Bangkok Knights

by Collin Piprell

  “Come on along,” he told us. “All the steamed hoi you can eat. With garlic butter and French bread. Drinks are 35 baht from 5:00 till 7:00.”

  That cleared up the question of what kind of hoi we were talking about, anyway.

  The dancers were back at it again, I noticed, and I looked the audience over. This is what I do on those infrequent occasions I find myself in one of these places, justifying my presence there by telling myself it’s my duty as a student of human nature. Normally, I would’ve expected everyone else’s attention to be on the stage of else on their little companions; this time, however, my gaze ran smack into the stares of those two Westerners - the blonde and the brunette. I had to suppose they were also students of the human condition, given the interest they were showing in us.

  “I used to have model trains,” Billboard was saying. “Oh, yeah; I had some dandy set-ups. They kept me pretty busy, when I wasn’t running businesses or fighting with my wife.

  “Then I got divorced; the ‘ex’ took my son upcountry with her, and I gave him all my trains to take with him. So I don’t play with trains, anymore.”

  Only Eddie had been paying him much attention; I’d been distracted by my reconnaissance of the crowd, and Bob had other things on his mind. The girl with the dimples was feeling neglected, and she’d started yanking on a part of Bob that surprised him and demanded more cola. He said sure, okay, thereby licensing the arrival of drinks for three girls — the two on his knees plus a new one that had taken to crouching at his feet and thrusting a winsome grin up at him through the tangle of limbs depending from his lap.

  “What about AIDS?” blurted Bob, making a show of trying to extricate himself from his fan club, who were showing him much affection in return for all this cola. Indeed, he was buried under a mass of goose bumps and dimples, and there were pouting little lips pecking at him from all directions while six little hands, also sticky with cola, clutched at bits of his person. It looked as though stardom was starting to wear somewhat thin, though; and now he’d raised the specter of AIDS. Billboard seemed unconcerned, however.

  “AIDS?” he said. “Naw. I got myself checked last week. No problem. Any way, if I do get AIDS, I know what I’m gonna do right away. You know that model all the papers have been saying tested positive for AIDS? You know the one; you’ve seen her pictures? Beautiful? Yeah. Well, I’m going right over to see her and get to know her better, know what I mean? We’d have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.”

  He gave us the wolfish leer he’d given the audience before his act. A natural-born optimist, was old Billboard. Silver linings for anything you wanted to name, and, it appeared, a fine disregard for medical opinion. Even here, in Manny’s Market, there were lurid posters in the toilets. One of them depicted a death’s-head playing a flute and bore the legend: ARE YOU READY TO PAY THE PIPER?

  One of the girls was poking Bob in the belly, now, and all three of his admirers were giggling in delight

  “What are they saying?” he asked us.

  “’Men with fat stomachs don’t have AIDS,’” I told him.

  Eddie laughed and said he knew where that notion had come from. He asked if we’d seen that story in the papers a few weeks before — where somebody had interviewed a bunch of bargirls to find out what they were doing to protect themselves from this plague. “The best one,” he told us, “was the lady who said ‘Oh, that’s no problem. I look to see if they have a big bottom and a fat belly. If they do, there’s no problem. It’s the skinny ones you’ve got to watch out for.’ When the interviewer asked her how she knew that, she said an American man had told her what to look out for.”

  “Did this American expert have a big bottom and a beer belly, by any chance?” said Bob.

  You could bet the guy spreading this medical wisdom didn’t look like Michael Jackson. Funny thing, Billboard’s laugh seemed forced to me, and his native confidence was marred by the merest twinge of evasiveness.

  “That would have to be a real bastard, someone who’d do a thing like that,” I said. “Isn’t that right, Billboard?”

  ”Heh, heh,” he replied. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  Bob looked positively relieved when his groupies got up to take their turn on the dance floor. His comfort was short-lived, however. “Oh, no; look at this. The Ride of the Valkyries.”

