Namdi froze in place, listening. There was the wind rustling through the brush but nothing more. It was as if the plains held its tongue. Namdi’s breathing was labored and each inhalation shot pain through his ribs. As he wondered how he was going to go after Berksted he saw something moving toward him though the grass.
It was a gray hide, spotted black. It moved with purposefulness, trying to remain quiet. A chill went down Namdi’s back. He turned and hobbled toward the jeep. The hide followed. It turned in an arch, going up away from the jeep and then coming down toward it.
Namdi started the jeep and drove, watching in his rearview. The hide was motionless awhile, then ducked low and disappeared.
Namdi was not a religious man. There wasn’t much room for such a luxury in his work. But for a reason he didn’t understand, the sight of that hide had frightened him down to his core and he said a prayer. It didn’t move like the tiger; it seemed to move with awareness. As if it fully understood what Namdi was thinking at that moment and tried to adjust its movements because of it. It seemed almost . . . human.
CHAPTER
19
Bangkok is tightly packed on the east bank of the Chao Phraya River, its brown-green waters winding past the tenements and buildings and temples like a guardian watching his charge. It has the feeling of a modern city built over an ancient one, centuries-old Buddhist temples with crimson colored roofs and golden spirals pointing skyward nestled in between twenty-first century office buildings and hotels. The traffic was frequently congested to the point of immobility; cars, three-wheeled rickshaws with motorcycle engines, bicycles and brightly colored buses all vying for space on the narrow roads.
Being so close to the river, the city was also a green landscape of palm trees bursting forth from the ground in between the office buildings and residential tenements with finely manicured shrubs in front of the contemporary hotels and auditoriums that were found everywhere. The people were not unfriendly but were so hurried that tourists occasionally thought so. Many of them had the dark complexions of the Mongol hordes that conquered and devastated the land nearly a millennia ago.
At night, many of the temples and hotels would light up with red and purple and blue lighting, attempting to attract the swarms of tourists that were always clamoring for entertainment. It is also the home of all the major commercial enterprises and banks of Thailand and a major hub for foreign businessmen interested in Southeast Asia. The sidewalks and roads are always swarming with men and women in business suits, cell phones glued to their ears.
But above all, it’s a city meant for tourists, and tourists seek excitement and pleasure. And like any city designed for pleasure, vice is king. When night falls, the go-go clubs turn to strip joints and brothels, any dancer for sale for the right price. As the night wears on, in some of the districts where law enforcement makes no more than unskilled laborers and is easily bought, child prostitutes can be found as easily as a drink of beer. Pedophiles come from the world over to abuse children as young as they wish. Drugs are also prominent, heroin and opium easily found on any street corner or in any smoke-filled bar. At night, life is cheap.
Eric Holden knew this the second he stepped off the plane just under a year ago. He sat now on the porch of a ten dollar a week hostel, drunk though the morning had just begun. His clothes were unwashed and he hadn’t shaved in months. The hostel faced a busy street and he watched the overflowing traffic struggle to move forward, the odd businessman or police officer glancing toward him.
“Come back bed baby,” Lily said from behind him, the sheet wrapped around her nude body. She was short with long black hair but had big ruby lips that seemed disproportionate to her small face.
“Your English is terrible,” Eric said.
“I learn good. In school. And I watch A-mer-ican TV.”
Eric stood and walked back inside, Lily following him to his room. The hostel was two floors of rooms no bigger than closets with only one bathroom and shower on the first floor. There were cockroaches but they were easy to grow accustomed to. The rats were a bigger problem, their squeaks and the patter of their feet against the wood floors at night making sleep difficult.
Eric pulled a handful of cash out of a pair of pants that lay on the ground and handed it to Lily. She smiled and dropped the sheet, her sleek body curvy and soft to the touch. Eric ran his fingers along her breasts and put his mouth to hers, dragging her to the bed.
When they finished Eric watched her get dressed, putting on a miniskirt with no underwear and high-heels. She straightened her hair using the reflection in a window and came over to Eric to give him a kiss on the cheek.
“I see you night,” she said.
“Not tonight.”
“But I make very good yum yum,” she said, running her hand over his chest.
“Get out,” he said as he reached for a pack of cigarettes that lay on a small table. As she left, he lit a cigarette and sat up in the bed. The sheet was pockmarked with gray and black cigarette burns and the room smelled like mold, but he’d stopped noticing such trivial things. He had bigger problems; his money was almost gone and he couldn’t get legitimate work without a work permit that needed to be approved by the U.S. embassy.
Eric pulled a small black canvas bag out from under the bed. It held a needle, a length of cord, a spoon, and a small plastic baggie filled with the fluffy white powder of heroin. He cooked it up and tied the cord around his bicep, using his teeth to hold it tight, and injected the urine colored fluid into a vein. H was so relaxing he’d lost control of his bowels the first time he’d tried it, but not anymore. He could function on it now. A girl had gotten him to try it his first few weeks here, he remembered. What was her name? An American girl stripping here. She had dirty blond dreads and muscles that bulged underneath her clothes. They’d gotten high and tried to have sex but he’d passed out and she didn’t really have the urge to keep going. What was her name?
