Jess stood frozen in his tracks, in a state of shock. He had no idea such a place existed. His jaw hung open. No idea at all. How many middle-class Thais had stood where he stood and peered inside this farang place? Not many. He hung back for a moment, gathering his wits, deciding where to look and what to do. He turned back and saw Calvino following behind Naylor, “This place isn’t for real, is it?” he said into the mini-mic.
Jess’s voice inside Calvino’s earphone was crystal clear. He pushed the control switch. “It’s for real.”
“Keep directly behind him. Watch the hands of anyone close to the asset. Look for anything that might be a weapon,” said Jess. Then he went silent.
The question inside Jess’s brain was simpler: What were they doing here? Then he saw Naylor five feet behind him and knew the answer. They—meaning the yings—were marking time, waiting for the arrival of them. The farangs. Hundreds of bar yings were like a colorless, odorless, volatile compound, a chemical Eros, lurking in the shadows, finding the right moment to attach themselves for as long as it took until the cash leached out of the john’s wallet. Spilling onto Soi Nana, tuk-tuk drivers ran along holding up laminated photos of massage parlor yings, and the next wall they hit were Plaza touts. “Come see, free show. Beautiful yings. No cover charge.”
“You can close your mouth, Jess,” said Calvino into the mic. “Don’t worry, I’ve got him covered.”
“I will stay at eleven o’clock. I will stay in a covering position until you can get him to move forward,” said Jess. “You don’t have to watch him. Just everyone near him.”
“His biggest danger is himself,” said Calvino.
He looked over at Jess, who was trying to pretend he fitted into the crowd. But he stood out like a pimple on an unblemished face. A man talking to himself in the crowd. Jess looked awkward, uneasy. Not an uncommon experience for guys arriving from America, after years of sexual repression, all ideas of sexual pleasure purged as wrong and sinful. They arrived as refugees from history’s most massive sexual witch hunt. And for the first time in their lives they looked inside the Plaza and realized they had escaped, climbed over the wall separating them from sex. Jess now found himself inside a re-education camp for these escapees.
The clarity of police training started to break up with the static line of all those years of politically correct training jamming his senses; he lapsed into an embarrassed silence and shock of someone who believed such a thing did not exist in his country. Such things were not discussed or admitted except in a vague, abstract way. This way it had been kept as part rumor, part myth. But there was an actual physical place—the Plaza—and the place and the yings were real. All the time he kept pushing the message of the medium away, looking for the threat, scanning for danger, trying to ignore where he was and what these yings were really doing in this place.
“I’m losing him,” said Calvino into the mic.
“I’ve got him.” Jess was moving forward through the crowd.
Between Calvino and Naylor was a firewall of children selling packets of chewing gum, food vendors hawking everything from fried shrimp to fried grasshoppers, blind lottery ticket salesmen, yings on their way from and into the Great Stomach. Bar-fined yings edged past arm-in-arm with their customers circum-navigating troupes of ass-grabbing tourists, leading their johns out of the Plaza. Candidates for a short-time, partying, boozing, screwing, and candidates for acute, exotic diseases—all moving, seeping, leaking as a single movement like follicle cells of ovaries excited by a chance encounter.
Every other step as they edged forward into this concrete canyon of the Plaza someone in the throng of humanity recognized Calvino.
“Khun Vinee, sabai dee?”
And there were the wais, the hands folding together, palms touching, fingers touching, raised to the forehead. Calvino recognized the faces, remembered the names.
Jess, who walked ahead, saw the reaction. “You know some people.”
“Like you in LA, you know some people,” whispered Calvino into the mic.
“But you’re a farang,” said Jess, stunned by the presence of all the foreigners compressed into the small area. “And you know Thai people. The Thai people who come to this place.”
“Amazing isn’t it? And in LA, do you know any Americans, Jess?”
“Don’t get distracted. Keep your eyes moving on people’s hands,” said Jess as he caught sight of Calvino making his way through the crowd.
