. Golf and I always believed the real action was to be had outside the pubs in the alley itself. Once you were in a drinking establishment, you were stuck. They were all so small and crowded, the best you could do was wiggle a bit to the music, but really you could barely move at all and a conversation within that racket was impossible. Out in the alley, the girls walked about looking to meet up with their friends or trying to choose the pub for the night. This was where you could strike up a conversation and hopefully spark an interesting evening. The alley beer stands also had Heinekens for 50 baht instead of the 80 baht they charged inside.

So it was in the alley behind the “Star” pub where Golf and I were enjoying Heinekens still wet from the ice of the cooler where I first saw Kiki. Some people come into the world grinning, and Kiki was one of them. But she grinned as if she had a dirty secret you’d like to know, and she wasn’t giving it away cheap.

I felt Golf’s elbow dig into my side. He’d noticed her too and wanted me to see what I could do to strike up a conversation.

I stepped toward her. “Sawadee crop,” I greeted her in Thai.

She smiled, “Wadee ka.”

“My friend is visiting from America,” I explained motioning to Golf. “He doesn’t speak Thai. Do you speak English?”

Kiki’s round cheeks swelled with an even bigger smile. She was Thai but had light-colored skin and a Japanese look, round cheeks, deep dark eyes, and pigtails twisted up with neon pink ribbons. She asked me in Thai, “So you are a foreigner, but speak Thai? He’s a Thai from America and doesn’t speak Thai?”

“Correct,” I lied.

She reached out her hand to shake his and speaking with an Australian accent said, “Welcome to Thailand. You should learn to speak Thai. You’re still Thai after all, born in America or not.”

Golf shook her hand. “I would like to learn. I need a teacher. Maybe you could help me?”

Kiki poked me in the chest with her middle finger. “He speaks Thai. You want to learn, learn from your friend.”

She slipped between us on her way into the alley. Golf and I both took a look at her backside. Her white top was cropped just below her shoulder blades exposing most of her back. Her short black skirt was cut about mid-thigh. Her high-heel shoes were a web of leather straps twisting up over her ankles.

“Wow. I thought she was cute from the front. She’s even better from behind,” Golf said.

“And attitude to boot. She looks to be a wild one.”

Kiki greeted another girl and then, taking her hand, led her back toward the Star. “Why you not going in?” she directed at us without actually looking at us ? an attempt to appear aloof.

“Are you inviting us?” I asked.

Kiki’s friend was tall, lean, and dark skinned with a more traditional Thai look. Her thick black hair lay over her right shoulder exposing her long neck when she looked at me from the left. She was poised, and her eyes fixed upon me when she smiled her wordless greeting. Thailand is known as the land of smiles and in truth it is an important part of communication with Thai people. Thais are emotional, sensitive, and intuitive by nature. While Westerners sling word after word in an attempt to explain their idea or concept, the Thai language is short and simple but facial expressions, posturing, and smiling convey much of the intended meaning. Frowning in this culture is seen as not only ugly but hostile. Since the feeling during the conversation is often more important to the Thais than the meaning, a frown can get one off to a terrible and often irreversible beginning.

“No,” Kiki said. “Invite yourself. Come on.”

Even though squeezing into the Star seemed to be a physical impossibility considering my six-foot American type body and Golf’s five-foot-six but round type body, somehow the pub magic was in full effect and defying the laws of physics we squeezed through the crowd and joined the scene. Adding to the magic, Kiki had a tiny wooden table reserved that was already loaded with a bottle of 100 Pipers whisky, a bucket of ice, a bottle of water, coke, and soda. Four glasses arrived shortly later, and Kiki was toasting everyone to get us to drink. None of us had needed much prompting because the place was already buzzing with youthful vigor and excitement, and we were all captured by the feeling that if we were going to catch the wave of euphoria we needed to put some drinks down.

The place was too crowded to sit. In fact most of the stools had been passed outside to create space and those that remained were pushed up under the rickety wooden tables. The scent of smoke and alcohol permeated everything and everyone who entered. On rare occasions you might get a sniff of a sweet perfume from some young lady, but it had no staying power over the tobacco and whisky.

