Pool and its Role in Asian Communism

by Colin Cotterill

  -o-

  So, sooner than worry, he put all his energy into babysitting Nit. Boy, that girl had problems. She'd wake up screaming in the middle of the night. She'd steal stuff and hide it under the mat. She'd get mad for no reason. But even when you're mentally screwed up like that, it's real hard not to like Waldo.

  He fooled around all the time and got plenty of laughs out of her. She had a pretty laugh even though her teeth was all messed up. It was Waldo first got to coax a comb through the hair knots she had. It was Waldo got her to wear the nice dress they bought her and showed her the first photos of herself she'd ever seen.

  She stuck them photos inside the magazines like they belonged there and Waldo always play-acted that he was seeing a magazine model right there in front of him. Him and Saifon had talked about not getting too close to her else she'd be messed up again when they left. But they come to the conclusion it was better she felt a little bit of love from someone sooner than none at all.

  And, boy she loved old Waldo. She followed him round like her nose was welded to his backside. When Waldo helped old man Wongdeuan around the inn with fixing and moving stuff, she helped too. She was a fine sweeper. When Waldo went for his run around the yard, she ran round with him. He talked at her in English and she talked back in Lao and by some freak of language they managed to understand each other.

  49

  On Saifon's first night at the manger, she finished her first set of songs and was real surprised when they clapped her. She didn't have her skirt up round her ass or foam rubber down her brazier, so they must of been clapping her voice.

  They weren't just being polite neither. There was eight singers altogether. Two of 'em knew Vietnamese songs. But none of 'em could sing in English and American music was big even then.

  The system at the manger was exactly the same as the Inn Diana Butterfly. You get up on the stage, sing, show your stuff, and go down and sit a spell with the boys. You let 'em fondle some and lead 'em to believe they're your one and only. You help 'em drink, persuade 'em to buy something more expensive and something for you. Then when they think it's their lucky day, you gently break it to 'em that you can't go out back with 'em this time, but you surely will if they come back again. Men are vain enough to believe that shit.

  If you get it right you can work up to eight tables a night, and have a dozen guys coming back just to see you. And the good thing is, you don't actually have to give out to none of 'em.

  But, there at the manger, there was a couple of small differences to the system that messed her up. First, the girls all went out back with the guys cause they needed every cent they could get and tips wasn't enough. Second, in Indiana, the lady drinks they brought you wasn't the lady drinks the guys ordered for you. For example, rum and coke's all coke. But the barman bites a slice of lemon to the top of the glass that's been soaked overnight in rum. See? If the disbelieving guy smells it, he smells rum.

  But here in Laos, the girls was expected to match the customers drink for drink, from bottles on the table. So you gotta be one tough mamma to get through the night. Some of the sixteen-year-old hostesses looked forty. Saifon spent a lot of her nights in the bathroom with a finger down her throat.

  But in spite of her toilet habit, she sure was popular. The foreign ways she had about her, and the sense of humor she put on, and the fact she weren't easy, made her number one for tips. She didn't have no problem with the other girls cause she shared them tips around. She didn't need the money. In Indiana she was broke, in Laos she was a millionaire.

  She was getting a kick out of the singing, but that wasn't why she was there. Four days had gone by and she still hadn't seen old captain mayor. No one knew where he was at. But then, on Friday night, there he was. He turned up late with a pack of soldiers decked out in stripes and colored bars and shiny buttons like they was going to a fancy dress party. He was short and lumpy and nut brown and old. He was a dog turd in a uniform.

  The bouncers cleared a table near the stage of its bottles and its customers. They was half way torn between fighting and saluting. The brass sat down. When it was Saifon's turn to sing, she hitched up her skirt a couple of notches, put on enough lipstick to stop a fire truck and did the moves.

  Next thing you know she's sitting at the front table as a guest of the jerks. She used up every round of ammunition she had. She played all her drinking games, told dirty jokes, and flirted like a whore. By the end of the night, captain mayor had her sitting on his lap and was making improper suggestions into her ear. She'd been stroking on his ego so she knew he was interested.

