Private Dancer

by Stephen Leather

  And Pete doesn't understand my family commitments. I've three younger sisters, all at school. They need money for clothes and for books. My father owns a little land but it's not good land and not much grows there. My father makes charcoal from the trees that grow there but it's hard work and he doesn't make a lot of money. My grandmother's old and she needs medicine and my brothers don't work, they've always been lazy and they won't lift a finger to help my father. If it wasn't for Sunan, Mon or me, my father would have to sell the house or the land.

  The other thing Pete doesn't understand is that when you've got money, people are always asking you for it. Friends who can't pay their rent, a few baht for food, a pack of cigarettes, maybe. My friends know that Pete is giving me money and so when they're short they'll ask me to help them out. What's a girl to do? They'd help me if they had money and I didn't, we always do, we help each other. We have to. When I first moved to Bangkok, friends would let me sleep on their floor, they'd share their food, their cigarettes, they lent me clothes and make-up until I could start earning enough to take care of myself. Last week Apple was sick and couldn't work and her landlord put a padlock on her door and wouldn't let her back in until she paid her telephone and electricity bill, almost two thousand baht. She didn't have the money so she asked me. Of course I helped her. She's my friend. But if I told Pete that, he'd get angry. He keeps saying that he wants to help me, not my family and friends. I don't know if or when Apple will pay me back, but that's okay. What goes around comes around. The day might come when she's got a rich boyfriend and I haven't, then I'll be able to ask her for money.

  I wish I was more like Sunan. Sunan saves a lot of her money, and she's got a really nice room and a television and a stereo. Next month she's going to buy a Toyota pick-up and Bird is going to be driving us around. Sunan works really hard. She goes short-time every night, and sometimes she goes with farangs several times a night. She doesn't play cards like a lot of the girls, and she doesn't smoke or drink. I smoke a pack of Marlboro a day and sometimes I drink beer. Sunan's older than me, she's twenty-six, and she's been working in Zombie for about two years. She used to send money to me when I was in Surin, and she bought our father a motorcycle. I've got a motorcycle, too, it costs me five thousand baht a month. It's up in Surin. Pete keeps trying to get me to sell the motorbike, he says I don't need it because I'm working in Bangkok. He doesn't know what my house is like, it's miles from Surin and even the nearest village is tiny. What does he expect me to do? Walk?

  Sunan has a farang who sends her money every month. His name is Toine, from Norway. He met her last year and he said he didn't want her to work so every month he sends forty thousand baht to her bank. He gave her a mobile telephone, too, and that cost ten thousand baht. Toine has a wife in Norway and he only comes to Bangkok twice a year. Sunan's so lucky, I wish I had a farang like that. Toine keeps saying he's going to divorce his wife and marry her, but Sunan doesn't believe him. All farangs lie, she says.

  PETE

  I got a call from Nigel saying that he wanted to get together for a drink. He had an early meeting at an office in Silom Road so he suggested Patpong. There's a bar he likes in Patpong One called Safari. It's a ground floor bar so the girls aren't allowed to dance naked and they play good music, lots of Sixties stuff. The one snag is that the ceiling is really low over the two dance floors so the go-go dancers are virtually midgets. Nigel was already there when I arrived, sitting with a small bald guy with a bushy grey beard who looked like an elf out of uniform, sharp pointy features and mischievous eyes. He wasn’t much taller than the go-go dancers. He was a nice guy and I liked him almost immediately. His name was Bruce and he'd been in Bangkok for eighteen months, running a leather handbag factory for a Thai businessman. He and Nigel had obviously been there for a while because there was a thick wad of blue chits stuffed into the plastic mug in front of them.

  We stayed in Safari for an hour or so, then Bruce suggested we go to one of the upstairs bars. Patpong One is a narrow road linking two major Bangkok thoroughfares, Silom Road and Suriwong Road. I could never work out why it had remained as a red light area. All around it were high rise office buildings and up-market department stores so I would have thought it would have made economic sense to demolish the bars and redevelop the area.

