The Long Hitch Home

by Jamie Maslin

  Come the evening we both did some gentle pad work at the camp in preparation for the big event. I’d done plenty of Western boxing before and even trained for a Muay Thai fight when in New Zealand—my opponent never showed up, so I was cajoled by one of the event promoters into participating with him in an “exhibition bout,” which is not really a bout at all; more a friendly light spar with plenty of gentlemanly touching gloves and mutual nods of the head. Despite this previous training, I was surprised at how out of breath the workout with Owen left me, although it was hardly the real thing. Maybe it was the heat or maybe I’d just let my cardio slip, but I promised myself that when I got home I’d get back into it.

  “I think I’m gonna have you as one of my corner-men tonight, Mazza,” said Owen after a moment’s reflection on the culmination of our training session.

  I was honored, and excited.

  Before I knew it we were clambering into the back of a pickup truck with several other fighters, making our way in the sticky evening air, along twisting and undulating roads, past resorts and towns teeming with people, shimmering coastlines and tropical bush, towards the island’s main stadium. An almost palpable sense of anticipation pervaded the truck. Probably few would have admitted to it, least of all at the time, but I could tell everyone was already fighting their first battle of the night, an internal one against their own nerves. In Mike Tyson’s early boxing career he used to get so nervous that he’d throw up before a fight. But no matter, he’d then go from dressing room to ring and destroy whoever was in front of him. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel fear, rather that he channeled that energy to his advantage. Tyson’s legendary trainer, Cus De Ammo, used to say “fear is the friend of exceptional people” and that: “Fear is like fire. You can make it work for you: it can warm you in winter, cook your food when you’re hungry, give you light when you are in the dark, and produce energy. Let it go out of control and it can hurt you, even kill you.” Wise words. And in truth, there was legitimate reason for those on board to feel a touch of the nerves, if not outright fear itself, for before the night was out, some sitting among us would be brutally beaten in front of their comrades and a baying crowd; repeatedly struck about their legs, torso, arms, and head to the point where their very consciousness would depart them, and their unresponsive bodies fall to a bloody canvas at the feet of the person who inflicted such a fate, who would then be applauded for doing so.

  Muay Thai is a tough gig, that’s for sure.

  Some sat in the back of the pickup chatting, others listened to music on their MP3 players, while a couple just stared warrior-like into the darkness, contemplating what lay ahead. Owen remained silent so I left him to it. What an odd reality, I thought. If your sport is, say, tennis, soccer, cricket or baseball, then if you lose a game, well, you lose a game. It might be a disappointment, possibly even a crushing one, but there it is. Lose in Muay Thai, however, and you face serious injury—arms and shins are no stranger to getting snapped—or even death, with fatalities occurring yearly in the sport.

  We pulled up outside the Muay Thai stadium in Chaweng, where a war-like statue of a Muay Thai fighter was delighting visitors in a car-lot out the front, next to which multiple tourists stood posing for photos. Stepping into the stadium it was clear something big was scheduled to go down. The place crackled with excitement. An agitated atmosphere laced with manic nervous tension, not a calm before the storm, more like a group of storm chasers teetering on the periphery of a violent tempest, all hoping it would live up to the predicted forecast, but also with a modicum of concern. Tourists made up a large proportion of the crowd in this modern-day gladiatorial pit, seated on tiered benches that rose from near the center of the stadium, where, raised up about five feet off the ground, there was a large Muay Thai ring. For the high rollers, a section of comfy leather armchairs was situated near a bar, and towards the back lay an elevated area reserved for a traditional Thai orchestra. Made up of drums, cymbals, and Jawa flutes, the orchestra rhythmically reflects the fight itself, increasing in tempo as the action dictates, encouraging fighters into a maelstrom of violence.

  Owen’s trainer, Nokweed, a hard-as-nails, craggy-faced former world champion of the sport, led us through to a back room where several fighters were already in attendance, getting oiled-up ready for battle in tonight’s opening bouts. With Owen’s fight scheduled to be one of the last, we had plenty of time to settle down in an area near ringside reserved for fighters, and to watch the early fights.

