Chapter 16 Yaa 2

For the next few nights I followed my daytime routine at the gym and spent evenings watching movies or reading, but by Friday I was ready to go out.  Flying solo I decided to replay the repertoire; Riverside, Bossy, Bubble, Spicy.  It was different being alone, but good enough.  I cruised into each place, found a quiet corner and I watched.  I loved being caught up in the Thai night, everything off the wall, everything alive, whiskey surging through my veins, but standing in Bossy the thought came to me, ‘I’ve have to see Yaa’. Knowing there’d be only two places to find her I saw out the night in Bubble and Spicy. Dancing alone and eating a solitary Bolognese she was nowhere to be seen. 

Making a final scan at three I climbed on my bike and raced home, rounding a corner of the moat with the sense that someone was following me. Glancing in my mirror I saw a figure trailing behind and as I looked back to the road heard the surge of an engine as the stranger came alongside me, cap pulled down too low to make out the face until it tipped to the side.  I killed the gas and pulled to the side.

“You following me?”

Yaa smiled.

“I want go Doi Suthep.”

Briefly changing I dropped off my bike and climbed onto hers. One more stop at 7/11 and we were winding up the mountain, stopping at a viewpoint where we walked to the balcony and looked down on the city’s shimmering lights.  She looked like a tomboy tonight, in her casual gear, a million miles from the girl I’d met, but I could still see her in that dress.  

“I look for you tonight,” I said, “Go Bubble, go Spicy, all night look for you.”

“I know, I go too but you not see me...I wear disguise.”

“You saw me?”

She nodded.

“I watch you all night, look to see if you have another girl.”

It felt romantic, another night which had its place in fiction.  Sharing the food, we slowly munched and finished a pair of cigarettes as an older group of older Thai's took our place.  The temple was deserted as I carried her up the steps and I thought back to a similar effort I made with my wife on our first date, winding up the ramparts of a castle in the middle of a Mediterranean night, making love overlooking the sea.  It had been my first time, twenty one and without a condom.  

Stopping at her Buddha we shook sticks and took our papers.

“What’d you get?” I asked.

She passed me hers ‘Strong luck, you are destined for success’.  I looked at mine ‘Medium luck, must be careful at this time’.

Moving to the balcony I held her as we looked out, we were like two shooting stars temporarily pulled into one another’s orbits and for a moment I wished it could last.  Relationships seemed more like temporary meetings now, together while it served a mutual interest, drifting apart once you’d taken what you needed.  We spent the next week together and on another afternoon at the reservoir she again asked me to follow her to Pai.

“In the mountains, very beautiful, just go to relax,” she pitched.

“I’ve never seen you relax, you go out every night,”I replied, watching as she turned away. 

“I rent house, just stay in at night listen to music.”

I didn’t say anything and the next day she was gone.

-------------------------------------------

In training I talked to Malcolm, a twenty two year old from London.  He’d just visited relatives in Manila and was now planning to fight.  We spent an afternoon at the mall sitting to lunch in a Western style bakery.

“So, how long till the fight?” I asked crunching a ham mushroom puff.

“Three weeks.”

“You making every session?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a pretty good routine, training twice a day, studying Thai in-between.”

“How’s the Thai?”

“Difficult, the teacher stands in front of me and says something expecting me to know the answer.  I just sit there thinking am I supposed to know that?”

He had an interesting face, small and narrow; I could picture his ancestors in primordial forests.

“What you doing at home?”

“I study shiatsu, it’s a healing system using the pressure points.”

He told me he was planning to combine it with Muay Thai coaching.  Learning how to inflict the pain and having a means to take it away.

“Your family supportive?”

“Yeah, I did a degree in interior design for a while, but it wasn’t what I wanted.  I’d like to see the world, that’s another part of my plan, to go everywhere.”