  There was three places he could of took her. His wife and eight kids lived at one so that probably weren't the best idea. One was his barracks and he was afraid the long drive would of killed off his rising passion. So, he had the driver drop 'em at number three. That was a room in back of his old office down town.

  Saifon didn't have no degree in it or nothing, but she'd studied drunks all her life. She knew how far she could push her luck with 'em. This lumpy little shit was safe. Getting her to come back with him had impressed the young officers, but he'd used up all his energy getting to this stage, and drunk ten times more than he'd intended. Weren't nothing left. The only thing between him and unconscious was gravity.

  Soon as she had him laying down he was snoring like a baby. She took his keys and found the one he'd used to get 'em inside. On the wall in the office there was a dozen nails with bunches of keys hanging off 'em. They was probably spares for the staff or something. She found a match for his key, tested it on the door and put his back. Then she looked around the office in the light of a candle.

  It was all so darned frustrating. There was cabinets full of documents and she couldn't read one of the frigging things. But she was sure there was something in that office that would get captain mayor in trouble. Someone else would have to do the reading.

  Before she let herself out she undid the mayor guy's zipper and left his little old dick poking out. That way, when he come to, he'd assume …well, you know what he'd assume. That might be useful if she had to see him again. She walked a block from the office and caught a bicycle samlor back to the auberge.

  50

  Next time they saw Wilbur his ears was pretty much back to normal. They went to his place on the Sunday. The three of 'em, Saifon and Waldo and Nit walked there through the hot dusty streets of Savannakheth.

  I guess the only way to describe what Savannakheth was like in them days would be to imagine a little village in Europe someplace during World War Two. Imagine you're strolling down the main street and there's German and British soldiers and French resistance walking around doing their weekend shopping, chatting with each other about how things are going at the front. And General Montgomery's at the grocery store buying corned beef and Mousellini's in front of the post office fixing the puncture in his bicycle tire.

  That kind'a sums up what Savannakheth was like.

  "How's your ears?" Waldo asked.

  " How's your ears?" Nit parroted. She'd taken to repeating everything he said. It was real amusing for the first two seconds or so, but she did it all day. Course, she didn't know what she was saying but she did say it with a good old Indiana drawl.

  She went off to find the maid's boy. She was taking a shine to him. He was about the same age as her missing sister.

  Nit weren't in no trouble, with the law I mean. Even if they'd found Aunt Souksaijai's body (whoever 'they' was) they wouldn't of done nothing about it. These was war times and there was any one of a thousand reasons she could of been clubbed to death. Fact is, if you planned to club someone to death, this was the perfect time to do it.

  "Getting better."

  "What?"

  "My ears, you asked about my ears."

  They sat together on the porch. Saifon handed Wilbur the key and a map showing where the mayor's office was. After she'd explained, Wilbur smiled.

  "You wanna come work for us?"

  "Be a spy? Help you blow my co
untry to f … (Waldo gave her the eye)…to Finland? Sure. How many helpless villagers do I get to bomb?"

  "I guess that's a 'no'."

  The chilled Biere Lao arrived like the Seventh Cavalry, just in the nick of time. Waldo took a long sip.

  "Oh, man. How am I ever gonna live without this stuff? How we doing for news from Mukdawachamacall?"

  "You take it easy grandpa. Sit back and sip your beer. It'll be the last one you get for a while. I've got some big news for you. You're both leaving for Mukdahan tomorrow."

  "We are?"

  "Why's that?"

  "Well, let's just say there's a big party planned for the day after tomorrow that I'm not allowed to tell you about. It's gonna be loud and lively. But there's a number of folks around here that haven't been invited to it. When they find out the party's on, they're gonna be mighty displeased. It would be much better if you weren't around."

  "I take it the people running the party didn’t ask permission," Saifon asked.

  "Right you are."