He itched a rash on his arms that was starting to turn red and leaned his head against the wall, the warmth of the drug spreading through his body; into his heart, down his legs, up into his head. It made his scalp tingle and his face hot, every muscle limp and motionless, his eyelids straining to remain open. He sat for four hours staring at the walls and listening to the traffic outside. Finally, his vision swirled, and he fell asleep.
CHAPTER
20
The effects of the H hadn’t worn off when Eric woke up but he felt alert enough to go out. He dressed and walked outside as the sun was going down, a red globe in the distant horizon, painting the surrounding clouds pink and purple. The hostel was close to the business district and he walked the streets, stopping every once in awhile in some alley or doorway to smoke.
He walked past a large glass and chrome hotel, golden lights shooting out from the front and giving it a sun-colored hue. Tourists in shorts and cotton shirts poured in and out, a few eating at the restaurant on top of the hotel’s roof, laughing and drinking. The sidewalks were as packed as the roads and people bumped into him every couple seconds, though he didn’t notice.
As darkness fell he walked to a public park across the street from a large stadium where Muay Thai fights were held and he could hear the roar of the crowd and the twangy high-pitched music that accompanied the fights. The park was essentially one large circle with a pond in its center. Just off center, a few dozen feet from the playground, were benches. They were covered with youth from all over the world who’d come to Thailand in search of something that they would never find.
There were at least fifty people at the park, smoking pot and getting drunk. Most of them were Americans who’d come over expecting the easy money and low cost of living that a tourist based economy could sometimes provide, only to find that the Thai people reserved the good jobs for other Thais.
Eric walked to a small group of about ten, no one noticing him. Some of the kids were rambling on about stories that may or may not have happened, meth in their veins robbing them
of sleep for five or six days at a time. Seated on a bench, not really speaking with anyone, was a slim American boy with long brown hair pulled into a ponytail. He was smoking and staring with green, savage eyes at the people before him.
Eric sat next to him. “I need more H, Ray.”
Ray blew smoke out of his nostrils and looked over to him, a large metal piercing through the bridge of his nose. “How much you need?”
“Just a dime bag.”
“That’s all?”
“I don’t have any more money,” Eric said, nearly nodding off, his eyes half-closed.
Ray reached into his pocket and pulled out a small vile of cocaine. He laid a line out on a small mirror and handed that and a Thai baht—the equivalent of a dollar bill— to Eric. Eric rolled up the baht and snorted the coke, his senses awakening and being overtaken with a general jitteriness.
“I got a way you can make money,” Ray said.
“No,” Eric said. He’d been approached by Ray several times before about prostituting himself, young American boys being highly prized.
“Not that,” Ray said before snorting a line. “We’re takin’ down a bank. You in?”
“How much?”
“There’ll be three of us, so three ways.”
The coke made him antsy and he couldn’t think clearly, but Eric knew he had to do something. His money would be gone and the H would be gone. Though she was a whore, he’d come to rely on Lily for companionship. He knew she only came around because he gave her money and drugs, but at night, even her icy embrace was better than sleeping alone. Once the money and H were gone, she would be too.
“When?” Eric said.
“Tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Ray put the coke away and stood up. He motioned to a young Thai boy with a shaved head. Eric had seen him around before; his name was Dak and he’d been a Thai fighter until he did some time in prison. Now, he was just a junkie like everyone else here.
“Eric’s coming,” Ray said, “go find a car for tomorrow night.”
CHAPTER
21
Eric sat with Ray awhile longer, talking about women they’ve had since coming to Thailand and the places to score the best drugs. Eric eventually grew bored and stood up to leave. Ray didn’t say anything; there were no hellos or good-byes in this place.
The coke had given him a second wind and Eric was starting to feel good. He became acutely aware that he hadn’t eaten today and his stomach was starting to growl. Across the street from the park was a little food mart, set up outdoors on the corner with stools in front of a large bar. Eric walked to it and sat down on a stool at the end of the bar.
The owner was a small Thai man probably in his mid-sixties wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. He walked over and said something in Thai.
“English?” Eric said.
“Yes,” the man said.
“Rice and chicken with a beer, a Tsing Tao if you have it.”
The man nodded and began preparing the meal. The rice came out of a large container on the ground and the chicken was fried on the spot with green peppers, peanut sauce and onions. The man popped open a Tsing Tao and placed everything in front of Eric.
He put some cash on the counter and started eating. The food was all right. The problem with Thai food was that it was so spicy it covered up any foul tastes. It was difficult to tell if the meat you ate was fresh or a week old.
When he finished, he leaned his elbows on the bar and took out a package of cigarettes, lighting one and blowing the smoke through his nose. The man next to him noticed and turned to him.
“Can I have one of those?” the man said. He was an American, older. Wearing a green army jacket and glasses. His face appeared worn out and wrinkled, like it’d been through a washer.
“Sure,” Eric said, pulling one out of the package and handing it to him.
The man had his own lighter and he lit it and leaned forward against the bar, the cigarette held loosely between his fingers. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“What’s your name?”