  After a long lonely walk to the ring, all fighters perform a pre-fight ritualistic dance known as the Wai kru, which roughly translates as “getting rid of fear from the heart.” Done wearing a cord-like headdress known as a Mongkon, the Wai kru begins with a fighter paying respect to the crowd with a gracious bow. Homage is then paid to the fighter’s trainers and camp before the stylized dance begins. Each particular camp has their own distinctive and recognisable Wai kru, with moves including the mimed firing of arrows from a bow, and the mimed catching and snapping of an opponent’s. On completion of the Wai kru, fighters go back to their corner for a few final instructions. Their Mongkon comes off. A gong strikes. And battle begins.

  Tonight’s proceedings kicked off with some youngsters’ bouts. They looked around their mid teens. By this age many Thais will already be veterans of scores of fights. No matter their age or stature, the level of skill, athleticism, speed and technical ability displayed was immense; so was the ferocity. Shin kicks chopped down into thighs in the manner of lumberjacks wielding axes against trees, while knees pummeled battering-ram-like into rib cages, and fists and elbows collided with thuds into wincing faces. I got to watch plenty of fights before Owen’s bout—including a “lady boxing special” between two girls. Manny’s bout produced a spectacular knockout for him in the form of a blistering uppercut. While Ricardo, the thirty second knockout man, lost tonight’s one on a decision.

  It was intriguing for me to see the difference between Muay Thai as practiced in its homeland, compared to bouts I had seen my more martial-minded friends compete in at home. The intensity was the same but here the ref seemed to push the boundaries a little further, letting the fight ride beyond the point where a referee in the U.K. might already have jumped in. Several full knockouts occurred, the worst suffered by a Canadian fighter from Owen’s camp called CJ, who prior to the fight had enthusiastically asked me to immortalize his bout for him on his video camera. After a moderately paced first round, CJ came unstuck in the second, finding himself on the receiving end of a right-hand that could have been fathered by a gorilla—in actual fact a skin-headed British guy from a neighboring camp called “Stuey.” CJ took it flush on the chin and was out cold before he hit the ground. Unfortunately, hitting the ground would be a while in the making. He had the misfortune of collapsing onto the top rope where, completely unconscious, he was momentarily suspended and at Stuey’s mercy. No compassion was shown. Several completely undefended blows rained in on CJ’s now limp head, which flopped from side to side with every punch like something out of a cartoon, erasing a year or more of high school education in the process. Eventually gravity got him out of there, sending CJ face-first towards the canvas, at which point Stuey, ever the gentlemen, threw a full power shin kick to CJ’s head. The ref dived in but only made matters worse. In an almost carbon copy of the fight I had watched on Owen’s camcorder, CJ landed neck first, face down on the lowest rope. Only this time he not only had his own weight to support from this most inappropriate and sensitive area of the body, but the ref’s too—with him landing on top of CJ, arms waving about madly at Stuey to cease fire.

  “YEAH! WOOHOO, STUEY!” screamed a lady friend of his, jumping to her feet with unbridled joy from the pew behind me.

  To bring the stiff-as-a-board CJ around, several officials immediately hoisted him to his feet, and began massaging his temples—the exact opposite to what doctors do in the West, where fighters are made to remain prostrate to recover. Minutes after CJ’s fight I hea
ded to the changing room where I saw him slumped over on a bench looking thoroughly dejected. He glanced up at me as I happened by and simply said “sorry.” Why he said that to me I don’t know, nor could I conceive of an appropriate response, so just smiled sympathetically. Despite the brutality of the KO, in a sense CJ was lucky. In neighboring Burma, boxers can be knocked out, only to find themselves brought around and launched straight back into the fray again, with all too predictable results. There’s no two ways about it, Muay Thai is one brutal and violent sport where, should you lose, you might very well lose badly. But here’s the thing, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it thoroughly compelling.

