The Last Executioner

by Chavoret Jaruboon

  My all-time hero was, and still is today, the ‘King’. I loved all his songs and even his movies: Loving You, Blue Hawaii, Jailhouse Rock and Fun In Acapulco. As soon as I saw him I went out and bought myself a denim shirt and jeans and spent hours in front of the mirror trying to move my legs and hips like him. In Thailand we referred to his dancing as being like ‘a worm in burning ash’, and I did my best to replicate him on stage.

  The popular local bands at the time were The Charming Boys, White House and F Five. They were heavily influenced by The Shadows, who were huge in Thailand. Mitra came seventh in the national music competition and were doing very well for themselves so I was delighted when they asked me to replace their bassist. I had applied to go to a vocational school in Nonthaburi, after deciding to study manufacturing mechanics, but had failed the all-important examination. In my defence there was extremely stiff competition for the college places, and yes I admit to not trying too hard for the entrance exam—maybe I knew I was meant for something else.

  Mitra is short for Mitranon, the band manager’s name. He came from Thonburi and his two sons played guitar and drums in the band. My friend, Daeng played base guitar and sang, and I played chord guitar. We were booked to play at the Corsair restaurant-bar in Ubolratchathani. Restaurant owners hired the top three bands in Bangkok, and would provide travel expenses and accommodation up front. I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep on the 12 hour train journey from Bangkok to Ubolratchathani. We were collected at the station to be brought into the city centre. I remember being glad to see the Chalermsin movie theatre and planning to spend a lot of time there. It was all so exciting.

  It took just 15 minutes to reach Corsair, which was a typical highway restaurant-bar. There was no roof over the stage, and the customers had their pick of deck-chairs or dining chairs with cushions. The waitresses wore pink and the grey stage was bathed in garish red, green and yellow lighting when we played. Only Thai beer and liquor was served to the mostly soldier clientele. There was big money to be made. I got 100 baht per night which was a huge amount to me. In those days a decent meal cost 50 satang and a tram ticket cost 25 satang, so I was loaded. The morning after the first gig I spent 45 baht on a proper tailor-made shirt, and looked and felt like a star.

  We played to the American soldiers who arrived in Thailand, looking to have a fun time away from the war in Vietnam. Their camps were near by, and they would swarm to hear us play. We played a lot of Hank Williams, who was still the king of country music then, despite having died in mysterious circumstances back in 1953 at the tender age of 29. He has since deservedly become an icon of country music and rock ‘n’ roll. He was one of the initiators of the Honky Tonk style, and had a huge repertoire of songs for us to choose from, with stuff like, ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart’ and ‘I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive’. Daeng was a really good singer, we could work the crowd, and we always got a raucous reception. They would sometimes shout out requests, and one time when we complied for a soldier, he removed his cap and passed it around his buddies. The band received 1,000 baht each from this one tip—I will never forget that.

  We stayed in rented accommodation near the bar. It was an old wooden house that we shared with the owner and her three kids. We all got along fine and I would frequently bring the kids to the cinema. We lived there for four months and then we moved to another house in the centre of town. Our new land-lady was a fat middle-aged woman called Patum. She was obsessed with the electricity bill. If we switched on an extra light she would moan about it for days. It didn’t bother me because I was rich now. When I had first arrived my entire wardrobe consisted of two shirts, two pairs of pants and one old jacket that a friend had given me. Now I was the proud owner of several suits, and not only that, I was also able to send money back home.

  The restaurant did great business with the soldiers, in drinks and women. There were a lot of women around; some were waitresses and some were prostitutes. They had to be good looking or else the owner would tell them to take a hike. The better looking a girl was, the more customers she attracted. I always pitied the hookers who worked for a commission based on the drinks they sold. They only had basic English, but usually it was all they needed. Towards the end of the night you would hear them almost challenge the Americans: ‘You go with me tonight? Short time or all night?’

  The bars really were a little seedy, and very lively. To be allowed to work in the bar, a woman had to have a doctor’s letter stating that she was free from any venereal diseases. A soldier could hire a woman for the night, paying for her at the bar along with his drink. The owner would check that the girl was willing, which was something at least. She would nod her consent and a deal was struck. It was easy money for the women I suppose. Though perhaps I shouldn’t put it like that because it must have been awful for them. They got paid in dollars which were usually sent back to their parents. If the farang was charged 300 baht she probably got 50 baht out of it, which was crap. She also wouldn’t be paid straight away. The owners didn’t want to lose a ‘good’ girl so they would only get paid maybe once a month. Also, if the owner waited a month to pay up then he might not have to pay at all if the girl was poached to work for another bar. Any girl who moved on could forget about trying to collect her commission owed.

  I can’t really say that most of the women were forced into prostitution; some actually did it out of love for their families. They wanted their parents to have the TV set like the next door neighbours’ whose daughter bought them their set with her earnings from selling her body. It was just a job to them. They hadn’t got the patience or money to go to college and get a degree, and career opportunities were few and far between for women anyway, so this was a short-term option. These women thought themselves to be quite independent and knew that they wouldn’t be doing this forever.

