Three Thumbs Up

I met Bobby Banuelos in the Tahitian Queen. He was in a semi-circle in the dark bar with five other men. They were discussing health problems, all of them, with the exception of Bobby, noting that they had diabetes, high blood pressure and needed to lose weight. They’d been in Pattaya so long they’d become bored with the bar girls and had gotten to that point that they preferred to live alone and take a freelancer from Beach Road once a week or so. Bobby was the lone exception. He was lean and looked healthy from what I could tell from the adjacent booth. He didn’t strike me as a jaded expat.

I sat with a girl on my lap for ten or fifteen minutes and thought she was attractive enough. I just didn’t imagine that we’d hit it off in the room and I had better look elsewhere. I paid the bill and gave her the line that I might see her later, and then started for the door. It so happened that Bobby was leaving at the same time. We exchanged a few remarks as we hit the hot night air and then headed in the direction of Walking Street. The first beer bar we came to Bobby suggested we stop and have something to drink. It seemed like an okay idea. I’d gotten my whistle blown earlier in the day on Soi Six and the fact is I still felt like I was recharging and wasn’t quite ready for another girl, one I’d keep until morning.

Bobby said he’d come to Pattaya to see a few friends and would be heading back to Bangkok in the morning, and then the following day he would fly to Udon Thani. He was going to spend a few days with his girlfriend, Wan, and go over what he “expected” from her. Expected was his word, and upon hearing it I got curious what kinds of demands he had in mind. I’ve never gotten involved with one of the bar girls to get that far in my thinking, and truth is I don’t have any intentions in that direction. I guess you could say I’m one of those butterflies that the girls love to talk about in less than flattering terms.

And so Bobby got around to his “List,” what he wanted from Wan and what he was willing to give her. It was clear that he’d given a good deal of thought to the matter and had totaled up all the pluses and subtracted the minuses, almost as if he’d given numbers to everything, like an accountant might do. His List, I soon discovered, would result in what he called a “Contract”. I gathered from what he said that if Wan wasn’t going to sign on a dotted line she was at least going to have to be able to recite it from memory.

The List or Contract was surprisingly ordinary in many ways, I thought. Here’s what I remember were the pluses and minuses he saw in getting together with Wan and taking her back to Melbourne, Australia should she agree to his terms.

She was to keep the house clean and do the laundry and do all the cooking and put together no more than three Thai meals a week. The rest of the week he expected Western fare that she’d have to learn to cook. He’d give her an allowance of $100 a week, which was spending money for herself. He’d also give her another $100 a week on top of this that was meant for her family. Wan had no children, only a mother and a father and two younger sisters. Wan was twenty-four. If she wanted to keep the family money for herself, that was okay with Bobby. Whatever, she was not to ask him for more money either for herself or for her family during the first two years of their living together. Then, I gathered, Bobby would be open to a “renegotiation,” as he put it. But I sensed things would have to be going pretty kissy-smooth for that to happen.

Anyway, Bobby said he’d spent enough time with Wan to satisfy himself that she was sufficiently affectionate to meet his needs, and also quite good in bed. He expected that their sex life would slowly deteriorate over time. If it went downhill too rapidly he wasn’t sure what he’d do. He mused out loud that if the good sex went south too fast he’d take her back to her family in Udon Thani. A one-way ticket, one where he’d just walk down the street one day and that’d be the last time she’d ever see or hear from him.

In all honesty, I didn’t find any of what he told me particularly unreasonable. I’d probably do something like if I wasn’t who I am. But I did wonder about a few things he didn’t mention. What about how you’ll be perceived, what with the twenty-five or so year difference between the two of you?

Not sure how I’ll deal with that, he candidly admitted. She’s also a foot shorter than me and quite dark. I’ve thought about that too. A big issue, or issues? I don’t know, I really don’t. Maybe if someone gives me a look I don’t like or says something that hits me the wrong way, I’ll reconfigure his face.

You love her? I said, not sure why I asked because that’s not a word I use much these days.

He looked at me, strangely, then just shook his head. Love? he said. Tell me what that is.