“Eric.”
“I’m Bill, nice to meet you.”
“Yeah.”
“Where you from Eric?”
“Los Angeles,” Eric said.
“LA huh? I hate that damn city,” he chuckled, “though this ain’t much better.” He inhaled deeply and let the gray smoke trickle out of his mouth. “You been back to the States lately?”
“Not for a while.”
“Me neither. Too much shit there. Christians and atheists got the whole country fucked up if ya ask me.”
Eric looked over to him. “You were in the army?”
“I was. 101st Airborne.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. You remember everything happened in Little Rock, don’t ya?”
“Not really.”
“First integrated school. We was there. Most disgusting thing I ever saw. Them negroes were just little girls man, just kids. The crowds was throwin’ bottles at ‘em, they had this black doll strung up on tree . . . it was disgustin’. I ain’t never seen people treated that way.” He took a long pull off the cigarette and had a sip of the beer in front of him. “Until I came here anyway.”
“Why’d you come here?”
“Good place to run away I guess. Why’d you come here?”
“Same.”
“You gotta be careful though. Places like this, they’ll eat up your soul if you let ‘em.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Oh, ten years or so. I was in Vietnam before this, and Peru before that.”
“You just travel around?”
“I wouldn’t call it travel. Travel means I got a home. I ain’t got no home. I just go wherever I can be alone for a time.” He finished the cigarette and put it out in a glass ashtray in front of him. “I’m headin’ out to The Bayou, you been?”
“No.”
“It’s a bar. Nothin’ special, but it’s where old vets like me hang out sometimes. You wanna go?”
Eric polished off his beer. “Sure, I got nowhere else to go.”
*****
Bill led Eric through the busy sidewalk crowds and down an alleyway. They came out onto another street, this one with less traffic and dimly lit. They walked three blocks before turning into another alley and coming out onto another street. Before long, they made their way past what Eric guessed was a ghetto.
The building didn’t look like the ones downtown. There were no glimmering lights or golden spirals. There was only chipping concrete and wood patched with rubber or plastic. Children were running around everywhere and most of them didn’t have shoes. One boy, slim and without a shirt, approached them as they walked by.
“You come,” the boy said as he grabbed Bill’s arm and tried to lead him away. “Good yum yum. You come.”
“No,” Bill said sternly, and pulled away. The boy let go and turned to wait for the next tourists that walked by. “They’re scouts,” Bill said to Eric. “They work for pimps and got young girls in them apartments right there. Their job’s to get you in. Sometimes though, they’ll just rob you.”
They made their way past the decrepit buildings and to a wooden structure with a painted sign out front that said “Bayou.” The bar was just a mass of dirty tables with drunken men yelling. The smoke was so thick you could barely see in front of you and the floors were sticky. A few worn prostitutes were placed throughout the bar and every few minutes one would walk to a back room with one of the customers.
Bill walked over to a table filled with American men. There were five of them and he grabbed two chairs and sat in one. Eric sat in the other and looked over the men.
They were all vets. The ones that didn’t wear the faded jackets still wore their dog tags. All of ‘em except one who was in a wheelchair. He was the youngest too, Eric surmised. The man saw Eric staring and looked over to him.
“What’chya starin’ at faggot?” the man
said.
“Nothing,” Eric said.
“Yeah, well keep your faggot eyes to yourself.”
“Cool it Jim,” Bill said. “He’s all right. This is Eric, from LA.”
Eric watched as Jim stared at him, and then looked away. He grabbed a shot glass full of a thin black liquid and finished it without flinching.
“Jim was hurt in Iraq,” Bill whispered to Eric as he leaned over. “Got home, and his wife had herself another man.”
“Same thing happened to a friend of mine.”
“Shit like that happens when you’s away for two years and you got a nice young wife at home.”
Eric looked over to Jim and watched him order another couple shots. He downed them as well and began laughing and joking with the man sitting next to him. Eric saw a colostomy bag on the back of his wheelchair. He looked to the other men; one was missing an arm and had his sleeve folded up to his shoulder. Another had deep scarring over his face. One, a white guy with a crewcut, appeared uninjured, but when he turned to the left, Eric saw a deformation in his skull. It made his head appear caved in, as if part of it was just missing.
“I gotta go,” Eric said, standing up.
“We just got here,” Bill said.
“I gotta go,” was all Eric managed to say as he walked outside. He left the bar and began making his way back. The young boy grabbed his arm as he walked past.
“You come,” the boy said.
Eric ripped away from his grip. “Get the fuck away from me!” he yelled. As he stormed off, the boy looked at him, puzzled at his reaction, and then began looking around for the next tourist.
CHAPTER
22
Eric spent most of the next day sleeping, getting up only once to use the bathroom. He waited until nightfall to climb out of bed and change into some clothes.
He met up with Ray at the park and they walked across the street and waited on the corner of an intersection, smoking cigarettes and watching the traffic. Every man or woman in a business suit that walked by would peak Ray’s attention and he’d ask them for change in his broken Thai.
The Extinct Page 9