by J. F. Gump
Math picked up her pace and hurried outside. She transferred her luggage to the backup bus, then got in line with the others.
The air conditioning of the bus felt like an icebox. Math took her seat and pulled her arms close across her chest, shivering, trying to get warm. It took several minutes for her body to adjust to the coldness. After everyone was on board, the bus pulled into the traffic and sped south.
Math had made this trip from Phitsanulok to Bangkok more times than she could remember. While working in Bangkok, she had come home to Phitsanulok almost every weekend. She had been up and down this road many times, but only a few times when it was light. Funny how different everything looks in the daytime, she mused.
Away from the main roads, Thailand is mostly an agricultural country. The climate is perfect for crops like rice, pineapples, oranges, bananas, tomatoes, cashews and an incredible variety of tropical fruits.
The road from Phitsanulok to Bangkok is an endless spattering of gas stations, produce stands, and impromptu roadside restaurants. Every few kilometers, areas of denser population appear. There seems neither rhyme nor reason as to where these places are located. It’s as if someone just decided to stop and build a few buildings for no reason at all.
These areas all look pretty much the same. On either side of the road are short rows of two-story buildings constructed of concrete, bricks, and blocks. The ground floor spaces are used for shops, while second floor spaces are for storage or apartments. Some people call them shop houses. Math noticed that less than half of the shop spaces were in business.
There were never many people around either. The few people she did see almost always stopped what they were doing to stare. Some of the younger ones would wave as the bus passed.
Being from the city of Phitsanulok, Math couldn’t understand how these people lived in such isolation. She couldn’t imagine living in a place where you know everyone in town, and when you meet strangers, it’s through a bus window as they fly past at 100 kilometers per hour. She wondered how these people survived. What work did they do to make money? Without a vehicle, their isolation would be complete. Math couldn’t think of many worse ways to live.
The rest of the trip to the Bangkok was uneventful. Math spent most of her time worrying if she smelled bad. From time to time, and as inconspicuously as possible, she would sniff at her clothes and her armpits. If there was any unpleasant odor, she couldn’t smell it. But then, did the farangs - the foreigners - ever smell bad to themselves? She had no way of answering that question.
By the time they arrived at the Bangkok bus terminal, her sweaty clothes had dried and she had drank the better part of three bottles of water. She went directly to the ladies toilet and washed herself as best as she could with the small cloth she carried in her handbag. A shower would have been better, but that would have to wait. At least for now, she felt cleaner and less smelly.
Because the bus had arrived late in Bangkok, Math had missed her connecting bus to Pattaya. She wasn’t the only one. Several others had missed that bus too. A bus company representative gathered the stranded passengers into a waiting area and updated them on plans to get them to Pattaya. The good news was that there were seats for everyone on a later bus. The bad news was that there would be a wait. What the representative didn’t mention was that the later bus would be leaving in the middle of Bangkok’s notorious rush hour traffic. Unless there was a miracle, the rush hour would easily add an hour or more to their trip.
Math stood next to a young lady who was about her own age but who, in her opinion, was much more beautiful. Actually, the lady wasn’t more beautiful; it was just that Math had never considered herself as anything other than plain. The lady’s skin was darker, but her well-formed body and near-perfect face easily overcame the dark skin stigma. She wore a heavy gold chain around her neck and an equally heavy gold bracelet on her left wrist.
“Hello. My name is Math,” she whispered to the lady, so as not to interrupt the bus representative. “Are you going to Pattaya on holiday?”
The lady eyed Math warily for a moment before she spoke, “No, I am going to work with my sister.”
“Oh, same as me, except I am going to work with my brother,” Math said, smiling. “Does your sister have a business in Pattaya?”
The lady laughed. “No, my sister works as a dancer in a nightclub. Her boss said he would hire me as a waitress or cashier or dancer or something. By the way, my name is Tana. What bar will you be working in?”
Math felt herself blush. “I don’t understand. My brother has his own business. Why do you think I would work in a bar?”
Tana put her hand on Math’s arm. “Because all of the prettier and sexier ones eventually end up working the bars. I worked in a beer bar last year during the high season. I had a few short times every week and made a lot of money. Really, I had a lot of fun, too.” She smiled, waiting for a reply.
Math returned the girl’s smile, even though she didn’t feel like smiling. She wondered what a short time was, but was embarrassed to ask. From the way Tana said the word, she had an idea of what it meant. If it was what she thought, she was sure she didn’t want to talk about it. Tana’s hand on her arm made her uncomfortable and excited at the same time. She felt emotions she thought she had buried long ago.
Two years earlier, while Math attended technical college in Phitsanulok, she had become very close friends with one of her classmates. In time, she had fallen in love with the girl, or at least she thought she had. But she had never mentioned her feelings to the girl. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was embarrassed, or because she couldn’t stand the rejection that might come. She had been crushed when her friend got pregnant and then married. After that, Math had been very careful about her relationships with women. She never understood why she felt attracted to certain ladies. She often thought she must be a lesbian, but on the other hand she liked men too. She was very confused about her emotions.
