by Peter Jaggs
Enter Joe Bucket, Pattaya’s answer to Sir Galahad, and with a bit of the old charm and a generous measure of bullshit, Soi Six’s newest and prettiest arrival was soon easily convinced that catering to the desires of her knight in shining armour in room 419 of the Happy Home apartment block in Soi Buakhoa was infinitely preferable to facing the ravages of of Soi Six’s barmy army.
As is often the case in Pattaya, a mere month later the previously terrified new girl had kept her sharp eyes and ears open and realised there are other opportunities available for a pretty Isaan girl besides the constant, public manipulation of drunken males’ sex organs in a seedy knocking-shop, or getting what’s left over from the beer money from a long-staying, keeniaw farang who was always out fishing or getting pissed at a bar with his mates. Before she wised up, Jai used to enjoy starting the mornings with a swim at the tiny pool that the Happy Home boasts. Unfortunately for me, so did a real bitch of an old bar-girl who was currently milking some poor first-timer for all his holiday money. Ten years ago, this excrement-stirring harridan had been the shy new girl herself, so of course—ever the gallant knight—I had rescued her as well. Unfortunately, when you live like Joe Bucket, nemesis is an unavoidable fact of life and now our paths had crossed again, my old flame was doing her very best to educate Jai every time I turned my back. The old bar-girl’s name was Poo and I thought this very appropriate, because the previous decade certainly had turned her into a right turd.
“Don’t listen to that bullshitting old farang,” I heard Poo telling Jai in Thai as I came up behind them one day and caught her explaining how it was about time I was presented with a proper bill. “His mouth is so sweet he has to keep taking the ants out from between his teeth.” Rhetoric like this is impossible to ignore and the copious amounts of verbal poisoning injected by the now extremely street-smart Poo soon did their job. My previously naive new girlfriend now knew the score. Poo had taught Jai that she was in Pattaya now, where every kiss, squeeze and thrust should be paid for in full.
Thanks to the tuition of Poo, Jai was now aware that the good-hearted Englishman who had appeared in Soi Six on his metaphoric white charger and saved her from the legions of other farangs intent on impaling her on their weapons was perhaps more concerned with bargain-basement sex rates with a pretty new girl rather than a genuine desire to save an Isaan damsel in distress. Poo explained to Jai how it was customary for a farang to behave like the proverbial walking ATM machine, and also told her how she was really letting the side down in not sporting at least one item of gold jewelry by now. For some inexplicable Thai reason, the old bar-girl had made it her mission in life to coach Jai into perfecting the finer points of the game and she was training Jai with an intensity Sir Alex Ferguson would have been proud of. I never stood a chance. To emphasize a point she was making, Poo jerked a disdainful thumb at her own farang, who blissfully unaware, was sunning himself by the side of the pool and trying to work out where all his holiday cash was going.
“He has a photograph of me in his wallet,” said Poo proudly, straightening up a new, chunky gold ring with an expensively manicured hand. “Where his money used to be.”
From experience, I quickly realized I was left with three choices. I could either listen to Jai complaining day and night for the remaining four months of my stay (and believe me, Poo had coached her to such an extent she could now moan for Thailand) or I could pay her off with some of that folding paper stuff she had previously insisted she no interest in. Indeed, it was remarkable how in such a short space of time “I love you, teelac, I not want your money, I want stay with you, I not like work bar,” had become, “Poo tell me you very keeniaw, she say other farang give me big money/motorcycle/house/land/bar” (just insert the appropriate act of generosity, all were mentioned scores of times every day).