  There are bars on either side of the road, filled with stalls selling fake watches, cheap clothes and tacky souvenirs. The bars on the ground floor are mainly go-go bars, each with at least a hundred girls. The first floor bars have dancers too, but they also put on shows. The girls in the upstairs bars danced topless or naked, which strictly speaking is illegal but the bars have lookouts on the ground floor. Whenever the police pass by the lookout hits an alarm button and red lights start flashing in the bar, signalling to the girls that they're to rush off and get dressed.

  The shows are what pull the punters up to the first floor bars. They have girls pulling razor blades out of their fannies, bursting balloons with darts fired from blowpipes in their fannies, writing with felt tipped pens stuck into their fannies. They have shower shows, candle shows, where the girls drip hot wax over their bodies, and full sex shows. The first time I went into one of the upstairs bars I was amazed by what I saw, amazed at the sort of things girls would do to their bodies for money. Now I hardly even notice what's happening on the stage. Even the full sex show is a disappointment. According to Nigel, the same guy's been doing it for at least ten years. He's tall and thin and not particularly well-endowed, and he makes love to his wife five times a night at five different bars. He starts at ten o'clock and performs every thirty minutes, usually with the same woman, his wife. I once saw him do the business with a different girl and was told that it was his wife's sister. Apparently his sister-in-law's happy to step in when the guy's wife doesn't feel up to it. A real family business.

  Bruce stopped outside a bar I hadn't noticed before. There was a sign saying ‘Dream Bar’ and a flight of stairs leading up to a closed door.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Bruce.

  ‘Never been before,’ I said.

  ‘Give it a go?’

  ‘Sure.’ There were two Thai teenagers standing at the bottom of the stairs holding laminated cardboard signs. One of them shoved the sign in front of us. It was a menu of sex shows.

  ‘Have you got the wine list?’ asked Bruce, but the teenager didn't get the joke.

  ‘Fucking show,’ said the teenager.

  ‘Fucking great,’ said Bruce, in his broad Newcastle accent. ‘Lead on MacDuff.’ He twisted around and beckoned to Nigel. ‘In here, mate!’ he yelled.

  ‘Any cover charge?’ I asked the teenager.

  He shook his head. ‘Come inside,’ he said, pointing his sign towards the door.

  ‘How much for a Carlsberg?’ I asked.

  The teenager pointed at his sign. A Carlsberg was eighty baht.

  I nodded at Bruce. ‘Seems okay.’

  ‘Pete, you worry too much,’ he said, slapping me on the back and running up the stairs two at a time. Nigel and I followed him in.

  Bruce had ordered two beers and a gin and tonic and was sitting at a table close to the raised dancefloor where two naked girls were gyrating unenthusiastically to a Thai pop song.

  ‘Quiet, isn't it?’ said Nigel. There were only half a dozen other drinkers scattered around the bar.

  ‘It's mid-week,’ said Bruce.

  The dancers scurried off the stage and were replaced by two girls who went through the motions of a lesbian act.

  ‘Where's our chit?’ I asked. Normally the waitress would put a beaker containing a running total of the bill on the table.

  ‘It's coming,’ said Bruce. ‘Relax.’

  Nigel began bitching about his job. He sold advertising space for a company that produced trade directories and most of his wages were commission. He hated the work and I got the impression that the only reason he stuck it was because he couldn't get anything else.

  The lesbian act finished and a middle-age
d girl with horrific cellulite climbed onto the stage. She began to pull a string of plastic flowers from between her legs.

  ‘I'm getting a bad feeling about this, lads,’ I said.

  Two heavy-set Thai men were standing by the door. They kept looking over at us.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Nigel.

  ‘It doesn't feel right,’ I said. ‘There are hardly any girls. And too many Thai guys. And where the hell's our bill?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ said Bruce.

  ‘I don't know. But let's go somewhere else.’

  ‘You just want to go to Nana,’ said Nigel. ‘You're missing Joy.’

  I gestured at a waitress. She ignored me.

  One of the men at the door came over. He had a tattoo of a leaping tiger on one of his forearms. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘The bill,’ I said.

  He pointed at the far end of the bar. ‘Over there,’ he said. He went back to stand by the door.

  ‘We're in trouble, guys,’ I said.

