Phantom Lover and Other Thrilling Tales of Thailand

by Jim Algie

  When he walked back into the room, two of the guards pulled a white screen between the gun and the man tied to a wooden cross. Then the doctor drew a target on the screen where the prisoner’s heart was.

  Boonchu leaned over the Heckler and Koch nine-millimeter sub-machine gun made in Nazi Germany during World War II. Looking into that gun sight was the only thing he had ever enjoyed about this job. For it was then that all of his conflicting feelings about his life and work converged: the guilt he felt about taking all these lives and the knowledge that so many of these people were pathological criminals and killers who could never be reformed; the pride he took in setting the record as the longest-serving executioner and the shame that his career as a prison reformer had been a failure; his confusion about living in a country where all the school kids practiced basic Buddhism every morning and yet capital punishment was still on the books; the hatred he felt for his father, whom he had shot a dozen times already in the form of other men, and the hope, however futile, that they could reconcile in a future life.

  To his right, a guard held up a red flag, like a signalman on a railway platform. (The journalists, barred from this chamber, would have been surprised by how bureaucratic and banal the executions were.) When he dropped the flag, Boonchu moved the toggle switch from single shot to rapid-fire. .

  That sudden surge of power and responsibility made his shoulders hunch and the follicles on his scalp tingle. He could not take any chances. He had to empty the entire magazine.

  The bullets tore holes in the screen, as the echoes of the gunshots ricocheted off the walls, destroying his moment of perfect peace.

  All the rest happened by the book. The doctor pronounced the inmate dead and the officials lined up to sign the form. By law they needed at least eight witnesses. According to his rank and seniority, Boonchu lined up behind the director of the Corrections Department and the warden.

  After an execution, he and his team usually went out drinking together, because nobody wanted to be alone with their guilt and ghosts after that, and none of their families could understand what they had been through. But today he had something more important to do.

  He walked out of the death chamber alone, mumbling to himself, “You poor kid. You poor, stupid kid,” but he did not know whether he was talking about the young man he’d just executed by pumping fifteen bullets into his back from only a few meters away, or the prisoner trapped inside himself.

  IN HIS OFFICE in a backroom of the family home, where his wife and daughters were not permitted to enter, Boonchu had been carrying out an experiment in ichthyology for almost the entire two decades he had been the executioner.

  At first, it was only a bet with his wife that he could breed a new strain of fish that would no longer fight. As the experiment continued, he thought it might have wider applications. One day, scientists might be able to apply it to larger animals, even humans.

  The thirty-five, short-finned, Siamese fighting fish swimming back and forth in the glass bottles were the offspring of nine or ten generations of fish which had never fought, never been exposed to other fish except for mating, and never seen any violence whatsoever. By now these males must be docile. Even when he put them together they should not fight. They would be able to co-exist without resorting to any aggressive behavior at all.

  Wouldn’t that make for a beautiful world? No wars, brawls, muggings, homicides. No wife battering or cases of road rage either.

  He scooped up a red and blue fish and put it in with another male. As soon as they spotted each other their gill covers flared and they began circling and nipping at each other.

  He put two other fish together and they had the same hostile reaction to each other.

  Shaking his head and sighing, he kept pairing the males off in their glass cells. He couldn’t believe it but every last one was still a fighter.

  Boonchu rubbed his temples. What had gone wrong? The beer tasted bitter now. His experiment was a disaster. He would not have any exclusive stories for that Australian journalist. His new breed of fish were still vicious, territorial bastards. Nobody could breed that out of them.

  Out of habit, he stood up when the national anthem came on the radio at 6 p.m. He mouthed all the words but did not sing them aloud.

  The news started as he poured himself another beer.

  Boonchu was not sure if it was a fair experiment, though. In the rivers and rice paddies, the fish could not kill all of their rivals or they would have become extinct by now. It was only when they encroached on each other’s territory that they attacked each other, or when they were put into a glass jar together, like prisoners in cramped cells, that they fought to the death. Who could say what they were really like out in the wild? Aggressive, sure, they had to be to survive, but not all the time.

