Thai Girl

by Andrew Hicks

  They walked up Sukhumvit Road, past glittering office buildings and banks, world class hotels and shopping malls, all dedicated to the farang and the upper end of the tourist industry. This was the place to shop for curios, carvings and handicrafts, for silks and designer labels, fake watches and flick knives, for leather and live skin. It was just an anonymous tourist trap and Ben did not much like it.

  He and Maca followed Chuck to an open-air bar down one of the sois where the Thai boxing had already started. The clientele were mainly older farang males of all shapes and sizes, in singlet or tee shirt, shapeless shorts and trainers. As always there were bar girls sitting waiting at empty tables or draped over the men whose wallets they hoped to infiltrate. Next to the bar through screens set up to deter freeloaders, Ben could just see a floodlit boxing ring.

  ‘Come inside sir … only 300 baht,’ droned the tout. In the enclosure there were twenty or thirty tables with a mixture of Thai and foreign spectators watching the boxing. They paid to go in, took a table and ordered beers and food from a waitress in a very short skirt.

  The fighting was brutal, the boxers wiry and thin, their sinewy bodies glistening in the heat and glare of the tropical night. They were barefooted, their ankles strapped up with white bindings and wore loose shiny shorts and boxing gloves. Heads down in combat, their gumshields gave them a ghastly grimace. They moved fast, showering blows on each other with their fists and more damagingly with their feet, knees and elbows. The feet were brought up in a scything action, belting the opponent in the kidneys. Often the fighters came together in a clinch, hammering each other with their knees before the referee broke them apart again. As a round ended, steel trays were brought into each corner to catch the water that was poured over their sweating bodies, the coaches screaming advice as they massaged bruised legs and arms. Soon another round began. It was rough stuff.

  Ben wondered how the fighters could take such a pasting. They already looked exhausted and had a haunted look in their piggy little eyes. One of them was grotesquely ugly, battered beyond belief from a long career in the ring. His shorts were too big for him and in the middle of the fight he was making pathetic attempts to pull them up with his gloved hands. When at last both men went the distance, the referee held up the arm of the victor. There was little applause from the floor and nobody took much notice as the boxers came round the tables begging for tips.

  ‘I hate this bit,’ said Ben. ‘These blokes do it for our benefit but they’re hardly getting given anything. Do they fight only for tips?’

  Chuck claimed to know how the sport operated in Thailand.

  ‘No man, they’re usually paid for each bout,’ he said. ‘The guys who fight on telly or at Lumpini and Ratchadamnoen have real money and status. But down the bottom end it’s shit, and this is the bottom end … fighting outside a bar. At least if they know who’s gonna win, they can fix it and not belt each other too hard.’

  Ben could see two fit young boxers ready for the next bout.

  ‘These guys always do the ceremonial bit before the fight,’ said Chuck. ‘See their headbands. They’ll dance around in the ring to honour the spirits of muay Thai before getting stuck in.’

  Studiously ignoring each other, the men began a slow ritual dance to the wailing oboe music and strident drumming, strutting like fighting cocks and kneeling and bowing down to the canvas. After a few minutes, they removed their headbands and made final adjustments to their kit. Then the bout started and the three friends watched several furious rounds before they were distracted by their food arriving. As they were arranging the dishes on the table, Ben realised that something had happened in the ring.

  ‘Damn, I missed it! One of them’s down,’ he said. The boxer was writhing on the canvas and being counted out. ‘What’s going on, Chuck?’

  ‘Probably been kicked in the calf. You can take almost anything on the shin, but a good kick to the calf poleaxes you. That’s it, he’s finished.’ For the man on the ground, his agony had only just begun. His seconds were with him and he was hauled to his corner, while Ben and the others concentrated on their curries and beers.

  The next fight was between two small boys. Ben paid them little attention, though they were full of bile and energy, hitting each other for all they were worth. He noticed that while one was only in shorts, the other had a tee shirt on and hair pinned back with a grip. Then it suddenly dawned on him.

  ‘Blimey,’ he said to Chuck in astonishment, ‘that one’s a girl.’

  ‘No sweat,’ said Chuck lazily. ‘She can take care of herself okay.’

