Pool and its Role in Asian Communism

by Colin Cotterill

  Wilbur didn't laugh so much that it hurt 'cause by then there weren't nothing hurting no more. Hepatitis ain't the most painful disease, but it drains every ounce of strength you ever had. It don't really give you nothing but, man it's a thief.

  So even though he didn't laugh till it hurt, Wilbur laughed till there weren't no more water in the reservoir to make tears no more. There weren't no doubt in his mind after that. No cover in the world could come up with stories like that. Sure as eggs is eggs, Waldo was a QCO in a pool ball factory, and that just made him even more remarkable in Wilbur's mind. The guy had to be an angel.

  Wilbur was tuckered out from all the mirth he didn't deserve, so, with his weak hand clasping Waldo's, he said goodnight and went to sleep. And that was the end of Wilbur.

  -o-

  "Aretha, honey. There's someone coming up there I'd like you to take care of for me. He might need some help finding his wife. You was always good at finding stuff.

  And Reet, I love you. Don't you forget that."

  69

  Saifon pretended she wasn't too concerned about Wilbur, but she was. Waldo didn't see her cry about it, but she did. She stayed busy to keep her mind off it.

  When she'd got back over to Savannakheth, she stumbled on a deal. Like I said, everyone knew it wouldn't be long before the commies took control. In the early seventies, a lot of folks with reasons to be afraid sold up and got out.

  The owner of the bar I been calling the 'manger', he had every right to be scared, what with all the sinful earnings he'd been living off all his life. He bought himself a visa to Australia and almost give the place away. Saifon still had some of her savings left over so she bought herself the bar and all the paperwork she needed to own it. Them was good days for picking up bargains from folks that was planning on a trip. That included stuff like passports. Before the end of 1972, Saifon was Lao again.

  She learnt herself Lao reading and writing so's people couldn't cheat her. She put walls on that bar and turned it into a Bar and Grill, something like Moose's place but without the class.

  Now I ain't told you yet what she was doing with all this money while it was still rolling in. She didn’t forget them little girls. No sir. Some that was rescued in the States, they let stay there if they wanted to. Most of 'em did cause they didn't have nothing to come back to. Don't forget they was pretty screwed up already. But there was some that wanted to come back to Laos. It did worry 'em some that they'd been sold, but what happened in the States was so frigging horrible they just wanted out of there.

  That's where Saifon come in. First off, she took in the four girls they'd just put on the boat. But one by one, the social services people in Washington sent back others. Saifon bought a big house on the river for about twenty cents and moved in there with the girls. She hired a private teacher to help 'em get through schooling and tried to give 'em the love they was all missing. It weren't easy. She worked hard to make that house a home.

  One evening, Saifon was up on this bamboo ladder. It swayed from side to side like the bamboo wasn't dead yet. She had a pot of off-white paint and a brush made out of donkey mane. The insects was just lining up waiting to jump, splat into the fresh paint. The front of the house was starting to look like a slab of chocolate-chip ice-cream.

  A voice come up from below.

  "If you painted in the morning you wouldn't have so many insects, you know?"

  "Well, believe it or not, I did start painting this big heap of shit in the morning, but I've only got one brush and one me, so I'm still up here."

  She looked down to see who she was talking to, and nearly fell off the damn ladder. Standing there looking all ruddy and well fed and happy, was Nit.

  Saifon come sliding down the bamboo like a monkey with a paint tin over one arm. The brush was still up top stuck to the wall with the critters. She weren't too sure if she should grab hold of the girl 'cause the Nit she remembered weren't a great one for physical contact. But she got her answer when Nit threw her arms around Saifon's neck. They didn't give a damn about the paint that was splashing over the pair of 'em. Nit was crying like a baby.

  Saifon looked up over her shoulder and there was Pop and his ma, Souk looking back at her. She shook off Nit and went over and give 'em both a hug.

  "You all just get back? I guess you been at Wilbur's place, already?" Souk answered.