  Waldo thought they was talking about a party and people not getting invited.

  "Seems a pity to leave just cause of a party." Saifon and Wilbur looked at him the way you look at an ox pulling a plough. All that untapped power and potential.

  "I'm sending the maid and her boy south for a few weeks till the government forgives us. If you want Nit to go along I'm sure she'll be happy to take her. Just till you get back."

  -o-

  A couple of hours later, Saifon was out in the yard with the kids. Nit didn't seem to mind going down country with the maid, as long as Pop was there, too. She did make her and Waldo promise they'd come back.

  Waldo and Wilbur was sitting in the living room surrounded by Percy Sledge. They'd had too much beer: much too much. They was singing along;

  "WHENA MAN LOVES A WOMAN, CAN'T KEEP HIS MIND ON NOTHING ELSE …"

  That was the point in the song where they went off in opposite directions with the wrong words. Either that or Percy got it wrong again. For guys of a certain brown, you'd think they could of carried a tune between 'em. But if Percy could of gotten off that turn table and told 'em to shut the hell up, I know he would of.

  "You miss your wife, Wilbur?"

  "I try not to think about it."

  "I hear you." He looked at his friend and wondered if this was the time to say what needed to be said.

  "She ain't alive, is she."

  Wilbur's mouth dropped open. "Why the hell you say a thing like that?"

  "I'm sorry."

  "No, man. I don't want a sorry. I want to know why you'd say something like that."

  "There's two ways to miss a woman. You can miss her 'cause you ain't in the same place, but you wanna be. And you can miss her 'cause you know wherever you go, you ain't never gonna see her again. They's different. They look and feel different. That second one is you, Wilbur. You don't ever talk about seeing her."

  "How d'you know she didn't walk out on me."

  He said it like a joke but he wasn't laughing inside.

  "I know what it feels like to be in love with someone who loved you back right up to the last second. I know that love didn't die in you two."

  "God damn you, Waldo."

  Wilbur took a deeper chug of his beer than he needed.

  "Sorry, Wilbur. I didn't mean …"

  "It's OK." He was upset; real upset. Waldo felt the mood in the room get heavy and drop. "You really are a piece of work, Waldo. I don't know how you do it. You get inside people, man. It's scary." There was a long silence. The first track stopped.

  "She died in a car accident when I was here on my first tour. There was a lot of stuff I didn't have a chance to say to her. And that's the last thing I'm gonna tell you about her. You hear me?"

  Waldo took a breath before his next line.

  "Ain't nothing to stop you talking to her now."

  "You what?"

  "Just cause her body's gone don't mean she can't hear you no more."

  Wilbur laughed kinda rude, like. "You crazy old coot. You should get together with some of my Hmong fighters up in the hills. They talk to their dead. There are ghosts all over the frigging place. Don't seem to stop 'em getting killed though. You're as crazy as them."

  Waldo went quiet for a while and they both pretended they was listening to the next song.

  "They ain't crazy, Wilbur. They let it out. Crazy people are the ones that keep it ins…"

  "OK. That's enough before I hose you down. Don't talk like that in my home."

  "Sorry, Wilbur."

  "And stop saying you're damn sorry when you ain't."

  "Sorry."

  "I don't wanna hear no more."

  "OK. …Just try it though."

  "What?"

  "Telling Mary how you feel."

  "I'm gonna hurt you, man. I swear I am."

  "OK. OK."

  There was a real angry silence in the room when Saifon come in. She bumped into it.

  "You two girls had a fight?"

  "Hell, no."

  "Course not."

  She could see they had.

  "Well, I'm on my way to the fridge for a couple of cold ones. I don't suppose I could interest you?"

  "Yeah, I'll have one."

  "Me too."

  They sat sulking while she was outside opening the bottles. When she come in she decided to sit with 'em. It didn't help the atmosphere none, not until Waldo looked up at her and Wilbur and said; "You know this party? The one we have to leave for?"

  "Yes, Waldo."