  Before I knew it, Owen was getting ready to make his entrance, and I was putting on one of the camp’s red waistcoats to flank him, along with fellow corner-man Pi-Dang, on his way to the ring. I felt nervous just making my way there, and no one was going to be clubbing me around the head tonight—at least I hoped not. All I had to do was periodically stuff a wet sponge into Owen’s ugly mug, and dole out a bit of tactical advice. Thankfully things got off to a good start, with the flag-bearer hoisting the proper colors as he led us out, and the MC using Owen’s correct name in his announcement—a rarity for the night so far. Reaching the ring I scaled the steps leading up to the ropes and forced the top two down so Owen could clamber in behind me and begin his Wai kru.

  Soon after, the gong rang out and Owen was squaring up against an angry-looking Thai veteran. Owen got off to a flying start, dominating the bout from the offset, capitalizing on his reach advantage with some stiff jabs and low looping leg kicks which seemed to knock his opponent off kilter, slowing his footwork and checking his advances. As the round progressed it suddenly struck me just how much fun this all was, for a corner man at least. It was a bit like playing a computer game only with real life characters, albeit with a slightly unresponsive and unpredictable key pad.

  “Elbows, Owen! Elbows!” I’d yell at him when he was locked in a close range exchange, to which he would respond accordingly—once he’d heard me above the crowd and processed the instruction amid the understandable distraction of being lumped in the face.

  “Right body kick!” I yelled when the chance arose.

  This time the keypad worked and the requested shot fired first time, hitting home with a “BANG!” into his opponent’s ribs. It really was the best of both worlds. All the fun and thrill of the fight, but absolutely zero danger of actually getting hurt.

  As if in a flash, the round was over and I was in the ring with Pi-Dang, propping Owen’s legs up on a stall and telling him to keep his guard high.

  Another “BONG” and it was round two. Only this one didn’t last very long. Dancing around his opponent, Owen threw out a few feints here and there, setting himself up to offload an almighty shin kick to his opponent’s liver. Often described as the groin shot to the chest, a “liver shot” knockout is a rare treat indeed, and Owen delivered a peach. It landed with a wooden-sounding “thwack” that could be heard throughout the stadium. His opponent let out a yelp and collapsed to the floor motionless. A regular body-shot and a liver shot are two very different creatures. The former will knock the air out of you, but a liver shot . . . well, imagine that your “plums” are located not between your legs but below your right pec, and someone has just given you a full-power “hoof” straight into them—it’s totally incapacitating. The liver is designed to filter all the nasties from your body, and when it’s kicked, and hard, all those horrible accumulated toxins are released at the same time back into your system. The result is not a knockout in the strictest sense, since you’re conscious throughout, but the effect is much the same, as you are momentarily paralyzed while the fires of hell race around your insides. The world around you goes fuzzy, and any pretense of fight drains from you quicker than a cheetah driving a Ferrari. All you want is to be tucked up in bed with a nice hot milky drink, and given a kiss “goodnight” on the forehead.

  The referee waved an end to the fight.

  I jumped into the ring and hoisted Owen’s hand into the air.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Canine Carnage

  “You must be very careful,” stated the driver of an odd-looking van with a tiny cab but big square metal box-like protrusion for a rear. “There are many bad people,” he exclaimed with a palpable sense of caution as he looked about at our nighttime surroundings, made up of scrubby waste ground, above which highway flyovers branched in a bewildering array of directions.

  It was nearly midnight and, in truth, I didn’t have a clue where I was—the edge of an unknown town with a turning for Pathum Thani, but beyond that, not the foggiest. To hitchhike at night is never an easy task, and despite having decided to throw my tent down after the culmination of my previous lift minutes earlier, when a new pair of headlights appeared on the deserted road behind me, I couldn’t quite resist and found myself, almost involuntarily, throwing out a thumb—old habits die hard.

  “Pathum Thani?” I asked. If my guess work was correct, then Pathum Thani was the direction I needed in order to bypass the sprawling madness of Thai capital Bangkok.

  “Okay,” he said. “You are lucky I stop. Do not trust people.”