  It was the blonde and the brunette. Their approach was deliberate, stately even, as if to the strains of “Onward Christian Soldiers”, as they made their way towards us through the masses of gooseflesh. Now I already felt like an ass for being in a place like Manny’s, but normally, at least, you didn’t have to worry about other citizens coming up and articulating how you felt and asking you to justify yourself. Probably in shrill voices, asking you to justify yourself. I, for one, was filled with unease.

  “Maybe they only want to know what hoi means,” Eddie said, not too hopefully.

  “Probably missionaries,” Billboard said. “Just you have a look at those smiles. And I’ll bet you a beer right now they’re wearing sensible shoes.” Whatever they were, you could see Billboard wasn’ t about to allow his artistic integrity to be threatened by the immoderate reactions of a gang of narrow-minded harpies. “Pshaw!” he said.

  Eddie drank off a whole Singha beer as the ladies arrived; tears in his eyes, he smiled winningly and belched. But the newcomers had no interest in Eddie. Or in Bob or me.

  “Good evening, ladies,” said Billboard.

  “You’re William Cockburn,” the blonde pronounced his name correctly in tones that clearly implied they had the goods on him and, most likely, the jig was up.

  “You can call me Billboard.”

  “Yes. Well, then, billboard’ — first of all, let me say how much we enjoyed your demonstration,” said the brunette.

  “Yes,” added the blonde. “Most impressive. Tell me, how do you prepare your hoiT

  “Urn... do you mean at Badman’s?”

  Surely not, I told myself; surely that was not a nonplused look on his face? It occurred to me that this was dangerous ground — that if one chink appeared in that mighty self-possession, then the whole edifice might crumble, and Billboard’s hobby would go the way of his electric trains.

  ”We steam them. Yeah. And serve them with garlic butter and bread. They’re good.”

  “Have you tried steaming them with aromatic herbs, Thai-style?” asked the blonde. “I think that’s so good.”

  “Yes,” agreed her lieutenant, “or you can serve them with that splendid sauce they make — you know, the one with chili peppers and garlic in fish sauce with lime juice? Delicious.”

  Eddie gave me a wide-eyed look; I also wondered if these charming ladies had merely come over to swap recipes with Billboard and maybe invite him to the next session of their Homes and Gardens Club. Billboard, himself, appeared distinctly apprehensive, by now, if not totally disconcerted. Probably he was afraid they’ d find out he didn’ t know anything at all about cooking.

  Visibly collecting his resources, he sought to re-establish that presence he’d displayed on the stage only a short time before, and moved to take control of the situation. “And so, ladies, what can I do for you?”

  “Why don’t you use condoms?” said the petite brunette.

  “Ah. What?

  “You don’t use condoms.” The blonde said this in the flat tones you’d use to report any incontrovertible fact. And they did have the goods on him; he could not have denied the allegation.

  “Ah, yes. No, that is: I don’t wear condoms.” From his manner, you had to understand he didn’t use condoms for reasons akin to those Nijinsky might have given you for not wearing army boots.

  “What about AIDS?”

  “He got checked only last week,” said Bob, and then clearly wished he’d shut up.

  “Last week,” said the blonde.

  “Last week,” corroborated the brunette. “Last week, then, I assume you didn’t have AIDS.”

  “Congratulations for that�
�for not having had a fatal illness last week,” continued the blonde, still smiling. You had to think she must be a missionary, since only missionaries are capable of such relentless smiling under any and all circumstances. “But what about this week? Do you have AIDS this week? And what about your partners — these little girls: do they have AIDS? Or are you going to give them AIDS?”

  I reckoned Billboard would have just as soon gone back to swapping recipes.

  He ordered drinks, and asked the ladies if they’d like something. Sure, they said: the blonde opted for a cognac, and her friend went for Chivas. A double. Were these two customers reformed new-drinkers, then, or what? All of us keen students of the human condition, we four men experimented with various expressions of wild speculation.

