Chapter
3
Suddenly
Jack's head appears above the crowd as he walks across the
entrance to the Ambassador Hotel. He was all smiles, that
was Jack. Next to him was Michael Garrett who is a couple
of inches shorter than Jack. They are talking and laughing
as they weave through the crowded pavement. Jack has planned
this piece of espionage with some care and precision. It
supposedly is a secret mission, and Hurley has sworn an
oath of silence. Not so secret that Michael hasn't been
invited along. Hurley is a little hurt, thinking this was
to be a two-man raid party. The plan seems like a year ago,
counting one hundred day years.
"Hope
I didn't keep you waiting, Hurley."
"Just
got out of a massage session when I saw Jack," says Michael.
Jack
winks at Hurley. "I told him we had a business meeting."
"And
about the top secret Thermae project," says Michael.
Jack
shrugs. "Michael has the tools we need, Hurley. I say
we cut him in."
Hurley
thought, this is how it starts. You cut in one friend and
then another and before you know it, the entire crowd has
a piece of the action.
"If
you'd rather not, then it's okay. I don't want to cause a
problem," says Michael.
"In
other words, there is no problem," says Jack. "The
universe as we know it on Sukhumvit Road is in perfect working
order."
Hurley
smiles and nods. "No problem, Michael."
Michael
looks at the corrugated metal fence around the demolition
site, "I know you and Jack have a deal. I am not trying
to cut in. I want to be a part of history. Tell you what,
your the boss, I go along and in return I owe you one."
It
was always good to have Michael owing you a favour, or better
yet, money. He is one of the best technical guys in the company,
and when there is a really difficult problem to fix, Hurley
needs Michael's good will to get the job done. A public school
boy who gets his hands dirty fixing cell sites scattered over
the city, across the country, transmitting signals from one
mobile phone to another. He hears rumours now and again that
Michael moonlights, milking other cash cows in the city. Nothing
substantial is ever confirmed but Hurley figures that sooner
or later he will figure out what Michael is up to. They are
the same age: Hurley and Michael. And have the same ambition-to
stay free of the spokes of the wheel that beat up the employees
in the company. To stay employed.
"No
problem," says Hurley. "Let's go."
"Let's
get down to some work," says Jack, squeezing between
two of the vendor's tables and pulled back a make-shift piece
of corrugated metal from the entrance to the old Thermae.
One
of the vendors begins to protest. "Closed. Cannot go
inside."
"Health
inspector," says Jack in Thai. "Government inspection.
Stand aside."
The
vendor's smile reveals black gums as he steps aside.
Hurley
and Michael go into the compound a couple of steps behind
Jack who leads with military precision. Pseudo-Greek columns
are on the sides of the doorway and the sign overhead remains
intact. From the upper floors is the sound of sledgehammers
smashing against concrete and falling debris. At the current
rate of destruction, nothing much will be left standing in
another couple of days. At the far end is a makeshift campsite
for the workers; three corrugated shacks built against the
wall. On the cracked pavement snot nosed children in rags
play in the debris-having no idea that it is Christmas Day.
Cooking pots steamed over open fires. This could be a in a
refugee camp within shelling distance of some dusty hamlet
in some forgotten border war. Like migrant workers, these
Isan workers work where they sleep and rear their children
in shelters no one would think of housing war criminals. A
couple of worn down women who are twenty going onto fifty
shift around the children, through the grounds, dust in their
hair. One looks after the kids, the other is stooping forward
to lift the lid of one pot and stirs the rice. One of the
kids-a two year old boy with no pants-throws pieces of wood
on the open fire. In the family tradition of peasants, he's
working before he can talk.
Shadows
fall over the Old Thermae, and visibility is further cut in
half by an asteroid like belt of grey dust that circulates
in clouds eye level above the site. Hurley moves forward into
the private domain and finds himself in the orbit of poverty,
work, hardship and the smell of rice cooking. In the driveway
which leads to the shacks, Hurley and Jack halt their advance
alongside a flatbed truck. Michael kicks one of the balding
tires. All the fenders were dented.
"You
wouldn't want to get in front of this one when the tire blows,"
Michael says.
"The
driver looks a little overheated," says Jack.
The
driver's door is open and a small man squats in the shade
a few feet away, beads of sweat forming on his face, dripping
off his lip. He is listening to a Thai love song on a radio.
