Butterfly Stories: A Novel

by William T. Vollmann

  15

  The white hazy morning air was humid with the smell of fresh Brussels sprouts, not yet too thickened by exhaust. Little piebald dogs yapped on the sidewalk. Two policemen motorcycled by. The tuk-tuks were mainly empty, the buses only half full.

  The sun was a red ball over the canal whose violet-grey fog had not begun to stink; a motorboat wended feebly down the middle of its brown water, which was thick like spit, and spotted with oil, trash, leaves; the boat vanished in the fog below the bridge long before its sound was lost, and birds uttered single notes from the vastly spread-out trees that resembled the heads of broccoli; aluminum-roofed shacks, siding and boards walled the canal as it dwindled past piers and banana trees; beneath an awning a little brown boy squatted and shat while his mother dressed; a long tunnel of boards and siding ran along the canal, and in it people were going about their business; a brown dog and a white dog bit their fleas; a man in a checkered sarong dipped water from a barrel; a baby cried; a boy was washing his clothes. The dogs left wet prints on the sidewalk. The sun was whiter, higher and hotter now. The air began to smell more acrid. Another motorboat came, very quickly, leaving a wake; other boats started up. The man who'd been in the sarong came out of his shack, putting his wet shirt on. He walked barefooted. Other men got into their boats. This morning run of business reminded him of the evenings at Joy's bar when the girls gathered gradually.

  16

  At breakfast the photographer sat on pillows, a sweet brown arm sleeping around his waist. Eighty percent of the Pat Pong girls had tested positive for AIDS that fall. Probably she'd be dead in five years.

  17

  She watched the TV's cartoons as wide-eyed as before. Coffee was all she ordered from room service, giggling rapt with head on chin, while in the hotel's humid halls the maids in blue stood folding towels and talking, leaning elbows on the desk, and the tuk tuks went by and the clothes dried from windows across the courtyard, barely moving, and rainwater dried on the tiles while one of the hotel's men in red livery went out to smoke and scratch his belly, and across the courtyard a brown man naked to the waist flickered past a window of shadow.

  The journalist's balls glowed faintly. The soles of his feet stuck itchily to his rubber sandals.

  Suddenly the sun came on like a dimmer knob turned rapidly up to maximum, and it began to get hot.

  18

  When Joy left, she was dressed conservatively, smiled blandly; she shook each of their hands. Did she become that way in the morning, after the photographer fucked her up the ass, and she saw that he was like the others? (The photographer told him she'd pointed to her vagina and said: Here OK condom OK and then to her anus and said: Here OK no condom OK. ) Or was her affection just an act? Or was this public demeanor of hers an act? The journalist's heart sank. He'd never know.

  19

  And what's this injection? he asked.

  The doctor's glasses glinted. — Pure caffeine, he said enthusiastically.

  If I wear a rubber from now on so that I don't infect the other girls, can I keep having sex, starting today?

  I think it would not be good for you, said the doctor. You see, the disease has already migrated far into the spermatic cord . . .

  20

  Receipt No. 03125 (two soda waters, 60 bhat) was already in the cup, and fever-sweat from the clap ran down his face. At the bar, the two girls watched King Kong, plump-cheeked, wide-eyed, almost unblinking. (Joy wasn't there yet; probably she was still sleeping in some other place of narrow alleys . . . ) A girl in a blindingly white T-shirt came in, and then another. They leaned on the bar on that hot afternoon, talking, while the spots of disco-light began to move and the fan bulged round and round like a roving eye. No-see-ums bit the journalist's feet between the sandal straps, so he put some mosquito repellent on; business stopped as all the girls watched. The two plump-cheeked girls looked catty-corner at opposing tvs as King Kong roared; then, when it was only helicopters again, they went back to the click-click-click of red and yellow counters, thinking hard as the pattern built up, six by six, click by click; in their concentration they lowered their noses almost against the wall of that gameboard, hair long, cheeks smoother than golden nectarines, so young, so perfect; perhaps it was just to a coarse-pored Caucasian that they appeared perfect. Click, click. Soon the meaningless game would be finished (meaningless since they weren't betting ten bhat against each other as they did when they played the journalist; he always lost), and then one woman would pull the release and the plastic counters would clatter into the tray below with a sound like gumballs. Then they'd start again, smoothing back their hair, reaching, showing hand-flesh through the holes.

  The journalist was working, and the girls sometimes gathered around to watch him write. Lifting his head from the bar, the photographer explained to them: My friend likes to write long letters to his balls.

  In Oy's bar the Western video was repeating and dinner had closed because it was six o'clock now, Oy's hour to come to work as the photographer had kindly ascertained; and paunchy white guys grinned. The staff was getting ready for dancetime. Someone was chopping ice, and a girl in a beige miniskirt sat spread-legged by the register where the glasses were, scratching a mosquito bite on her thigh, and the great green ceiling grid was activated; then the blue fluorescents came on, then the yellow and green spotlights at angles, then the multifaceted ball, and a girl with a lovely face like all the others (who seemed increasingly ghostly) smiled encouragingly at the journalist and drew her arm grandly down as if to yank the ripcord of a parachute and went into the Ladies.

