Not a difficult question.
‘You can catch VIP bus from Northern Bus Station, ten kilometers out of town.’ He said helpfully. ‘Quicker and air-con too. This old station.’
Ten kilometers and slap bang in the middle of nowhere I imagined. No, I’d take the local bus. I bought a ticket and looked around for a place to keep my head down. Cars and mopeds streamed around me, taillights strobing streaks of red as if everything was turning in slow motion. I spotted some travellers heading into a café bar, four of them. I looked around like a Shylock and followed them in.
The bar was dark decked in bamboo tables and chairs with out of date calendar posters of BeerLao girls on the walls. There was no fan in there let alone air-con. The cook was frying glass noodles in a large wok on an open range. My legs felt as if they had flour bags tied to them but at least my mental funk had cleared - funny how being scared can wake you up. I ordered a Lao Arabica coffee neat, and sat near the other travellers at the back of the restaurant despite the place being almost empty.
Two of them were Scandinavian - a girl and boy with golden hair and olive skin. She had on a woolly Nepalese hat with earflaps and a pretty angular face. The other two men looked English; a sour-faced stringy guy with a receding hairline disguised beneath a buzz cut, and an enormous - he must have been six feet-seven – bloke with thick glasses. His legs stuck out of the booth, he was wearing a dirty white t-shirt that read in fluorescent orange, ‘OUT OF CONTROL AND COMIN’ YOUR WAY!’ For some reason, amidst all of this, he made me smile. He reminded me of an elongated Stephen King, with his goggle-thick glasses and straight black, shiny hair.
I caught some of his conversation, his thick northern accent reassuring as a bedtime glass of milk. ‘I were a fookin monk for a while up in Chiang Mai. Didn’t last long tho’, ‘ed monk kept giving us jobs to do, “fetch that, get this.” I’d had enough of him after third day. I’m supposed to be on this hunger fast - no food, new boy routine. I’ve got me ‘ed shaved, am wearing robes and all, and they tell us we ‘ave to go on this pilgrimage, walk with our beggin bowls… They all ad sandals to wear but they couldn’t find any flip flops big enough to fit me feet…’
‘How big are your feet Stretch?’ asked the Scandinavian girl, tousled locks falling down her cheeks.
‘Size fifteen… Anyway, feet are burning on fookin tarmac, no-one’s giving me anything in begging bowl and am starvin’. So I reaches up to this mango tree and pulls off a piece of fruit and chief monk goes ballistic and tells me I’m banned from speaking for another week on top of the ten days I’m supposed to be quiet already; then ‘e says I’ve got to go and collect firewood. “What am I?” I says, “a fookin’ octopus?”’
My coffee arrived. I looked to the open doorway then at my watch: another hour and three quarters to go till the bus left. I still hadn’t inspected the package. I reached for my day bag and quietly withdrew it. The gaffer tape came away with a humid hiss as I prized it open.
‘So what did you do after he told you to get firewood?’ asked the girl giggling,
‘Demanded me clothes back and went and ‘ad the biggest beer and bucket of KFC I could lay me ‘ands on… that were the end of me three days as a monk!’
The pretty blonde laughed into her hands, ‘I like that story, Stretch!’
Inside the package was a box. Impatiently I opened it like a dread Russian Doll. The smell was disgusting. I hurriedly closed the lid and pushed it back in the wrapping, retching. Stretch heard me and stuck his head out of their booth. I noticed a Royal Artillery tattoo on his spidery arm, beneath it another reading: “LADY DIANA, PRINCESS OF OUR HEARTS”.
‘How do.’ he said. ‘You look like you just saw a ghost?’
‘Maybe I did,’ I said wiping my mouth and hoping I’d contained the stench in my day bag.
‘You look like you’ve gorrer sweat on. Fookin’ hot in’t it?’
‘It doesn’t let up, even at night.’ I said,
‘You on yer todd?’
‘Me and my Jack Jones,’ I answered, trying to smile,
‘Come and join us if you want.’ He said.
‘Thanks, I’ll be back in a second.’
‘Where you from fella? I’m from Blackburn.’ He asked as I hid the bag on my other side and made for the toilet. ‘London,’ I answered. ‘Excuse me a sec.’
