"Jees, Saifon. They sell kids where you come from?"
"It ain't usual. I just got lucky."
She was talking to Waldo through the TV. Didn't take her eyes off it. I guess it was easier to tell Granny Clampett than telling Waldo. "Some guy drove me and some other girls the same age across into Thailand in the back of a truck. A few days later and we was in the stinking hold of a tanker. Nowhere to pee or wash. No light. We was scared shitless, Waldo."
"I can't even imagine how terrible it must of been. This tanker, it's like a boat, right?"
"Yeah. A big empty son of a bitch. Every sound echoed around inside it like some big giant was clanking around. And that's how I got to America. Now, we gotta interrupt this exciting story for a cup of coffee. Stay tuned for further installments."
She went off to the kitchen and left Waldo sitting there all dumbfounded. What she'd told him was so far out, it might as well of been science fiction. He believed her sure enough, but he couldn't never put himself in her shoes. And he got a feeling this was only the start of one nasty story.
She come back with two coffees, handed one to Waldo and kept right on talking like she hadn't let up.
"So that's why I been saving, Waldo. That's why I been working two jobs to get the money together to do what I gotta do, and go where I gotta go."
"Where you gotta go, Saifon?"
"Back there."
"To Laos?"
"Yeah. Man, I make a mean cup of coffee."
"Why the hell you wanna go back there after what they done to you?"
"I wanna go back because of what they done."
Waldo tried to think of a fitting passage from the bible but nothing come to mind, so he made something up.
"Lord said, 'revenge maketh man as sinful as the original person what sinned in the first place …against the revenger'."
"Shit. Sinning's the last thing I'm worried about. If he ain't struck me down yet then I got away with it. I don't just want revenge. I want to be sure this shit ain't still happening.
When I got to New York, they fed us up and cleaned us and dressed us pretty. I remember they took us to this big …like, closed down theatre full of guys in suits. They paraded us up and down on the stage and they was bidding for us, like cows, Waldo. Like cows.
"The guy that got me handed over eleven hundred-dollar bills. That's eleven hundred bucks and that was fifteen years ago. That was a hell of a lot of money, and I bet you anything the trade's still going strong. I sure ain't seen nothing about it getting uncovered in the newspapers."
"Me neither."
"And if they'd busted the ring, it would have made news."
"Saifon, honey. We should tell the cops about this."
"Man, I been in contact with the cops. But you see I ain't got no proof. I can't recall where we landed, where they took me, where they sold me, nothing. All I remember was getting away and this cop taking me in his car. I couldn't tell no one what happened. They sent me to social services. I guess I was pretty fucked up by then. Excuse my mouth. Cause by the time they worked out what language I was talking and they found me a Lao social worker, I didn't wanna talk to no one. I was one evil little bitch in them days, although you wouldn't believe it when you see how sweet I turned out."
"I believe it."
"Thank you. They tried to force some learning down my throat but I wasn't having none of it. I did get into English, but. I could see that being real useful for me so I was the ace student in English class. That's why I speak English so good now.
"It wasn't till four years ago I got this hankering to close them kid smugglers down. I went looking for the cop that picked me up when I escaped. He'd retired already but he was interested in the story, and I guess he believed me. He told some pals that was still working. But there weren't nothing he could do without evidence.
"The old cop drove me around in his car, but I didn't see nothing I recognized. I gotta go back over it. Go back to the start. Retrace like every step. See if anything comes back to me. If them people are still trading little girls, I gotta do something about it. Know what I mean, Waldo?"
Waldo's head was spinning. I don't mean rotating. I mean he was real confused and shocked. Being a parent wasn't going to be a piece of cake at all.
"Saifon, what you're suggesting here ain't gonna be easy."
"No."
"And it ain't gonna be safe."
"I know."
"Fact is, there's a lot of money in this people smuggling business. Where there's money there's corruption, and where there's corruption, there's people who'll shoot you for a share of that money. You could get yourself killed."