  The journalist's teeth chattered with fever. - Man, I hope you make it, said the photographer.

  I'm all right, the journalist said. Do you see Oy anywhere?

  You wait here. I'll ask around.

  Well, he said after a moment, they say she'll be in at seven or seven-thirty. You want to wait?

  Sure.

  At seven, Toy came in. She said hi, smiling; she said no Oy today. She smelled like perfumed excrement. There was some-, thing so sincere about her that the journalist almost said to hell with it and asked her, but she would only have said no. He wrote her a note for Oy, showing her each of the note's words in the English-Thai dictionary: Oy - I worry you blood that night. Are you OK?

  Will Oy come today? he asked her again, just to be sure.

  Toy patted his arm. - Not today.

  You come hotel me, Toy?

  No, sir.

  You my friend?

  OK friend OK.

  Oy is sick?

  Oy no today.

  Then Oy came, smiling. Toy went off to dance.

  He bought out Oy, saying: I just take you back. Just sleep watch TV no fucking just sleep you know OK?

  OK, laughed Oy.

  She seemed in perfect health. That annoyed him after all his anxiety. Oy? he said. Oy? I'm sick from you. From your pussy.

  Oy hung her head smiling . . .

  The photographer went back to the other bar to buy Joy, and the four of them walked down the hot narrow alley, the two boys in faded clothes a little dirty, the two girls in fancy evening wear; what a treat! - Oy went to a store to buy condoms; he said no need and she was happy. They got a taxi to the hotel. Joy rode in front with the driver. Oy pressed against him. He held her hand, gave her leg a feel; her dress was drenched with sweat. - You hot? he said. - She nodded; she'd always nod no matter what he said.

  How long have you worked in Pat Pong? he said.

  Six month.

  How long has Toy worked there?

  Ten month.

  (Toy had told him that she'd worked there for six months. )

  The photographer grinned. - So, how do you know she worked there for ten months if you only worked there for six months?

  Oy blushed and ducked her guilty head.

  He led Oy into the hotel while the photographer paid off the driver.

  The journalist went grandly up to the desk. - Two-ten, please.

  All the Th
ais in the lobby watched silently. Oy hung back, ashamed. They began talking about her. She raised her head then and followed her owner up the stairs, into the humid heat and mildew smell ... At the first landing, when she could no longer be seen, she took his hand and snuggled passionately against him . . .

  He told her again that she'd gotten him sick, but that it was OK.

  I go doctor; doctor me in here! she giggled, pointing to her butt. Later, when he'd gotten her naked, he saw the giant bandage where she'd had some intramuscular injection. It did not give him confidence that while her disease must be the same as his her treatment had been different. - Best not to think about it.

  The photographer came in. - Same room? said Joy on his arm.

  It's OK, the journalist told her. No sex. Don't worry.

  That was truly his plan - just to lie there in the darkness with Oy, snuggling and watching Thai TV while the photographer and Joy did the same. Needless to say, once the photographer took a shower and came out wearing only a towel and cracking jokes about his dick, the journalist could see how it would actually be. He took his shower . . .

  The photographer laughed. - You should really get back in the shower, he said. You finished, man?

  The journalist just nodded. He was feeling dizzy. He wandered out with his shirt around his waist; the girls laughed; Joy shook her head saying you baah which means you crazy and he hopped into bed sopping wet. Obedient Oy snuggled up to him in her fancy clothes . . .

  You take shower, he said to her.

  Finally she did, wearing the other towel. The light was still on. Every time anyone flushed the toilet the floor always flooded; he could see the comforting sparkle of that water on the bathroom tiles . . . She crawled in, snuggling him, and he slid a hand between her legs and was happy to feel her narrow little bush.

  I go ten o'clock, she said. Toy birthday party. Toy my sister.

  Whatever you say.

  He lay sucking her tits while she held him. She let him kiss her a little but she didn't like it. Her body was slender, her nips just right. Her face looked rounder and older tonight; her voice was hoarser. She kept coughing. After awhile she started playing with his penis, probably to get it over with. He had an erection, but no desire to use it; his grapefruit-swollen balls seemed to be cut off from the rest of his body. He still didn't plan to do it, but when he got up to go to the bathroom with just the shirt around him, the two whores sitting eating room service (the bellboy had carefully looked away when he brought it into the half-darkened room, the photographer and the journalist lounging like lords with their half-naked girls beside them), the head of his dick hung down below the shirt and they started laughing and then he started getting wild like the class clown. First he began tickling Oy. Then he started lifting her around, and pulling the covers down to show her off naked; she laughed (probably thinks you're a real pest! said the photographer, shaking his head); she kept rubbing against him to make him do something, and then she'd look at the clock . . .