  ‘But it’s pretty vicious, isn’t it? Fine maybe for adults if there’s medics handy. But not with kids … and certainly not a girl.’

  ‘Yeah, but Ben, safety standards here aren’t the same as in the States, and you gotta let’em make some bread. Anyway it’s great sport.’

  ‘This isn’t sport, Chuck! It’s just to sell more beers,’ insisted Ben.

  ‘Yeah, but the girl’s the aggressive one,’ said Chuck. ‘I’m more worried about the little guy.’

  Ben was about to press his point when Maca broke in.

  ‘Kids isn’t so bad, but it’s boxing between bar girls that makes me puke,’ he said. ‘Like at Lamai on Koh Samui there’s lady-boxing every week and the bars all put up a girl to have their faces pushed in.’

  ‘Get real, man! Amateurs can’t hurt each other,’ said Chuck.

  ‘They sure can. It’s like a street fight and they’re often badly matched. One lovely girl I saw was the tiniest thing. The other one was bigger and hurt her bad.’

  ‘But they’re all in it together,’ said Chuck.

  ‘No mate, they’re competitors every day of their lives. The big girl was mean, like she enjoyed smashing that beautiful face. The little’un was in a real distress after … showed me her split lip and the egg on her shin. Made me feel crook,’ said Maca staring into his beer.

  ‘So the farang like to watch bar girls brawling then?’ asked Ben incredulously.

  ‘Yes, they buy beers and bay like animals. The women are the worst.’

  ‘But the bar girls get a few baht for fighting,’ said Chuck, ‘and it’s gotta be voluntary.’

  ‘What’s ever voluntary when you’re a bar girl!’ said Maca sharply. ‘At least when they’re lying on their backs they’re making some bloke happy and not hurting each other. No, mate, choice doesn’t come into it.’ There was passion in his voice.

  They sat in silence as the next bout began. One of the contestants was a farang from Eastern Europe, an ox of a man, tall and muscle-bound. He was followed into the ring by his opponent, a tubby little Thai with the doleful face of an oriental dog.

  ‘This one’s a foregone conclusion,’ said Ben as the fight started. ‘That Thai bloke couldn’t punch the farang in the face even if he stood on a box. He just can’t reach.’

  ‘Yes, but the face isn’t the only target,’ said Chuck. ‘The Thai guy looks tough and the farang’s slow … got no boxing skills at all.’

  Chuck was right. In the third round, the foreigner ended up sitting on the floor with a look of utter surprise on his face. The referee counted him out and the Thai fighter was loudly cheered by the audience. But Ben did not applaud; he was not sure what to think of the backstreet muay Thai scene. He was certain Emma would have been appalled and he was glad she had stayed behind at the guesthouse that night.

  ‘Right then guys,’ said Maca theatrically. ‘We’ve done booze, food and aggro, so now for the go-go bars.’

  Ben again thought of Emma and wondered how he was going to explain away being out so late drinking with Maca and Chuck in the sois and bars of Sukhumvit. She was not going to like it.

  5

  Okay, that’s enough kick boxing,’ agreed Chuck. ‘So, where to next?’

  ‘Has to be Nana Plaza,’ said Maca.

  ‘I went there with Emm,’ said Ben. ‘She hated it.’ He knew he was on dangerous ground if Emma found out he had been there again, but
as Nana Plaza was only a few hundred yards away from the boxing ring, it was unavoidable. He would feel pretty stupid in front of the lads if he went home early just because the little woman disapproved.

  They all stood on the kerb waiting for a gap in the steady flow of taxis and tuk tuks.

  ‘Better use the pedestrian crossing,’ suggested Ben.

  ‘Whatever for? Drivers never stop!’ said Chuck knowingly. But as he crossed the road, it was streetwise Chuck who stepped on one of life’s banana skins. Dashing across the soi, his big mistake was to ignore a primary rule for avoiding collisions between pedestrians … he was foolish enough to look an oncoming Thai girl in the eye.

  Later in the bar, Maca explained the rule’s fatal effect.

  ‘You see it’s like this, Chuck. When there’s someone coming towards ya’, you just gotta avoid eye contact. Look’em in the eye and you’re dead … specially if it’s a sheila and she’s a smasher.’

  ‘Bullshit, man!’

