Fiction

Bangkok is like a narcotic. It can make an average man feel like Superman, and a better man feel like a God. But there was always another side, when the money is gone and the party ends, perspectives change. I hoped Roger could keep himself at least reasonably sane while there.

The sun rises above the Chao Phraya like a lazy dragon from slumber. At first just a glimmer on the horizon that grows into a blazing giant. It's hazy and blurred through the Bangkok pollution like bad erotic photography. It is a new day and in every new day, lives are made, remade and ended. This tale has all of these things.

He was dead, for sure. I put one of my thumbs right there at the back of his jaw and there was nothing, nothing at all.

From that day the mysterious woman barely left Somchai's home for some three weeks. He noticed that he also saw less of the villagers when he travelled about his land. That however did not concern him so much as his mind was fixated upon the woman in his house.

Sitting on my bed in the Lux Hotel in Phnom Penh, I look to the wall behind the widescreen TV and see that it is the 17th of April, 1975. I am twenty-four years old, and my son, who is twenty, is fishing in Mexican waters.

Some ten years had passed. Although he was satisfied with his life he had almost given up on meeting a woman to take as his wife. The realization nagged at him more persistently that there was every probability that his life would remain a lonely one.

There was no reason for Somchai to live in a small house in the forest. He had been born into a wealthy family in Bangkok. An only child, his parents had doted on him. Nothing was too much for him. He was their special child. He was particularly special since they had almost lost him to Polio as a youngster.

Twenty hours later, John was dancing between half a dozen girls in the middle of a packed dance floor. He'd been going since they'd arrived. He'd been back to his guesthouse room with girls on three different occasions. He hadn't slept in at least 36 hours. Wes had caught a few hours in a booth at Dunkin' Doughnuts while John was busy shagging.

Jimmy was serious. Jimmy didn’t fuck around. Anybody who knew Jimmy knew this because Jimmy told them all the time. “I’m serious,” he would say. “I am not fucking around.”

Arthur is in the 'Seaside' restaurant just off Soi Bokhao. He always dines there when he's in Pattaya because it is cheap and the food reminds him of English transport caffs. They even overcook the cabbage just right.

While staying in an apartment block, one of the young staff decided to provide me with room service that I would never forget!

I don't want to ever hear those words. If I ever do hear those words I'll be disappointed. I'll be sad. But I won't be surprised.

Scorpions and crocodiles and goats, oh my!

Three weeks ago, and two days before my birthday, I received another card from Sai. Unlike the previous seven cards that were sent from Frankfurt, this one was postmarked in Berlin, leaving me in the best of moments—and they come infrequently--to happily if perversely wonder if something in her marriage took a wrong turn.