  Eventually, she rubbed against him in just the right way, and then he knew he'd have to do it. What a chore! But life isn't always a bed of guacamole. He squeezed K-Y into her cunt, handed her the rubber, and then she said she didn't know how to put it on . . . Wasn't that SOMETHING? She tried sincerely, but she just didn't understand it. He did it and then thrust into her. She pretended to come and he pretended to come; he didn't care. In the carpet of light from the half-open bathroom door the other two were doing it in the far bed; Oy lay watching the photographer pedaling slowly like a cyclo driver high between three wheels, and she clapped her hand to her mouth and snickered softly; meanwhile Joy suddenly noticed that Oy was on top of the journalist and rolled off her trick and went into the bathroom and turned the shower on loud for a long time.

  He really enjoyed playing with her body, lying there relaxed and feverish, doing whatever he wanted while the TV went ai-ai - if he felt like sticking a finger up her he'd just grease it and pop it in! - I have the clap! he announced to himself, and he felt that he'd won some major award. Light-headed and distant, he enjoyed snuggling up to her and smelling her, sucking her shaved armpits, pursuing with kisses her face which sought to evade him; every now and then he'd catch her and kiss her lips and she'd laugh. Whenever he'd touch her between the legs she'd start going urn urn and begin swinging her hips as if in ecstasy, but her cunt stayed dry and her face didn't change and her heart didn't pulse at all faster beneath his other hand . . . He lounged, played, stroked in a delightful fog of disease like the foggy sprawl of Bangkok he'd be leaving in four hours, soaring east over big grey squares of water going into greyness, riding the hot orange sky. At the moment it was still dark. She tried to get him off again and he let her play with his useless and meaningless erection; later he lifted her onto his neck and ran around the room in his underpants with her on his shoulders clinging and laughing in fun or terror while the photographer and his whore laughed themselves sick.

  He kept saying: Oy, you want go Kambuja?

  No want! No want! Kambuja people is bad people! Thai people like this (she prayed); Kambuja people like this! (she saluted fiercely). The journalist saluted her in return, and she cowered back . . .

  21

  Oy was feeling fine from her injection. - But what if she wasn't? What if she'd been in terrible pain that first time and then the other time; what if she'd just done it for the money to pay the doctor or for rent?

  22

  Joy stayed with the photographer until the last minute, of course. Joy had class. The photographer had class. The whole time he was in Thailand, the journalist (poor slob) could never get any but short time girls . . .

  23

  Grey-green and beige squares like a flaking dartboard showing its cork beneath; these and the other squares of grey water absorbed the plane's shadow as it sped through the morning-cooled patches of trees and rectangles of various greens and greys all shining wet . . .

  Cambodia seemed a no-nonsense country. There was a line of soldiers on the runway, each soldier directing the photographer and the journalist on to the next.

  24

  He went into the hotel lobby and took a few stacks of riels out of the paper bag. - Help yourself to some money, he said to the concierge . . . and shot past the big traffic island with the monument to independence from the French. He was hot, weak and dizzy. Thanks to the caffeine injection, he hadn't slept for two nights. In the wide listless courtyard and porticoes of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which seemed almost empty like the rest of Phnom Penh (how many people had been killed off?), he and the photographer sat playing with their press passes, waiting for their fate to be decided. - In our country, at the moment, the militia plays more of a role than the army, an official explained, and the journalist wrote it down carefully while the photographer yawned. - A tiled roof was flaking off in squares of pink like weird rust or lichens. The afternoon smelled like sandalwood. An official led them into one of the rambling yellow buildings and told them to come back tomorrow. They took a cyclo back to the hotel, and the photographer went outside to snap some landmine beggars while the journalist lay down on the bed to rest. As soon as he rolled over on his stomach, something seemed to move in his balls, weighing them down with a painless but extremely unpleasant tenderness, as if they were rotting and liquefying inside and slowly oozing down to the bottom of his scrotum. Thinking this, he had to laugh.

  It was evening now, just before curfew. The boys were shooting cap guns and everyone was cheering. A boy in sandals, a dark blue shirt and a dark blue Chinese cap pedaled a cyclo slowly down the street. The photographer brought some takeout from the French restaurant across the street - steak and fries. The journalist appreciated it very much.

  25

  The morning sky was a delicate grey, cats stalking along the terraces, ladies puttering among potted plants, the rows of cool doors all open in the four- and five-storey apartment blocks, rows of x-shaped vents atop each square of territory, gratings on the windows. The journ
alist lay in bed, clutching his distended balls. It was warming up nicely. His underpants steamed against his ass. The hotel maid came in and cleaned. She made seven thousand riels a month. The Khmer Rouge had killed her father, grandfather, sister, and two brothers. She'd worked hard for the Khmer Rouge in the fields . . .

  26

  A cloud blew over the street. Papers started to swirl. The vendors ran to cover their stands. Suddenly came a hiss of rain. A militiaman dashed. The almost naked children danced laughing. Potted plants shook on the terraces. Now as the rain slanted down in earnest, people braced themselves between the almost shut gratings, watching. A cyclo driver pedaled on; his two lady passengers held red umbrellas over themselves. Power wires trembled; the rain shivered in heavy white rivers. A boy prayed barefoot to Buddha in the street, then clasped his hands and danced, water roaring from his soaked shirt. A clap of thunder, then rain fell like smoke; rain spewed from the roof-gutters . . .