Math raised her arm to adjust the purse strap on her shoulder. The movement broke the contact with Tana’s hand. Math took a step away from the girl. “I don’t think I will ever work in a beer bar or any other kind of bar,” she said. “If I can not work with my brother, I will find some other job or go back to my home.”
Tana smiled. “Darling, that is what I said last year. We shall see what you do after you get to Pattaya.”
Math did not respond.
After an uncomfortable silence, Tana suddenly perked up. “Oh, I see a friend of mine. A girl I know from Pattaya. I must say hello. Do you want to come with me?”
Math shook her head. Tana left the group of stranded passengers and hurried away. Math was relieved to see her go.
The bus company representative finished answering questions and returned to his other duties. The stranded passengers drifted off in various directions from the waiting area. Math found a seat away from the commotion of the bus terminal. She was exhausted from the heat of the broken down bus and the long ride from Phitsanulok. She propped her feet on top of her suitcase and settled back in the seat. Within ten minutes she was asleep.
Chapter 3
Math was awakened by a firm but gentle hand shaking her shoulder. She looked up to see Tana’s smiling face. Tana held out her hand, “Come on, let’s go. The bus is boarding. If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss this one too.”
Math took Tana’s hand by reflex and allowed herself to be pulled from her seat. Together they walked to the boarding area and entered the bus. Math waited until Tana found a seat, then sat four rows away. She didn’t mean to seem rude or unfriendly, but she was tired and not in a mood to talk. Outside, the Bangkok sky had grown pale. An east moving mass of clouds promised rain before night.
Rush hour was in full swing. The streets were clogged with cars, buses and motorcycles. After twenty minutes of little progress, the storm arrived and assaulted the city with heavy sheets of rain and jagge
d bolts of lightning. The stop and go traffic became mostly stop. She glanced at her watch. It was after six. Unless traffic cleared up soon, it would be ten o’clock or later before they reached Pattaya. A prick of uneasiness jabbed at her. She had called her brother several times during the last two days but he had never answered his phone. He had no idea of her plans and would not be waiting for her when she arrived at the bus station.
When she had left home earlier that morning, she had intended to arrive in Pattaya no later than five or six o’clock, while it was still daylight, and then catch a motorcycle taxi to Anan’s house. She liked to surprise people and she thought Anan might enjoy her surprise visit. Now she wasn’t sure if she could find his house in the dark. She had been there only once, and that had been more than a year ago. On impulse she dialed Anan’s number from her cell phone, her handy as she called it. Again, there was no answer.
Time flew while the bus was going nowhere fast. Going nowhere fast, Math thought, pretty much described her life. It was going nowhere fast, slow and at all speeds in between. Nothing was going right. She had no job, no money and no man who loved her. Now she was headed toward Pattaya on the slim hope that her life would somehow change for the better. More likely, with her luck, her brother would be out of business within a month. If things didn’t work out with her brother, she would do something else. Maybe she could find work in a restaurant or a hotel. Tana’s suggestion that she could work as a bar-girl entered her thoughts. She found the idea both repulsive and exciting.
She pulled at her bra, adjusting it away from the scar on her chest. It was an ugly scar that started at her cleavage and streaked close beneath her left breast and across her side before racing to stop at the middle of her back. The scar was a constant reminder of her heart defect - a lifelong gift from her mother’s failed, fourth-month abortion. A gift her doctors predicted would end her life before she turned forty.
***************
Long before Math turned ten years old, she knew something was wrong. She couldn’t keep up with the other kids when they played. She was always tired and out of breath. Sometimes her heart felt like it would jump from her body. By the time she was eleven she had started fainting on a regular basis. When it became clear that something was terribly wrong, her mother, Nui, had taken her to a doctor. The doctor and Nui spent a long time talking in private. Nui was crying when she emerged from his office. The doctor took Math aside and explained everything about her heart. There were two options, surgery or death. Until the financial details could be arranged, Math was restricted to limited activity. She rarely left her house.
At that time, her father, Supit, had a job that provided their family with medical insurance; but the operation was very expensive and the insurance company refused to pay. Every day her mother called the insurance company, begging them to change their minds. Every day she hung up crying.
As the days multiplied into months, Math resigned herself to the fact that the doctor had been wrong. She had just one option and it was not surgery.
One day, several months after the doctor’s diagnosis, Math slipped away from her house and went to the temple to pray. She had been to the temple many times in the past, but always with her mother or older sisters, never alone. She knew some of the monks who lived there. They had always been very kind to her.
That day, as eleven-year-old Math knelt praying, one of the monks entered the room. She had talked with him many times. His name was Jum. He watched her for a long time that afternoon, before coming to sit next to her. “You look very sad,” he said.
“I am sad,” she replied. “I am going to die.”
The monk sat in silence for a long minute. “Why do you think you will die?” he finally asked.
Math explained everything about her heart and the operation and the insurance company.