Being at the camp I’d met a lot of people like Malcolm, people who didn’t live within life’s norms but people who constructed their own worlds and the longer I spent with them the more it reinforced my own determination.  My determination to keep asking questions, to keep ploughing forward until I’d found what I was looking for. 

For the next three weeks I shadowed him in training, talking while we ran and when I was resting I’d watch him train.  He was quiet, not unconfident, just said what needed to be said and left it at that.  At night I visited the cinema or rented D.V.D’s rather than drinking to a stupor. 

One evening Gareth invited me to his favourite restaurant. “Don’t tell me you don’t know the Blue Diamond,” he said.

I shook my head.

“Oh, you’re in for a real treat mate, bacon and avocado salad, it’ll rock your nuts off.”

We parked outside a run of the mill restaurant and entered an Aladdin’s cave; baskets of home made breads and cakes, a sea of fresh fruits and vegetables tumbling down the counter.

“This place is the bollox mate.”

We took our table and ordered the salad, our company that night a girl who worked in a power station on Anglesey.  Only having two weeks before she had to get back to monitoring reactors she couldn’t reconcile our lifestyles.

“No, I’d love to spend more time out here, but I need a mortgage,” she’d said.  When I told her how I planned to go back for six months, buy a house and rent it out she couldn’t reconcile it.  Couldn’t see how it was so straightforward but it was.  If that’s what I’d really wanted, I knew I could have done it.

As Malcolm’s fight drew closer I’d became his unofficial cornerman.

“I reckon you’ve got to be prepared for those low kicks,” I said during training one day, “The one behind the knee, so you’re either blocking or moving back, either way you can’t take too many of those.” 

He was the last fight on the cards that Friday, nervous as we sat on the benches.  His first fight it wasn’t a time to talk about boxing, all the work done, it was time to relax.  I turned the conversation to light hearted banter, jesting about my chances of getting in the ring smoking twenty a day.  When the time drew close Danish Thomas led to the outer reaches of the stadium.

“You’ve got half an hour,” he said.

I got a photo of Malcolm in his jockstrap and watched as Thomas applied the hot oil. 

“That warm?”

He screwed up his face in agony, climbing off the table to begin the loosening process. 

“Got any stretches?” he asked. 

It wasn’t like him to ask for help and I again sensed his nerves, crouching to demonstrate a stretch as two Western girls appeared.

“Hi, hope we’re not interrupting, are you fighting tonight?” the prettiest asked in her American accent.  “I hope you don’t mind, we just wanted a couple of photos.”

Thomas glanced over winking, he wasn’t obvious about how his life in Thailand but he had a string girls.  At least two who visited his room and on nights like this he’d dine a girl at Riverside and see where it went.

Three trips to the bathroom and a weigh in later Malcolm was in the ring performing a perfect why Wai Kru dance.  It was the same with everything he did, paying attention to the details, attuned to subtle points others missed.  His opponent was a similar weight and in his early twenties rather than an aging ringer.

“Come on Malc,” I cheered as the bell rang.  

Focussed rather than aggressive in training I saw something I’d not seen before, a snarl across his face, a bouncing menace in his step.  Moving towards his opponent he went straight for the kill.  Not a second of hesitation as he launched forward smashing in kicks and combinations.  His opponent looked stunned, covering up and reversing like a dodgem trying to avoid a ramming. ‘Crack’ the Thai responded with a low kick.  I watched for Malcolm’s reaction, it came as a menacing smile and a bring it on gesture with his gloves.  Lunging forward and teeping his opponent in the stomach the crowd rose to their feet, bets flying in the pit. 

In the second the Thai came to life.

“Come on Malc, do him, do him.  Low kick Malc, watch the low kick,” I shouted as I noticed him begin to hobble.

“Come on Malc, you’ve got to block the low kick, low kick Malc.”

Halfway through the third he was in trouble, too many strikes behind the knee his bounce had gone.

“Elbow Malc, use the elbow.” 

Seconds later he crashed one in.