“There isn’t any such place like this in LA,” said Naylor as Calvino caught up with him. “The fucking ABC would close them down, throw their asses in jail. Sometimes, in America, don’t you just hate the rule of law?”
Wes Naylor worked his way, Jess on point, and Calvino following behind. They squeezed through the crowd and the dozens of motorcycles parked in the path. A young girl with a huge front porch under a thin cotton T-shirt which had “Size Does Matter” printed in bold letters on the front, flicked her lighter and touched the flame to some incense sticks. She bowed her head at the large spirit house in front of the Spirit House bar. Two vendors were hot on Naylor’s trail. “Nah, I don’t want any gum or fried bugs or fucking flowers or a massage. Get out of my face,” he said, bulling ahead.
“Did you spend much time with Naylor in LA?” Calvino spoke in the mic to Jess. One of the touts caught Calvino’s eye, nodded in recognition. A vendor smiled and called out his name, but Calvino never took his eyes off Naylor.
“He acted different in LA. More like a lawyer. He never showed his tattoos or mentioned the Cause.” Jess’s voice was coming clearly through Calvino’s earphone. Jess had already witnessed that Calvino was hard-wired into the electrical grid of the Plaza.
“Maybe he thinks the Cause is a farang thing,” said Calvino.
“You think that?” asked Jess.
“What?”
“That I don’t understand farang things?”
“It doesn’t really matter what I think,” said Calvino.
Naylor pushed ahead of them, stopping to buy a shwarma from a middle-eastern looking vendor with sad eyes and a droopy moustache that covered his upper lip. “You guys want one?” asked Naylor. Calvino shook his head. Jess had a smirk on his face. An underweight middle-aged farang in a black biker’s jacket, thick glasses and a shaved head who carried a crash helmet tucked under his arm walked up and shook Calvino’s hand.
“How’s it going, Larry?” Calvino asked.
Jess’s voice boomed in his ear. “Watch that guy. He looks like trouble.”
“It’s okay, I know him.”
“Calvino, do you always talk to your jacket?” asked Larry.
“Only when I hear voices,” said Calvino.
“I’m off to Cambodia tomorrow. Doing a feature on Deuch, one of those look backs at Tuol Sleng as Cambodia’s first born-again Christian mass murderer,” said Larry as he slipped back into the crowd. Larry had left Australia years ago. He had written many stories on regional wars, but it was the sustained cruelty of the Cambodians that repelled him, much like the large capacity of the Thais for sanuk attracted him to Thailand.
“Nice angle,” said Calvino.
As Naylor bit into the shwarma, Jess stepped closer to Calvino. “I am sorry I brought you into this assignment. If you want to go, I wouldn’t blame you. It’s clear there is no way I can control him. He won’t listen to anything you or I say. I know you didn’t sign on for this. No hard feelings. Keep the money. I’ll work it out with Dr. Nat.”
Calvino smiled, watching Naylor finish off the last of the Shwarma. “I don’t work that way. I signed on for the job. So let’s do it the best way we can, given we are protecting an asshole.”
Naylor stopped at the staircase, wiping his hands on a napkin, which he balled up and threw on the ground. He waited at the bottom as Jess ran ahead, taking the steps two at a time.
“I know you were talking about me. But that’s okay. I’ve got thick skin.”
“Where do you want to go, Wes?” asked Calvi
no.
“Lovejoy. You know it?” asked Naylor.
“Yeah, I know it,” said Calvino. He informed Jess of the location of the bar.
Jess was ten feet ahead watching them approach. “Maybe I don’t understand farangs,” said Jess.
“Maybe not,” said Calvino.
“From the reception you get in the Plaza, you’d think you were some kind of celebrity rather than one of my bodyguards,” said Naylor. “A celebrity bodyguard. That’s a twist.”
As they stepped inside Lovejoy, Calvino saw Jess in the far corner. The DJ was playing Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall.” At the bar a dancer who was about eighteen years old squirmed inside a micro-bikini, her thin arms and legs twisted in knots around a customer’s neck and waist, as if she were some alien life form seeking a partal to enter his body. Naylor walked straight up to the bar and ordered a double Stoly on the rocks.
