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The village sleeps deep under the black silk star-filled night skies. The hard work of the day, the now full belly, and the few glasses of beer Chang or Lao Khao rice whiskey renders most villagers senseless and asleep at an early hour, well, most nights anyway. A slightly warm breeze sighs through the foliage like the flight of a fairy on her butterfly wings, skipping and dancing, and fluttering willy-nilly through the palm fronds and flowers. It sounds like the trees and bushes are whispering words of endearment and sweet nothings to each other, in Lao of course. It has a mysterious and sexy sound, like a woman's soft honey breath that, gently as a moth's wing, tickles your ear, as she encourages you to further efforts to complete the final moments toward the climax soon to come.
"Wait for me darling, wait for me." it murmurs seductively. It's a lovely thing to hear. Life would be so incomplete, a void, a sadder place, without its haunting sensuous sound. I love the night sounds of the village.
Aloft on the breeze floats the invigorating and seductive scent of Isaan. It lingers cloyingly around you, and dances a tantalizing old Siam dance in your nostrils. It's the ultimate perfume. It's 'that' smell, that smell you smell when you first step off the jet plane to the tarmac in Don Muang airport in Bangkok. It’s the musky flowery fragrance of a young Thai woman, any Thai woman, all the Thai women. Thailand smells like a sexy golden-skinned woman with flowers in her hair. It's that addictive scent that draws you back each time. You have to smell it just that one more time before you die; you have no choice, you must return. If only I could bottle that scent. I'd be a multi-billionaire then I think.
Some nights I have a hard time sleeping.
Especially in the village for some reason. I'll fall asleep when everyone else does, but awaken a couple of hours later, and stay awake for too many damned hours before I finally tire once again near dawn. I hate doing this. It pisses me off, because I know the next day I'll be beat, tired, and grumpy, and I usually have things I want or need to do. But, such is life or so they say, whoever 'they' are. The older you get the more you truly appreciate a really good night's sleep. I just wish I could go back to sleep. I have very colorful and strange dreams when in Thailand too. Very strange. A good session of carnal play usually helps do the trick, but sadly my wife has her friend over once a month, and for two or three days she is loathe to do the nasty. Bad cramps she has. Poor lass.
So what to do? Well, a few stiff drinks sometimes helps, for me you goofballs, not my wife and her cramps. She gets a 250mg Mydol for the cramps, a kiss goodnight from her loving husband, and she's off to la-la land. If a guy can't get laid, (okay, admittedly crude, but true) why, well, the next best thing to do sometimes is to get a buzz-on, right? It helps you sleep. Well, it does doesn't it?
This was one of those nights.
I sit in the dark on the front veranda, sipping a cocktail. I've always wondered where this term, 'cocktail' came from. It sounds a bit pornographic. I drink some of my new-found, cheap, yet tasty and potent, golden brown Phillipine rum. Makro shopping stores has a nice pineapple juice they sell that goes down just right when mixed with this cheap island rum. These are the good times, sitting alone quietly and pondering life, love, the universe, my navel, and the red glow-trail of the head of my lit cigarette in the quiet dark of the night. It's very relaxing, and is conducive to a good night's sleep. Well, if you don't drink too much rum that is.
My friend Mr. Toad usually keeps me company. I'm bringing him a ceramic 'Toad House' when next I return from the states. I do hope he appreciates it and the trouble I'll have taken to bring it over. We'll see.
Sometimes a couple of his toady buddies come around too, and we all sit there blinking at each other, my throat throbbing along with theirs as I gulp down my drink occasionally. The crazy bat will be doing his circling feasting around the street light up the corner by Sis Mun's shop. Why the hell he doesn't get dizzy and fall to the ground puking up bugs I'll never know.
The light, slight, seductively whispering, woman-scented breeze will tickle and chill the rivulets of sweat, and the dripping condensation from my drink glass, that trickles down my bare chest to pool in my belly button. Everyone is asleep except us toads, the bat, and some crickets, who stay well away from Mr. Toad and his pals if they know what's good for them. Personally I don't care for crickets. I'd kill right now though for some Bachman's Pretzel Rods, salted, and a nice strong spicy German mustard to dip them in.
Sometimes Lenny the Tookay Lizard, an old reviled friend of another story, will croak out a well intentioned "Fuck you", just to let us know he's still thinking of us. The Thais call these lizards Tookay. They say this is what it sounds like they are saying. I disagree. I think they are saying "fuck you". It sounds so to me at least. So I call these guys the "fuck you" lizards, of which Lenny is the largest and most vocal in my village. I tell him quietly to get fucked, not wanting him to get in the last word.