Saifon smiled. Then there was the longest silence while Waldo lined up all the details and possibilities in his mind. She thought he'd wandered off the subject altogether till he finally said,
"So, I guess I'll go with you." She didn't see nothing funny about that joke.
"You what?"
"What kind of a daddy would I be if I let my only daughter go off and get herself killed?"
"Waldo, that's only on paper. You don't got no obligation."
"Aretha wouldn't never forgive me."
"She never met me. Waldo you …"
"No, my mind's made up."
"That's crazy, man. Shit. Where you gonna find the money to travel to Asia? I sure as hell can't pay for you."
Waldo went across to the desk, took his bankbook out of a drawer, and let her look at his last deposit.
"Damn, Waldo. You rob a bank or something?"
"It's from the Mexico sting. The cops salvaged it."
Her eyes rolled in desperation.
"Absolutely frigging not. I don't want no big ball of lard there with me. What frigging good would you be to me in a fight? And you can't frigging run. And how the frigging hell would I go about disguising a three hundred fifty pound nigger in a country where nobody's over three feet? You'd screw everything up."
He wasn't offended.
"That's okay. I know you're just talking like this to test my will."
"No. I'm talking like this cause I think I just heard the stupidest thing I ever heard. Get it out of your fool head. Ain't no way in the world you're coming to Laos. Jees."
35
"May I help you with that sir?"
The steward was one of them queens Waldo had read about. He hadn't never seen one in real life. Not less you count the farm boys that experiment on each other before they get married. He'd seen plenty of them.
"Waldo was certain this was a real one. He wasn't quite manly and he wore his hair too neat. But Waldo was a tolerant man.
"I can't do the sucker up."
The queen steward leaned over Waldo to help force the two ends of the seatbelt buckle to meet, and there was a whiff of lilac.
"If you could just breath in a little more, sir."
"I am breathing in, boy. But that don't make no difference on the outside."
"OK. Then I'm gonna have to squeeze you some." And he did, and the belt kind'a dissected his body like a wire through wet clay. As soon as his friend had left, Waldo undid the thing cause he didn't wanna be two little Waldo's.
Saifon was sitting in the aisle seat pretending to be asleep. She was still sulking. He told her she was gonna have to start talking to him again soon. But it hadn't happened yet. She'd get over it. If she really didn't want him there she could easy of run away and not told him. But she left her air ticket lying around so it was easy to call up and book the seat beside hers.
But Waldo was too excited about leaving the ground to get dragged into her mood. It flew, man. He couldn't believe how this big piece of old tin was able to lift him up and carry him away. The country below looked just like it did in Aretha's atlas. Except the states didn't have their names written across 'em. They must of made that bit up.
He felt like a little kid again. He'd surprised himself as much as he'd surprised Saifon when he said he'd come along. But hell this was gonna be fun.
"Sir, would y
ou like something to drink?" Saifon's pretend sleep had turned into a real sleep beside him. The queen steward and his boyfriend had this trolley full of all kinds of neat stuff. Waldo ordered a Coke.
"Coming right up sir."
It made him feel real special when they called him 'sir'. He already had a soft spot for pansy boys. He reached into his pocket and wondered if he had enough change to pay for the Coke.
"You boys take American money?"
"Sir. You don't have to pay."
"I don't?"
"No, sir. Everything's free on board."
"Well, I be damned."
"Saifon woke up when they was over the Pacific. Waldo was there beside her, trying to open the window so's he could smell the sea air.
"What the hell you doing, Waldo?"
"Hi, Saifon. I guess this sucker's stuck."
"It don't open."
"No? That's too bad. They tell me sea air's real good for you." She laughed.
"You open that window and you wouldn't have no head to breath through."
"Hey. You're talking. I guess that means you forgive me."
"Shit no."