  He did not know who was to blame. The fish or the gamblers? The prison or the prisoners?

  Not even an amateur ichthyologist like him, who had spent so much of his life around these creatures, knew why they fought. Was it out of self-defense or hostility, a territorial instinct or sheer boredom? He could not say for sure.

  His experiment didn’t prove much except that he was still as stupid as he’d been as a boy. It was good that he’d started working in the jail. Otherwise, he never would have made it as a scientist or ichthyologist.

  On the news, the announcer read out the usual list of atrocities: another suicide bomber in the Middle East, more American and Taliban casualties in Afghanistan, a gangland slaying in Hong Kong.

  Over the course of his life, the news had stayed much the same and very little had improved. Not himself. Not the world. Nothing. So why bother retiring from the firing line? The average suicide bomber took out more people in two minutes than he’d taken out in twenty years. The average army general had much more blood on his hands than he did. Compared to these men he was an amateur.

  With his index finger, the executioner mowed down the fish, which were still attacking each other, and mimed shooting the radio too. “Go ahead and kill each other,” he muttered. “That’s all you’re good for anyway, and I guess it’s all I’m good for too.”

  Boonchu thought about emptying all of the fish into a bucket and throwing the radio in to electrocute them. Hey, I should tell the warden about this mass execution technique, he thought, it sure would save the government a lot of money. The cruel kid he’d once been, and still was sometimes, sniggered.

  Some other day he might electrocute the Siamese fighting fish.

  At the moment, he had to get another beer and make supper for his wife and daughters. By now the chicken would have defrosted, the three girls would be home from university, and he should start getting the ingredients together to make his famous “sweet green curry” with morning glory fried in garlic and chili on the side.

  The executioner switched off the light, leaving those beautiful fish with their iridescent scales to nip and tear at each other in the dark, like all the conflicting impulses doing battle, forever at odds inside his swollen gut.

  THE VICIOUS LITTLE MONK

  For Ginger, Fang and Ruth Abramson

  For decades I disliked cats. They were not loyal or affectionate. They were too vain. They treated their owners like meal tickets. Other than rodent control and possessing a certain feline grace, they served no purpose that I could ever see. At least they sensed my indifference and avoided me.

  But my wife loved them. She could never pass the most flea-bitten feline without saying, “Hello, kitty,” and kneeling down to stroke it.

  She also insisted on feeding the strays that lived in the fluorescent-lit parking lot in front of our apartment. Among the litter was a chubby black guy with green eyes who would only come as far as the front door where she would leave his plate of food. Blackie came, he ate, he high-tailed it.

  Another furry freeloader that was the local gangster of the feline posse always showed up with patches of missing fur and fresh wounds. He loved to jump on the kitchen table, searching for sc
raps. No matter how many times she put him down and said, “No, Mucker,” he would leap onto the table again almost immediately.

  One night, when we came back from a dinner party, there was a new cat waiting with the other two. He was not as afraid or aloof as Blackie, but he wasn’t as psychotic as Mucker either. More curious than cocky, the new cat sauntered into the apartment. My wife left some sardines for him on a separate plate.

  At first, I didn’t think much of him. He had dirty white fur with a few islets of ginger on his back and head. In place of a tail he had a ginger pompom.

  After finishing his food, the new guy lay down on the mat of rice straw stitched with the outlines of wild Asian cattle on a red and gold background. Just what we needed: another feline layabout to spread fleas and discontent.

  I picked up the broom to sweep him out the door when I noticed that he had a snaggletooth. Not only that, two of his other fangs stuck out at strange angles. A cat with buck teeth? I had never seen an animal with this abnormality before. So I knelt down to take a closer look.

  As a child I had terrible teeth, too, no nicer than his.

