The Black Gentlemen of Trong Suan- chapter one, part one

Its monsoon season on the east coast. The days are hot and full of sun until late afternoon when, like clockwork, the sky takes on the hue of a deep tissue bruise. The wind picks up and the palms arc, the horizon becomes black and starts to growl. The water comes up, choppy at first then in little troughs, then with white caps that beat the shore in ten second intervals. The wind cranks all the way up to gale force. Thatch covered huts disintegrate, huge dead palm fronds are blown from their trees slicing through the air like some half-assed nineteenth century invention ‘the autoroto scythe.’ Coconuts are torn from trees, dropping forty feet, ten pound death bombs falling with tremendous force. Gray cloud banks like battleships roll across a thousand miles of China Sea towing with them anchors of fierce storm pockets charged with lighting, littering hail the size of billiard balls across the minor continent.

When the world goes this way you want to be hunkered down in a secure room with all of the good whiskey, fine literature and crude films you’ll need in a month. There is no good reason to be driving on a dirt track road when a ninety mile an hour wind blows in five inches of rain in twenty minutes.

But old Terry’s not worried, he’s purring away over the din on the other side of his tinted windshield, giggling softly to himself and muttering “oh dear oh dear oh dear.” His two and a half ton four wheel drive, 1976 Range Rover Rhino ‘Kitty’ is churning up the already badly rutted access road making it impassable to the local population on their one hundred cc scooters.

Flumes of mud water flow from Kitty’s wheel wells soaking any poor bastard walking on either side. Chubby Checker is playing on the stereo and Terry’s drumming along on the steering wheel, giggling “you evil fuckers, there’s some of it for you, in it?” as he shifts on the fly from low two to drive.

Minutes later Terry parks the huge vehicle on the tiny street in front of ‘Thaes’, slides out of the cab and into the warmly lit open interior; rolls past the locals eating rice and noodle dishes to the table in the rear where six other foreigners sit.

“Jee-sus Christ you Ok Terry, heh?” Jack reaches out with a hand the size and color of an under cooked steak. “Be careful with that thing.” Terry stops and looks at his arm where Jack had seized him. “He’s a fine looking man, isn’t he boys? Look at the lines on him.” Mark sits back and crosses his arms as Terry slides his hands over and down his bulbous, distended stomach, letting his fingers come to rest on the knob created by his naval, forced to the out position by the thousands of gallons of beer he drinks each year. “You wankers laugh but it’s not all silly pennies with a body like this. Oh the women won’t leave me alone, always on me to do dirty things with them. Terrible these women are, wanting me to put my little thing in all types of places. Tch, Tch. Such business is that. And you know, you have to wash afterwards or there’s a smell.” “That, that’s right Terry, but I’m here fou…five months and I can’t get a shag.” Milton stammers through his jagged yellow teeth snubbing out one cigarette in order to light another. “Women are all right but there’s nothing like the real thing.” Jack starts but the howl of the in-coming train blots out all conversation. Only the vibrato of the pounding rain on the corrugated metal roof is audible.

Another meeting of the Niggers Club begins. Seven men of the former British empire. Four English, one Scots, one welsh, one Irish. Ex-patrioted here in one of the few countries in Asia never colonized. Each came on their own path. Through Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Malta, Australia, New Zealand. Hobbling through the vast outposts of the once mighty empire, come to rest here in this little restaurant on the side of the rail station on a night of soaking rain, lit by the occasional bolt of white light.

Here each night they meet to eat fish and chips ‘in a praper badder’ as the sign reads, swill large amounts of local beer and exchange well trod quips and stories in between complaining bitterly about the evils of the Thais and of course ridiculing any member of the group not present.

“So how did your kitty get on in this foul weather, Terry?” Lloyd wheezed and squeaked. “Oh she was like a dream she was, burrowed right up to her wheel wells, I believe I had a small orgasm there with my hand on her shift.” “Now how’re those others gonna git in an out with you tearin up that god damned road?” Jack, his head falling between his great shoulders, like a water buffalo, speaking between clenched teeth, his beery smile, his watery old Irish eyes grinning behind his glasses. Terry sits up straight “fuck those people, right tossers they are.” He rolls a cigarette, his middle and index fingers stained a deep ochre, using his belly as a work bench.

A feral dog quietly slips beneath the table, its’ oversized head stooped low, sniffing for scraps.

