Sopwith & Joy

A few nights ago I met Joy. I thought she was about twenty years old when she first invited herself to join me. She looked very young and was obviously new to the biz. She spoke poor English, translating the words literally from Thai,

“Accu me sir, can I sit here?”

“Accu me, what you name?”

She sat down beside me and continued to prompt a conversation. Every time she spoke, she started the sentence with “Accu me, can I ass you sum-sing……” Yeah, it’s all very cute when you are new to Thailand. It irritates me now. Eventually I switched the discourse into Thai. I can’t be bothered with all that cutesie, girlie pidgin English. Joy was delighted but she really wanted to practice her English and if she was ever going to become a real bargirl she certainly needed the practice. I helped her with some basic corrections to her grammar for which see seemed to be genuinely grateful.

As it turned out, Joy was not twenty years old at all. In fact, as she informed me she was twenty nine. She had two children, a boy of five and a girl of three. She had come to work in the bar just one week ago because her husband had lost his job. She only earned three thousand baht a month in a garment factory, so ‘money no enough’. To address the problem, she and her husband had agreed to split the family up and she would go to work in a bar. He had taken the boy and Joy kept the little girl. Her younger brother looked after her while Joy was at work. Joy had been barfined twice already. She described the experience as ‘OK’. She offered to play pool with me but warned me that she wasn’t very good. She really wasn’t. If she was ever going to make a living in this bar she had better improve. I showed her how to bridge her left hand and how to line the cue up properly.

I have to admit, I felt a tinge of sadness for this young woman. She gave no signal that she felt sorry for herself however but I remember thinking what a shit hand some people are dealt in life. Did she really have no choice other than to split her family up and go on the game?

At the time, Joy was wearing a respectable enough print dress. It wasn’t one of the usual low-cut, short, split-to-the-hip numbers most bargirls favour but a simple, ordinary dress. Underneath it, as if to reinforce her newness she wore a pair of jeans. Nothing was on public display, no leg, no skin. But even this extensive wrapping could not completely hide the fact that she had a very fit looking figure. Well, don’t they all, but add to this her very untarty haircut and less than perfectly applied make-up she definitely had a bit of catching up to do in the sexbomb department. Don’t misunderstand me, she was naturally a very pretty woman but certainly no vamp.

I felt an unfamiliar feeling wash over me as I watched her trying to get in sync with her pool cue. For no apparent reason, my thoughts drifted back to a stormy Bangkok night a few years ago.

On that night I was walking home and it was raining hard. Water was gushing along the roadside gutters and most people were seeking shelter from the deluge. I looked down to see a kitten clinging to a broken paving stone, soaked and frightened. The poor little thing could not have been more than a few weeks old. I looked around but there was no sign of a mother cat or any other kittens. In a moment of impulse, I scooped up the kitten and took it home. I called him Sopwith and he has lived with us ever since. Don’t tell anyone. It would wreck my street credibility.

I felt the same feeling again only this time there was no kitten in distress, no stormy night, only Joy learning to play pool. I wanted to give her a hug and take her home. Not a very realistic thought, I grant you. Bringing home a half drowned kitten on a stormy night was one thing but me bringing home a half trained bargirl after a couple of San Miguel’s was quite another. I wished it was different somehow.

I left the bar alone and slightly morose. I wasn’t even thinking about sex. I will go back there and see Joy again but I’ll leave it for few weeks. On my next visit I will expect to see her in high heels and a short skirt with her tits bursting out of her blouse. Better still, I’d like to see her gone, back to the garment factory and her husband and children.

Union Hill

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