The band, made up of a bass guitarist, a lead guitarist, a drummer, and a singer, was jamming at full volume. The Thai rock music was pounding through us ? guitars straining, drum beat hitting like a hammer upon our chests, and the Thai lyrics being wailed out passionately.

The patrons of Star were mostly kids in T-shirts and blue jeans, drunk, sweating from the heat, shouting out the words to every song while rocking back and forth or pumping their fists in the air. In the ‘80s, I was a teen in America. I suppose this madness held such an attraction to me because it so resembled those days in the States. Heavy guitar, pounding drums, and straining voices always took me back to my youth. I guess my friends and I were punks or rather punk-jocks. We listened to English punk bands and heavy metal American bands, drank too much, chased girls rather than studied, dressed in leather jackets and faded 501’s, had fist fights over nothing but boredom, and drove our cars like road warriors. However, our coaches forbade us from the bizarre haircuts or piercings, so we looked quite normal during the day. We even sported ties on Friday game days. We played football, basketball, ran track, and in the summer, we played baseball like the rest of America. We were rebels in our minds and in the late night hours, when the townspeople slept, we were as wild as any purple-haired Londoner ever hoped to be.

In essence, I’ve never changed that way of thinking. In my thirties, my hair was short, parted on the side like an accountant. My clothing was conservative as well ? usually slacks and a three-button shirt or, on workdays, slacks, a dress shirt and a tie. Unlike most of the people of my generation I had no tattoos and didn’t even wear earrings. But at night, I still pursued the nightlife, still chased the girls too often, and despite my innocent or business-like appearance, still made the majority of my money by gambling or hustling.

You see, a gangster wants you to know who he is. His bright tattoos or missing finger always tells you to beware, but an opportunist like me wants no one to think anything of me but clean-cut, middle class, and no threat at all. My boy-next-door appearance has been my Trojan horse most of my life. No matter what my situation — pursuing money or a girl — I’ve found confidence in being perceived as harmless.

Kiki’s friend was getting quite drunk. She raised her glass to all three of us and shouted in Thai, “Empty glass!”

We all clanged our glasses together and knocked back every drop but the ice.

“Dude, she’s getting really loaded,” Golf shouted in my ear from a couple inches away. “Who ever goes with her tonight is going to score!”

Shortly after, the natural process of coupling occurred. I’m certain that Golf and I both had the same target, so since we had been friends long enough not to compete directly with each other, we let Kiki choose.

I felt her hot breath in my ear. She was saying something to me in Thai, but I didn’t understand it. I laughed putting my hand in front of my mouth as if I was clearing my throat. Her tiny fingers, with nails painted with a gloss of crimson, intertwined with mine. She leaned in again to say something, but I knew I couldn’t hear her over the music so I slipped around and pecked her on the cheek just below her ear then slid up and breathed a hot slow breath about her earlobe.

“You’re fresh!” she squealed, but then she put her face into my chest like a kitty rubbing its nose upon its master. She’d drunk enough. All she wanted was a place to rest her head.

During the band switch, there was a brief respite from the music although my ears were still pulsing with the echoes. The best band was coming on. They were a group of Golf’s friends from primary school and the reason we’d first started coming to the Star. They were talented musicians, by far the best at Authagol. Golf’s friends were guitarists, one rhythm and one lead; the drummer we didn’t know, and the bass player seemed to be someone different every week. My favorite member of the group was their lead singer, Ann. She was Chinese with light skin, a beautiful shy smile despite a few slightly crooked teeth, alluring dark brown eyes, and, man, could she belt out the lyrics of western songs with emotion, despite not being fluent in English. Her ability to parrot the words during the song was remarkable.

“We should make a move man. Once the band starts these girls aren’t going anywhere,” Golf stated with a half wink. “I mean, it’s not like we haven’t heard these guys play.”

Kiki poked me in the arm and pointed to the toilet. Her friend joined her, leaving Golf and me alone.

“You do the talking. I’m going to go say hi to Ann.”

Ann had a calm demeanor about her despite the pandemonium of the Bangkok club scene she worked in. She saw me coming, smiled, reached out her hands and grabbed mine. “Sawadee, Duke. How are you tonight?”

“Great, Ann. I just wanted to say hi. Golf’s date needs to go home, so I think we’ll leave.”