Even the poor fall in love. The flatbed is heaped with broken
shards of concrete, iron rods twisting out of the broken pieces,
and next to the truck, all in a neat row, are eight of the
booths from the Old Thermae waiting for the end like condemned
prisoners. Jack steps forward and touches one of the booths.
Michael kneels down on one knee and looks for the initials
he carved into one of the benches years ago.
And
Hurley, he leans against the truck thinking that this is how
it ends...always. With no one around to mourn or even remember
the lost generations of women whose warm, moist thighs, naked
legs and silky, soft underwear sat on those booths; the hopes,
dreams and bodily fluids had all dried away, vanishing without
a trace. The booths were the place of judgment; the place
where the judges selected from a large jury panel and passed
on a cash verdict. A film of white powdery dust covers the
black Naugahyde; dust to dust, ashes to ashes, the workers
like pallbearers lift one of the ghostly objects and heave
it into the back of the truck. Pallbearers from hell would
have been more gentle. Jack looks at Hurley and Michael with
sad, brooding eyes.
"You
see that? History is being thrown on the junk heap."
"History
will provide another ass and another seat," says Michael.
"We
better get moving," said Jack.
For
Hurley the site is another kind of abandonment, another way
that people depart without ever saying goodbye.
"Did
I tell you my old man came in from England today?" asks
Michael. He's found his initials on one of the benches and
feels particularly pleased that he was invited to go along.
"My
dad has a heart condition. He was here once. But he can't
travel now," says Hurley. "Doctor's orders."
"Bummer,"
says Jack, turning one of the booths over onto the side.
The
booths are what Jack had come for. Standing on the flatbed
a workman, smoking a cigarette, eyes the three men. He stops
working, hands loose at his side, staring at the farang. His
face is ash gray, and the red ember at the end of the cigarette
glows an evil color as he inhales.
"Where's
your boss?" Jack yells, cupping his hands and shouting
in Thai, hoping to be heard above all the crashing, thumping,
and pounding noises in the compound.
Michael
has a laser pen red light, sneaks it out of his trousers and
draws a ribbons of red light across the debris, up the worker's
pant leg and ending like one of those India sub-continent
red dots of the Hindu right between his eyes.
The
worker inside the flatbed shrugs as if he does not understand
Jack, and turns around, swatting at the light as if he is
being attacked by a mosquito or a hungry ghost awakened from
the kitchen of the Old Thermae. Hurley moves around the side
of the truck and bumps into another workman pissing against
the side of the wall. He excuses himself, waits until the
worker finishes, pulls his wet equipment back inside his trousers
just as Michael's red beam illuminates the wall a few inches
from his face. The worker jumps, screaming, as if bitten in
the balls by a snake. He whips around, his head looking up
and down and from side to side, his face frightened.
"Pee,"
says Michael. The Thai word for ghost sound like the child's
word in English for taking a leak, taking a piss, for eliminating
water.
"My
friend wants the skin from the black chairs," is the
rough translation from Hurley's Thai into English.
"What
for?" asked the worker who has been pissing against the
side of the wall. He's even more terrified now that these
three farangs are here to skin the old booths. A bad omen.
It's a MacBeth opening and the witches hunger for hide.
"To
make telephone covers," says Jack, replying honestly.
"We
have money," says Michael. "At least I don't think
I spent it all at the massage parlor. Normally, the old man
takes care of that kind of thing."
"It's
for an offering to Rahu," says Hurley. Rahu is the Hindu
God of Darkness. Khun Maa's favourite deity, who is worshipped
by offerings of eight black eggs, eight black children, eight
black chickens. Why not eight black Naugahyde strips from
the Old Thermae? thinks Hurley.
"Rahu,"
repeats the workman.
Jack
flashes Hurley an admiring "You got him" kind of
grin.
The
workman smiles, the kind of local smile that Thais sometimes
break into when they have some confirmation that the farangs
in their midst are hysterically eccentric creatures willing
to spend money on things that no one would ever guess had
any value. In this case, for a Hindu god. The workman looks
worried, turning around to stare at the wall quickly to see
if that red light had reappeared. It has not. Is this a trick?
Is this good fortune? Who are these three strange men coming
into this life, speaking of gods and bringing mysterious red
lights? His face softens as he decides the farang are an omen
of good fortune. Whatever that red light source was, these
strangers are being delivered for a payday; the workman feels
this deep in his bones.