  There was also a strip show, but it wasn’t X-rated like the shows in places like Patpong. Patpong used to be a lot different than it is today—I hear there are always a few disappointed tourists wandering around the town looking for something left behind from its ‘glory days’ of the 60s and 70s. Now, it seems a lot seedier, with far more explicit sex shows, but back then it was more of a white collar area. The girls would usually just remove their bras, while swinging their hips in time to a drumbeat, with a chorus of Americans shouting, ‘Take it off. Take it off.’ The men would shove dollar notes between the girls’ breasts and urge them to go further—they just might remove their panties if they were tipped generously enough. Even so, if the girls did decide to treat the men, the lights would go off the second their knickers did.

  Being a young man with more cash than I’d ever had before, it was only natural that I got acquainted with a lot of these women, the singers, the masseurs and the bar girls. I lost my virginity to a bar girl. I knew that these girls had been tested for VD and I was always careful to only sleep with clean girls. My father had already warned about this disease and its symptoms—you pee like a fountain and you might go blind. I wasn’t like a typical customer with these girls. Some of them were close to me in age and we just flirted and dated like a regular teenage couple and eventually had sex. I was quiet and trustworthy. I was never very handsome but I was always generous and liked to give girls little presents. They knew I was from Bangkok. I dressed well compared to the locals and I had my own money, although I had no savings and lived from wage packet to wage packet. I stopped short of going to brothels thanks to my father’s warning when I was younger, against the dirt and possible lurking germs in these places.

  ***

  I had great fun with the Americans. They taught me how to curse with expressions like ‘Fuck you’ and ‘Go to hell, goddamit’. It was probably different for us, a band from Bangkok. Everyone else—bar owners, girls and taxi drivers—just saw walking dollar signs, whereas we got a chance to befriend them. We had our own money and didn’t need anything from them. Instead, we would buy them dinner and just hang o
ut—drinking and dancing to the latest hits on the juke-box. I got to know some of them really well, including John who was a technician and loved nothing more than to drink, flirt and ride his motorbike. I learned to distinguish the grey uniform pilots (couriers) from the orange uniforms (fighters). In one of the American camps I remember there was a bell hanging over the bar. When you heard the bell it meant that your food and drink was on the house—a sort of ‘welcome home’ present for the fighter pilots. If you were empty-handed, you would be given a beer.

  Bangkok was a little behind the times, musically. These guys introduced me to their favourite songs that were always completely new to me. There was a Pete Seeger song, ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone?’ that was especially popular and a few instrumentals that were hits for the American band The Ventures, including the Hawaii Five-O theme. I would buy Thai beer like Singha or Meh Khong for them and they would buy me their foreign beer. They were supplied with coupons for duty free goods; each man was allowed six bottles of liquor and three cartons of cigarettes, which was ample for bartering. They were also able to get large appliances which they could either sell on to Thai shopkeepers or bring back to their rent-wives.

  Commissioned officers rented out bungalows near the camp which they would furnish with a ‘wife’. These women were different from the normal run-of-the-mill prostitutes, in that they would live with their man as if they were his wife. In fact some couples did actually marry and return to the US as proper man and wife. For the most part, however, the woman would be left behind with her ‘red-headed’ children when the ‘husband’ was summoned to Korea or the Philippines. I befriended quite a few of them; some of them were really quite pitiful. They got swallowed up by their circumstances and simply surrendered. Their Thai families would be quite disinterested in their unhappiness, only wanting them to send money as often as possible, instead of telling their daughters to walk away from this life of almost-prostitution.

  The women I met felt trapped and abandoned, and were usually in dire need of money, either for aging parents or for their children’s education. These children of mixed descent are like a new generation of Thai people today. Thai people like ‘farang’ children and some of them have made a career for themselves in the media. I think it is interesting that white women never date Thai men but white men have no qualms about dating Thai women.

  Some rich Thai people made huge economic gains thanks to the Vietnam War. They would do their research and find out where the Americans planned to build their camps and military bases. Then they rushed out to buy the desired property, and made a killing in re-selling it to the American army.

  ***

  It was a good time in my life, especially since I was a teenager, and seeing all that the entertainment business had to offer me, I decided to forget about school and concentrate on music instead. Besides, the money was too much to walk away from. My father never complained but I think he would have preferred me to continue on with my studies. I ended up staying with Mitra for a year, and got to see a few different places. When the Corsair got a new band, we got a booking with the Hawaii Bar, which then became the Miami Bar. This wasn’t as busy as Corsair but I enjoyed it just as much.

  One night I was completely taken by surprise when my father walked in. I spotted him immediately from the stage. During this time I kept in contact with my family through infrequent letters. It had been a while since I wrote, so my worried father jumped on the train and made the 12 hour journey to see me play and make sure I was alright. After the gig we went for something to eat.

