Hope

I met her earlier today at Bangkok airport. It had been over ten years since I had last seen her, and, on first sight she had changed immeasurably. We were close at school; Hope’s petite Italian figure with waist length jet black hair would float around the school refectory. She had an olive complexion that would be flawless for three weeks of the month, and then her cheeks would break out into little red spots around the time of her month, her period. The spots were more like blotches, red headless and closely grouped together, like poppy fields. I liked her best whilst she was ovulating; she seemed more accessible to a skinny kid with a restless eager mind and long curly hair at that time. I would follow that figure like a shadow, as she would follow mine. I picked up some strange signals from her puzzled deer brown eyes, my adolescent senses receptive like a brand new television set that desperately needed tuning. But I hadn’t even read the manual yet. I didn’t know what buttons to push or what happened when you pushed them. Clueless, uneducated in the ways of womankind. I feared rejection. Years later, I learnt that the fear of rejection is much worse than actually being rejected. Nobody goes through life without being rejected and the more rejections one receives the easier it is to take rejection.

Back at school she had a nice shape to her, the kind of shape a girl grows into. She was of course flirtatious, and she seemed well versed in the ways of the world. Her mother was a sex therapist and practiced transgressions with some of her patients. Her patients or clients? They always seemed to be male but I was too young to pick up on that at the time. She lived a bohemian lifestyle in a house called crow cottage. The house was always in a mess as I walked up to her box room after school. There would always be a different man lying on his back on the living room sofa supposedly exploring a previous incarnation. Nothing much happened in that bedroom. Her younger brother was always sniffing around. I later found out that he grew up into a strapping homosexual and became involved with a police officer whilst he was still at school, causing a minor local scandal at the time. It made the local newspapers and the family thought it best to move home.

As I looked at her at the Airport arrivals I felt a sense of loss, what I had missed out on. I had somehow forgotten that Latino girls tend to grow outwards rather than upwards, in fact they seem to shrink in height with age and grow mustaches and harbour swollen ankles. Premature wrinkles on the face, I always used to put down to the suns rays literally causing them to shrink and wrinkle like a piece of fruit left outside on a hot day. But Hope had spent her entire life in a suburb outside London. Perhaps it was a genetic thing. Or perhaps she was simply a consumer, an eater.

So here it was, a hundred and fifty kilos of womanhood bowling towards me and taking me in a sweaty embrace. A few of the Thais around us giggled loudly, furthering the sense of embarrassment.

She had contacted me through a ‘friends reunited’ website that I had added myself to in a moment of terminal boredom. It appears to me now, that if you want to stay in touch with someone, then you will probably stay in touch with them regardless of modern technology. Also, I believe that if you really want to meet someone you have lost contact with, then you will meet him or her at some optune moment. I do believe in fate. I can not think of anyone that I have regretted losing touch with. If two people want to remain in contact then they will. Friends reunited is simply cashing in on the lonely disliked people at school who want to give the whole thing another go now that they have learnt some basic social skills. They should call it losers united. But then again who am I to speak, I live in Bangkok. Just about any fool can make it here with a bit of money coming in.

I took Hope into a bar at the end of the backpacker street and bought us a bottle of beer each whilst she eyed the menu. The beer was Chang, which I didn’t normally drink but I was on a budget. Plus, I felt like numbing myself with the beer to try and think what to do about the Hope situation. I wouldn’t say that beer helps me to think, but it certainly helps me make decisions. I seem to have this when-in-doubt-do-nothing mentality that changes to a when-in-doubt-do-something after a couple of ales. Hope had ordered a burger and you could see the expectant desire in her face as a waiter brought over a burger, only to place it three tables away. She brought, from her shoulder bag a lonely plant book and began talking about destinations.

“I want to go to Chaing Mai but the book says that I should buy the train ticket in advance and then the book says to go on an excursion with the PB travel agency by the city wall and not to use any of the smaller agencies. What do you think Jim?”

“I think Joe Cummings is screwing the travel agents daughter, or maybe son, and wants to pay less to the family by advertising his agency in ‘the book.’” Joe Cummings was the main writer of the Lonely Planet Thailand book and enjoyed a charmed life in the Kingdom from the hospitality businesses that he either promoted or considered including in the holy travel bible. I harboured a slight jealousy towards the man, but consoled myself with the fact that he was a lousy guitar player.

“What…”

“Look I’ve been here over half a decade and see millions of tourists walking around, buying stuff, sleeping, wiping their arse every time the book tells them to. These kids all base their trip around the book. They first meet here in the capital Bangkok at the same hotel and then feel that it’s a massive coincidence when they check into the same hotel in Ko Samui. It’s no coincidence as they are following the same plan. They don’t come to this country to learn anything. They come here to be with people from their own country, albeit, in a sunny environment. They collect places like it some kind of hobby. Reeling off names of cities and towns like lists of numbers for a train spotter.”