I have no insight into that, I said. Then I added, Shared history. Unwillingness to let go. Knowing there won’t be any major surprises so you just hang in there and call it love when she wants to hear the word.

He smiled. I can tell you’ve been in love before, he said.

I tried once, I had to say. After three weeks I had no idea what it was all about.

I ordered another drink. And that’s when this gorgeous bartender with show time hooters I hadn’t seen previously came over to us and asked what we’d like. Same, I said, staring at her very considerable endowment. Two more Heinekens.

Just as she picked up our two glasses, my eyes were drawn to her left hand. I just couldn’t believe what I saw! I sure could not. Lovely long fingers with nails nicely groomed, pretty enough to kiss and wonder what she could do with those nimble fingers. The hand was lovely but for an extra thumb, about a third the size of her other thumb that was attached just below the knuckle. From all I could tell this second thumb was perfectly formed, right down to the much smaller nail which was painted a glistening pink just like her other nails.

Jesus Fuck Christ, did you see that? I said to Bobby when she was out of sight. I don’t mind at all telling you that seeing that hand of hers played with my mind, and not in good ways either.

Bobby moved his mouth to my ear and whispered, My girlfriend’s got an extra one too, and I just love it! I forgot to tell you that little extra tickler is something special. She doesn’t really know it, but it’s her Ace in the Hole for keeping me around and making changes to my little old Contract.

Sorry for the offense, I said. I felt a bit shitty at that point and I didn’t know what to say beyond the apology. In all honesty I wanted to ask Bobby if that extra thumb somehow figured into their sex life. I also wanted to know if he wasn’t a bit embarrassed by the thumb when he was with her in public. I mean, did he have all kinds of thoughts of having Wan go to a plastic surgeon to have it removed? I just didn’t have the courage to ask him any of this.

After seeing that extra thumb on the waitress, and then hearing Bobby saying that Wan had the same defect and he liked it and it was near the top of his List of things he liked about her, I had a hard time carrying on a conversation. We finished the beers I’d ordered and I paid the whole bill and told Bobby I had to be on my way. I told him too that I’d recharged my battery and wanted to find a girl to stay with me for the rest of the night.

I found one. Ahn was okay, nothing special, and I was happy to see her go early the next morning. I wanted to be alone and think a bit about what I’d never seen before, this two thumbs on a hand thing. Too, I couldn’t help but think about Bobby Banuelos. He was one hell of a good looking guy with lots of charm and a mountain of curly hair and no problem getting anything he wanted, I figured. So what, I wondered, could he possibly find so charming and irresistible about a girl with three thumbs?

That whole little thumb incident came to mind off and on for the next couple of weeks. I found myself bringing it up with just about every expat or whore lover I came across. Mostly what I got were nasty and derisive laughs and words like, Ain’t for me, no way, mate. That freak extra thumb would be gone before I got her panties down was another way I heard it put.

Then, just by chance and three days before I had to return to my post office job in Seattle, I found myself next to this tall American who told me his name was Korski. I asked him what his first name was and he said Korski. Then he said the same when I asked him what his last name was. Fuck me, I thought, what’s happening to me this trip? Nothing’s like it should be.

Anyway, once we got over this name bullshit, I found the guy okay. He was even sort of charming, and I couldn’t help but tell him about Bobby and his girlfriend Wan and her extra thumb. Then after that about the bartender with the Hummer hooters and all I might’ve wanted to do with her if it wasn’t for that freak left hand of hers. You got any ideas about this? I said.

I’ve seen it three or four times in my upcountry travels in Thailand and Laos, Korski said. No different than a sixth toe you’ll see on some of these Thai lovelies. And men too.

Jesus, I said. What the hell is going on anyway?