  "Yes."

  "Then you know."

  "He left some money for us with the neighbors."

  Her and Pop both hung their heads like they'd lost something important. There was these maid-master relationships all over Asia where the maid was real polite and the master went round telling all his friends the servants loved him. That was bullshit. You might suppose that was a fact in about one percent of cases. But in the case of Wilbur it was true as day.

  "So I guess you ain't got nowhere to go."

  "There's another American in his house now. He's got a Thai wife and she already took a maid."

  Pop cut in.

  "And besides, the Americans ain't gonna be around for much longer." Souk slapped the back of his head, but not hard enough to convince anyone she meant it. Saifon handed Pop the paint and dragged Souk towards the house. She swept up Nit on the way.

  "OK. The good news is I'm looking for a housekeeper myself, and a little guy to fight off the insects while I paint this crumbly old house."

  Nit looked up at her with her big eyes.

  "What about me?"

  "You? Hell, you don't have to do a damn thing. You just sit back and eat. You're family."

  And that family kept on growing.

  -o-

  By 1975, the restaurant and the house was both booming. But that's when the shit hit the fan. In the December of that year, Laos become the Peoples' Democratic Republic. The Pathet Lao Socialist forces marched peacefully into Vientiane, calm as you like, without firing a shot.

  If the truth was to be told, there probably wasn't that many people left in town to shoot at. Most of the upper classes and the intelligent folks and them that had made enough money, had all fled across the Mekhong river in bathtubs, and closets, and anything else that would damn well float. They took their valuables with 'em. So there wasn't that much left for the PL to start a new republic with. But them old commies did the best they could with the nothing they had.

  Saifon's restaurant suddenly took a nose dive cause the royal military wasn't getting paid no more and them that didn't flee the country, burnt their uniforms and registered with the communist party. Like I said, Laos was a very forgiving country.

  The new socialist government announced there was gonna be cutbacks for a while, just till the republic got on its feet. Now, for country folks that had nothing already, cutting back didn't make no difference. Half of nothing's pretty much the same as nothing.

  But the commie way of cutting back wasn't so bad. After a while, the poor people was getting rice and basics in a national share out. They was doing better than ever. So for a while, if you was used to starving, communism was a real good thing. The new government took over businesses and salvaged what was left after the rats had all deserted the ship.

  Politics ain't my strong point, just as a lot of other things ain't. I imagine, like most good ideas, communism worked pretty good in the early days. But as time went on and with people being the shits they are, there was those that tried to make a few bucks on the side. It's one of them things that if everyone ain't rowing together, the boat stops moving. You know what I mean? If pure communism didn't work in a country like Laos, it ain't gonna work no place.

  See what happens? You write a book and it makes you smart.

  By the time Laos become a republic, Saifon had thirteen girls at her place from thirteen to eighteen years of age. Eight was from the smuggling. Five come in off the street. They loved that old place. They called it the Raindrop house for obvious reasons.

  But without no income from the restaurant, Saifon really didn't know how she was gonna make ends meet. Waldo
started bringing over supplies on his boat. He was like a one-man import business, with oars.

  Then there was one day when he was sitting in the living room looking fitter than Jessie Owens from all the rowing, and handsomer than Sydney Poitier from the dieting. He was down below two-hundred pounds for the first time since he was about twelve. Him and Saifon and the girls was singing songs and playing games and having a gay old time when Souk the maid comes running in like there's a catfish up her ass.

  "The Pppppp ….The Pppppp"

  They looked at her. She was shaking like a jelly. Saifon asked the girls,

  "Can anyone tell me what the hell she's saying?"

  "The Pppppp ….The Pppppp," the girls all said.

  "That much I got myself. Souk, you wanna take a deep breath and try that again?"

  The maid sat down and fanned herself with a magazine.

  "The …the …the President's outside."

  "The President of what?"

  "Laos." The girls didn't know whether to hide or go put on make-up.

  "Come on."

