She not feel so good. Have abortion three days ago. Go with man last night. He not know she no feel good. He give her five hundred baht. She happy now. She buy me shirt. A nice vendor sits on a small stool and leans into his drink. A pink liquid in a plastic straw. He sucks hard and smiles. A man carry underwear in a wicker basket on his head through the crowd. Tuk-tuks and taxis double-parked in street. Vendors read comic books, do crossword puzzles, read horoscopes, slap bugs, drink and eat, talk so much about money. I’m feeling good, and happy. This is my world. My City of Angels. I know you say Los Angeles City of the Angels, too. But no think it same as Bangkok.
I like sidewalk fashion; it very good and it very cheap. T-shirt trendy fashion. Blue jeans. Shirts with silver sequins. Tight skirts and low-cut blouses. Buy me I’m sexy, I make you feel good, this is what I hear drifting up from the clothes on the wooden tables. The clothes talk to me. You need me, they say. I help you make money. Thick leather belts made of gator or snake or eel. Small leather pouches to strap on the belt. I have no money to go shopping with friend. She still bleed from abortion on Monday. Maybe she go back to doctor Friday. Maybe go with other man tonight.
I stay home and wait for your letter to come with your sweet kisses at the bottom. I no need clothes, just your letter. I liked your last p.s. where you say this cheque is for my beautiful Noi. It make me feel good you say that.
I forget tell you. I quit massage parlor. Boring. Not like. I go to Zeno Coffee Shop. Watch television and talk with friends. Listen to music. Your little Noi worries about ringers on Saturday and Sunday nights. They no have peu-un. Just come alone. Shove handbags on top of Jukebox. Knock off my friend me’s handbag on the floor. They no care. Girl just say, ‘Never mind.’
Ringer a circus word, says Tuttle. Girl like professional axe thrower who goes on tour with a carnival out in the sticks. But as a performer she very good. Number one. No sleep with many men. Weekends, farang, come Zeno and look for the ringer.
Farang journalists write bad thing about us. Maybe you read it. Journalist say HQ girls same as cat. Same, same almond-shaped eyes look room as girl perched in your lap. Cats purring and nudging against you. Cats wanting to be fed. Cats ready to jump. One cat eye on clock, other eye on man’s lap where she sit and purrs. Third eye hunting for a meal elsewhere just in case the bowl empties out and doesn’t get refilled. Thai girl better than cat. No can teach cat to play cards in hotel room. Who can write such bullshit about your little Noi. I know you throw newspaper in the fire. Burn that bullshit. I think of you every day I live. No cat think about anything. My Papa had five cats. Two got killed by truck. He say they no care about him. I say Papa I care about you and your operation. My sweetheart Larry gonna send you money for your operation. I know it. Larry good man. He not ever forget his little Noi. And Noi no ever forget his handsome face. (I still think you only twenty-seven; no believe you can be forty-five.)
Last night I go with Englishman from London to same place you stay in Bangkok. He hold my hand as walk down the soi, and I thinking of you every minute. I pretend he same, same you. Then I hear Thai man shouting in the night. I very scared, think maybe he crazy, got a knife. Ghost fighting him. I see him through old tumble-down fence all overgrown with banana tree and bamboo. Old Thai man in sandals, shorts and a T-shirt, wave fist at the door of shack. He screaming to woman inside, I no like you any more. You got chicken pussy. I no care if you die. He says all these bad words. Chicken pussy, monkey piss, shit mouth. I no tell farang what he say. Just say, “He not care about her.”
My English friend, he makes me laugh. He afraid of fruit bats flying over the soi. He say they like a computer game. Maybe they run into tall farang. Maybe they got rabies. And I tell him the soi with the canopy of trees reminds me of Chiang Mai. As we turned left along the soi, I pointed at a huge tree, “My family live up there,” I said, smiling because I am making a joke.
He looked up and then over at me “You a monkey? ” I give him a playful punch. “No, monkey. Just poor. My father work for 40 baht a day, my mother 30 baht. Not good money.” I smile but I hurting much inside. No like him call me monkey. Him not understand Thai people.