“So I got this Lebanese up in the cab and I’m feelin’ her all the way up her leg, she’s a beautiful girl this bird and I’m lookin’ for a place to pull over.” Jacks telling the story again. Those that can remember pretend not to. It’s a way to pass time. “Jack, these Lebanese, they’re um Moslem if you like aren’t they?” Stan asks again. “Some of them but there’s all kinds of Christians there, all different kinds, this is where the feckin’ Bible comes from. There’s a town there called Bible, it’s the longest continually inhabited place in the world they say.” “I doubt that.” Brian interrupts again. “Who’s ‘at then?” Lloyd wheezes through his puzzling accent.

A tall thin young man dressed in a gray shirt and casual trousers holding a small grip stands in the entrance streaming with rainwater squinting into the restaurant.

“He might be a tourist.” Terry sneers. “Feckin hell tourists, we want no part of them do we Terr?” Jack imitates Terry’s sneer through his smile. Then he’s there standing above them. Bemused grin on his innocently handsome face, water dripping from his chin, thoroughly and calmly soaked. His blonde hair plastered across his forehead.

Seven faces, forty and over peer up at him ranging from the bloated bulldog rolls of Terry with his comb over, his too small eyes and wobbly sneer, to the small insipid face of Lloyd, with the appearance of a long time postal clerk, shirt tucked into shorts worn high over his little pot belly. The hulking mass of Jack crumpled in front of the table. Milton, rake thin, parchment white, with the skin of a chain smoker. Brian in a pressed football Jersey and gold chain, still in athletic trim at forty. Mark capped and upending a large bottle of Heineken.

“This is it then is it, Thea’s?” The stranger asks rhetorically. “What’s that, where’s it?” “Oh I don’t think it’s here.” “I eeh uh en.” “All right mate take a seat, did you just come on the train?” Brian answers the question over the chiding of the group. “Yes, thank you, I will.”

“Down from Bangkok then, eh?” Jack aims his big head over his drooping shoulder at the new comer. “Yes I’ve just arrived, to and from Bangkok.” “Where are you staying, here in town?” “I am not sure, how far is the beach? I have a strong desire to stay by the water.” “Its not close mate, four or five K’s, there’s a few places there.” “Back packers like, no good for the proper man, are you a proper man?” Terry asks. “He looks it, none of them dread locks there on ‘im, actually he’s a good looking boy.” Jack laughs, scrutinizing the young man. “Don’t mind him mate, be good Jack, actually old Terry here has a luxury complex of chalets there on the beach, if you can afford them.”

Luxury, as in; whirlpool bath, air conditioning, sunken living room, DSL, satellite television, convection oven?” “Fuck off, we have tastefully done chalets, comfortable for the right people at six hundred, for people with manners, people who aren’t going to molest the wildlife or wipe their bums on me expensive bloody towels.” Terry stressed this as if it had happened more than once. “That sounds all right, for the time, but I’m looking for a place long term, say six months, on the beach, a small house, fairly private with a fence, preferably. And I’m going to need a vehicle, anything at first.” “Six months? Are you here with the steel company if you don’t mind me asking, it’s not a big place here, mind I’m quite happy.” Stan, fifty, big in the shoulders, going to fat, trimmed mustache, polite, smiling. “I’m just having a look around, don’t worry I’m not planning on staying any longer.” “Oh no mate, we’re always glad to have some other farangs about, the more the merrier.” “Speak for yourself.” Jack adds, grinning over his clamped teeth. “Your all right mate we’ll settle you down at the chalet, Jack’s missus rents bikes on a monthly basis, where’s your luggage?” The new man nodded at his single grip then ordered a salad with iced tea.

My name is Crispas he says.

The rain continued for several hours. The Niggers Club went through their nightly routine matching quip with quip, insult for insult pursuing inside jokes to new limits. Crispas nodded and laughed and studied the dynamics of the group. The last vestige of a bygone era. The old British club moved to a track side diner. All of the stereo types were present and active.

As the night wound down the members of the club took their leave with departing insults and promises to see one another the next day. As they left each picked up his wife or attending female from the table behind where they formed their own ‘wife’s of the Niggers Club.’ Reading newspapers, discussing lucky numbers, comparing cell phones and eating nonstop from bowls and plates scattered across the table’s surface watching intermittingly a silent TV broadcasting a local drama. Crispas wondered if they were telling the same stories from an inverted point of view. Horrible farang husbands that had mis-treated, cheated and cheapened their lives. Alienated in their own homes by the strange, un-hygienic behavior of their undesirable if relatively wealthy other half’s.

When Terry had enough he led Crispas to his ‘Kitty.’ Warning him to wipe his feet and make sure that the seat of his pants was clean. They rode through the night to the sea. Street lights ended a kilometer out of town, houses and shops became thinner until it was just darkness through the window.