  "Really. He's in a big black car. He wants to know if he can come in." One of the girls collapsed like a sandcastle when the tide washes through it. They give her snuff to bring her round.

  "You didn't just leave him out on the doorstep? Jee. What does he want with us? We ain't done nothing."

  Waldo was standing to attention, adjusting his T-shirt. He was just about to be exposed as an illegal alien in front of the President of Laos.

  "What if they want to close this place and take the girls away?"

  "Over my dead frigging body. He'll have to fight me personally if he wants to touch my girls."

  "Wrestling or Judo?"

  The voice come from the doorway. There, dressed in a white suite with a white tie like the doorman at the Inn Diana whorehouse stood the quiet guy, Soup. Waldo smiled like a sunrise.

  "Soup? Hell, it's good to see you. You ain't the President."

  "I am too."

  "He certainly is. Did well for himself, didn't he?" Mrs. Pornsawan come out from behind him dressed in a pretty Lao skirt and blouse. There was a little posse of armed guys buzzing around, checking the girls for weapons and the cushions for bombs.

  "Well, I'll be a sheep's you-know-what." They almost shot Waldo when he went over to President Souphanouvong to give him a hug. He slowed down some when he saw the guns pointed at him.

  "Waldo. Long time no see."

  "President. Well, gosh darn. Ain't that something? I ain't never shook hands with a president before."

  "Then you'd better do it." He waved away the guards, and him and Waldo greeted each other like old bowling buddies. Mrs. Porn give Saifon a hug.

  "We lost track of you," the old lady said. "We only found out you were here two days ago. Communication with the south isn't so good. And these, I take it, are your girls." The girls was all sprawled out on the floor nopp'ing the visitors. That's as polite as you can get in Laos short of digging a hole and climbing in it. They was all shitting 'emselves at being in the same room as a Prince who was doubling as a president. Saifon and Waldo scored a few brownie points with the girls that day.

  After the shock, they all sat down for tea. The girls was on their best behavior. Didn't spill nothing. Didn't say nothing embarrassing, well, almost nothing. Porn and Soup was real proud of what Saifon had done for 'em. They didn't want to take the girls away. Hell, no. They wanted to give 'em more.

  While Waldo and Soup and the bodyguards was off playing pool on the table Waldo had made by hand, and the girls was doing their chores, Mrs. Porn had took Saifon off to one side.

  "Saifon, dear. You know we have a lot of girls who lost families in the bombing. Most of them were forced into prostitution to stay alive. We need somewhere to keep the younger ones."

  "Well, I tell you, Mrs. P. If you don't mind 'em eating dirt and drinking river, they're all real welcome here." Saifon was so proud to be asked to do it she almost had a chest there for a second.

  "I know times are hard but I think we can help. We can provide basic rice and canned food and seeds and cuttings for fruit and vegetables. And I can get you staff. We can probably do something about that restaurant of yours as well. Perhaps make it an official socialist party venue for regional meetings and functions. You interested?"

  "Is the Prince communist?"

  "I take that as a 'yes' then. We have a deal?"

  "You bet." She hugged Mrs. Porn then ran over to the pool table to hug her dad. It really messed up his shot. While she was explaining her new deal, Mrs. Porn come over to the table and sank three straight spots. She was either born lucky or born with a pool table in the loft. Soup patted Saifon on the back.

  "And I believe you've become Lao again. That qualifies you for a medal."

  "A medal?" She blushed like the back end of a baboon. "I don't want no frigging medal …sir."

  "Too bad. It's a government decree. You have no choice."

  Waldo was smiling outside but unhappy inside. That was another one of them psychology moments he'd read about. He was feeling left out of things. Oh. He was happy for Saifon. Course he was. But this was looking like one of them 'don't call us, Waldo, we'll call you' moments. Here he was playing pool with the president and he didn't even have a visa. He was an illegal alien and the guilt was too much for him to bear.

  "Soup, I got a confession to make."