“Okay. Next time you stay all right? I would like to hear you sing some time. Just come up with me and we’ll sing together. Next time.”

As much as I’d like to do just about anything with Ann, getting up with her to sing wasn’t exactly something I felt comfortable doing. “Yeah, next time. Next time. Have a good show.”

Golf told me to go wait in the alley and he’d do all the talking. I was glad about that. Explaining things in Thai was too difficult for me. I had forgotten we’d played the “Golf doesn’t speak Thai trick” in order to meet these girls and so had he.

Stepping out from the stifling heat of the pub was refreshing. I breathed deeply trying to fill my lungs with something other than smoke. My shirt was damp with sweat and felt cool against my skin. In the alley the crowd had swelled while we’d been inside. Bangkok was always a late-starting city. Now that it was nearing midnight, the throng had arrived. If it had been mostly the youth before, it was now the thirties-up crowd who were arriving fashionably late, especially the men who like wolves were packing the alley, smoking and leering at the young ladies whose drinking had lowered their guard to little more than a sheep’s.

I was attentively watching while two girls stepped gingerly across a water puddle in high heels when I felt the sting of a slap across my face. I hadn’t seen it coming, and the pain made me tense and rear back as if to throw a punch.

Kiki stood in front of me grinning. “Your friend speak Thai perfect!”

“Ouch.”

“You had that coming!”

“Well, I think you left a mark.”

I never saw my face in the mirror, but I’m certain I had a four-digit hand painted in red across my left cheek. My skin is fair and any kind of mark looks brighter than it should. Even sleeping with my face in the pillow would make my cheeks look like a road map in the morning for at least an hour after my shower.

Kiki then reached out and grabbed my hand to pull me with her into the alley. “Sweet really. You want to meet me that bad, huh? So bad that you created a big lie just to trick me.”

“Well, we have to say something.”

We kept walking. She was leading me somewhere. “Hey, where are you taking me?”

“My car. Your Thai-speaking Thai friend wants to go somewhere with my friend. So we should leave them alone to enjoy,” Kiki informed me, speaking over her shoulder as she tugged on my hand.

“Wait. Does Golf know about all this? I mean, hang on, I’ll just step in and see what he wants to do. I came with him so I can’t just leave him.”

Just then my phone vibrated letting me know I’d received a text message. I pulled my mobile from my belt. The screen read simply “Go for it.” It was from Golf, and whatever his plan was he didn’t need my help.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

The alley was a confusion of sound. Laughter and drunken conversations were all competing with the music bubbling out from the pubs. My ears were still ringing and combining with my alcohol buzz everything was becoming even further distorted. The world seemed to be a cave where all sound was being sent away and ricocheting back to me in ambiguous waves.

We slipped out from the alley arriving at the busy street where herds of taxis were waiting curbside while speeding cars and motorcycles zoomed by in the outer lanes. Seeing my white face with a Thai girl tugging at my arm, the first taxi driver waved to me. “Taxi? Right here,” he insisted tugging up his dirty blue jeans which were far too big for his bamboo-like hips.

Kiki waved “no” to him. “No, I’m taking him home with me.” She looked out across the treacherous street. “Scared?” she asked me in Thai.

“A little bit.”

Then we were running, cars honking at us as their lights illuminated us like spotlights at a jailbreak. We beat them, arriving at a grass strip that divided the road. One last set of lanes to go. Kiki started out spotting only one car coming toward us. But the car, apparently not seeing us, switched lanes and was now headed right for us at an ever-increasing speed.

Kiki let out a yelp as she stumbled from fear. It was a moment in which any wrong action was going to lead to a disaster, and it is in moments like this that action must supersede thought. I half threw, half shoved her tiny frame forward, surprised at her doll-like weight. Her body left the ground for a second, and then one of her feet sort of touched with a ballet-style flick and she collided with a parked car on the other side. I lunged out of the way but could feel the hot steel of the bumper of the Mercedes brush my left foot. “Shit!” I exclaimed, still uncertain whether my foot was in my shoe or racing away from me on the bumper of the car.

Kiki was screaming and cursing in Thai. My heart was pounding and my foot throbbing, but actually all things considered, it felt great ? a rush of adrenalin was surging through my body and most importantly, we’d made it.