“These your friends, Khun Vinee?” asked Lek, as she looked around Naylor.
“Business associates,” said Naylor. “And that guy in the corner, he’s another business associate.” He nodded down the bar at Jess, who slowly shook his head.
This didn’t stop Naylor from continuing. “Jess is my main LA man. He’s khon Thai and I am Wes Naylor, an American.”
“Lek and her husband own the bar,” Calvino said, more for Jess’s benefit than Naylor’s.
She waied Jess and extended her hand to Naylor. “Glad to meet you.”
“So where’s your husband?” asked Naylor. “Jack.” He waited to see if she were surprised that he knew his name; but Lek’s face showed no reaction. She was cool all of the time.
“Jack’s upstairs watching TV.” She blew Calvino a kiss, mouthing the word “later.”
The words to the song—you are all just bricks in the wall—blared from the loudspeakers in the ceiling. On stage, three dancers, looking bored, shuffled their feet, hands grasping chrome poles like straphangers on the E train in New York, going home after a long day working in a department store.
The high-pitched roar of rotating helicopter blades sweeping in low drowned out the conversation for a moment.
As the choppers disappeared into the sound system, Naylor gestured at the bar. “How can you watch TV with beautiful yings dancing downstairs?”
“How do you know Jack doesn’t have his private dancers upstairs?” asked Calvino.
“Because Mrs. Jack standing right here would cut off his dick and feed it to the ducks,” said Naylor. “Ain’t that right, Jess? You Thai guys have ducks quacking all night long inside your nightmares.”
Jess shifted his weight on the stool, watching the door, watching customers. He was totally alert. One of the dancers tentatively approached Jess and asked him to buy a lady’s drink. She automatically spoke to Jess in Thai. Just another brick in the wall . . . as the lyrics said. Jess at first ignored her; she asked again, and this time he nodded his approval and she waied him. So far he had not exchanged a word with her and the dancer hadn’t decided whether Jess understood her Thai or whether he was from some other part of Asia.
“Wes wants to deliver a letter to one of your yings,” said Calvino.
“What’s her name?” asked Lek.
“Jep,” said Naylor. “Number 17. I’ve been looking around but I don’t see any dancer wearing number 17.”
Lek laughed and pointed to a slender beautiful young girl in blue jeans and a long-sleeved shirt sitting alone in a dark corner, her arms folded, staring ahead as if lost in a dream. “That’s Jep against the wall. She’s mai sabai,” said Lek, pushing a fresh glass of orange juice in front of Calvino.
“What the fuck does that mean? mai sabai.”
“She’s ill,” said Jess.
Naylor eyed her, sipping from his glass and crushing the ice between his teeth. He had a look that passed for the process of thinking going on inside his head. But one might be mistaken about that conclusion.
“What’s wrong with her? I mean she looks okay from here.” He tensed the muscles in his jaw, the hair stood up on the back of his neck. “She ain’t got AIDS or something like that?”
Jess’s dancer returned with a drink chit which she slipped into the bamboo chit box holding her lady’s drink in the other hand—a cola with one ice cube—and clicked her glass against Jess’s, wishing him luck. “Chok dee,” he said. For the first time he had spoken Thai to her and she responded by cradling her body between his legs; she relaxed, smiled, and leaned her head against his chest as if they had known each other for months if not years. Instant bar intimacy went with the territory of language proficiency. Comfort came from sleeping with someone the girl could understand: what he wanted, what he expected, what he was prepared to give in return. Someone who could count money in Thai. The comfort lasted less than ten seconds as he peeled her off his lap and lifted her onto the stool next to his and told her to stay very still.
“No, not AIDS. No yings here have HIV. Jep’s sick because she got more than two hundred and fifty mosquito bites,” said Lek. “You never seen anything like what happened to her. Her legs, her ass, her arms, her stomach covered with red bumps.”
