Excerpt
Chapter
15
The
place he went for information about Daeng was a girl who was more
than just an old friend. They had been lovers many years before.
She had a child that she never told him about. He found himself
walking into Bunny's Bar on Soi Cowboy, a strip of go-go bars,
which closed at two in the morning. It was here at Bunny's he
had discovered he had a daughter. Asanee. In the years since that
discovery, it seemed impossible not having her in his life. Bunny
was sitting at the bar, nursing a black eye and a Bloody Mary.
She had descended to a bar girl who now had a drinker's sagging
body and falling face. She had gained twenty pounds since he had
last seen her. It wasn't even ten in the morning and she was on
the booze. A go-go bar by morning light had the shock value of
a strange bedpartner staring eye-ball-to-eye-ball the morning
afterwards. Ught played the world of passion in a far more stark,
hard, and relentless vision, with the dark passion shelved.
'Tut,
I'm happy you come," she said, not having seen him for months;
it was as if she had seen him the night before. "This is
terrible, terrible. Killing for what?"
"What
happened to the eye?" He sat on the stool next to her, reached
over the bar and poured himself a soda.
"Don't
want to talk about it," she said.
"A
customer?"
She
shook her head.
"The
Army?"
Not
likely. She shook her head again. "I told you I don't need
to talk about this."
"Which
means the husband."
"He's
a bastard. I say to him. 'No good staying open. No business. 'And
he say, 'Customer come. Don't close the bar.' I say, 'What you
gonna do to me?"'
"Where
is he?" asked Tuttle.
"Upstairs
sleeping. He drink too much. It make him mean. Man drink all the
time get mean like a dog kicked oil tile street everyday. Why
don't Army shoot man like him? Shooting these kids makes me angry."
Her fleshy, soft face turned red as tears filled her eyes. She
bit her lip and slowly shook her head, looking into her Bloody
Mary. "What did you come here for, Tut? It sure wasn't to
see me."
"Asanee's
safe. I thought you'd want to know that," he said.
She
looked up at him, her lips tight. "He shouldn't have hit
me like that Tut , she said, as if news about her daughter's safety
didn't matter much one way or another. Asanee had become her father's
daughter; his problem, his worry his responsibility.
"I
know that. You're the only one who can fix it. Divorce him,"
said Tuttle.
"Easy
for you to say," Bunny said, raising her Bloody Mary to her
lips. She swallowed real slowly, letting it flush her throat of
the lump she felt would never go away. "Life ain't organized
for women. You know that. We grow old. And look at you, Tut. Even
when you're seventy you'll have some twenty-year old to take a
long bath with. I got a mail. I I e's not the best. Yeah, he hits
me now and again and he drinks too much. But he's my husband.
You think there's another one out there waiting to take his place?
If so, send him in. The interview starts in five minutes."
Personal
misery extinguished all other misery. It didn't much matter about
the killings once she started talking about the wreckage of her
own life. The images on the TV were abstract. Sure they made people
cry a little while but tile pain didn't last much beyond the tears.
Real pain was one's own personal hell. The suffering of a life
which never was going to right itself.
"I
need your help, Bunny," said Tuttle.
She
lit a cigarette.
"Here
it comes. The reason why you came around. Not some bullshit that
Asanee is okay."
She
had him cold. She always had that ability.
"You're
right. Can you help me?"
"Depends
on what you need."
"I
was upcountry on the Nan River. I spent some time in a village.
There's a villager worried about her daughter. Named Daeng. She's
nineteen. Has a small half-moon shaped scar on her right cheek.
Her mother said Daeng's working the bars on Soi Cowboy. I know
that's not much to go on. She could be anywhere. I don't know
where to start. Where to look. But I told her mother I'd try and
find her," said Tuttle.
"So
you can screw her?"
Bunny
regretted it as soon as the accusation hit Tuttle. She saw him
flinch and go all sad.
"Okay,
Tut. I'm a little fucked up this morning. Never mind. You're not
angry with me? You want to give me another black eye? Can. I would
deserve it. Sure."
"Bunny,
I'm not angry. Can you help me?"
"Girls
come and go all the time." She gave a long, frustrated sigh.
Tuttle rarely got angry, she remembered that. He was mister jai
yen. The cool-hearted man, climbing over the walls for a sweet
woman's dreams just long enough to make certain that he'd be remembered
before slipping away. It had happened to Bunny with him all those
years ago when she still had dreams. "I can't keep track
of who comes and goes in my own bar, Tut. None of my girls are
from Nan," she said, running her finger through her graying
hair. Yeah, this was the man who had touched down during that
moment of youth. She smiled. 'It's good to see you, Tut. Did I
tell you that?"