  As a compulsive fantasist, I spun off a brief history of the cat’s life in less than a minute. He was the runt of the litter, the odd feline out. Through no fault of his own, except that he looked different, the other cats shunned him. Even his own parents and siblings had abandoned him. So he became a loner, masking his feelings of shame and hurt with violent outbursts. Looking for companionship, not free handouts, he turned up on our doorstep.

  My wife claimed that cats are highly intuitive creatures. Now that I was looking at him with compassion rather than hostility, now that he “sensed” he had nothing to fear from a fellow outcast, the cat rolled over on his back, offering his stomach for me to pet.

  From experience, I knew that these are cruel, devious creatures who love lulling people into a false sense of security only to bite and scratch them. Around felines, caution has to be the watchword. Tentatively, ready to pull my hand away at any second, I stroked his stomach. He seemed to enjoy that, made no attempt to scratch or bite me, and even licked my hand a few times.

  It was more affection than I’d gotten out of my wife in months and months.

  Night after night, the white and ginger cat returned, staying for hours at a time. When I was working on the computer, he would jump on my lap, curl up in a ball and catnap.

  Even when his mouth was closed he had an overbite of two fangs. So I named him after one of my first favorite books: a wilderness adventure by Jack London about a wolf called White Fang.

  Fang did not care for my wife. He never went near her. His feline intuition must have told him that she was mean, selfish, vain and not to be trusted.

  This was the first cat who had ever preferred me to her. At least it gave us something to talk about. For months, maybe years, there hadn’t been much to discuss. Occasionally she’d make the effort, but any time a woman says to a man, “We have to talk about our relationship,” I find it’s best to avoid such potentially painful subjects by smiling and replying, “It’s fine. There’s nothing to discuss. Why don’t we go out for a drink and invite some friends?” As a diversionary tactic it’s not bad. It’s just that after you use it ten or fifteen times over the course of a few years it begins to sound like you’re putting off the inevitable and prefer the company of other people.

  AFTER SHE WENT back to her homeland to spend Christmas with her family, White Fang moved right in. Every afternoon when I awoke and came downstairs to turn on the ceiling fan, that was his cue to begin mewling outside the front door. Upon entering the living room, he would walk straight over to the red and gold mat and scratch it with his claws for thirty seconds or so, marking his territory I suppose.

  He ate from the plastic plate, but he would never lap water from the other dish. Instead, he’d go into the bathroom to lick the drippings from the showerhead or the leaky pipe off the floor. Or he’d leap on the counter to lick water out of the dirty cups in the kitchen sink.

  His agility astonished me. From a near-vertical angle, the cat leapt a distance at least four times greater than his own height—a feat no Olympic champion could ever equal—and he never missed that jump. Not once did he miss.

  I couldn’t break his habit of getting water from the bathroom or sink. In fact, I couldn’t even get him to respond to his name. No matter how many times I repeated it, either loudly, softly, or somewhere in between, he refused to acknowledge it. Translating his name into Thai didn’t work either. I fared no better in teaching him any verbal commands or tricks.

  Apart from the female homo sapien, this was the most stubborn and capricious creature I had ever encountered.

  Of course, I didn’t have enough experience around them to realize that you don’t train cats: they train you. When Fang lay down near my feet that meant he wanted his belly stroked. If he bit me on the ankle that meant I should pay more attention to him. When he rubbed against my leg as I opened the fridge (a typical feline in this respect) that meant he was hungry. If he wanted to come upstairs he would sit at the bottom of the stairs and begin mewling. Only after I knelt down at the top of stairs, cajoled him for a while, “Come here, Fang. That’s a good boy,” rapped on the stairs with my knuckles, clicked my tongue against the ceiling of my mouth and cursed him a few times, “C’mon fur face, get the hell up here,” would he consider sauntering up the stairs in his own sweet time, immediately laying down on his back for another belly rub.

  After only about two months, White Fang had turned me into an obedient pet.