I went out back with my bag and peered inside the package just to make sure I wasn’t going mad and hadn’t been looking at something else; raw meat filched from a restaurant. The heart, having lost its crimson glow, had discoloured to an unnatural lackluster grey. It looked like an alien thing cowering in the shadows of the envelope, just as its owner must have before they closed in on him and took away his lifeforce. If objects retain memories, especially organic material, then I was holding a world of pain and fear. But whose heart was it, Skip’s or Maybury’s? It didn’t matter.
I vomited in the toilet, a simple hole in the floor, then reached for the package and emptied the heart into the dark patch of water. It was a filthy dip and pour flush system, with a murky vat of water with a bucket floating on the top. The first flush from the bucket saw the offending article swim back around the U-Bend, a ragged torn ventricle staring up at me like an accusatory eye. I tried a little harder the second time, following it up with a third and fourth bucket of water. The smell of death was unmistakable, it made me shiver and retch at the same time.
I washed my face, dried it on a stinky towel that smelt of arses, and took a deep breath. Then I went back into the café, ignored the cold beers lined up like brown soldiers and took a can of Red Bull from the fridge and drank it in one; then I ordered myself another coffee, paid for it at the till and joined them.’
The friendly giant extended his enormous fingers to the rest of the group. ‘This is Kristen and Zig from Sweden. This is James - ‘es a stuck up southern twat from London!’ He said with a wink, ‘Where did you say yer from, Alain?’
‘London,’ I said.
‘Two posh southern nonces!’ Stretch said, then looking at my nose, ‘On second thoughts, that’s a fighter’s conk so I’ll retract that. That leaves just one southern twat.’
James smiled a tired smile. Stretch called out to the man at the wok, ‘Mon-seur, ‘ave you got the nosh ready?’
I thought I could smell the heart again. You have to stick with them, I thought. I offered them a Salem. James was pretending he had better things to do than talk to another farang. He shook his head diffidently when I put the packet in his direction.
The giant pulled out a packet of Superkings. ‘I’ll stick to real cigarettes if you don’t mind, best a’ British and all.’
I put the smokes back in my t-shirt pocket and tried to look relaxed. Every now and then I’d look down the aisle to the doorway; sitting where I was, my pursuers would not have a hard time spotting me. At least I had a name for them now - Jai-Dam… Blackhearts. It sounded like a bad comic book name. But Jai-Dam, that place a cold blade on my spine.
‘Were you in forces mate?’ said Stretch.
‘No.’ I said looking up at his friendly face. ‘Why?’
He considered me for a second, shrugged and smiled, ‘Oh nothin’, you just remind me of someone I met when I was doing my time. Not a psycho are you?’
‘Only on full moons.’ I said, trying to look relaxed.
Suddenly there was a screech of brakes outside followed by the sharp scream of a horn – we all bristled. I wheeled around to the doorway, my senses hyper-reactive, my intuition telling me I was in trouble, that it was time. But then I heard the sound of a car pulling away, followed by silence.
I looked back at them all regarding me strangely. ‘Bit highly-tuned aren’t you?’ said James.
‘Nam flashback, it’s very normal!’ Stretch said, he was smiling but everyone else looked a little shocked.
&nb
sp; My leg felt wet, for a horrible moment I though I might have pissed myself, then I realised I’d spilt some coffee. ‘Shit!’ I said, ‘Sorry - I’m a bit jumpy, I’ve not had much sleep and I’m feeling a bit wired… I only just got here.’
That seemed to work, every long-haul traveler has a period of jet lag when your body feels it belongs to someone else. Their faces softened, even James smiled, ‘Yah I know the feeling. In Cambodia I went three days without sleep; first of all we had some skunk at Angkor Wat, then we hid there for the night at the temple. It was fucking awesome. Then we got into a tangle with an ex Khmer Rouge dude.’ He looked around, nodding with quasi sagacity, ‘Laos is a postcard compared to Cambodia I can tell you, place is full of gangsters and Nigerian hitmen.’