  Nigel and Bruce exchanged looks. ‘What, come out without your wallet, did you?’ said Bruce. ‘Anyway, it's my round.’

  He and Nigel started giggling like a couple of schoolboys. They were drunk. They really didn't seem to appreciate the spot we were in. I went to the end of the bar. I didn't see a cash register or anything, but then I noticed that there was a corridor leading off to the right, out of sight of where we'd been sitting. At the end of the corridor was a group of five Thai men standing around a cash register. I walked towards them. They were big men for Thais, and most of them had tattoos or scars. My heart was racing. This was like no other go-go bar I'd ever been in.

  I asked them for the bill and I was given a slip of paper. Two beers, 160 baht. One gin and tonic, 90 baht. Three shows, three people, 1,800 baht. Total, 2,050. About fifty quid, and we'd only been in the bar for ten minutes. I turned to go back to the bar but a hand gripped my shoulder.

  ‘Where you go?’ asked the biggest of the men.

  I smiled. You always have to smile in Thailand, no matter how angry or scared you are. ‘I'm going to speak to my friends,’ I said.

  The five heavies followed me back to the table. I showed the bill to Bruce and Nigel. ‘Bloody hell, we're not paying that,’ said Bruce, getting to his feet.

  The heavies moved apart.

  ‘Two thousand baht!’ said Nigel. ‘They're trying to rip us off!’

  ‘Gosh, really?’ I said. ‘Get a grip, Nigel.’

  Bruce began speaking to the men. I was surprised at how good his Thai was. The men shook their heads then one of them went off to fetch another man who I guessed was the manager.

  Bruce spoke to him for several minutes, occasionally nodding at Nigel and me. Eventually he handed over three hundred baht and we were ushered out of the door.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked as we made our way down the stairs.

  ‘I told him that we weren't tourists, that we worked in Bangkok. He wanted to know what we did, how long we'd been here. Chit chat.’

  ‘And he let us off the bill?’

  ‘He knew I knew the score,’ said Bruce. ‘If push had come to shove I'd have just paid and then come back with the Tourist Police. They're not here to rip off locals, they just want to screw tourists who don't know any better. All I had to do was smile and tell him it wasn't fair. Eventually he asked me how much I'd pay in a normal bar and I said three hundred baht, max. He said he'd be happy with that.’

  ‘Speaking to him in Thai probably helped,’ I said.

  ‘Let me tell you about Thais, Pete,’ said Bruce, patting me on the back. ‘Sometimes you think you're in trouble when you're really not. And sometimes when you think everything is hunky dory, you're in so much shit they’ll need a submarine to find you. Nothing is as it seems, grasshopper.’

  BRUCE

  I meant what I said about Thais. They're easy to rub up the wrong way, but if you handle them right, they're genuinely nice people. Take taxi drivers, for instance. The first time I came to Bangkok, I was always getting into arguments with them. They'd either get lost or not want to take me or they'd refuse to use the meter. Now I can speak a little Thai and I understand them a bit more. For one thing, Bangkok's huge, with twice as many people as London, and for another, the road naming and numbering system is crazy. Roads meander all over the place and at times the numbering of houses seems almost random. It's not like England where the houses on one side are consecutive odd numbers with the even numbers on the other side. In Bangkok the numbers relate to the plot of land, so unless you know exactly where you're going, it's dead easy to get lost. And maps aren't part of Thai culture, either. Most people haven't a clue how to relate a map to their surroundings. You never see Thais using them. Now I almost never get into confrontations with taxi drivers because I know how to handle them.

  Take last week for example. My car was in for a service so I was using taxis to get around. I was on the outskirts of the city and it was close to rush hour and the first four cabs I stopped just didn't want to go to Sukhumvit. I knew why: at rush hour it can lock up solid. Anyway, I got into the fifth taxi that stopped and told him in English where I wanted to go. Then I sat looking out of the window, ignoring his protests. Okay, so eventually he starts driving. Half an hour later, the car judders to a halt. He starts up again, we drive a few hundred feet, and we shudder and stop again. ‘Car no good,’ he says.