  ‘Dinkie die mate … even a smart-arsed American in Bangkok.’

  It was as the three men plunged off the kerb into the traffic, cheating death, that Chuck spotted her crossing the road towards him. She was perhaps the loveliest Thai girl he had ever seen, a siren, his nemesis. Petite with an elfin face and in a tight crop top, she had the flowing black hair and belly button of a Greek goddess. Their eyes met and as they closed at speed in the middle of the road, irresistibly drawn together like heat-seeking missiles, they could not help running headlong into each other.

  As with most banana skins it all happened in a nanosecond, but for Chuck it seemed agonisingly drawn out in time. Momentarily stunned, he was appalled to observe his glasses leave their allotted place on his nose and fly beyond his reach, slowly falling in a downward parabola. He saw the road come up to meet them and the lenses shatter across the tarmac like slow motion water droplets in a shampoo ad on TV.

  Then, as he recovered his equilibrium, he became horribly aware of a battered green and yellow taxi driven in all probability by the Grim Reaper bearing down on him at speed. Having the presence of mind not to hang around in the middle of the road to be scythed down, he made it to the pavement just in time to see the remains of his glasses being pulverised under the nearside wheels of the taxi. Still feeling shocked, Chuck looked around myopically for a silver lining to his banana skin but sadly the bird had flown, the tasty Thai girl had disappeared.

  ‘Fuck her!’ he swore angrily under his breath.

  ‘You’d be so lucky,’ said Maca, ducking away as Chuck swung at him in muay Thai fashion. ‘Got any spare specs, mate?’

  ‘Yeah, but right now I can’t see a damned thing. Tonight I’m screwed!’

  ‘Well Chuck, it’s Nana Plaza, so you can be if that’s what you want. Thai tits are too small to see at the best of times so you might as well touch base.’ Maca had grasped that he could tease without mercy as Chuck was too blind to catch him. ‘So Ben, me old mate, where shall we take the dim-sighted Yank then?’ he laughed.

  ‘Me and Emm went to the G-String … got more girls than the other bars,’ said Ben. ‘Why don’t we go there first?’

  ‘Okay, we can have a few beers and then move on to Caligulas.’

  The G-String was exactly as it had been the night before, the girls at the door calling ‘Hallor dalling, come inside,’ followed by the plunge into the surreal glitter of lights, plastic and chrome and the sudden shock of bare skin. Ben recognised several of the dancers, though he was disappointed the girl in cargo pants was nowhere to be seen.

  They filed into the long padded seats and sat and goggled, or at least Ben did. Chuck could not see anything unless it was within a few inches of his nose, while Maca was unfazed, as if this level of female display was nothing out of the ordinary.

  The evening featured Puss in Boots, or to be more precise, puss only in boots. Some of the girls wore cats’ ears and whiskers, while others had fluorescent designs on their bodies which glowed iridescent in the purple light. Down one end of the bar, a Thai man was casually painting a girl’s skin, his ordinary every day canvas. He worked fast without talking, while the girls chattered together comparing their designs. Ben could see vivid tropical flowers, stylised birds and suggestive slogans; ‘I go with you’, and ‘Love me short-time’. As he watched, a garish scorpion flowed from the brush of the artist, its claws angled down towards the girl’s crotch.

  Soon it was changeover time and the painted ladies filed up onto the platform and each found a pole. It was a bizarre sight, the slim forms writhing around their poles, the paint glowing brightly in the darkness.

  ‘Blimey mate, see the handprints on her buttocks … nearly shoved his thumbs up her arse.’ Maca was almost animated.

  ‘Where? I can’t see a damned thing,’ said Chuck in frustration.

  ‘Sorry mate, you must’ve been too hands-on before you got yourself a sheila. Don’t say they didn’t warn you though!’

  Chuck looked pained but ignored him.

  One beer was enough before they left the G-String and went on to Caligulas, Maca’s favourite place. It was probably the largest of the clubs, full of farang standing around tall tables, perched on bar stools and mingling with the girls. Maca ordered beers, while Chuck peered blindly about him looking thoroughly miserable.

  ‘Hey, what’s going on over there?’ asked Ben. ‘Something’s about to start.’

  In the corner some curtains had been drawn back, revealing two girls at first awkwardly ignoring the honeyed sounds of Westlife’s ‘My Love’.