“That’s it, that’s it, again Malc, again.”

The Thai knew he couldn’t take any more of those; he walked forward smashing the back of leg like a lumberjack felling a tree.  Malcolm waved his hands.  It was over.

“Mate fantastic, you were brilliant,” I screamed as the crowd rose in applause. 

He disappeared for a couple of days after that and I filled my free time finishing my new book, the strings already tied by Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance pulled tighter.  A universe moving towards perfection, man evolving at a steady pace, and me at the tip of things trying to jump to the next level.  It was all good stuff, but I sensed I was holding too tight, trying to answer too many questions, trying to move too fast.

I’d done the same in China reading Thoreau’s Walden Pond and immediately simplifying my life.  I’d turned off the T.V. and taken to reading books.  Replaced visits to restaurants with rice and noodles I cooked in my kitchen.  It had lasted less than a week.  That’s when I’d seen change had to come slow.  Eat a little healthier and allow yourself the occasional McDonald's, go running every other day and spend a Sunday lounging on the sofa. It was what the selfhelp books had said, real change took time.  First you had to have a good reason to change, then you had to change your habits, habits you’d been living in for years, automatic reactions you never even thought about.  

In the gym two Californian girls had arrived providing a pretty distraction.  Oriental in looks I stood with Gareth as he ventured a question.

“What do you think? Fuck Me and Fuck You, the sushi sisters”

I looked at him smiling.

“Man, you’ve got a way with words.”

“Going to have myself a threesome.”

Later in the week I bumped into the three of them at the Blue Diamond.

“Paul, Sayo and Aya,” he introduced.

We spent the evening getting to know one another.  Sayo the older loved to travel.  She’d worked sixty hours a week to save for the trip, daytime in environmental education, nights in an antique hotel.  Her sibling was studying anthropology in Boston.  Their mother Japanese and the father Hawaiian it made for an exotic mix. 

Moving to The Riverside we sat by the water.

“So, come on, who’s got a dirty secret?” Gareth started.  He was an entertainer, someone who knew how to set the mood and exactly when to stop.  The girls stared blankly.

“Well, I’ve got a kid,” he said.

“Get outa here,”  Sayo replied. 

At thirty six I knew he’d have a past, but I’d never put him down as a father.

“Boy or girl?” I enquired.

“Girl.”

“You ever see her?”

“Now and again, but the mothers living with another woman.”

“What?”

“Sperm donor mate.” 

The girls looked at one another disbelieving.

“Wow, you guys lead colourful lives, how about you?” Sayo directed at me.

“I’ve been married.”

The girls gave us another you can’t be serious look. 

Spending the next day at a pool together I started feeling drawn to the youngest.  Smart in her thinking, bikini revealing a decent figure, she had something of the Amazonian about her.  The clincher was the walk back to the camp, her stooping down to retrieve a piece litter from the street.

“You always do that?” I asked.

“Sure, this is a beautiful place, if everyone does their bit it stays that way.”

In the camp there were three fighters preparing for fights at the Loi Krathong Festival; Danish Thomas, Lars from Sweden and Shawn from New Zealand.  People were talking down Thomas’s chances due to his Alli habit of dropping the hands.  Lars was strong and looked like he could do the job.  Shawn the kind of fighter I hated, nothing about him but the desire to hurt. 

Raining on the day of the fights I arrived at Thapae Gate and made my way to stand beneath a tarpaulin.  A temporary ring erected in the square before Thapae Gate, T.V. cameras were mounted on scaffolding, a lively announcer giving the rundown in Thai. 

A group of American girls were first up; flown in by a Thai promoter I’d seen their poster at the camp. Playboy models with inflated breasts.  In the first bout a towering blonde smashed a pint sized Thai until her face was a mush of red.  The following fight a repeat of the first, the victor climbed the ropes thumping her chest and swinging a fist.

“Come on Thailand, come on,” I hollered.