  "Ah, yes. Waldo." Mrs. Porn give him his cue back. "I hear you've been in Thailand for the past four years."

  "Yes, ma'am. On and off."

  "So I assume your Thai is quite impressive."

  "It could probably impress anyone that don't speak it."

  "Now, don't be modest. As Thai and Lao are quite similar, I don't imagine it would take you long to master Lao, given the chance. I'm thinking, with all these young girls alone in this big house, they could very much have use for a male guardian. Someone big."

  It took him a while to realize who she was talking about.

  "Me?"

  "Although I have to insist you stop dieting before there's nothing left of you. You're getting far too attractive. I don't want the girls falling in love with you."

  He was always a sucker for compliments.

  "Ah, shucks." He blushed. " But I really got to tell you …"

  "Yes?"

  "Well, you probably noticed already, but I'm an American."

  "I do know that."

  "Then, how can I stay in Laos …after all that's happened? You know?"

  "The war, you mean? As far as I know, the war's over. Isn't that right, Soup?"

  "I believe so. We Laos don't hold grudges, Waldo. If you go to Vientiane, you'll notice that your consulate is still open. We haven't thrown them out."

  "You mean … I can stay here? Do you think you can get me a visa?" Saifon slapped him on the back of the head.

  "Waldo. He's the goddamned president. He could make you minister of pool or something if he wanted."

  "Hell."

  -o-

  So that's how Saifon and Waldo got to stay in Laos even through the tough times. They was real happy there and they lived happily ever after, till they died. So, I guess the only mystery that's left is who the hell I am. You know what? I decided that ain't none of your business so I ain't gonna tell you.

  70

  The end

  No, I'm only kidding you. I'll tell you. My name's Bounlahn. I was one of them lucky kids what got sent to the Raindrop House.

  Saifon didn't never get married. She was still working her butt off for the girls there. Nit and Pop, not to no one's surprise got wed as soon as they was of legal age. Man, we had some party that day.

  Laos is still socialist although Soup and Mrs. P are long gone. Old Soup still found time for the odd game with Waldo even when he was retired and real old. Laos is a different kind of communist now. A lot of folks that split in 75 have come back and they're allowed to be capitalists again, so long as they share the profits with the government. Peo
ple is people, right?

  Saifon's restaurant's doing good again now there's money to spend. That's how come we had enough to come back with Waldo. Yeah, that's right. Ninety five years old and he was still kicking around at the house, still teaching us girls English. If it weren't for Waldo, my English wouldn't be as great as it is. There's a lot of us in Laos talk just like him and Saifon.

  We didn't think he was ever gonna die. He was fit as a fiddle. Then, one day he comes into the social room and he says,

  "Girls, I gotta go home."

  "You are home," we say.

  "No. I mean home where I was borne. It's time to be with Aretha."

  It's funny how he knew. He must of got a fax from heaven or something. He'd made his peace with Aretha long before. I guess she'd forgive him for terminating her cat and she wanted him back.

  Saifon knew there wasn't no point in arguing with him. She went out and bought three tickets. Two was for her and Waldo, of course. But when she told me I’d be going with 'em, I almost fell in the frigging Mekhong. Me? I was the nastiest bitch they'd ever seen at the Raindrop. I stole. I lied my butt off. I went with boys, and men. I treated Saifon like shit. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't never get her to hate me. I guess I was testing how deep they loved me. I never hit the bottom.

  After I got over the shock I was scared to death. I'd never flown before less you count the time I fell out the upstairs window, drunk. I was sure they'd wait till we was flying over something hard and they'd open the door and throw me out. I deserved it. But they didn't. You know what they did instead? They told me a story. This story.

  They sat on either side of me and it was like that stereophonic sound at the movies. One in each ear. Both of 'em filling in the gaps, laughing, and crying. Waldo tells one bit. Saifon tells another. And it's true, Waldo's memory was going towards the end, and it was like he was hearing his own story for the first time.