Stretch groaned, perhaps he’d heard the story before. ‘Just because it’s dangerous it dunt mean it’s worthy, fookin’ ‘ell! I mean, why go there in the first place if you’re going to get yer balls blown off?’
James looked back at him condescendingly, ‘It’s part of the trip… we’re only on this mortal coil once.’
Two clichés in one sentence, I thought, that’s impressive.
But Stretch had lost interest. ‘Sounds like pretentious wank to me.’
Kristen looked familiar, I was sure I’d seen her before. Then I suddenly remembered - she was the girl from the tattoo parlour my first night on Khao San Rd; the one having a garland of flowers tattooed on her ankle. I didn’t say anything about it, worried they might remember seeing me with Skip and start asking about his whereabouts. In another life I might have broken the barrier of my paranoia and talked to them about it, the fact they had probably seen the killers enter the bar; instead I said nothing, knowing that whoever I spoke to turned out to be a player in the web I was caught in; or its next victim.
I needed those farangs more than they needed me. Sat in that squalid café I felt more vulnerable than I had at the worst of times in my trip so far – no Giselle, no avuncular war veterans to keep me company – nobody but me. I started to feel drowsy again. I pinched my thumb cuticle with my index nail till it was almost bleeding… keep yourself awake. If I could get on that bus without anyone knowing, everything might work out. Then what? Nathan Moore, the journalist who wrote the story about the disappeared kids in the NPA, was my first stop. Maybe I’d never get to Luang Prabang. I was becoming almost Buddhist in my outlook, as if it was all written anyway.
Ped, my old coach, used to say a fight was won before you even entered the ring, it was purely a question of visualisation. Sure, you need to be fit, but after technique and cardio work, what separates the winner from the loser? It’s the picture we hold in our heads of ourselves. This might sound like Tony Robbins ‘guru time’ but think of that fight back in the eighties when Frank Bruno fought Mike Tyson, the world’s most feared man, a human threshing machine with an unbroken record and annihilating fight card of first and second round knockouts. Bruno feared his presence so much he lost the fight before he even put his gloves on. His hands were shaking in the corner as he performed at least twelve signs of the cross, and when the fight started he was too scared to do anything, to take his ground in the middle of the ring, and save himself from the wall of pain coming toward him.
I tried to remember Ped’s pumice-stone face, a towel draped over his scrawny shoulder at the side of the ring, willing me on. And I tried to vizualise something positive about myself, that despite my opponent being of an unknown size and talent, I might yet outbox him just as I had in desperate times when three rounds in it looked like I would lose unless I came up with an alternative fight plan. I need Ped. I needed a new fight plan.
‘So, where have you travelled from Alain?’ James said unexpectedly, their noodles arriving as I was about to answer. The chef looked tired, his face half-illuminated by a green lantern as he dished out the plates. It smelt nauseating, a tang of onion and coconut milk rising from the steaming noodles. Maybe I could still smell the heart.
‘I’ve not been here long…’ I mumbled, ‘first of all Hanoi, then here.’ Shit, I thought, if I had come from Hanoi I wouldn’t have any jey lag.
Kristen, who’d been quiet up until now, said, ‘Now I remember you!’
I looked at her quizzically then clicked my fingers as if the penny had just dropped. ‘Yeah, me too. Didn’t you get a tattoo on the Khao San Rd?’
She nodded enthusiastically, ‘I can have a swim in another day, it’s healing up. It’s a good job we didn’t go to Ko Samui as we’d originally planned. At least there’s no sea in Laos.’
Her boyfriend looked at me suspiciously. I wondered if they’d heard about Skip. They must have, it had been the talk of Khao San Rd.
James, the thin one, trained a narrow gaze on me and asked the inevitable. ‘I thought you said you had jet lag?’
Stretch leaned in and flexed his weedy arms, ‘Never mind ‘im. See that? Lady Di on one arm, me old Mam and Dad on the other, all my favourite people!’ His tattoos were a mess, they looked like something he’d had done at the end of the North Pier on a day-trip to Blackpool.
James looked miffed at his interjection; maybe he was tired, but he didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of them. ‘So how was Hanoi?’ he persisted.
‘Cold.’ I said. ‘I was only there for two days and I just couldn’t set my body clock straight.’