I have always been of the opinion we don’t spend enough time on this planet to waste precious days listening to the incessant strains of a wailing bar-girl, so I decided to take the second option. I would cut my losses and draw out a wad of cash that would hopefully be enough to compensate Jai for the time Poo had convinced her she had wasted on me (minus a few disputed expenses, of course). I would then be able to gently but firmly give Jai her marching orders without things becoming too messy; as is often the case in the breakdown of Pattaya romances. Sexist perhaps—selfish, certainly—but even so, I would hope even the most politically correct of feminist readers might have at least a little sympathy after hearing Jai hammering away at the drums in my ears with the resonance and volume of a Caribbean steel band. And any fellow male who has ever fallen out with his Thai girl and had the magic of romance driven from his heart by skilfully engineered sulking sessions and the phenomenon of that previously warm and sweetly surrendering dove-like girl suddenly developing a shoulder as cold as a frozen ham every time he fancies getting his leg over, will certainly be in my corner.
The third option would be to kick Jai out penniless. This was a non-starter. Having already witnessed the formidable temper that lurks just beneath the thin veneer of even the sweetest of an Isaan girl’s outward serenity, I had no desire to incur the wrath of a screaming Thai demon. No doubt Poo would have told Jai exactly what to do should I fail to come across with the expected recompense and I had no wish to view the results of her recent education. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, then Pattaya certainly hath no hiding place from a prostitute unpaid. And sadly, that was exactly what Poo had taught Jai to become. I had also noticed—with considerable concern—how Jai had recently become a little too friendly with the toughest and meanest of the motorcycle taxi drivers who plied their trade from the rank opposite the Happy Home. So it was going to have to be pay-off time, and like so many other long-staying farang men in Pattaya, not for the first time I promised myself that never again would I allow the charms of a fresh new bar-girl to affect my sanity and destroy the very freedom I had come to the city for. Well—not until the next time, anyway.
On top of the annoyance and expense of having to bung Jai a good slice of my ever-dwindling wedge to get rid of her, I also had the inconvenience of a visa run to look forward to in five days time. Visa runs! What a pain in the arse! Every three months, for those foreign residents not yet ancient or affluent enough to apply for a retirement visa, the immigration laws in Thailand make it necessary to leave the country and return on a new tourist visa. So, everybody piles down to the Cambodian border at Poi Pet in a minibus and leaves the country for five minutes. The more adventurous travellers sometimes pause for a quick short-time with a girl of questionable age and cleanliness in a wooden hut in one of the aptly named ‘Chicken Farms’ just over the border. It is then possible to re-enter the Land of Smiles under a new stamp on the double or triple entry tourist visa you obtained at the Thai consulate back home. On every visa run I have ever made the journey to the border has been made doubly unbearable by having to listen to some knobhead complaining incessantly about the ridiculous system. I wish they would shut up and live with it. We all know it’s crazy but that’s the way things work if you want to stay in the country longer than the three months allotted to tourists. You’re in Thailand now. Surely you didn’t expect things to be sensible? If you don’t like it, you can always go back to your cold, expensive country and its equally cold and expensive women anytime you please. Any takers?
It has always been my policy to try to remember that when life does not go quite as well as it should, it is a good idea to bear in mind that there is always someone worse off than yourself. Looking at the old man in a wheelchair in the queue in front of me, reminded me that I was, as usual, the author of my own misfortunes and that my problems were easily rectified by a handful of Thailand tokens. The poor old fellow looked in a bad way, and although he peered around him with interest, pain had etched lines around his eyes and cut deep grooves into his almost skeletal face and his yellowing skin was stretched tightly over his cheekbones.
I couldn’t help noticing that the Thai girl pushing the o
ld boy’s wheelchair certainly didn’t seem to have any of the complaints that had recently begun to irk Jai so much. The girl was one of those smiling, chubby, capable-looking types that you often come across in Thailand, and enough bling to start a small store was hung and fastened around every one of her available extremities. Gold bracelets fought for space with bangles on her wrists, and enough gold chains to have the most vulgar of gangster rappers green with envy festooned her neck and glinted in the sunlight. Obviously having run out of space, she had even begun to encircle her ankles with her favourite metal. I wondered with some interest where she would start next. If this female Mr.T had fallen into the bay from Pattaya’s Bali Hai pier, all that extra weight would certainly have sunk her like a stone, even if she was blessed with the skills of an Olympic swimmer.