His bathroom different from yours. I always clean myself good. Like a cat (make little joke for you). I wash behind my ears, neck, breasts, and tummy with special attention to what this Englishman calls my combat zone. I take a shower head and put between my legs. Then Englishman comes into the bathroom and I’m very shy. He tells me to use the bidet. You ever see a bidet before? I not ever see. Think maybe toilet. Dirty. Or little sink. I get very scared. He pull me over to bidet. With his other hand, he turned on the water. A tiny jet of clear warm water cascaded up, making a miniature fountain.
I craned my neck forward, “Toilet? ” I asked. I no floor pisser but I no see this bidet before.
“No,” he said. “It’s for cleaning the combat zone,” he said. He picked me up and sat me on the bidet. “I’m certain you didn’t have a bidet in your treehouse in Chiang Mai.”
Water pumps against my pussy. It’s cold. This Englishman’s still holding me down. I think maybe he pervert. Make girl do dirty thing. Shame her. Only he keeps telling me it make girl feel good. And I think about farang woman chasing tuk-tuk driver across Silom Road, her crying, and tearing at him with his massage parlor brochure. Maybe she pissed off she cannot find bidet in Bangkok. Or I think, maybe farang woman have different sex with farang men. They sit each other on stream of water. No get VD. No get AIDS. So I think maybe it a good thing. And relax a little bit, only thinking when the Englishman’s gonna let me get off.
After he let me finish, I raid his fridge. I opened every drawer and plastic container. I look in a large one full of pineapple. No good cut up. He not have a maid, I think. Maybe he poor. Maybe he not pay me. So I’m gonna at least get food. I take a box of cream-filled cookies. Rolling back foil, I stick two cookies in my mouth. I pulled off the Tupperware lid and examined his pineapple.
“This not good. Look at this.” I pointed at the large brown inverted nipple-like growths that he hadn’t cut off with knife. “You like a baby.” I giggled, pointing at the cookies and pineapple.
We make love and I think of you all the time. After finish and roll off me, I turned on his radio to a Thai radio station. I not like his jazz cassette music. The Englishman he ask me what the Thai song say. So I explain him the lyrics. It’s a soft love song. “She say her mother and father very poor. That she love man. That his woman come from abroad. She take her man away. That make her heart break.” I turn over on my side. I crying now. Englishman sees my tears on my cheek. He have a good heart, and give Noi one thousand baht. I get a little smile on my face. I think you understand I no like sleep with Englishman. Not butterfly. Love only you. But no have any money. How can Noi live without money? Noi’s Papa get operation? Noi’s baby get clothes?
Englishman, he say to me, Thailand a strange, exotic land of smiles and sad love songs. And I say to myself, American man name Larry, he my true lover for all time and number one friend, and I just know you send me at least two thousand baht so I keep smiling during sad love songs. You no forget now. Love you like monkey loves banana. You come back Thailand soon. I wait you. Noi.
* * *
LAWRENCE slowly looked away as Tuttle finished. From the beginning of his journey he had tried to figure out what Tuttle had wanted from him. The offer of a job was a pre-emption. As he had listened to Tuttle recite the letter, he had begun to wonder what kind of halfway house his old roommate occupied. After all these years, Tuttle had not married. He had not mentioned the name of a single woman in his life. What bothered him the most was the almost perfect execution of the evening. The appearances of the Ratman, Snow, Crosby, and Old Bill; each a hinge on a door that Tuttle had refused to open more than a crack. Lawrence recognized the loose knit grouping of people who zeroed in on Tuttle through the night. What had Tuttle said earlier about obligation, Lawrence asked himself. That was it. Each acted as if he had made a solemn
oath with Tuttle: had traversed some dangerous waters together, and Tuttle—like Snow’s Lahu Godman—had created an oasis of serenity amidst the chaos of Zeno’s.