When she finished talking, the monk said, “I wish your mother had told me.”
“I don’t understand. Why would she tell you such a thing?”
“Never mind,” he replied. “Come, we must pray for your health.”
Math and the monk prayed together that day. She felt good knowing he had asked God and Buddha to help her. She left the temple happier than she had been in months.
Three days later, the insurance company relented to Nui’s daily begging and crying. They would pay for the operation. It was like a miracle. Math was positive that God had heard their prayers.
Two days before her twelfth birthday, Math underwent open-heart surgery to remove the excessive and dangerous blood vessel growth inside her chest. Her body had been doing it’s own version of a heart bypass and doing it all wrong. Blood vessels had sprouted in places they didn’t belong and were growing haphazardly between veins and arteries. Her heart was being starved to death by her own body. At the time of her operation, the doctor’s only promise had been that he would probably have to operate again.
It had been while she was recovering from that first operation that she learned about her mother’s attempted abortion. She was lying in her bed at home, trying hard not to cry from the pain in her chest. Her mother was in the next room talking to Nuang, Math’s oldest sister.
As the evening wore on, her mother’s mood turned from worry and sadness to guilt and self-condemnation. As Math listened, small bits of truth bled out into the night, cutting deeper and colder than any surgeon’s knife. Her own mother had tried to kill her before she was even born. It was a cruel realization for twelve-year-old Math. It would be a cruel realization for any twelve-year-old child.
“Stop,” she screamed, when she found her voice. She didn’t want to hear anymore.
Nui rushed to her side. “Is it your heart? Are you in pain?”
Math answered truthfully, “Yes, it’s my heart.” Indeed, it was in horrible pain, but not from the surgery.
That night something died inside of Math. That same night something also died between Math and her mother.
***************
The bus crept slowly out of Bangkok. The windows had fogged over, making it difficult to see outside. There wasn’t much to see anyway, except other buses, trucks and cars inching forward, maneuvering for position. She closed her eyes, hoping she would fall asleep.
As the bus rocked gently down the road, memories from her recent past floated through her mind. Memories of her ex- fiancé and the nightmare of their engagement. Memories she wished she could forget. She tried to focus her thoughts on something else but failed. Eventually, she gave up and let the horrid memories take over.
Her ex-fiancé’s name was Sawat Janchai. Sawat was tall, thin and handsome. Also, as she had just recently found out, Sawat was gay. Not 100% gay, but bisexual, which to Math was gay enough. She and Sawat had become engaged and moved in together four months before she started her job in Bangkok. The job and the engagement were both finished now. Their relationship had turned into a nightmare that would not stop. She wasn’t sure how, or if, it would ever end.
Sawat, like most Thai people, had not gone past the sixth grade because his family could not afford the tuition. But Sawat was street smart, a survivor. At the age of fifteen, he disappeared from Phitsanulok and didn’t return until he was twenty-one.
Math had been surprised when she bumped into him at the Big-C Shopping Center. They had been friends and playmates when they were both younger, but she hadn’t seen him for a long time. Sawat had changed so much she barely recognized him. They spent that afternoon talking about when they were kids and laughing at the silly things they had done back then. Later, they brought each other up to date on what they had been doing since they had last seen each other.
Sawat told her about his travels with a Thai carnival group that went from city to city entertaining people at festivals and cultural events. His job had been to set up stages and to load and unload the props and costumes. Sometimes he would perform in the shows. Sawat had been a roadie, a common
laborer. After six years, he had tired of the gypsy life and returned to Phitsanulok. He had found a job doing maintenance work at the Big-C Shopping Center.
When Sawat had finished his story, Math updated him on her own life. She had graduated from high school, had endured a second operation on her heart and was nearly finished with college. She told Sawat she was determined to get an education, even though her family was too poor to afford it. She had been selling clothes, make-up, perfume and anything else people would buy so she could pay her tuition. Languages came easy for Math and she was at the top of her class in English. In less than a year from that day, she would graduate with a technical degree in computers and accounting. She was sure she would get a good paying job somewhere.
After that day at the Big-C, Math and Sawat dated on and off. They would go shopping, to the movies or out for dinner. Then last fall, at the Loy Krathong festival, Sawat had asked her to be his future wife. She had been so excited and happy that someone loved her that she said yes without hesitation. One week after his proposal, they moved in together. Her mother and father had been against it. It wasn’t proper and it wasn’t polite. But Math didn’t care, she only wanted someone to love.
Sawat was her first lover and she had tried very hard to please him. The first two times they made love she had reached an orgasm. After that she could not. No matter how hard she tried, it just never happened again. Still, she had taken pleasure in satisfying Sawat. She believed it was her duty to take care of her man and to make him happy.
By the following February, Math had graduated from college and had been hired by a finance company in Bangkok. The salary was okay and they provided an apartment and insurance as part of her pay. She and Sawat decided to keep their small rented house in Phitsanulok. They agreed she would come home every weekend until he could find work in Bangkok or until she could find a good paying job in Phitsanulok.