Yeah she'd forgiven him, but she wouldn’t let him know it yet. It almost knocked her own goddamned head off when he followed her through the gate at Michigan airport. She asked him where he thought he was going and he told her he wanted to see the airplane. Then he followed her on the airplane and she knew he'd fooled her. She made this crazy scene but he just grinned at her. She was so happy inside it almost made her cry. So she shut her wet eyes and pretended to sleep.
She was mad at herself. In spite of all the cussing and the orneriness, inside she was still the scared little critter from the hold of the tanker. She was frightened about what she was about to get herself into. Waldo wasn't much use for nothing, but he was a size, and she needed something heavy to hold her down. Stop them belly butterflies from flying away with her.
She didn't rightly know what she was gonna do. She knew what province she was born in but she couldn't recall where her witch aunt lived. It was way out in the Boondocks. There wasn't no other kids, no town. Just her and her no-talking, no-loving aunt, and plenty of rice fields. All she had was a phone number in Bangkok.
Waldo looked back over his shoulder.
"You suppose David would let me have another Coke?"
"Who's David?"
"The steward."
"Well, ain't you been busy while I was asleep. I thought you give that shit up."
"Yeah. I did. But I never been out of America before, and I need something patriotic inside me. Who knows how long it'll be before I see Coca Cola again."
36
The big red sign at Don Muang Airport read, 'Coca Cola Welcomes You to Thailand' It was eight times bigger than the official sign. It probably had something to do with all them American boys passing through on their ways to getting killed in Nam.
Waldo and Saifon stood in the immigration queue holding their brand new passports. South Bend bus terminal was more sophisticated than Bangkok's airport in them days. There was a lot of chaos. Guys in tight uniforms with big guns, drowsy passengers not knowing what direction they was supposed to go, piles of lost bags with panties and socks spilling out of 'em.
When Waldo and Saifon both stepped up to the immigration officer's desk together, the guy yelled at 'em. Waldo had to step back over the red line he thought was just a floor decoration. When it was his turn, he felt bad he was forcing this poor little guy to do a job he obviously didn’t like.
"You not military?"
"No, sir."
"Why you come here?" Waldo remembered his line.
"Transit to Malaysia." They come up with the Malaysia story because there weren't no fighting there. If he'd said 'Laos' they'd figure he was a spy or something. According to the papers, the US had been using Laos as a transit route to get to Vietnam.
The officer demanded to see his return ticket and his money, and he didn’t make no secret of the fact he didn’t like the big guy. Or maybe he just didn’t like no one.
The drive into Bangkok City took longer than the flight. They spent more time stuck in traffic than they did moving. It was two in the afternoon and the sun baked 'em inside that old taxi like one ofWaldo's TV dinners. There was this box affair in the front pretending to be an air conditioner, but the windows was jammed down. What was coming in was hot and sticky. Waldo still had that dumb grin on his face.
"What is it you find so goddamned pleasant about all this, Waldo?"
"Look, girl. We only just arrived, and I'm already sweating like a hog. A few weeks of this and I'll be Sidney Poitier."
"Who?"
"Darn it, Saifon. Don't you ever go to the movies?"
"No."
Twenty minutes after they left it, the airport was still there grinning at 'em in the rear-view mirror. Saifon was already feisty after the flight. She was surprised when her old language come out of her mouth.
"Driver, ain't there some quicker way than this?"
He smiled the first of his eight thousand smiles of the trip.
"This is the expressway, ma'am."
"Jesus. I'd hate to be on the frigging slowway."
It took 'em an hour and twenty minutes to get off the expressway and on to something that showed Saifon what 'slow' really meant.
All the stuff that got Saifon pissed about being stuck in traffic in one of the dirtiest cities in the world, turned Waldo into some happy black Buddha. He sucked in exhaust smoke from old wooden-bodied trucks like it was fresh air or something. He waved his thumb at every vibrating tuk tuk driver that pulled up alongside. (A tuk tuk's kinda like a golf cart but without the luxury.)