“You okay?” she asked me calming down.

“That guy hit my foot.”

She dropped to one knee and looked at my shoe that had a deep scratch where the bumper had hit. “Wow, your foot still here?”

Another group of cars whooshed by us.

“Come on, let’s get out of the street,” I told her, pulling her to her feet.

“You saved me. I mean you about kill me throwing me into a car, but you save me.”

It was then that I pictured in my mind how horrible that little scene could have been. That car would have had no chance to stop and Kiki, had she been struck, would have had no chance of surviving. My stomach knotted, and I felt a sweat break upon my brow and chest as I pictured her beautiful face cracked and bleeding upon the pavement as her final breaths wheezed from her lips. So often this was how death came ? without any preconceived notion, without any awareness of ominous danger, just an error in judgment, or not even an error but a misfortune of space and time and ? wham ? our lives could be snuffed out beneath the hulk of some German luxury vehicle.

We arrived at a small parking lot. “Right there, there’s my car,” she stated. She was pointing at a bright yellow BMW, one of the newer models but I couldn’t tell you what make because frankly I don’t keep up on cars that much. I don’t even own one. I was admiring the car when I noticed a sticker across her back window: Sacred Heart University.

My heart had been racing with excitement from the moment Kiki grabbed my hand and announced we were leaving together. I had already begun wondering what her thin lips might feel like against mine, what her hair would feel like between my fingers, and what her hands would feel like upon my back. Now, seeing that sticker was not just a wet blanket but a bucket of ice water dumped directly into my pants.

“You go to Sacred Heart?”

She laughed. “Yeah. I’m in my fourth year. How you think I speak English so good?”

As if I hadn’t been a bit shaken by our near-death experience, with this new information, I was fully shaken. Now it’s not that I have a moral dilemma about dating a college girl, it was more complicated than that.

I had come to Thailand to open a business with my friend, Golf. With a stake of cash, I’d put together more than three years of work, hustling, gambling, and investing. I came with big plans. Our business, selling Thai handcrafts back to the U.S., might have made good some day, considering our product cost was as low as US$3-4 and then could be resold in the States for $15-20, but we were cursed from the outset. What bad luck ? such as a war in the Middle East driving shipping prices through the roof and SARS hitting Asia and pushing our supply prices ever higher ? didn’t take, a crooked Thai attorney and a troubled and incompetent partner in America did. So when we talked about going broke, we were never being metaphorical. We had a date circled on the calendar — June 5 — when our business collapsed. We had invested the last of our money in a shirt deal with a restaurant chain in California. The size of the company had deceived us into a false sense of security about our payment that their purchasing manager told us might take a while. But in the end never transpired at all, and therefore we were unable to pay the office rent, secretaries’ salaries, phone bills, and creditors. I suppose the proper way to put it would be that we were completely bankrupt. So I grabbed the first job I could find that required no proven ability, no track record of success. And as the saying goes those who can’t do, can’t pay the rent, can’t pay the dinner check, can’t pay the back taxes, just plain can’t, well, they teach.

“I teach at Sacred Heart,” I admitted.

She laughed. “What? Oh,” she bowed to me with a wai, (placing both hands in front of ones face and bowing out of respect) “Ajarn? (the Thai word for teacher and placed in front of the name like Mr.) Ajarn Duke, huh?”

Sacred Heart University of Bangkok is a Catholic institution. The brothers who act as the governing body of this university give a speech every semester directed over the heads of the Thai instructors and directly at the Farang (a foreigner to Thailand who has white skin). “Sacred Heart does not sanction dating between ajarns and students. If it happens, it must be with the utmost honor and MUST lead to marriage and never sexual relations before marriage! It is morally reprehensible to take advantage of the impressionable youth in this way.”

She opened the door for me. “Get in,” she said giving me a nudge with her shoulder.

“I didn’t know you were a student.”

“Yes you did. What do I look like?” she teased.

She was right of course, but Sacred Heart was a long way from Authagol so I’d assumed she was someone else’s student.