Despite her predeliction for the shiny stuff, the undeniably plump but certainly still attractive woman, who on closer inspection appeared to be around thirty-five years old, did seem to be taking exceptional care of the old guy. I would like to think it was her good heart rather than the acquisition of all those expensive trinkets that prompted Nan—for I learned later this was her name—to fuss around her patient’s wheelchair plumping cushions, patting a sunken cheek and generally letting the old chap know someone cared. Looking at the couple, I couldn’t help remembering a visit to an old peoples’ home back in England to visit the ailing father of a friend. I recalled how saddened I had been at the lumpy sofas full of drooling and glassy-eyed fossils who had been prompted into singing ‘Michael Row The Boat Ashore’ by an over-enthusiastic care-worker. Just then, the smiling Thai girl’s dress fell open as she bent down to straighten the old man’s blanket and I copped a look down the front of her generous cleavage. I knew which way I was going when my dotage came.
The old man had one of those safari-type waistcoats that have enough zips and pockets to take the contents of a small house and the girl had hung it over the back of his wheelchair. After changing a wad of cash that would have impressed even Richard Branson, she slid a fat wallet into one of the compartments of the jacket and the couple turned and made their way along the cracked sidewalk. The state of the pavements in Pattaya are not really conducive to smooth wheelchair travel and a rubber wheel caught in one of the many small holes that pocked the cement slabs. The girl pushed hard, and the wheelchair jumped several inches into the air as the wheel jerked free. The pair laughed over the unexpected bump together as they walked on, and the girl reached a hand around a thin shoulder and caressed a bony hand reassuringly, giggling like a schoolgirl.
The couple would not have been quite so jolly had they known their recently re-stocked wallet had fallen from the old man’s jacket pocket and now lay unnoticed in the hole in the pavement that had caused the jolt and the resulting amusement. I looked around me. Nobody had seen the wallet fall except me.
I reached down and picked it up. It was more of a small bag than a wallet, really. It had fallen open, and apart from the recently cashed roll of Thai baht in one compartment, there was a stack of US hundred dollar bills, several credit cards, a passport and some visa paperwork. I sighed. It would have been so much easier to have given the wallet back if it had only contained a few thousand baht. By the look of it, this wedge would have paid Jai off in full and still left me with enough cash for a couple more months in style in my favourite country.
I must admit, I was a devil’s prod away from pocketing the lot. But I must be one of the good guys after all, because what I actually did was to walk up to the Thai girl pushing the wheelchair and tap her on the shoulder. The pair of them were so grateful that it almost made up for my only being rich for the ten seconds it had taken me to decide to give them their property back.
The old man in the wheelchair told me his name was Ron, and his girl was Nan. Ron was well into his seventies. He was as thin as a rail and did not look like a well man at all. The blanket on his lap covered legs so thin and wasted it was obvious he would never walk again. Despite his illness, his bright blue eyes still shone with life when he thanked me.
“That could have been nasty,” he told me gratefully. “We’re on our way to Jomtien to renew my retirement visa. My passport and paperwork are all in the bag, as well as a good deal of money.” He shook my hand. His own liver-spotted fist was so brittle I felt it would have snapped if I have been one of those wankers who give it the macho treatment and for some inexplicable reason try to crush the hand of anyone unfortunate enough to meet them.
Ron smiled a gappy grin up at me and told me what a good bloke I was. Then with shaking hands, he withdrew a large wad of Thai baht from his wallet and offered it to me. For a split second I thought about taking the money, but realized in an instant that to have done so would have been almost as bad as if I had swiped the lot when it had fallen to the ground in the first place.