Well, I don’t know who this Korski guy is but at that point he was off to the races, beginning by telling me a long story about some fruitcake religious group called the Amish that lives mainly in Pennsylvania. They’re people who ride around in old buggies and have their women all dressed in aprons while the men have beards to their bellies. He said they’re an odd Protestant religious sect that came to America from Germany a couple of centuries ago in small numbers. Then, saying something about a Founder Effect and using some fancy biology words I’d never heard before, he said that if you look at the genetics of this group, they got the shit end of the stick. Those are my words. Korski I gathered would never say things this way. Anyway, seems that, according to Korski, about one in 1,000 normal people can expect to get an extra finger or toe or thumb. Just the random draw of what genes you get, I guess. Turns out about one in fourteen of the Amish got these genes that give you an extra finger or toe or maybe even make you a three-foot dwarf.

I asked Korski how he knew all this.

I just made it up, he said. Then he laughed.

I didn’t know whether or not to believe him. But that’s okay, it was a good story. The best I heard, matter of fact.

So how’d these Thai people get these extras? I had to say. Nothing fruity about these Thai girls from all I can tell.

Small populations isolated over a long period of time, he said. Probably breakaway populations much like the Amish. Not representative of the larger population.

Okay, enough of that for me, I said. I’m starting to get lost.

How’d you like to get a bit deeper into your curiosity about these Thais with extra thumbs?

Why not? I said.

We headed down toward the discos and then he cut into one of the smaller sois with the food vendors and soon we were among all those beer bars with the smelly Arabs with their Turkish pipes and the music so loud you can’t hear yourself think. We stopped at one of them, and before I knew what was going down Korski struck up a conversation in Thai with one of the bartenders. I didn’t understand a word of what he said to her.

It couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes later, or just after we got our hands on some cold beers, that two girls were behind us and getting real friendly. I don’t honestly know where they came from, but this was probably Korski’s doing, what went down when he talked to the bartender in Thai. Anyway, one of the girls got her arm around Korski’s neck and when I took a look she had a tongue in his ear. I’d swear he was purring, real contented. Almost made me jealous. The other one, and this is where it started to get all interesting, put one of her hands under the back of my shirt. Before I could say Boo or What’s your name honey, her hand was under my belt and inside my jiffies and she was going south. I wanted to say Whooooooooa, baby, I don’t even know your name. She must’ve read my mind because she gave me a peck on the cheek and with that hand still going down there where it feels pretty good she showed her pretty young face and nice white teeth. At that point, I got thinking that if this was Korski’s idea he’s got pretty darn good taste and I just might like her for the whole night if she’s available and I could get her name.

Next thing I know, I’m somewhere else. I mean, I’m still there, but I can’t even honestly tell you if Korski was still there beside me or not while all this was going on. This pretty young no name girl of not much more than nineteen or twenty had me off the seat and on my feet or toes and my face was bent over the bar. I swear I heard birds chirping and angels singing and crazy fucking Arabs screaming Allah! Allah! I felt that hand of hers and her fingers creating some kind of magic I’ve rarely known. But what she did down there I’ll never really know. What I do know is it was making me go nuts, forget where I was, not want her to stop.

I got off, I sure did, right there in my pants. First time ever like this in Thailand, I hate to admit. But I don’t mind saying that it was one hell of a mighty shot, enough to make my legs feel weak and tingly when I finished. All I remember after that is slowly sitting down and pulling my pants up a bit and getting my shirt tucked in. Then I ordered a beer, and then had a second one, knowing that I couldn’t even walk until I settled down and got my senses back.

The girl that did me like I tried to describe just disappeared, gone just like she had come out of nowhere to begin everything. I felt a little disappointed, because if nothing else I felt I owed her something for what she’d done. But then I thought maybe Korski had paid her or she owned him a favor.

Well, I thought that was the end of it, until I stood to pay my bill. I couldn’t get anyone’s attention over all the noise so I shouted at the back of a girl about ten feet away. When she turned, it took me a long second to recognize that it was the girl who had taken me some place I’d never been before. She smiled, and I smiled back, oh did I! I raised one thumb, and then another thumb to let her know how good she’d been. She smiled again, then raised one thumb. And then up came the other hand. I stared. I stared really hard and shook and my head and just could not believe my eyes.

The author can be contacted at:  korski1@cox.net

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