  I stifled a laugh, as it was said with the unspoken implication that obviously such advice excluded him. He got out and led me around to the rear-end of the van’s separate metal box-like storage compartment. A chunky padlock secured a door here. Selecting a key from a multitude on a keyring, he opened the door, revealing two big freezers inside.

  “Is it safe?” I asked, concerned that I might well freeze.

  He looked confused.

  “Err, cold?” I said, miming shivering, accompanied with the appropriate noise.

  “No.” He pointed to a strange cage-like metal grate that comprised maybe ten percent of the flooring leading up to the door. “Air underneath.”

  On top of the grate were several wooden slats making it possible to clamber in. I did so, sitting with my back to one of the freezers and my feet resting on the slats.

  “I will have to lock door,” he said apologetically.

  Oh, the irony. Trust no one, but hey, don’t worry about me incarcerating you in a windowless metal box in the middle of the night. Images of the cage the “child catcher” used in Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang to snare his victims flashed across my mind. On previous hitchhiking trips, I had turned down ostensibly above-board rides, simply on a gut-feeling about the person offering the lift, but here, despite the insanity of the situation, I felt fine.

  I nodded my approval. The door closed. My world went dark. “Clunk” went the padlock, making my commitment final. Then we were off. Despite the dark, I could make out the asphalt whizzing past beneath the grate, which somehow I found strangely reassuring. It was a very odd experience, that’s for sure. I didn’t know where I was, less so where I was being taken; I couldn’t see out, nor had I any way of getting out.

  After about thirty minutes, the movement of the tarmac slowed, then stopped altogether. Footsteps made their way towards the door, and suddenly there was light. With blinking eyes I stepped outside to survey my surroundings. In front of me, running parallel to the deserted road we pulled up on, was a wide grass verge, splitting the immediate vicinity in two. On its far side was an almighty elevated highway, beneath which a second highway ran at ground level. Vehicles raced along both, at speeds too great to hail a ride. Beyond these mighty tributaries lay a darkened urban sprawl. Behind me, on the near side of the verge, lay much the same. But the real downer to the area was the verge itself, along which ran a train track, flanked on either side by platforms of a tiny station.

  “I bring you here so you can get train,” announced the driver proudly. “It is safer for you.”

  Oh, for crying out loud!

  It may have been safer, but it was somewhere I had specifically requested not to be taken; that and a city—something I had been clarifying repeatedly for drivers since Indonesia. I now had both. I was in a far wo
rse position than before, in an area that afforded little in the way of hitchhiking or sleeping potential. And it was now well past midnight. I could have kicked myself. If only I had scouted out a place to sleep back at the waste ground. In vain I tried to encourage a lift out of him to the outskirts of wherever we currently were. It was no good. The guy was adamant: from now on I should only catch trains.

  “But I have no money for a train,” I said, issuing forth a white lie in the hope he’d change his mind.

  He reached into his pocket to offer me some.

  “No, no,” I said, holding up my hands to stop him. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

  I was beyond tired now and just wanted done with this.

  “Thank you for the ride,” I said, then waved goodbye and headed up the road, resigned to make do wherever I was.

  There were no hotels or boarding houses visible, and what’s more, it was so late now that it hardly seemed worth the money if I did find one. The night that stretched before me looked unpleasant. But I was where I was. On and on I walked into the night in a fatigued daze, following the same route as the train tracks, hiking along the deserted road that ran parallel to them. Eventually, after much exertion, it looked like I’d found the spot: a vast empty and overgrown abandoned lot. Separating the lot from the road was a stagnant-looking canal. Leading across this were three concrete walkways, one at either end of the lot’s boundaries and one in the middle. Ahead lay rocky and thoroughly uneven terrain but I didn’t care. I was too tired now to give a damn. Starting across the middle walkway I scanned the area for somewhere remotely feasible to settle in for the night, but when halfway across I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. Squinting in the dark, I focused in on what it was, then let out a gasp of horror when the blur of motion registered in my brain.