Her car smelled of Pierre Cardin. The music she was playing was British pop, soft and romantic. Her dashboard had neon lights for all the gauges. She had stuffed animals filling her back seat, puppies, kitties, and Disney characters. It was a Thai teenager’s car. Thais love youthfulness, clinging to their capriciousness as long as they can. Any person who is still studying, even one as old as 25, will refer to himself as a teenager. Words like “cute” and “adorable” are always considered complimentary. This contrasts greatly to American youth who want to live and be treated like adults as soon as they can possibly pull it off, denying their youth as if it were some sort of embarrassing social disease.

“I know a place we can get a cup of coffee and talk. Is that okay?” she asked me. “I really want a cup of mocha, something sweet with lots of whipped cream and little sprinkles on top. I know just the place. Does that sound okay?”

Really I wanted to go home. I knew Arraya would be lying in our bed propped up against the headboard watching television. She’d be freshly showered, her hair damp and smelling of her honey-scented shampoo. I had enjoyed the flirting, drinking, and basic pursuit of Kiki, yet now all the drinks and excitement were transforming into exhaustion and what appealed to me the most was curling up next to my girlfriend and feeling the comfort of being home.

Kiki lurched her car into traffic. I pushed my seat back to get my knees out of the dashboard. With each shift her skirt seemed to slip up another inch and my drunken eyes were not quick enough to look away when she’d glance over at me.

“What you looking at?” she teased.

“Your dashboard. Very colorful.”

She giggled at me. “Dashboard, huh. Okay. So coffee, yes?”

“Coffee it is.”

“Since you’re an ajarn, then I pay.”

Most of the Sacred Heart students were known for two things ? being wealthy and being beautiful. I once had a conversation with the owner of Bangkok Models and he told me 60 percent of his talent came from the Sacred Heart campus and the rest came from all over the world. These students were pampered ? the beautiful people of not only Bangkok but from every province in Thailand. It’s one of those self-fulfilling prophecies where young people who have money or believe they should be a TV model or singing star see Sacred Heart as the place to be. And because this kind of student comes to Sacred Heart, talent scouts know exactly where to find the “new look.”

“Yes, you are paying,” I teased. “After all, all of us ajarns are broke.”

Just then the night took a twist in the form of a phone call. Her phone chimed one of the hot new pop songs, and she scrambled to dig her mobile out of her purse while steering around a corner with her knee. When things are flowing in one direction, I tend to believe that the best thing to do is follow the wave of energy wherever it seems to be leading. For better or worse, it’s a faith that I have that everything happens in my life for a reason. Not a divine plan ? sadly I don’t have that kind of faith ? but let’s face it ? the more we fight what we obviously were supposed to do, the worse things get. Sometimes I just get feelings and if I don’t follow them, I often feel somehow I’m off the track and it is when I’m off the track that bad things seem to follow.

Kiki was whispering into her phone in speedy Thai. I couldn’t follow it but really wasn’t interested anyway.

“It was my father,” she stated, tossing her phone back into her back seat. “I’m really sorry, but I need to go home.”

“No problem. Just drop me right here and I’ll get a taxi.”

“No. I feel bad. I can drop you home,” she protested. “Where do you live?”

I spotted a noodle place alongside the street. “Actually, I’m hungry. Drop me here and I’m going to eat some noodles. You go on home.”

She bit into her pouting bottom lip. “Oh, I don’t want to go. But…”

“You’re dad is your dad. Go home. There will be other nights.”

She pulled beside the curb just past the noodle stand where bar weary patrons sat on plastic stools beside cheap metal tables slurping up steaming hot noodles.

“Can I call you tomorrow?” she asked.

“Kiki, I like you. You’re a nice girl. But, you go to Sacred Heart and I’m not sure if we should be friends. It could be a lot of trouble for both of us.”

“Many students go out for dinner or drinks with their ajarns. It’s okay,” she argued. She wrote her number on the back of a crumpled-up envelope that had been on her floor and handed it to me. “Maybe we go to see a movie?”

I nodded, took the envelope and swung her door shut. Whether she was going home to daddy or off to meet a jealous boyfriend didn’t really matter much to me. Kiki had put a grin on my face for the night. As I walked past the noodle stand and waved down a taxi it dawned on me that whoever intervened had given me an out. Surfing the chaos, but keeping my board headed with and not against the wave ? that’s how I try to do things, but I haven’t always been like that. I think most of my youth I tried to smash my way through even the most resistant of barriers and with no better reason than it seemed the more difficult of the available paths to travel.