  ‘What are they doing?’ demanded Chuck.

  ‘Well it’s these ladies … they’re having a shower … and they’re rubbing soap on each other,’ said Maca. ‘And Auntie Gladys, look where that one’s putting her hand.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Never you mind, it’s not for the infirm. Cripes, see her move!’ he hooted loudly.

  ‘What’s she doin’, Maca?’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss this for anything, Chuck. And, ooh look, two more girlies … first proper tits I’ve seen in Thailand. Yeah, and they like beer too … got a bottle each. No, they don’t like beer, they’re pouring it down their nipples. Oh yes, they love it … they’re licking it off each other.’

  ‘Holy shit!’

  ‘And now one of them’s on her back, and you know where she’s sticking the bottle?’

  ‘I think it’s utterly disgusting,’ said Chuck. ‘It’s a waste of good beer.’

  ‘Tell you what gets me,’ said Ben. ‘They sell us the most expensive beer in Bangkok and then put us off drinking out of a beer bottle for life.’

  ‘But I can’t see anything,’ moaned Chuck again.

  ‘So get in close and sniff ’em instead, mate.’

  ‘Think I’m a pervert? I’d look a jerk!’ Chuck wailed bitterly.

  Ben could now see that the next display was about to start on a small circular stage in the middle of the room.

  ‘Chuck, it’s a sex show! Won’t that be nice,’ said Maca.

  ‘Get lost you stoopid dude!’

  ‘If you can’t be polite I shan’t tell you about it,’ said Maca as a naked woman, definitely no longer a girl, lay on her back on the floor and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Well, Chuck,’ he rambled on, ‘there’s this lovely young girl and she’s having a smoke. It’s really quite Clintonesque! No, not a cigar this time … but just see where she’s putting it. And she ain’t inhaling either!’

  ‘You wait ‘til I get my glasses, you asshole,’ threatened Chuck.

  ‘And look, the lady’s got some balloons … so now what’s going up the Khyber? Yes, I know what it is … it’s a blowpipe!’

  Chuck heard the bang as the first balloon was shot down by a well-aimed dart.

  ‘Wouldn’t be allowed in the States,’ he said. ‘What if one of the darts goes into the crowd?’

  ‘But this lady never misses. They call her Dead Eyed Dick … or should it be Fanny,’ said Maca grinning broadly.


  Now the woman was standing up, showing her rapt audience the contents of a bucket. In the bottom was something dark and squirming.

  ‘Shall I tell you what the lady’s got, Chuckie boy? It’s froggies … a bucketful of froggies. And you know what she’s gonna do with them?’

  ‘Eat’em maybe?’

  ‘Yes, eat them … but what with? Think about it, baby! Then they’re going to be reborn, resurrected. We’re gonna see a miracle!’

  ‘Don’t mind missing this one,’ said Chuck frowning.

  Even Maca, the unshockable commentator, fell silent. How could he begin to describe such a thing.

  ‘It’s a freak show,’ said Ben. ‘But we all come to see it. Why ever?’

  ‘Because every white-knuckle ride’s gotta be tried maybe?’ said Maca.

  The show continued at Caligulas until late, though it puzzled Ben why the bar owners thought the farang would want to witness frog-abuse. It was, of course all done to pull in the punters and sell more beer.

  With this in mind the girls on stage that night kept themselves busy writhing around, rubbing oil on themselves, spreading their legs and inserting various implements into each other. But as Ben sat and watched, he kept asking himself why the tourists flock to see Thai girls using their most intimate parts to shoot bananas and ping pong balls into a glass, to blow trumpets, draw pictures with felt tip pens, extinguish the candles on a cake, crush beer cans and even take the tops off bottles of cola. Only the live fish were missing from the menu.

  ‘The frogs was a bit of a turn-off,’ he said as they got up to go.

  ‘Wouldn’t have missed it,’ said Maca, back in frivolous mode.

  ‘I did miss it,’ said Chuck, mortified.

  They exchanged the pounding of the music and the smoky atmosphere of Caligulas for the noise and exhaust fumes of the traffic. It was late, very late as they raced through the sodium-lit streets, the tuk tuk driver flirting casually with disaster.