  “And why don’ t you get some colas for these poor girls; they must need them after all that dancing,” said the brunette, smiling at Bob’s fan club, which had just returned to join the other thirsty maidens who’d gathered around to listen, prurience aroused by this talk of AIDS.

  Billboard did not even protest; he ordered enough cola to get three visitors from Pittsburgh buried under gooseflesh. Appeasement, is what it looked like to me. But it did no good.

  “We have a proposition for you,” said the blonde. “Do you take commissions? I mean, do you rent out space — on your billboard, that is?”

  We men all boggled together at this. Aside from KICK ME, or some such thing, what conceivable message for the public would these types want to stick on Billboard’s butt?

  “Well, I hadn’t thought about that too much, to tell the truth. What did you have in mind?” he replied warily.

  “We’re with a local women’s group, and we’re working with ‘service girls’ all over town, trying to educate them, organize them, get them interested in trying to improve their own working conditions. We’re the ones who put up those AIDS posters in the toilets. Did you see them? But better health precautions are only part of it. They need more protection from exploitative employers — more holidays, sick benefits, things like that...”

  “I give my girls a day off every two weeks,” Billboard protested, “and a two-day weekend every second month.”

  “We know, and that’s why we like you, Billboard,” said the brunette, smiling some more.

  Billboard’s discomfiture was painful to witness; I believe he even blushed. “And I don’t dock their wages if they can get a sick-note from my doctor...”

  ”Yes, yes, Billboard. You are an exemplary employer; we know that” She raised her glass high and we all joined in a toast to this pillar of the community. “And we’re sure your sense of responsibility will extend to the public at large.”

  Obviously, they were about to get to the point. Billboard braced himself, taking a big swig of soda and composing his features.

  “We want you to start using condoms.”

  (¥to? Oh, no. No way.”

  “We want you to wear condoms,” she reiterated, “and we would like to rent your backside to display a message:

  USE A CONDOM

  “No way. You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “We will provide your bar with a condom dispenser and stock it for free as long as you display our message.”

  “I can’t.”

  “If you do, we will grant Badman’s Bar ‘exempt status’.”

  “Exempt status?”

  “Exemption from direct action by the Bangkok Service Girls Protective Association.”

  “What ‘action’?” Billboard attempted a sneer.

  “Don’t worry; we have our ways. Oh, yes, and by the way: your ex-wife is one of our founding members.”

  He caved in. You could see it right then, though he made a show of taking it all under further consideration. “But... I don’t know if I can. With a condom, I mean.” He was whining, essentially, and the rest of us men didn’t know where to look. Try to imagine Charles Bronson whining.

  While Billboard agonized, the blonde took a moment to hold a big balloon for the blowgun girl, who put a dart into it first try. The loud bang roused Billboard from his painful reverie.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll try.”

  The ladies wanted him to do a trial run that very night. In fact, they said they’d buy him a soda, as well, if he’d do it right then.

  But he wouldn’t. He said he’d have to prepare himself; he wanted to get away from it all for a week or two.

  Well, they said, they’d see him again on Saturday, in any case. They wanted to talk to his girls. Also, the brunette told him, she was going to make a tasty sauce for the hoi and bring it along.

  “Oh, good,” said Billboard, smiling, his face a study in despair.

  The ladies had to leave; they had business at a bar across the street. They thanked Billboard for the drinks, said goodnight to the rest of us, and left, still smiling. It turned out Billboard had some things to do back at Badman’s, and he left a few minutes later.

  Bob decided to abandon his fan club, and he and Eddie and I retired to Boon Doc’s for a quiet beer and some discussion of apian to turn Billboard into a kind of community bulletin board. This very convenient and arresting space could be used for any number of public service announcements, we figured.

  And Bob told us some more about married life back in Pittsburgh. Towards the end of the evening he resolved to go back to Manny’s and do the live show himself, but first he wanted somebody to write

  I’M FREE

  on his own not unimposing billboard. In the end, though, he decided against it. Actually, he didn’t; he passed out, but it came to the same thing. His last words were: “You know, that little brunette was cute. Do you think she’s married?