It's a Hallmark Card moment, or black velvet Norman Rockwell painting scene from Isaan. It's the kind of night to make you remember your youth, to think of your old follies, and the old friends you miss that you wish were there to share the moment with over a drink, and a smoke and a chat. The still living ones anyway. Hell, a joint would go down fine too, but I gave that shit up a couple of decades ago, well, except for a toke now and again on occasion when someone offers, and I don't have the willpower to "just say no". Why Nancy Regan thought this would work for all us common folk of a weaker constitution I’ll never figure out. We don't have caviar and champagne, so a toke once in a while and a beer is what we commoners do to relax and calm down after a hard day.
I can smell the red clay earth around the house. It's a good smell. Gaia's sweet breath, and the moist odor of the lake down the road sweetens the already sensory titillating laden air. The bat chirps as he dives for some flying insect he's zoned in on for his next bite in his seemingly endless meal. The toads get bored after a while and decide to split. Mr. Toad tells me they are hopping off in search of some golden eyed toad ladies that they think will probably put out. Yeah, toads can be crude at times. He invites me along, but I tell him I'd rather sit and ruminate over my drink.
He gives me a funny look and flops away over the floor to catch up with his buds. Later dude.
I am a weird guy I'm not ashamed to say. I admit it. Hard to hide it really. I have these games I play sometimes. The one where I secretly pinch peoples heads off as I squint over my cigarette and beer being an old favorite of mine. Endless hours of fun that. One 'game' involves the village soi dogs. You see, these doggy assholes are one of the reasons I sometimes can't sleep at night in the village. As the village sleeps these idiots seem to think it's party time. And when one dog party erupts in noise and violence, well every freaking soi dog within a kilometer just has to join in the fun.
I think I've figured out why some of the Khmer people eat dog. It's not because they are hungry. It's not because they are too poor to buy a chicken or some pork. It's not because they like the taste of dog meat really. It's because one morning the Khmer guy wakes up and says to the dog, "All right you motherfucker. That's it. Last night was the last night you are waking me the hell up with your incessant howling and barking!" and slits the poor canine's throat.
"Wife! Tonight we eat dog!" he yells in the door, while hanging the mutt upside-down to drain his blood into a pan to make some blood sausages, and blood soup jello squares.
Why waste the meat and other proteins, right?
So, to explain the 'game'. Well, after a few cocktails I'll notice the dogs are all nice and comfy lying about in the soi (street). They are asleep. I am not. Now I've asked my wife before why the hell the Thais all keep so many dogs around. They don't seem to really like most of the dogs. They don't treat them like pets so much as we falangs do, really. She says they are for protection, and to be like burglar alarms. Bullshit. I think they sell 'em to the Khmer for food when they are broke. These dogs really aren't good watch dogs.
Why do I say this? Because I, a slightly inebriated farang, can walk right up to them, right through a pack of them, as they lay sleeping in the road without waking them up.
It's a game I play late at night on occasion. When I can't sleep. Yeah, I know, I'll never grow up and get serious. Who really wants to though?
Once they are all asleep in the street I wait ten or fifteen minutes, then, barefoot, I quietly walk right up to them and stand next to their sleeping forms. None of them move a muscle. Not an eye opens. They are out like a light. There are packs of them all along the soi sleeping in groups of four or five. I sometimes try to see how far down the middle of the street I can walk before one of them will notice me and start barking. I can get pretty damned far believe me. These dogs ain't good guard/watch dogs.
The ones down the road a bit by the circling hungry bat's streetlight are the ones that always bark at me during the day, and the ones that wake me up almost every night with their freakin' howling. What I like to do to them is wait until they are asleep and then walk quietly up to them, and stand right near them. Then I start barking and growling at the top of my lungs. Scares the living shit out of them. You should see them jump! One pissed himself once I scared him so bad. They hate it when I do this. And they always get this sheepish look on their faces, like they are thinking, "Shit! He did it again. Humans aren't supposed to be able to sneak up on us like that, dammit."
Yeah, I know. Don't say it. The rabies shots one day I'll be getting will hurt like a bitch. I know.
If I can't sleep tonight, well, these mangy bastards aren't gonna sleep tonight either.
Pay-back's a bitch, mutt.
Cent
(The Central Scrutinizer)
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