Bangkok Knights
Page 23
But what’s this? My scalp is itching like I’ve never felt anything itch before. I scratch, I have no choice but to scratch so hard I am tearing my hair out. I go into the bathroom and switch on the light to investigate.
At first I don’t recognize this thing I see in the mirror. But then I figure out it’s me. My face is swollen horribly, lips distended, a bright red rash running down each side of my nose. There is a bit of drool coming from the corner of my mouth.
‘Hungh, hungh, hungh,’ I say. I sound something like a big fat boar which has found cause for alarm. Come to that, I look more than somewhat porcine, lips distended till they’re all but turned inside-out, piggy little eyes trying to goggle with horror. I really want to yell ‘Holy shit!’ but it seems the requisitefacial muscles are pretty well paralyzed. That’s why I’m drooling, and that’s why I can t talk. What I can do is waggle my eyebrows and roll my piggy eyes about frantically. Oi is standing in the doorway now, and I turn to her to say ‘Holy shit, get a doctor!’ but what I actually say is ‘Huh, huh, hng (slurp), uhhng!
At first Oi is surprised to see a huge porker in the bathroom, but she quickly adjusts, and I am subjected to gales of unpleasantly shrill laughter. It’s three o’clock in the morning, it turns out, and I pace back and forth, occasionally going into the bathroom to grunt and goggle at my self in the mirror. I am wondering if I should try to find a doctor somewhere. But are there any doctors in Pattaya at 3:00 in the morning, and what can I tell him if I find one? I’d probably get the same reaction I got from Oi. Oi has gone back to sleep, the pacing of large pigs in the boudoir having proved quite restful, it seems. What could it be, I wonder. Something I ate? All that shellfish? I’m not sick, though—no headache, stomach’s okay. I feel fine, except my scalp still itches and l’ ve metamorphosed into a pig. After a while, I am convinced the swelling is going down a little, and l manage to articulate “God help me” so that it’s fairly intelligible. My scalp feels better and I lie down beside Oi and finally I get some sleep.
I gave Oi 300 baht in the morning. She seemed very pleased with that; I think she was also pleased to see the end of this poxy farang who went around turning into a monster in the middle of the night. She didn’t laugh at me any more, though, and she suggested I see a doctor.
The swelling had gone down, leaving a residual puffiness around the eyes and cheeks, the skin blotchy, the pores gaping at me as I examined myself anxiously in the mirror before checking out of the hotel. My face still felt stiff and unnatural, and my speech was badly slurred. I was self-conscious about encountering people in the hard light of day, but the girls at the desk seemed to find nothing remarkable in my appearance. They had probably seen much worse in their time.
I didn’t go to a doctor, and I didn’t go windsurfing. I got on the first bus out of town — an air-conditioned bus, this time. I told myself I would see a doctor in Bangkok, if things weren’t back to normal by the next day. It was still a mystery to me what had happened. I mean, I never got ill; I never had skin problems; I never had V.D.; I hardly ever even caught a cold. And now, in the course of a single day, I had come up with something that did a good job of passing itself off as terminal crotch rot, and then I’d fallen victim to the dreaded Swollen Pig-Head Syndrome. And this is not even to mention jellyfish stings, sunburn, ropeburn, and all the other souvenirs of violent encounters with my environment I’d collected. I was exhausted, as well, what with the lack of sleep and all.
I felt hungover, even though I hadn’t had a drop to drink. I discerned annoying intimations of guilt and anxiety in myself, never mind my behavior had been more or less beyond reproach. If this whole business was some kind of Judgment, then I felt hard done by. Or maybe Sunantha had put a curse on me.
But I was blameless, really, if we were to overlook one or two little sins of only half-assed commission. Only half-heartedly contemplated to start with, and wholly unsuccessful in the outcome. Tell it to the judge. Sunantha would probably have argued there was also a sin of omission to be taken into the account—I had failed to behave in the way an honorable friend and lover would have done. ‘Huh!’ she had said. ‘Khon mai dee. You’re a no-good man.’