“God you are so cynical”

“That is true. But I am right.”

The burger arrived and I took the opportunity to order a large Chang. I was going to need it.

“I thought we could do some traveling together.” She said.

“No offence Hope, but I have seen most of this country. I don’t do long bus journeys, and if I do it is in government busses. I can’t stay in youth hostels and I hate the majority of backpackers. I wouldn’t be very good company.”

I took a long gulp of my beer. Hope was lost in the burger. We were both indulging in our favourite pastimes. Maybe I would take her somewhere and show her the real amazing Thailand. I knew a shanty town by the railroad tracks that would probably get her out of the country pretty sharpish. The beer tasted good. It always did this time of day, late morning. I had been using beer as a substitute breakfast for the last few years. I didn’t like to drink late in the evening as it effected my sleep. I’ve always been a late morning and afternoon drinker. But if I’m honest, then anytime will do.

“How’s the burger” I asked her. I knew they were good in here.

She shrugged her shoulders as to say that she didn’t notice the huge greasy hunk of meat between two toasted doorstep buns ramming its way down her throat. But I could see in her eyes that it was good, I often eat one to soak up the booze. Airplane food just doesn’t satisfy the hunger the way burger and chips does.

Eating disorders are very similar to drinking disorders. Leaving aside the health risks it appears that these disorders are born from the mind. The alcoholic hiding drinks around the house and secretly binging, the bulimic or compulsive eater does the same. Secret eating sessions. The feeling that something dreadful, never specified, will happen if the eater or drinker is without food or drink. Compulsive behaviour, my friends. The system of compulsion.

“I left my boyfriend to come and meet you.” She says.

“That was very brave of you, but really, you shouldn’t have.”

“But I thought we could travel together?”

“Look. You might need to find someone else to service you. I’m all messed up inside.”

“What happened to you?”

“Life,” I told her and took a hit on the beer.

“You used to be so kind, and, and so sensitive.” She says.

“Well, so did my toothbrush, but now it’s all rough and bristly.”

“Like you?”

“Like life, honey.”

“Is this what this country does to people?”

“I guess all countries do it, but this one seems to do it faster.”

“But you used to be some much nicer.”

“And you used to be so much thinner.” It slipped out.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We all change. The world is an imperfect place. We all change and mostly for the worse.”

She looked around the bar. Western men sitting at tables with Thai girls in complete silence.

“You want to end up like one of those couples, sitting and eating with nothing to say to each other?”

“I like silence. It’s the first thing I heard and, god willing, the last thing I will ever hear.”

“Well,” she says punching the silence in an attempt to underline whatever point she is trying to make. “You aint the bright eyed boy I used to love.”

“You’re right honey, they got me.” I told her “They got me by the throat.”

She finished her burger, stood up, brushed away a tear from her left check and walked towards the door. I lit a cigarette and battled for some time suppressing the waves of guilt that had enveloped my inner space.

What had I become?

I paid the bill and walked out onto the busy Koh San road. Street stalls lined either side of the road and various Thais peddling their merchandise. A Thai man of undetrmined age had a paper bird on a piece of string that flew above his head in rotation, like a helicopter. Western youths are everywhere dressed in cheap Thai clothes, fisherman’s trousers with no pockets and tie-dye tops. Immersing themselves in what they imagine is the culture of Asia. How I wish that I could go back to the ignorance of bliss that these youths are immersing themselves in. Back to the ice coffees and banana pancakes, back to the days when a smile was a smile without thirteen different types of smile. And when the smile is gone the knife is not far away, so they say. I rarely smile. And if I do I don’t mean it.

I see Hope in a telephone booth with a pancake in her hand. I wait outside the booth and once she sees me she starts to walk purposefully along the street in the opposite direction.

“Look,” I say, “I am sorry; sometimes I speak my mind without thinking.”

“It’s okay. I thought I knew you. But I don’t. Please leave me alone.”

And that’s what I did. I left her alone on Koh San road; there could be no greater place to be left alone. She will hook up with some “travelers” and have the time of her life. At least I hoped so.

I walked into an internet café and cancelled my subscription to friends reunited. And then I took a bus to the over side of town and hit a bar where my kind of people drink. Friends unassociated. Men with beer bellies and life experience to match. The down trodden born again womanizers that I had somehow familiarized myself with. The sex tourists, and the sexpats, and the girls that serve them. Transsexuals, speed freaks, and lost souls. I didn’t dare mention Hope.

There was no point, until now.

© Sisterray. All rights reserved by the author.