“No thanks,” I told him, attempting to appear much more charitable than I felt and trying very hard not to gag on the large lump that a bad case of unequivocal greed had left in my throat—“don’t worry about it.” Ron put his money away and this time he told me I was a great guy and one of the world’s gentlemen. In the circumstances, I felt no embarrasment in agreeing whole-heartedly with him. The old man’s face was shining, and now that tempting wedge was safely out of sight, I was beginning to feel suitably impressed with myself and pleased that I had given him back his wallet after all.
“Please come and have a drink with me at my condominium,” Ron almost begged me, giving me the card from what I knew to be an expensive apartment complex a songthaew ride away. “I really would like to thank you properly.”
Looking at the poor old boy, I guessed he must be pretty lonely.
Before they left, Nan pulled me to her generous bosom for a big hug and I got squashed up against several ounces of twenty-four Karat gold and a couple of kilos of prime Thai breast.
“Chai dee mak,” she told me, and left a purple lipstick mark on my slightly embarrassed cheek. The couple then continued on their way, this time keeping a better look out for any potential wheel-traps. Despite Nan’s flattering words, I wasn’t so sure I really was all that great-hearted. The truth was, I had been gnat’s pube away from walking off with the lot, and could only surmise that it must be a long association and healthy respect for the forces of Karma that had stopped me from doing so. On another day, or if I was more in need, I don’t know.
Having cashed enough travellers’ cheques to prepare Jai’s wage slip and disengage the proverbial monkey from my back, I returned to face the music, the volume of which by now, had reached deafening proportions.
You could be forgiven for thinking it should be easy to pay off a Pattaya bar-girl. Simply put a good wad of cash in her hand and tell her to make sure the door doesn’t hit her arse on her way out. Unfortunately, things never seem to be quite that simple. I had reckoned without the ‘I will do my best to turn up at the most inconvenient moments and fuck things up for you’ tradition of the Thai bar-girl.
As all farang sex-pats know, this is an age-old Thai hooker custom and involves your ex-girlfriend turning up (smiling and friendly, of course) at the most inopportune occasions. The girls with the most impressive timing always manage to arrive either just after, during or slightly before their ex-boyfriend is about to partake of a shag. Nobody really knows the reason for this phenomenon, but it is presumably connected to the fact that a farang’s previous girlfriend doesn’t like to see anyone else getting money that she might have had herself if she hadn’t decided to jump ship. After we parted, I tried hard to enjoy my new-found freedom but during the next three days, every time I invested time and money in some female company, there would be a knock on the door, and there would be Jai, grinning innocently and assuring my latest girl that I was simply a friend. She would hunt around for a non-existant hairclip or brush, then before leaving, she would give me a far more intimate kiss than she had ever done during the time she stayed with me. Of course, the current mood was then broken. During this comp
aritively short space of time Jai cut short more sex sessions than the coitus interruptus method. I was later told that the motorcycle lad opposite, now Jai’s boyfriend, was phoning her every time I arrived back at the apartment with a girl. That’s some sense of humour.
On the fourth day after we had broken up, I’d had enough of Jai’s inconvenient visits and I devised a fiendish plan. I arranged for my latest girl to come around to the Happy Home ten minutes after myself, by which time I had entered my room then sneakily put the key back in the little wooden rack in reception without anyone noticing. The idea was, the counter girl would see the key and tell Jai, in all innocence, that I was out. That way I would not have to ask a Thai to lie to another Thai for a farang, something they really don’t like doing. Lying amongst themselves and to other farangs is fine, of course.
“We all tell lies if it makes somebody happy rather than sad,” an ancient Isaan lady told me on my first visit to Thailand, and a quarter of a century later, I don’t doubt her.
Feeling rather clever and sure that my devious skulduggery with the key would ensure a Jai-free fuck, I eagerly awaited the appearance of a girl who did unimaginable things with strings of razor blades and pens and whistles at the Hot and Cold gogo bar. Her name was Lek, which means small in Thai, and which her tits were not. She was also an expert markswoman with a dart gun that she operated with great skill from between her legs and rarely missed a balloon.