I should distinguish between my childhood and my youth. In my childhood I was a fairly obedient kid who, perhaps out of fear of my parents, stayed clear of trouble most of the time. However, in my teen years, from, say, 14 on, trouble and turmoil rode on me like my favorite jacket ? a shabby leather biker jacket that I’d purchased in a second-hand store and believed made me look rough and tough like a biker slash rock star — but probably made me look tiny and wimpy like a boy who’d dressed in his big brother’s clothes.

In my childhood, I read comic books and kept them within plastic covers, not because I intended to sell them later for a profit, but rather because I knew I would want to read them for years to come and so they needed protection from the elements. They were the spurs of my fantasies, the things of daydreams and the idea of selling them, even to this day, is sacrilegious. I did not collect the popular comics of the ’80s such as X-Man or Spiderman. I had two loves and really only purchased these two heroes: The Almighty Thor and Conan the Barbarian. Both heroes captured my sense of adventure and imagination because of their strength and power, their courage and determination to succeed in the face of impossible odds or against unfathomable evils. Yet, I believe I selected them primarily because they were loner characters. They would team up with friends for short journeys or adventures. But in general, both of these guys stood alone and were usually misunderstood by the rest of the world. I believe as a young boy growing up in a tiny village in Nebraska, I often felt like a loner ? like perhaps I wasn’t the perfect fit for my hometown of farm folks. As my father once said, “In this town, it’s not enough to be born here. That doesn’t make you a local. Your grandfather had to be born here, too.”

My first love was Thor. With this Marvel takeoff of the Norse God of thunder, I found wonder with his amazing strength. His godly powers allowed him to fly, to battle enemies without dying, as he was immortal, and to always battle against evil no matter what form it took. My father always talked about evil in the world and how it was important that good people stood up to face it when it reared its ugly head. “Just like the Nazis,” he’d told me. “There was no greater evil in the world because they wanted to wipe out God’s chosen people. So the forces of good rose from all over the world and put a stop to them.”

It was in my purely Thor stage, before I’d found the more unrefined and vulnerable Conan, that I became very sick. I was in the second grade and had come down with a nasty case of strep throat. But for the first time the doctors prescribed for me the powerful drug penicillin. I’d taken my medicine and gone off to school, but the drug had an adverse effect on me as later we found out I was allergic to it and my illness progressed into delirium. I was wandering about the classroom as the floating heads of my classmates, which seemed like balloons on short strings, observed me with confusion. Mrs. Stienkerk was shouting at me to sit down, but I just kept walking about my arms groping forward as if I was blind or searching through a dark closet for my coat. Then, everything began to spin, blur, and finally I fell into complete darkness.

I passed out cold in the front of the first row of desks, hitting the wooden planks of our elementary school’s floor with such force that I received a bright red scrape just above my right temple. When my best buddy, Mike, told me about it later, I think a week or so after the event when I’d fully recovered, he said I fell like a tree that had been chopped down. Once I was down, Mrs. Stienkerk raced to the office and a nurse came in and, from what Mike told me, my father appeared so quickly it seemed that he must have been waiting just out in the hall. “Just like when Thor was defeated by Loki and his body was completely limp and his father Odin scooped him up and carried him back into Valhalla. That’s how you looked when your dad picked you up. Your arms were hanging out like you were dead or something,” Mike had told me. He was always a great storyteller, but somehow that image of my father — like Odin Thor’s father always stuck in mind. No matter what happened to me, I knew he’d be there to scoop me up and rescue me — to take me home where I would recover and regain my strength in order that I could battle another day.

I tossed the envelope with Kiki’s phone number upon a pile of rubbish stacked around a small barrel that had overflowed into the street. Without a doubt that piece of paper, had I left it in my jeans’ pocket, would not have escaped the probing of my girlfriend, and that was one tsunami I knew better than to steer directly into.

(End of Chapter 1.)

Jonathon Siminoe

© Jonathon Siminoe. All rights reserved by the author.
ISBN: 978-974-8290-492
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