Zig hadn’t said a word up until now, he was munching on his noodles. ‘We would like to go there eventually, to Hanoi, but first we wanted to do the difficult stuff here in Laos, so we’ve got something to talk of when we get back.’
I remembered myself at the same age, around twenty, not having a blind clue who I was or where I was going. You stacked up country stamps in your passport like trophies, searched for something interesting to tell your friends when you got back – perhaps even to win respect. Stick with me a while Zig, you’ll soon find something to talk about it you survive longer than a day. Lucan made almost a week, who knows? You might even beat that.
I was thinking was I’d look less conspicuous if I were to board the bus with them and not on my own; my pursuers would probably have people watching out for a lone figure, not expecting me to adapt so quickly. I prayed we were getting on the same bus.
‘Where are you going after Vientiane?’ I asked Stretch, a noodle hanging from his mouth like a wet liana.
‘Luang Prabang.’ He said,
I affected surprise, ‘Me too.’
He gave me the thumbs up and cheered enthusiastically, the chef looked over with distaste and wiped his brow with a bandana. ‘You can stop wi us on the bus then!’
I breathed a sigh of relief – a petit triumph - apart from James I don’t think anyone noticed.
‘Aye, but first we’re off to Vang Vieng, then on to Luang prabang after. There’s some rapids and lots of caves and stuff in there. You should come along wi’ us, we’re going on to the other place after.’
I looked at the rest of them, once again but for James, their faces were open and generous. ‘It’s supposed to be very beautiful.’ said Kristen blithely,
‘Ok, you’ve twisted my arm. If that’s alright with you all that is?’ I said.
Only among travelers could one be taken so quickly into the fold… within minutes. I could have been a deviant; could have been on the run for all they knew.
Stretch nodded enthusiastically, planting a huge hand on my shoulder as if perhaps I’d known him all my life, ‘Of course it’s ok, you dandy southerner, welcome to our tribe!’
I loosened up a bit after that. The trip to Vang Vieng would take about four hours, we’d be travelling through the night across the plains of Laos into the mountains.
Kristen rubbed her hands together and tied up her Nepalese hat to buffer the cold, while Stretch didn’t seem to notice; he was pacing about excitedly in his t-shirt. I stood nearby him as we waited for the bus
, hoping the sight of this abnormally tall northerner might scare off any lurking assailants.
The city was quiet, the occasional wheeze of a sawngthaew and tuk-tuk passing by in search of a fare. It was hard to imagine there’d been so many people here the night before, I supposed the festival had finally finished and the pilgrims had now returned to their villages. Half of them seemed to be waiting for this bus back north. Thinking about Luang Prabang gave me a sense of dread, it shimmered forbiddingly at the edge of my every thought. Maybe I was glad to be delaying it for a day.
The bus was packed with Laotians, some of the women in tribal garb; black and blue head-dresses, faces lined as maps, bosoms strung with family silver. They smoked, ate sticky-rice from bamboo sticks, chewed betel nuts and bartered over live chickens tethered in the back of the cardboard-thin bus. Another had a cage of flapping birds.
The bus started up once our bags were fastened to the roof. The locals were in awe of Stretch and quickly spread out in a fan to accommodate the seats at the back. Between pretending to find his jokes funny and smiling at the right time, I was scoping the bus just before the lights went out. So far so good - just rurals and chickens. What did the Jai-Dam look like anyway? We hadn’t moved yet, there were still passengers climbing aboard, and if Laos was anything like other corners of the world, relatives visiting families would probably be picked up en route and climb into the dark bus – so I had no way of seeing their faces clearly. No matter what I had to try and stay awake for the next four hours. Fortunately I had a can of instant coffee stashed in my day bag, and a bottle of Red Bull.
I had a cigarette and the coffee with my head stuck out of the window. Then I noticed a little Lao child staring at me through the darkness, the whites of her eyes almost yellow and I dogged the cigarette. Finally the bus drew away casting plumes of dust into the night sky. I didn’t need caffeine after all; the karaoke was turned on loud enough to simultaneously bust speakers, eardrums and wake the dead.
Black Buddha Page 26