Lawrence’s lawyer’s mind examined the shades of meaning in their coded language. Sarah had given a paper on language codes some years earlier at a London conference. She believed that coded language hid one of three things: the sacred, the blasphemous, or the desirable. According to Sarah, the supreme power, the power that held up the political order, was a power rooted in true desires, desires only half-spoken, desires shrouded in fear, and desires which were treacherous to practice. As far as Lawrence was aware, he might have been the only man to have taken what Tuttle had desired. Sarah had been Tuttle’s property at UCLA; he had owned her, no matter how contradictory their relationship, the miscalculations, or the optical illusion they had parted, Sarah had never stopped belonging to Tuttle. Her breaking away had been the only true defeat he had ever suffered. At that precise moment, Lawrence knew that he should slide out of the booth, go back to his hotel, check out, and take a taxi to the airport. But he lingered over his drink.
“Who do you have in mind for me? ” asked Lawrence.
The energy and force of the question caught Tuttle off guard. “You look puzzled. Certainly the thought must have occurred to you. An old friend, perhaps? Someone who might even up things between us. That must have crossed your mind as well. Respectable Los Angeles lawyer busted in whorehouse scandal. That would make for interesting reading in my law firm back home. That’s too obvious. You could have already arranged that during my first three days in Bangkok. Or maybe you wanted to see me face-to-face first.”
Tuttle looked up at the ceiling as if he were reading a message in the dusty tiles. He began to chuckle, then laugh. He sloped his head to one side, and stared straight through Lawrence. “You think I’m still angry. Like I’d lost a prize-fight. And this is some kind of weird rematch between two old guys twenty years down the road. And what is Larry’s great fear? That I’m going to ruin his social status and professional reputation? ”
“Then what do you want, Bobby? And don’t tell me it’s to talk about old times. What in the hell is it you want from me? ”
Tuttle paused, inhaled deeply, held his breath and slowly exhaled. “I may need you to help a friend of mine. A girl who works in a school with me. Her name’s Asanee. She’s twenty. And I’d like to break her out of the spiral. Tomorrow I’ve arranged for you to meet her.”
“That’s it! You want me to help one of your girlfriends? ”
One of the young girls dressed in a Japanese kimono came shuffling up to the booth babbling in Thai to Tuttle. The distress registered in her voice.
“She’s not a girlfriend. Gotta get out,” said Tuttle, sliding across the bench. He stood up and gave Lawrence a backward glance. Girls were flying past as the word spread. The boisterous merrymaking vanished at the jukebox end of the room.” One of the regulars has sliced her wrists in the john.” Then he was gone.
Lawrence watched him disappear ahead of the crowd of girls and waiters. At UCLA Tuttle had a reputation for earning trust. Whatever the loss or disappointment, Tuttle had an ability to restore order; to stand square in the face of dread and draw the person back to safety. Wasn’t that the true reason Lawrence had gone to Bangkok? He had come to Tuttle for rescue. He avoided his own purpose of walking back into Tuttle’s life until that moment. Lawrence had marvelled at university how strangers had sought Tuttle out and asked him to retrieve either themselves or someone who had fallen behind; it had been something about his solitude, his quiet contemplation as if he had a secret up his sleeve, like the Lahu Godman; and his small circle always knew he would return. He had only to be asked.
The beauty of the moment was the realization that Tuttle needed him.
7
After Tuttle stopped the bleeding, two of the girl’s friends took her to a hospital for stitches. She had given a pale smile of thanks as Tuttle helped her into the taxi. The cuts in the wrists hadn’t been deep; enough to draw blood—to draw attention to a crowd—but she had never intended to kill herself. In a couple of hours with fresh white bandages on her wrists she would be back in front of the jukebox, joking like a high school student with her friends, talking about grades given out in baht by customers who did not vaguely resemble teachers.
Lawrence saw fresh bloodstains on Tuttle’s right shirtsleeve. The image of the nurse washing up in the sink with Sarah’s body under a white, bloodied sheet caused tears to swell up in his eyes. He hated that flare of strong emotion; the way it made him feel weak, small, unprotected.
“She’s gonna be okay,” said Tuttle. “Four or five stitches and she’s back in business.”