  He told me that he had paid a visit to the governor of Ubolratchathani, who had been a student of his. He first went looking for the governor at his home but he wasn’t there so he went down to his office. He was dressed very casually for an official visit and was reminded of this by the frostiness of the governor’s secretary who asked him for identification and instructed him to fill out a form. She told him that her boss was in an important meeting and she wasn’t going to interrupt him. My father nodded agreeably and sat down to wait. The secretary was struck dumb when the governor appeared and cried out at the sight of his former teacher. He immediately embraced him and introduced him to his companions. He even asked him to talk at the teachers’ seminar which he was opening the following day, which he did.

  The next day, he was grinning from ear to ear when a black Mercedes-Benz arrived to pick him up and then drop him back to my place after the seminar. He stayed with me for five days and then headed back to Bangkok. It was great to see him, and I promised myself I would keep in touch a lot more.

  Sadly my letters continued to be infrequent even after this visit. I should have written to him a lot more than I did. This remains one of my biggest regrets. It probably made his day when he did receive a note of some description from me. He had retired by then and just longed to keep up with my day to day routine. I always intended to write a letter to accompany the money I sent him, but to get to the Post Office I had to pass—or try to pass—by the theatre. More often than not I would end up sitting in a plush seat in front of the big screen, and then would have to dash to make the post and there would be no time to write anything. My heart clenches every time I read this letter:

  Dear Pom (his nickname for me)

  I got your money order son. Today is 21 February 1967 3.30pm. You’ve not sent me letter lately. I guess you don’t have time for it or you don’t know what to write. I too don’t know what to write. However, I’m relieved now knowing you’re OK. You decide for yourself what you should do and what you should not. I leave the decision up to you. You should write me one letter a week at least. Two would be better .

  Hope you’re happy there.

  Sawasdee.

  ***

  My favourite drinking hole was Noknoi nightclub. We would go there in the afternoon to partake in the Tea Dance. I don’t know why it was called that since there was no dancing and certainly no tea—instead everyone was drinking beer or liquor. Noknoi was only one of two nightclubs in Ubolratchathani, the other was King Star. There were a few bars, and after they closed we would head to a ‘coffee shop’ for a last beer along with a plate of fried chicken. I had a leisurely life-style then. My typical day began at 10am approximately. We usually caught a movie about mid-day and then we would practice in the afternoons. As I say we got along fine with the American soldiers. We had a lot in common with them, and were close to them in age. I was also careful to get on with the local people, and chatted to the rickshaw drivers. Sometimes I would get a gig playing at Chaloemsin, just over the bridge from Ubolratchathani. Because I had money I could grab a taxi or rickshaw instead of taking the pink and white bus, but there was a problem with them at first as they didn’t want our Thailand bank notes. Everyone wanted the American dollar.

  It sounds crass to say that I enjoyed the Vietnam War, but I was a young man, whose day was spent listening to and playing music, drinking beer with my friends, without any real responsibility. I had plenty of money and could indulge my fondness for fashion and good clothes. I loved to dress well and no one knew that better than my father. If I ever needed proof of his love for me I need look no further than the fact he bought me a pair of made-to-order Jalernchai shoes. These shoes were all the rage at the time—well, among kids richer than me—and cost the equivalent of an average month’s wage. Of course, the war would impinge on our fun when an American friend wouldn’t make it back from the front—a brutal reminder that life could be very short indeed. I think what I liked about the Americans was that they treated everyone equally. Thai people judge you on how much money you have while the American just wants to know you can do the job. They would give someone a tool-box and let him prove that he could fix a motorbike. If he could, he had a job, regardless of who he was.

  I was impressed by stars like Bob Hope, who would play two shows, one for the officers in their clubs and another for the NCO (non-commissioned officers
) club. If the commissioned officers wanted to see the second show they would have to come in civilian clothes or else they would be booed. The men talked constantly about going home, and most of them did not seem certain about what they were fighting for. They could not get enough of that song ‘500 Miles Away From Home’. It was one of their most requested songs and they would all join in and sing about not having a shirt on their back or a penny to their name. Another popular tune was ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’. Again, it was all about going home.

  One time I left Mitra at the urging of Toi, a friend from home. I got on a bus to join him in Lop Buri, a town north of Bangkok, to play bass guitar, but this arrangement barely lasted seven days. I didn’t go out much and the pay wasn’t good. However, as it was a lot nearer to Bangkok my father came out to see me again. The manager of Mitra rang him at home to ask if I would play with them again, this time in Udornthani, in the north-eastern region of Thailand. I did not have to think hard about my decision; I promptly apologised to Toi and wished him the best of luck, and left Lop Buri with my father. I caught another bus to Udornthani. I had never been there before but my father was told to tell me to go the Lotus bar, which was in front of the big US military camp. I worried that I wouldn’t get off at the right stop, but once the bus dropped me off I found myself looking at Lotus, directly across from the bus-stop. I could hear music and sure enough Mitra were on stage when I went in. I relaxed with a cold beer until the band saw me and beckoned me to join them. The line-up had changed; there were two singers, a Chinese girl and a guy from Malaysia, and a saxophonist, Thep Sornvijit, the only name I remember now. We spent a week there, playing every night to the Americans, which meant a lot of drinking and partying. I loved it. I started to band-hop, like a freelance musician, which was a good excuse to travel and see different places.