  Watching the cat strut around the apartment, I got the feeling that in his estimation he had granted me the privilege of living with him, not the other way around. I came to admire his arrogance and independent streak. For hours on end, he would disappear in the apartment. Sometimes I’d find him sleeping under the bed with all of his legs akimbo. At other times he was more elusive, searching out the darkest corners of the wardrobe to use as a den.

  Fang was a moody, solitary, mostly nocturnal creature just like me. I ignored him. He ignored me. We had an understanding.

  The term “lone wolf” is an oxymoron, because wolves are pack animals. Cats are the real loners of the wild realm. Better to call Fang and me “lone tigers.”

  On a primitive, non-verbal and non-intellectual level—there are far deeper oceans of thought and feeling than can ever be plumbed by the most profound language and advanced technology—the cat “sensed” I was in bad shape, because he would not let me out of his sight. When I went to the bathroom he would come and lay beside my feet. When I went to the computer to exchange a few more acrimonious asides with this callous, ungrateful, traitorous, out-and-out bitch whom I no longer recognized as my wife, nor even as a human being, Fang would jump up on my lap for a catnap. When I slunk back into the bedroom to crash out in another coma of despair he would leap on the bed and lay down beside me. Sometimes he’d get bored and wander off, but ten or twenty minutes later he’d be back, jumping on the bed and mewling. I had never heard him make these noises before. White Fang was trying to communicate with me. I have no idea what he was trying to say, but it was a wakeup call, it was a welcome distraction from all the rest of the distress.

  At times, I could have sworn that the cat had put me on some sort of “suicide watch.”

  One afternoon, I woke up to find him sleeping on his stomach with his face snuggled in my armpit. It was like a sight gag from a slapstick comedy. I smiled and stroked the long ridge of his spine. Fang woke up and began licking my armpit. “Look at you, a cat with an armpit fetish. You are a little freak, aren’t you?” Fang continued licking my armpit. His sandpapery tongue tickled a chuckle out of me.

  It was the first laugh I’d had in eons.

  So much for my prejudice that cats are not loyal. This guy was as loyal as any dog I ever had, a superior hunter, and a dozen times smarter.

  As a reward, I stroked the furry bridge of his nose with my index finger. That was his
most sensitive spot. Fang especially liked it when I rubbed the tip of my nose against the bridge of his. He’d close his eyes, purr like a little outboard motor, try to rub his wet little pink nose against mine and exchange “Eskimo kisses.”

  I guess the cat was lonely or something.

  Since men don’t talk much about their divorces, I don’t know whether this was unusual or not, but in place of the melodramatics in mainstream movies, TV shows, pap songs and generic fiction, the arguments and hysterics, the romantic flashbacks and attempted reconciliations, there was just a guy who’d become so emotionally shut down, and reduced to such a barely functioning beast, that he could only relate to a cat.

  HAVING NO ONE I wanted to talk to, and nothing I felt like writing, I spent my afternoons and evenings lying on the mat near Fang, taking a series of disjointed notes entitled “Apartment Study on the Domesticated Feline in Semi-Captivity.” Except the title quickly proved to be problematic.

  The first time the cat attacked me I was startled. One minute he was dozing in my lap, the next he’d flipped over on his back and was tearing at my hand with his crooked fangs and the fully extended claws on his back legs.

  I challenged him to a duel with my eyes. He didn’t look away, he didn’t back down, he kept right on scratching and clawing me. There was no reasoning with, and no talking to, this little savage, who had still never acknowledged his name.

  This was not a domesticated feline. This was a half-feral animal which had never really been tamed.

  Not two minutes after the attack, adroitly balancing on his bottom and one forepaw, Fang sat there licking his other leg clean.

  For long periods of time he would lay on the ground with his head on his paws, neither fully awake nor asleep. As a noodle vendor pushed his cart down the lane, tapping a wooden block to announce his presence, one of Fang’s ears would swivel in that direction. When a motorcycle hurtled past, rattling the windowpane, he would twitch.