It wasn’t a pleasant spectacle, every bout a mismatch in weight, the American's carrying themselves with a brashness at odds with everything Thai, they were totally unaware of where they were.  It was something I cherished about being British, something about our history which bent us towards understanding.  Watching the fights had been like watching two ends of a scale, the Thai’s reserved and respectful, the Americans shameless and self promoting.  In the final match a girl from Ireland was up against the yank, boyish ginger hair, pale skin, she reversed the tide, beating the African American until she submitted in the third.

“That’s more like it, let’s see some real competition,” I shouted.

Lars the first was the first fighter from our camp, the bout was peppered with gentlemanly touches of gloves, a points decision going in favour of the Thai.  Shawn was the opposite, matched against a stocky Thai he raged in like a bull.  I hated him, an ignorant bully, the type who’d have been tough at school, using his menace to get whatever he wanted.  I was pleased to see his opponent rise to the challenge.  By the fourth he looked like he’d lose, a succession of low kicks leaving him immobilized. 

“Elbow,” Andy called.

For twenty seconds he continued to struggle, then an elbow to the head, another, another, another.  The Thai collapsed, Shawn climbing the ropes and raising an arm in victory salute.  I wondered whether the Thai could have seen it coming.  It was often the case the elbow wouldn’t be used, a gentlemen’s agreement translated subliminally during a fight.  Had the Thai thought that was the agreement? He wouldn’t now.

For Thomas’s fight I moved closer to the ring and from the bell it looked good, long teeps keeping his opponent at bay, low hands, leaning back to make his opponent miss.  The Thai looked out of ideas as Thomas delivered a kick to the head, then, a slip, Thomas on all fours and the Thai crossing the ring to knee him hard in the ribs.

“Hey, no way, you can’t do that,” I shouted. 

It was an illegal move but the referee didn’t call it, Thomas groping for the ropes, the referee waved his hands.

My thoughts turning towards food it was announced there’d be a special fight.  Rigel an American who’d only been at the camp two weeks had been cast as a last minute replacement.  He’d told me he’d done a lot of boxing in the States but had only recently recovered from a broken neck.  A huge gut hanging over his shorts, his body painted in tattoos, he wasn’t in shape but I had a suspicion he might do it.  It was his power; I’d watched him with the trainers, mitts almost flying from their hands as he connected with his rights.  The bout beginning the M.C. made jokes about his weight and I remembered what he’d coached me in training ‘What do you want to be, the bull or the matador? Be the matador, be smart, circle him, in out, in out.’ Watching him putting it into practice it was the third when things got interesting.  Rocking his opponent the Thai came forward landing an elbow to the top of his head, seconds later blood streaming from a gash.  I watched him wave his arms pleading for the referee not to stop it, the doctor applying Vaseline they resumed, bang, same place, more blood, it was over.

Back at the camp that night I stood outside Mali’s house looking up as a procession of lanterns drifted across the sky in celebration of Loi Kratong.  It gave me a feeling of joy, a moment I wanted to share with those I loved ‘Oh, you should have seen it, I’d never seen anything like it, hundreds of lanterns lighting up the sky.  You know, like one of those moments when the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, you get that shivering feeling, wanting to hold the moment.  Do you know what I’m saying?’ They wouldn’t of course, they’d be thinking about something else or forming their own picture, but they wouldn’t have felt it. 

Swedish Karl eager to see the festival downtown we took a trip to the river, fireworks flying overhead as a constant stream of lanterns rose to join the procession.  Paying for our own, we lit the kerosene. 

“Ready?” I said.

“Ready?” Karl replied as we pushed it towards the heavens and watched it fall on a passing car.  Assisted by a couple of Thai’s we made it on our second attempt, standing for twenty minutes as it drifted to the distance. 

“Man this is amazing,” I said looking at an army of bamboo rafts flaming down the river.

“Yeah, but not the fireworks,” Karl replied. 