  I lean forward and watch as he starts the car again. The engine stalls. Why? Because the bugger's slipping his foot off the clutch, that's why. I don't say anything, because Thais hate criticism. Loss of face and all that. He gets out of the car, muttering to himself, and lifts up the bonnet. Stands looking at the engine and shaking his head. I tell you, this guy was the Robert De Niro of taxi drivers. Oscar material. He fumbles with the battery leads, mutters again, then slams the bonnet shut. He opens the passenger door for me. ‘Car no good,’ he says, sincerity dripping from every pore. ‘I get new taxi for you. Sorry.’

  So I get out of the taxi and he walks to the back and starts trying to flag down another cab. Now, I know full well what's going on here. He plans to get a taxi to stop, then he'll tell the driver to keep me talking while he drives off. Then taxi driver number two will refuse to take me, and he'll drive off as well, leaving me stranded. I know this is what he intends to do, but I don't argue with him because I know that's not going to get me anywhere. I just smile and nod, and then when he's not looking I climb into the driver's seat. The silly sod had left the keys in the ignition. I start up the car, put it in gear and drive off.

  This is where I played it just right. If I'd made off with the car he'd have got together with some other taxi drivers, beaten the shit out of me and then handed me over to the cops. So I drive off real slowly, just above walking pace, watching him in the mirror. He sees what I'm doing and comes haring after me, waving his arms and shouting. I let him run for a hundred yards or so, then I pull up and wind down the window. I smile. A big, big smile, Thai style. I give him a thumbs up. ‘Car okay,’ I say. ‘I car doctor. I fix.’

  He looks at me. He smiles. He knows that I know. I know that he knows that I know. But I don't confront him with it, I don't rub his face in it. ‘Car okay?’ he says.

  ‘Oh yes. No problem now. I fix.’

  I get out of the driver's seat, and move into the back. He gets into the driver's seat, puts the car in gear and drives off. He smiles. ‘Okay now,’ he says, nodding approvingly.

  We drive all the way in without any more hassles. Now, the guy was right, of course: we hit traffic and it took us more than hour to cover three miles. And when he did finally drop me off, I gave him a huge tip. He smiled. I smiled. Face was saved on both sides. A situation that could have turned really nasty became an object lesson in how to get what you want in the Land of Smiles.

  Anyway, I liked Pete. He was a pleasant change from the expatriates you normally run into in Bangkok. Face it, most of the guys who choose to come to Thailand are thinking with th
eir dicks, not their heads. It's different if they're sent here, then they come on a full expat package: accommodation, flights home, all the perks. But anyone who chooses to live here has to work on local terms, and that means shit money. Guys like Nigel. He pretends he's a wheeler-dealer, he's always on the verge of setting up his own company that's going to make him a fortune, but when all's said and done he's just here to get laid. I doubt he has much luck with women back in the UK because of his missing eye, but out here he can get laid every night of the week for the price of a decent bottle of Scotch. Pete was sent out by his company and that makes all the difference. You can see from the way he behaves in the bars, he barely notices the girls, he’s more interested in what I have to say. Nigel can't sit down without shoving his hand down some bird's bikini and he spends more time fondling them than he does drinking.

  I'm the same as Pete. I was running a handbag factory in Newcastle, and we'd started subcontracting some of our manufacturing to a couple of suppliers in Thailand. One of the Thai guys came over to see us and we got on like a house on fire. Saravoot his name was. Before he went back, he offered me a job running one of his factories outside Bangkok. I was divorced and the kids were grown up, so I thought what the hell.

  I’m still not sure how things are going to work out here. Saravoot's a nice enough guy, but sometimes he's a bit strange. I'm not quite sure how to explain it, but I can give you an example. His factory was way overstaffed. There's a feeling out here that the more people you have working for you, the more important you are. Staff equals status. So Saravoot would take great pride in the fact that he had almost five hundred people working for him, even though the same amount of work could have been done by half that number if they worked efficiently. Now, one of the reasons that Saravoot brought me over to Bangkok was that he'd seen how we operated in Newcastle, and one of the first things I did was to draw up a proposal to restructure the sewing side that would pretty much double productivity. We had to let thirty people go, all of them women, and it was like pulling teeth. I had to keep pressing Saravoot for months until he agreed to put my proposal into action.