"It's
good to see you, too, Bunny."
Tuttle
made the rounds of several more bars. He came up empty until he
met up with a bar girl in plastic sandals with a T-shirt reading-The
Bullet is the Target - Crazy Eight Bar. She was buying a bag of
fried grasshoppers. Tuttle gave tile vendor a twenty-baht note
before the bar girl could react.
"You
good man," said tile bar girl, smiling and offering the bag.
She brushed back her short hair, and looked Tuttle over. Then
gave him a crooked-tooth smile.
Tuttle
pulled one of the perfectly preserved grasshoppers out of the
bag. Fifty or more tiny bodies had been poured into the bag. Likely
the grasshoppers had been killed with lethal insecticides then
cooked in rancid oil; but there were upcountry girls who shrugged
off the health risk and couldn't get enough of them. He ate the
head first, then slipped the slender body into his mouth. It made
a crunching noise like granola.
"Geng,"
she said, admiringly. Skillfully done.
Then
after a couple of minutes she told him that her boss hired girls
from that region of Thailand. This was her first week on the job.
"Boss in a bad mood," she said, as she walked back to
her bar with Tuttle.
Crazy
Hank, the owner of Crazy Eight Bar, wasn't in a bad mood; he was
in a hysterical rage. His fat gut exploded over his belt, swelling
and bloating the graphics on his T-shirt. Below the words -The
Bullet is the Target - Crazy Eight Bar - was the picture of a
standing naked girl, her buns facing out, looking over her shoulder,
and a bulls-eye target around her ass. On Crazy Hank, the legs
of the girl stretched over his huge bulge, making the girl on
the T-shirt look like she had double-jointed legs. He bellowed
at the girl behind the bar, who was cleaning up broken glass with
a broom.
"I'm
docking your pay for that glass," he shouted.
The
girl with the bag of grasshoppers fled to a corner and tried to
make herself small. Tuttle walked over to the bronze bell hanging
over the bar, and rang it. Crazy Hank spun around on his stool.
"You
know what that means?" asked Crazy Hank. "You buy drinks
for everyone in the bar."
The
bar was empty except for Crazy Hank, the grasshopper eater, the
girl sweeping the glass, and two other girls squatting on the
floor and eating sticky rice and fish paste with chili sauce.
Tuttle
put a purple on the bar, not taking his eyes off Crazy Hank who
was expecting this guy to start an argument.
"This
round is on me," said Tuttle.
Crazy
Hank made a crumby, gurgling sound - half smoker's cough and half
nervous tic - when someone caught him wrong footed.
"Make
mine a double Jack Daniel's," said Crazy Hank, who looked
to be in his early 60s. He was from Indiana. Drinking double Jack
Daniel's until he became abusive, violent and stupid with mindless
rage had resulted in Hank Galan's nickname - Crazy Hank.
"Make
mine a double orange juice," said Tuttle.
The
girls ordered beer and Mekong whiskey.
"Before
I started this line of business. I was in the snake business.
I exported big snakes. The biggest mistake of my life was to believe
that running a bar with these girls was more profitable than selling
snakes. Now the fucking Army's shooting up the town."
"So
I hear," said Tuttle.
"You
know what that's gonna do to the tourist business? It's flushing
it down the goddamn toilet. Who in their right mind is gonna come
to Bangkok this year? At least with snakes, it was all export.
The Army can shoot the hell out of people on the street, and it
don't for a minute affect the snake trade. Snakes don't break
your glasses. Snakes don't quit and disappear on you. Snakes don't
come down with VD. Snakes don't bite your balls. You know what
I'm saying?"
Tuttle
had the basic idea that Crazy Hank was disappointed in his career
move. In the corner of the bar, near the door, where his friend
ate grasshoppers, was a bulletin board of polaroid photos of girls
with their nicknames written below. There were four rows and each
row had six photos. Tuttle scanned each row, looking for a photo
of girl with a small half-moon scar on her right cheek with the
name of Daeng.
The
double Jack Daniel's had softened up Crazy Hank.
"You
looking for a girl?" asked Crazy Hank. "I can tell you
now, most of them aren't showing up. I've got ten, twelve living
upstairs. They're still sleeping. And snakes don't sleep all-night
neither."