  "Well, do you suppose they'll be having a barbecue?"

  Wilbur snorted beer through his nose and nearly choked. Saifon went and thumped his back.

  "Waldo," he said once he got his breath, "you're good. You really are good. When we meet up in the states when this is all over, I want to find out exactly who you are and who you work for. I can't wait for that story." He smashed his bottle against theirs.

  "Cheers."

  Waldo and Saifon cheered too but they looked at each other as if there weren't no hope for the party. As it turned out, they was right.

  51

  That little party upset a whole lot of people. If their entire economy hadn't been kept alive by the CIA, Laos would certainly of broken relations with Washington over it. The South Vietnamese army invaded Laos from the east. They bought along some ten thousand U.S advisors, which is a hell of a lot of advice you'll have to agree. Sadly, the advice wasn't that good.

  If you're gonna invade a friendly country, the least you can do is win. But some fool in Washington couldn't read maps, and the nice spot he decided on for the battle, turned out to be a mountain range. They found themselves doing more rock climbing than invading. The North Vietnamese camped out in Laos just whipped their tired asses and sent the survivors scurrying back to the south with their tails between their legs.

  You can probably find better descriptions of the battle of Xepon, but I don't believe in spoiling a good story with a lot of interesting information. All you need to know is, they came, they saw, they got beat. But they pissed off all the wrong people doing it.

  So it was just as well Saifon and Waldo was in Thailand while all that was going on. They was staying in a secret CIA apartment they didn't have to pay for and waiting for news from Wilbur. You can imagine he had bigger things on his mind than them. They wasn't even sure the trucks would be able to cross over while the fighting was going on. So they didn't have a lot to do but wait. In fact there wouldn't of been much to write about if Waldo hadn't got himself shot.

  Him and Saifon was going stir crazy in the apartment so they decided to go for a little trip. It was Waldo's brilliant idea that they jump on a bus and go visit Dtui's family. Dtui, you probably forgot, was the taxi driver that drove 'em from the airport in Bangkok. He'd told 'em he had a large family but he'd forgot to mention how most of 'em was gangsters.

  They was real friendly gangsters, but in the twenty miles or so around where they lived, they was respon
sible for every illegal activity there was; pignapping, rice trafficking, moonshining, chicken gambling, fish poaching, you name it. And now, with a war just across the river, they had more illegal weapons than the entire police force. They was the Koknoy village mafia.

  The next year, Coppola based the Marlon Brando role in the Godfather on Dtui's ma. Everything was there, the puffy cheeks, the thinning hair. There's no doubt about it.

  When Saifon and Waldo arrived at the house that was surrounded by tall brick walls, they was met by two bare-chested skinny guys with tattoos and taken for an audience with Ma Marlon. She talked through one of the skinny guys like he was a telephone.

  "What are they doing here?"

  "What are you doing here?"

  They told her.

  "Dtui sent 'em."

  "Dtui? We know a Dtui?"

  "Sure, Ma. He's your son. He's driving cabs in Bangkok."

  "Oh, Dtui. They friends of my Dtui?"

  "That's what they say, Ma."

  "Then you better feed 'em. Be nice to 'em. Any friend of Dtui's is one of the family. Show 'em some fun."

  "Right, ma."

  She waved her hand and the audience was over. They split Saifon and Waldo up then. Saifon they whisked out to the kitchen cause that was where women had fun in them parts. They let her join in the fish scaling.

  Waldo would of been more hard to please if it hadn't been for Uncle Loo. He spoke about eleven words of English so they took him along to translate. They didn't get many Americans around there, so they drove him into town in the truck. For a special treat, they decided to take him to the most happening place in town, Crazy Moo's.

  From outside it looked like another shophouse, but you should of seen the smiles on their faces when they led the big guy inside. He was surprised to see a pool table all the way out there. The balls wasn't standard size but they had a surprisingly good sheen and the balance was okay. The table warped a little to the northeast. He took all that in, in his first glance.