But what was the big deal? So I had decided go stay at the beach one more day. I’d heard of worse things. Sunantha was old enough to spend a few hours on the bus by herself.
Now that I thought about it, I wished she could’ve stayed at the beach. I could’ve taught her some windsurfing.
Anyway, I hadn’t gotten pissed, and I hadn’t done any tomcatting. None to speak of. I hadn’t done any windsurfing either, come to that. If anyone should be upset, it was me. Well, yeah. Still, East is East and West is West and Sunantha, I knew, would be in a real funk. Nothing I couldn’t fix, but it might take some doing, this time. I hadn’t handled things very well, I had to admit.
I wiped a bit of drool away from the corner of my mouth. My lower face was still partially paralyzed. It must’ve been the mussels, I thought, or the cockles. Probably the mussels. They told you to be careful of the shellfish around here, especially if it wasn’t cooked. Well, now I knew.
I wondered if Sunantha would come home right after work. I meant to my place. But she probably wouldn’t be expecting to see me yet.
I wanted to see her. She had been a nurse, after all, and perhaps she would know what was ailing me. Even if she didn’t, she would know how to make me feel better. I had a good idea — I
would stop and buy her a couple of shiny red apples from that lady by the bus-stop. She was always saying how much she loved apples, never mind they were exorbitantly expensive in Thailand. Sixteen baht apiece.
The bus wasn’t very full; not that many people travel from Pattaya to Bangkok early on a Monday morning in the hot season. I had two whole seats to myself and the air-conditioning was going like a blizzard. I felt better; as I drifted off I thought I would feel a lot better again after I had had a little sleep. And after I’d seen Sunantha.
‘You re drunk. Don’t you talk to me. First you leave me alone, and then you come home and you re drunk.’
Even though I know the swelling has almost disappeared, my face still feels bloated and I feel at a disadvantage. I can t talk very well; F m still drooling and slurping a bit, and the words, after I´ve painstakingly articulated them as best I can, are nevertheless badly slurred. Like I´m punch-drunk or—Sunantha’s best guess— just plain drunk.
I was at first pleasantly surprised to have Sunantha appear at my place, where she found me applying some of her cold cream to my groin. She said she hadn’t gone to work; she’d had some things to do. These things turned out to be coming to my apartment and packing up all her things. Now she’s waiting for a friend who has a big car to come over and pick her up.
I can t believe this. She is leaving. I´ve spent the last couple of months wondering how I can break it off with her, and now, just like that, she’s leaving. I’m free.
But this isn t the way I´d thought it was going to be. And right now isn’t the best time. So I’m trying to reason with her, trying to explain things. Only I can t talk very well, and my self-image as a bloated pig isn’t fending my manner the authority it needs. It doesn´ t even help when I put my shorts on and wipe the cold cream
off my hands.
‘Dink, dink, dink,’ she is saying. ‘All the time dink. Not care about me.’
’Drink” I want to say. ‘Rrr.’ And then I want to explain, again, how it isn’t drink. But in my condition what I say sounds like ‘Nuhh dink uhhng. Shi’
Later, after Sunantha left, I went around to Boon Doc’s, where I met Eddie Alder and a few of the guys. Been to the beach? they asked me. Oh, yeah; it’s nice to get out of the city now and then. Christ, it’ s hot this year, isn’ t it? Hey, you don’ t look so good. Better have a beer.
End of Bangkok Knights
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
SALVAGE OPERATION
LEARY’S LAW
SID’S WAKE
BILLBOARD
LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEMS
I.
II.
III
IV.
GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL
LOTUS EATERS
SNAPSHOTS
CRUNCH
LOOKING FOR MISS GOODBAR
LEARY’S EXORCISM
CHILD OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
MOTHER MAKES A MATCH
TOO MANY WOMEN
FEEDING THE DUCKS
INSTINCT, OR GENES, OR SOMETHING
A DAY AT THE BEACH