Tuttle
described Daeng. Afterwards, Crazy Hank leaned over the bar, and
pulled out a shoe box containing about a hundred polaroid photos
which were in no apparent order. "These girls once worked
here. But have fucked off. To where? Your guess would be as good
as mine." He shoved the box across the bar.
After
twenty minutes, Tuttle found a photograph of a girl with a half-moon
scar. "You remember her?"
Crazy
Hank didn't remember. But one of the girls who was drinking Mekong
looked over Tuttle's shoulder.
"That's
Daeng."
"Daeng
from Nan province?"
The
girl nodded, sipped her Mekong dry and put the glass on the bar.
"One
thing to remember, Hank. Snakes don't have much of a memory,"
said Tuttle.
Tuttle
leaned forward, reached up, and rang the bell again."
Peels
of laughter rang out. The girls liked any excuse for a party,
some excitement in the middle of all their boredom.
"Yeah,
I remember her. She was a good earner. Strange but good. Fucked
off a few months ago. I ain't seen her since.
"She
work HQ" said the girl who had spontaneously remembered Daeng.
A
bar girl had remembered - the girls had developed a memory for
faces and names. There was little slippage among the girls. But
not Crazy Hank. And not Tuttle. How could that be? Why had Crazy
Hank and Tuttle mortgaged their memories? Tuttle had more questions
than he cared to find answers for. The reality was plain, and
not one Tuttle could ignore. Daeng was not a stranger; she had
been working the crowd at HQ. She had been at HQ night after night,
for all those weeks before Tuttle had gone upcountry. It stood
to reason he had seen her but at the same time he had not seen.
Nothing was more disturbing, unsettling. Looking for someone that
he had seen and never recognized. He had done much the same when
he had bought his own daughter out of Bunny's bar on Soi Cowboy
years before. He had learned nothing, he thought. History was
about to repeat itself. If only Daeng had gone to another bar.
He could search with noble aims of paying back the kindness of
Old Uncle and the others in his compound. It was no longer that
simple, the motive no longer so pure.
The
full weight of responsibility for Daeng's whereabouts doubled
up on him like Crazy Hank's double Jack Daniel's which pushed
him over the edge. Hardcore HQ regulars were woman blinded; it
was like a whiteout in a snow storm, up and down no longer had
definition. There was a big difference - one would recover the
ability to see the landscape separated from the sky once the snow
storm blew itself out. In HQ the sexual storm winds never stopped
blowing, leaving the HQ hardcore blinded and without memory. If
he could find this Daeng, another throw-away prostitute, someone
who came and went without a flicker of recognition, Tuttle knew
he had a chance of recovering the kind of vision necessary to
witness humanity. Without that vision, he saw people no differently
than the generals. This was the broken continuity he had gone
upcountry to discover. Daeng was one more HQ girl who yielded.
Those who yield are faceless, meaningless, and without purpose,
Harry Purcell had said. But Tuttle didn't want to see Daeng through
Purcell's eyes. He wanted to start seeing people again; not in
Denny Addison documentaries which were entertainments for those
permanently damaged by sexual whiteouts. Daeng would pull him
back; let him recover the person his neighbors had prayed would
return or be released from the wheel. Daeng was the reason he
had gone to the Nan River. He had been looking for what he hadn't
seen before his own eyes.
"Why
did Daeng quit?" asked Tuttle.
The
girl slumped over the bar, her head propped on her hand. She shrugged,
as if there needed to be a reason. "She bored. Daeng not
like other girl. Not drink. Not smoke. She save, save money customers
give her. She tell me that she want to buy water pump for her
mother. Daeng has very good heart. She have a hard life. Father
die. Dog eat her face. She talk to ghosts." She giggled a
fearful laugh. "She have good heart. Buy water pump very
good."
Having
finished his second double Jack Daniel's, Crazy Hank exploded.
"Water pump! Fuck, that's a new scam. It's usually a TV,
VCR, or a motorcycle for their boyfriend. Or a gold chain to show
off in front of their friends. Most of them gamble the money away
as fast as they make it."
Tuttle
put another two purples on the bar counter.
"Her
mother showed me the water pump, Hank," said Tuttle, rising
from the stool. "I saw it."
Crazy
Hank ignored the information. Hard facts had a way of being wired
into the hardcore circuit board of gossip, double-crosses, and
double Jack Daniel's.
"Another
thing about snakes. They never bullshit you," said Crazy
Hank, belching as Tuttle walked out of the bar. He was in a hurry
like a man who had decided he was lost and now had the chance
to find and recover himself.