“How did that happen?” asked Naylor.
“She go out drinking with her friends last night after we close, and she very sad so she drink half a bottle of Mekhong, and then she is walking back to her hong alone. She walks into an empty lot because she has to piss. She pulls down her jeans and panties, squats down and passes out. She wake up. Three hours later in the weeds. Millions of mosquitoes all around and they eat her body for three hours.”
“You ever hear anything like it?” Wes Naylor asked, glancing at Calvino.
“Give her the letter and let’s go back to the hotel,” said Calvino.
“You are a barrel of laughs,” said Naylor. He called over to Jep. “Hey, sweetheart, come over here. I got a letter from Eric Hull for you. And there are some pictures inside, too.” Naylor looked like he was directing traffic, waving her over with both arms in motion. She sat motionless, ignoring him.
“Dtoo yen, ma nii,” said Lek.
Calvino smiled, “Did you just tell the Fridge to get its ass over here?”
“Fridge is her real name,” said Lek. “Jep is her nickname.”
“A fucking redneck name. Fridge,” said Naylor. Jep slowly got off the stool, but not after first looking behind her, thinking Naylor had been gesturing to someone else. Not until Lek had yelled at her from the bar that the farang wanted to buy her a cola did she slowly walk over. The fat envelope with her name written in big letters lay on the counter. She leaned against the empty stool beside Naylor and Lek pushed the letter towards her. Jep saw her name, turned it over, saw Eric’s name on the other side, then dropped the envelope down on the counter.
“Eric asked me to give you this letter. But you don’t seem all that excited.”
Calvino was thinking, I hope it’s not a fucking musical birthday card without money inside. At the same time, he motioned to Lek that a lady’s drink was in order; a cola appeared on the bar next to the envelope. Another chit stuffed into the bamboo chit box. The lady drink gesture perked Jep up. She managed a smile. Bar ying lethargy was an occupational hazard. Any bar ying with a couple hundred mosquito bites had the added problem of not only being in a weakened condition but being asked to spend what little energy was left for the luxury of self-pity on the price of a lady’s drink. Jep was lost in a deep mosquito funk.
“Eric have a wife in America,” Jep said, sipping her cola. “I no like butterfly.”
“But you have no objection to other bugs like mosquitoes,” said Naylor.
“You’ve delivered the letter, now we can go back to the hotel,” said Jess.
“Hold on, Jess. I am not finished. She’s not opened the letter.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to open it,” said Calvino. “Let her open it in her hong.”
“Bullshit, there might be money inside.”
And, again, there might not be money inside, t
hought Calvino.
A Mexican stand-off was developing. A customer in a muscle shirt and short-clipped beard several stools down the bar had begun to pull down the bikini top of a dancer, peering at her breasts as he worked the top down. Mr. Biceps leaned over and shouted down the bar to Naylor. “Her tits seem smaller.”
“Or her body shrank,” said Naylor.
The guy with large biceps closed in on Naylor, carrying the topless bar ying under one arm.
“Get between him and Naylor. Now,” said Jess, who was already off his seat.
As he arrived, Calvino had wedged himself between Naylor and the customer and Jess was directly behind him.
“Hey, what’s going on? Have I done something to piss someone off? Does one of these belong to you?” he asked, blinking down at the girls under each arm and then up at Calvino.
“You’re a Cause-member, aren’t you?” asked Naylor.
The man nodded. “Okay, let him alone. He’s one of us.”
Jess had patted the customer down. He was clean. Lek stood up and he moved next to Naylor. He reached over and pushed his finger against Naylor’s Cause pin. “You a Cause-member?”
“The causemember is my website,” said Naylor. “Tailgunner’s my nickname.”
“No shit?”
“Swear to God.”
“Hey, glad to meet you. I love your site. I am on it every day in the States, downloading JPEG’s and stories that guys post. I read about this place on your site. I didn’t know you traveled with bodyguards. Let me buy you and your two friends a round.”
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