He'd been practicing his wai-ing since the tour company girls at the airport prayed at him. It weren't nothing religious or nothing. That's just how they say hi to each other over there. It's called a wai. Them girls at the airport wai'd hi and tried to convince poor Waldo to sign up for a Bangkok Sex Tour. He threw away the brochure but he hung on to the wai.
There he was wai-ing at all the confused pedestrians, and they didn't have no choice but to wai back. He got plenty of practice. There was crossings painted here and there across the roads but they didn’t mean shit. Cars ignored 'em like they was just art to make the road prettier. So people clubbed together in little bands and launched off into traffic so's they could get across the road in one piece. There weren't no people bridges in them days.
Waldo noticed how everything was just that little bit smaller than back home. Sidewalks was narrower. Bus stops was shorter. Cars was dinkier. And of course the people was all Saifon-sized. Some of 'em was even tinier than she was. He felt like he was in this one episode of Land of the Giants where some giant kid had real people to play with like they was toys.
Nearly all the shops was joined together in rows, and opened out onto the street. It was like looking in on an ant farm, like all the rooms was sliced open and you could watch 'em living their lives without their noticing.
Some old guy sat in his underclothes in his hardware store reading a newspaper. A big lady in a cake shop was fanning herself with a pancake. Three un-moving girls with overdone make-up was sitting in a gold shop like cadavers in lipstick. A young couple sat out front of their sign-writing shop and laughed when their baby crashed his stroller into a dog. The dog didn't get the humor.
Waldo soaked it all up like one of them Kitchen Guzzler magic sponges. Saifon was that other ad; the spray for your sofa that stops spilled stuff from soaking in and leaving a stain. You know the one I mean? She didn't let nothing in at all. She grumbled and cussed all the way.
Dtui the driver looked at her in the mirror one time when they was stuck at a red light that didn't do no other colours.
"What you looking at?"
"Sorry, sister."
"No. You got something to say, you say it."
He looked up again and weighed up whether he was likely to make her any more pissed than she already was. It didn't seem possi
ble so he spoke his mind.
"Well, I come from the north-east. The only reason it's Thailand and not Laos is cause it was easier to use the Mekhong as a border than putting down ropes. But you ask 'em all up there and they'll tell you they're Lao. So I got sisters that's Lao, and I got a wife that's Lao. And all my neighbors and friends and fiancées up there is Lao. And if I saw a photograph of you, I'd say you look just like them."
"So, what's your point?"
"So, it's only the look. You got a Lao nose on a Lao face on top of a Lao body. But there ain't nothing Lao about you."
"Good." She said 'good' but in truth it hurt.
"It's like some foreigner found this empty Lao body and climbed inside."
"And that's positive or negative?"
"I don't know. It must be confusing, sister."
She leaned back onto the hot seat and, for the hundredth time, wondered why it was still covered in the plastic they put on it in the factory. She had a lot of wondering to do. For the first time since she could remember, she was surrounded by people she looked like. She wasn't a chink or a nip or a wog. She could walk down the street and no-one'd take the slightest notice of her. But Dtui was right. She was a frigging imposter. There was an alien inside her that wouldn't never really understand what these people was thinking or feeling.
37
By the time they got to the Malaysia Hotel, Saifon knew that old taxi better'n her pink Chevy. She'd got to practice her Lao with Dtui, and it surprised her how it was all still in her head. It was like it was in storage in a little room up behind her ear some place. They got to know Dtui better'n some wives know their husbands. He give 'em the address of his relatives and said to be sure and look 'em up when they got up there.
The Malaysia was a happening hotel. They'd only chose it cause Waldo wasn't happy about lying to the immigration guy. Waldo probably never told a real honest-to-goodness lie in his life. This way he could say he was going to Malaysia and really mean it.
Pool and its Role in Asian Communism Page 8