Terry kept up his lilting conversation, drumming on the steering wheel to the oldies rock on the stereo. “You don’t want to trust these cunts, they steal from each other. They don’t even know what the truth is. I told this last woman I was with, I told her, I was born a Christian, now I’m not a very good one but my god taught me not to lie. Did your Buddha tell you that? She said ‘oh yes, yes Buddha teach us not lie’ so I said, then why do you always fuckin lie to me? Oh I had her there she couldn’t even answer.”

Crispas just let it wash over him. They left the paved roads to negotiate a series of small dirt tracks. Kitty in low gear pulling hard in the mud, Terry still giggling and laughing.

Crispas settled into his chalet, he chose the one furthest from Terry’s house, declined the offer of a drink and began to unpack. He opened his small bag, lifted out a leather bound note book, a silver pencil, a swimming suite, a pair of goggles, a shaving kit, a long finely honed rubber tapping knife, four packets of Indonesian cigarettes and a bottle of bottom shelf bourbon. He set each item on a shelf in the main room equally spaced from one another. He looked each item over, carefully leafed through the pages of the notebook, paused to read a passage of the writing and replaced it, undressed, showered and laid in bed smoking cigarette after cigarette watching a local television show fade in and out to static. Sleep came over him, when he woke in the early morning he reminded himself - my name is Crispas.

At nine Terry stepped out on his veranda to smoke his days first Samson and taste the day’s first beer. He peered carefully from the shade of the porch into the bright light of the morning. Across the blazing green of his imported grass, finally coming alive with the rain, over the beach to where the grey, greenish, blue water of the monsoon was leaving a dirty yellow froth to mark the shore line then to the last bungalow for signs of life.

“Nung, have you seen this bloke, the one staying at the end, the only bloody one here?” He tilted his head for an answer muddled by its own volume, sat down and rubbed his huge belly appreciatively, thinking what kind of a man orders a salad and tea, fucking tea at ten o’clock.

The sun was getting hot; the sand was loose under his feet, digging in to get traction. He hadn’t eaten yet despite the fact that he had been awake for hours. He was satisfied already with the house and the owner. He wasn’t hungry and he wasn’t tired he was ready to start. He wanted only to get his little bag and its contents and begin work. He ducked around the side of the chalet, keeping out of view of the main house. He leapt deftly from the ground onto the raised veranda. Quickly unlocked the door and slipped inside. Packing his bag exactly the way it was the night before, he then emptied the ashtray into the toilet, flushed several times looking closely for any cindery residue clinging around the edge of the bowl. When he was satisfied the bowl was traceless he furiously scrubbed the shell. He was finished in five minutes. Leaving the cool room for the heat of the morning he met Terry face to face on the steps.

The two stood silent for a long second, Terry patting the overhang of his stomach. “What’s this then, you doing a runner?” Crispas grinned a not completely pleasant grin and turned his eyebrows down in a questioning gesture. “I’ve already paid, last night.” Terry looked at the bag and at Crispas face, he held his smile. The sea reflected the sun harshly into his eyes. “So you’re leaving?” “Yes, actually the room stinks of smoke, I could barely sleep, besides.” He let his grin widen. “I was lucky enough to find a house this morning, just what I was looking for.” Terry’s face became a series of rippling wrinkles “Where?” He asked incredulously. “Down the beach, four Kilometers or so.” Terry mentally ticked off the properties judging them against Crispas description from the night before then smiled and shook his head. “No mate, not the little wooden place, not bloody Piesons place.” “Yes that’s right Piesons, I met him on the beach this morning, we set the terms already and it’s perfect.” “Mate that house has been under construction for ten years, there’s no roof on most of it and the toilet’s nothing but a shack with a hole in the ground. Pieson’s a drunk, hooked on the ole lao kao, bloody methyl alcohol and speaks no English.” Crispas grinned and shrugged “I had time to study my Thai last night; I’m not marrying the man just renting his property. I inspected it thoroughly and think it would suite me fine.” “Listen mate come up to the house and have some coffee, some breakfast if you like, I have real English ham, besides I didn’t get your passport number.” Crispas put on a harder look and then tried to soften it “I need to go, thanks for the offer but I don’t eat pork, I’ve a million things to do today, thanks again.” He leapt over the veranda rail and walked off without looking back. He could hear Terry complaining all the way to the water’s edge. ‘I have a million things to do today.’ Crispas imitated himself in a twee voice and laughed. ‘There’s all the time in the world.’

If you would like to continue reading this chapter and find out more about The Black Gentlemen of Trong Suan you can visit the site here: http://theblackgentlemen.com/

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