  Eddie and I decided we’d pretty well have to go around to Badman’s on Saturday and see how it all turned out.

  LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEMS

  I.

  There was a sign behind the bar at Boon Doc’s, hand-lettered and yellowed with age:

  MONEY TALKS BULLSHIT WALKS

  The place was very quiet. It was four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon in late March — the onset of the hot season in Bangkok. Happy Hour wasn’t till five o’clock.

  Only a couple of the girls had arrived, as yet. Big Toy was sitting down behind the bar by the cash, looking for the source of some anomaly in the previous night’s receipts, brushing her long black hair back from her face and making an exasperated sort of whinny: “Meeeeh!” Dinky Toy was sitting on a barstool eating grasshoppers.

  Eddie and I had just come in off the street, out of the sun, and we were momentarily blinded in the gloom. The air-conditioning wasn’ t working. The tired old ceiling fan whirred away, barely stirring the hot, heavy air. Stale tobacco and beer blended with the general background mustiness of decay and roach powder. From the Buddha shrine high up the wall near the ceiling there wafted a delicate fragrance of jasmine flowers and incense, accented by the tang of ammonia from the toilet at the back. Familiar and reassuring, all of it, even the cloying aroma of Dinky Toy’s fried grasshoppers.

  But there was something else; there was a definite hint — more than a hint — of aftershave.

  “Leary?” We peered into the darker recesses.

  “Yo!” came the muffled response.

  “Leary in toilet,” said Dinky Toy.

  Leary was back, then. Visions of hangovers to come; you could hear Eddie’s wife Lek saying “You and that goddam Leary same-same. No damn good. Drink whiskey too much.”

  Lek bad-mouthed Leary a lot. She’d swear at him, and ask why he did his girlfriend Nancy the way he did. Why didn’t he get married? Why didn’ t he buy a house? Why did he drink, drink, drink all the time and give her husband hangovers? And so on. But she really liked Leary, underneath it all.

  Actually, Leary was an expert on women. At least on Asian women. Or at least so he claimed. Lek liked him, anyway; and I guess Nancy, his Chinese girlfriend, did too; she’d been with him for years.

  “Yeah, that’s right” he’d boom. “Oriental
broads don’t like how us farang smell. The darned foreigners sweat too much, you see. We stink. Or so these ladies figure... Ain’t that right, you purty little thing?” He’d interrupt his exposition to make a grab at a passing bargirl.

  “Yeah, you see, that’s right. It’s sweat — too much gosh-darned sweat. And red meat. These people don’t eat so much red meat, you know. Poisons. It comes out in the sweat.”

  In fact, Thais eat lots of pork and quite a bit of beef, as well. Leary was probably thinking of Japanese or Chinese or something. He’d been around for a long time, all over Asia. In the oil business.

  “And then, like all that’s not enough, they hate the smell of butter. The butter clings to you, you see. They can smell it the next gosh-darned day. Makes ‘em sick, to smell it.”

  Leary was a man who liked his red meat and butter, and he sweated. Therefore, being a man of sensibilities, he also went around reeking of Sheik of Araby aftershave. That’s how we’d known he was in the bar, somewhere.

  The door to the toilet crashed open, and a large figure emerged from the back. “Hey, gosh-dam it Guys? Friggin’ long time.”

  He didn’t talk; he bellowed. His name was Leary. Just Leary. He had red hair; he was beer-bellied, barrel-chested, and he swung his bulk along on two short thick legs. His hands were large and freckled, and there was a fair amount of scar tissue, particularly around the knuckles. Veins twisted amidst the thick tufts of sandy hair that bargirls liked to play with. “King Kong,” they’d murmur, which never ceased to delight him. He generally stank of aftershave. And sometimes of whiskey.

  “When did you get back, Leary?”

  “Last night, gosh-darn it. Straight in from Jakarta. What’re you drinking?”