The words burned in Lawrence’s mind; the words he expected to hear at the hospital emergency room from the doctors and nurses and policemen. Instead Sarah was gone. It was a working girl in Bangkok who had survived. The sight of her blood on Tuttle’s clothes had shaken Lawrence, caught him off guard. He reeled back in the booth as if he had been attacked. Her car had left no skid marks on the pavement. She had plowed straight into the back of the other car with her mind somewhere else; some image of the mind had distracted her for two or three seconds; some trimming of imagination had blocked her from reacting, slamming on the brakes. There had been no final good-bye, phrase, or fragment of a word. All that had been left was her blood everywhere. Blood the emergency room nurse washed from her hands down the sink. Perhaps Tuttle could have rescued her; found a way to pull her back from the moment of impact. Tuttle was talking about the Thai girl’s problems. But all that Lawrence could see was Sarah’s body beneath the sheet. A Lahu Godman like Tuttle might have pulled the sheet back and Sarah would have broken into a smile. “Just playing a little joke, Larry,” she would have said.
Lawrence caught a tear with the back of his hand. Tuttle had never seen him cry before; not that he had ever given that possibility much attention. Lawrence had successfully hid his suffering behind a wall of irony, ridicule, or logic; it had caught Tuttle off guard, that tears had been so close to the surface. He reached over and lightly clutched Lawrence’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything. The massive distance of all those years hardly mattered. This is all I need, Lawrence thought. Tuttle motioned for a waiter and spent a long time ordering drinks; this provided time for Lawrence to compose himself and to crawl back into his lawyer’s self-contained space suit.
“Have you looked at the jukebox up close? ” asked Lawrence, his brow furrowed, as he nodded across the room. “It belongs in a museum. I can’t remember seeing a jukebox since the ’60s. There was one in that bar where you used to work. I can’t remember the name.”
“The Angel Lady Bar,” said Tuttle. “Hamburgers, French fries, draft beer, and flies that looked like they had been bred by the CIA on Mars.”
“That’s right. Remember the jukebox. One Friday after a history exam, we played ‘Hey, Jude’ for a solid six hours one night. Remember that? Sarah had a bag of quarters and every time the song finished, she’d run over and put in another quarter. And the owner, God, what was his name? ”
“Jerry Lubsack. An ex-cop, who was ‘retired’ for beating up a couple of black kids.”
“He told you to unplug the jukebox. You refused. He said, if he heard ‘Hey, Jude’ one more time that ‘Your ass is outta here.’ And you nudged Sarah and said, ‘One more time for old times’ sake,’ in a bad Bogart accent. Lubsack came out from behind the bar, his fists clenched, his jaw set. I thought he was going to punch you in the face. And you said, ‘What’s the matter, Jerry, you don’t like black people. You don’t like the Beatles. Who the fuck do you like? ’”
Tuttle nodded. “‘Don’t ever let me catch your ass in here again, friend,’ Jerry shouted. He was pissed off. The students organized a protest. That was Sarah’s idea. Pickets were up for two weeks.”
“And he phoned you, begging you to call off the boycott. He offered you the bartending job back.” Tuttle issued t
he terms of pulling off the pickets; it was an offer the owner didn’t like. Jerry Lubsack had slammed the phone down in Tuttle’s ear. Hire a black student as bartender was Tuttle’s idea. Four days later, a black accounting major was tending the Angel Lady Bar, and Sarah was playing ‘Hey, Jude’ on the jukebox.
The jukebox in Zeno’s was light years away from the one at the Angel Lady Bar in Los Angeles. Lawrence hadn’t thought about the Angel Lady Bar for years. If there was a game of chance where one could have gone back to Angel Lady, Lawrence would have made the bet. Tuttle sipped his fresh drink, rolled his sleeve up to cover the blood stain and stared out through the smoke at the jukebox. Lawrence had located the center of the HQ universe, he thought.
The center of the entire universe; Einstein’s universe with black holes, bending light, relativity, and the big bang. The spot where people mingled looking for the elusive emotional peyote button that would allow them to experience happiness and pleasure at the same moment, and for a moment that would extend through time and space.
Everyone was pulled to the jukebox. Over the years HQ management moved it at least four times, trying out other parts of the room. Like diviners they had used the jukebox to discover a hidden mother lode—where money rained in with the force of a monsoon gale—and instead they found the seam between the past and future, the location to transport every HQ girl, customer, waiter, and cop backwards and forwards in time. The jukebox had migrated back where it had first appeared in 1968.
A Killing Smile Page 11
