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John is a periodic alcoholic American with an extraordinarily good talent for playing guitar and a loud singing voice to match. His two main loves are the Beatles and Jesus Christ, with Leo beer a close third. He has a tall thin body with a hawk-like face. He sits at the bar drinking from a large bottle and has a cigarette rammed inside a cigarette holder, from which he takes long purposeful drags. John did some time in Vietnam, on the front line, and once confided that he may or may not have killed a man in battle. He wasn’t sure. He also did some time in a reform school in his formative years, and twitches whenever you mention anything to do with homosexual abuse. He lives in Thailand on some kind of pension and seems to have enough money to live comfortably. His house is a modern bungalow built from block and rendered in white in a large plot of well tended land. He shares the house with his Thai girlfriend, three black dogs and a Myna bird called Sydney, who has yet to speak.

John’s eyes flick around the bar as he takes in the scene around him. He seems to like what he sees, although in a superficial way. He has what the ex-military boys refer to as a thousand yard stare, although his is probably more like half a click.

The bar is a simple affair. A few bamboo tables and chairs make up most of the furniture. A moth bitten pool table completes the iternary. The music playing from the stereo is a depressing rock balled by a group called the Scorpions. Standard stereo fodder in this part of the world. The bar has a slight mould smell to it, as if something is either dead or rotting out back. The bar lady is a hopeless alcoholic, and you get the feeling that if something was dead or dying she would simply let nature take its course rather than do the right thing and clean it up. Let the dead bury the dead.

I walk up to John and shake his hand. We had formed a loose friendship on account of the fact that we both play guitar. Although his playing is far superior to my own, I was the only other guy in town who could play a bit and we had done some small concerts together, for birthdays, leaving parties, weddings, divorces. We have a policy of only working at night. Vampires get more done during the day than John and myself.

“How’s it going Jim,” He asked me.

“Not bad,” I lied. I was on the detox from a three day drinking session and I had the old sensation that my head was being held in a vice. Like a giant pair of nut crackers on the head. A tension headache where the temples feel like they are being pressed down on hard. My chest was tight and I had this overwhelming anxiety that caused me to shake as I picked up the beer that the barman had routinely put down in front of me. I knocked back the beer and waited for the alcohol to ease the tension. But my system was pulsing; the back of my head was hurting down to the neck. It would take a few more beers to get straight. It was early evening and starting to get dark, dogs began to bark in the distance.

“So what’s new?” I ask John.

“I hate this fucking country.” He told me.

“Yeah?”

“Fucking Thais; all they want is your money.”

“True.”

“Why don’t they go out and work themselves, instead of sucking me dry. Fucking arseholes.”

“Well, they are not stupid John. I tell you, if I could find myself a rich wife who would buy me a home, look after my family, and give me pocket money five times the amount I could earn every day, I wouldn’t be looking in the job ads of the local paper. I would be seeing how long I could make this gig last.”

“I’m sick of this shit.” He spits out.

“It gets to us all. But think about the alternatives.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well John, you are fifty eight. You could stay here and live in what is as close to being paradise as any where in the world, despite all the visa bullshit and having to support a third world family. Which isn’t that expensive in the scheme of things, or you could go back to the States. You might find a job in a supermarket that pays the rent on a small apartment and buys you enough food and a couple of beers every day. You could sit at home watch the TV and eat junk food. Maybe you might secure the interests of an overweight righteous religious douche bag who works at the supermarket and kicks you every time you are down. She has got rights, and she has got issues. She supports wars and the American way. Looks down on blacks and Chinks and Hispanics she has needs that go way and above that of just money. She has needs that are simply unobtainable. To put it simply she is an Americanized super bitch. She will crush you John, and you know it.” I light a cigarette and look John in the eye, “Is that what you want to do?”

“Get me another beer.” John smiles. “I’m staying.”

 

 

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