He was a real woos, scarred of fireworks!  Deciding it was too dangerous he headed back and I took off alone riding the streets and returning to camp to find Shawn outside Cherry Mart drunk and arguing with a Dubian. It was another mismatch, Yousef coming to the camp to get fit, he’d never boxed.

“Get off me man, you’re fuckin crazy,” he cried as Shawn grabbed him round the throat.  Things about to turn ugly Rigel emerged from the shadows, grabbing Shawn and pushing his arms behind his back.

“Time for bed.”

And there was my sushi sister, taking him away.  I hadn’t known there was anything between them.  A smart girl with a brutish asshole but that was still how it worked, feminist bullshit aside, a girl still wanted her barbarian.  I made a promise to myself that night; I was going to take her from him, a demonstration of brains outmanoeuvring brawn.

The next day I heard she’d taken him back to his room and he hadn’t known what to do.  It was great, picturing the scene as he got what he wanted and stood staring at the naked girl.  Dating was like boxing, you had to work at it and he hadn’t. 

Later that week Gareth told me the girls were leaving and on their final night we entertained them at the Blue Diamond, returning to the camp to watch televised fights from Bangkok.

“Hey, I’m going to head off to bed,” Sayo said. “It’s been good meeting you.”

“Yeah, don’t forget to e-mail,” Aya added.

As Sayo left with Gareth I thought about my girl alone in her room, I had to do it, I’d promised myself I would and tonight had to be the night.  I walked to her guesthouse, knocking and waiting.

“Hi, hi, this is unexpected,” she said.

“Just wondered if you wanted to come for a dance.”

She looked back to the room.

“I can’t, really, it’s great for you to offer, but, I, we’re leaving early in the morning, and, I, hey, it’s been great meeting you, and Gareth,”  she looked at me for a moment. “Enjoy the rest of your trip.”

“You too.”

As she closed the door I walked slowly and stopped in the stairwell, ‘O.K. buddy, this is still on,’ I told myself, ‘give her a couple of minutes to consider what might have been and she won’t say no.’

I knocked the door again and she opened it smiling.

“One dance, you’re here, there’s so many places you haven’t seen yet, seems a shame to spend the night in your room.”

She took another moment and gave the nod.

“Where we going?”

“Bossy.”

Pushing a note under her Gareth’s door we rode to town.  Quiet outside we entered to find it almost empty, a DJ on stage, a banner overhead reading ‘The Off Road Club’.  Taking a table I looked around, no live band, just a bunch of people talking about jeeps and four by fours.

“Shit, I can’t believe this,” I said, “this place is usually jumping.”

I went to the bar and ordered drinks

“King's Birthday cannot sell alcohol,” the bartender said pointing to a table laid out with free beers and alcopops. I took a couple and returned to the table.

“You know I don’t usually do this,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Come out with a guy I hardly know.”

I nodded. 

“Good though, isn’t it?”

Taking her by the hand I led her to the floor and danced to the slow music. 

“Wow, I don’t usually do this either.”

It was fun, and she was pretty but somehow it was better with Yaa.  Leaving after an hour we looked unsuccessfully for another venue and returned to the camp.  At her guesthouse she dismounted and stood looking at me.

“Thank you,” she said returning to kiss me. 

She stood looking at me, a silence which required a solution.

“You want to come back?” I asked.

Returning to my room I watched her climb to the bed and I paused.  I was in unfamiliar territory, sober, a Western girl fully clothed.  My only recent ventures being Thai I was out of practice.  Awkwardly making my way to join her I tried to figure out where to start, settling on a kiss and a fumbling through the removal of clothing.  I wasn’t relaxed in the slightest, pressure to perform, to lead, to make sure she was satisfied; she wanted it hard and fast.  I looked at her, athletic, smart, pressure, pressure, pressure….  As I prepared to spend the night wrapped around her she grabbed her things.

“Thank you,” she said at the door.