Chapter 20 Dying young

The next day I waited for Yaa at the camp, I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t show, too drunk to remember, having to explain to her boyfriend where she was going.  Sticking to my training I was pleased with myself.  Not chasing around looking for her I was exercising my power, showing I didn’t need her, keeping to my plan.  It was Wednesday when the bedside phone rang.

“I want to see you,” she said.

“When?”

“Now, I go to Huay Teung Tao, you can meet me?”

I slowly got myself together, riding to the end of the drive as the bike sputtered with an unfamiliar sound. Taking it to the garage I sat in Dunkin Donuts as they checked it over.  The time nearing two I was almost willing it keep me from her. ‘Perhaps it’s destiny forcing us apart,’ I told myself, ‘forcing us apart so I can concentrate on my plan’.  Collecting the bike I rode slowly arriving as someone pulled alongside me.

“I not think you come,” she said. “I go home, see you on expressway”

I followed her down to the pagoda next to the lake, parking in the empty lot and walking to the end of the pier.

“You still smoking?” she said as I lit up. “I think you smoke too much.”

“Little bit,” I said.  I had the urge to hold her.  My mind at war as I told myself I didn’t need her, couldn’t have her.

“How long you stay with French boyfriend?”

“Two month, we rent house near your boxing.”

I wondered why she’d chosen to be so close, had she been waiting for me?

“He’s good to you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Why you not call me?”

“I tell you already, I just come to box, I think you go back to Bangkok.” 

She looked at me with a poker face.

“You love boyfriend France?”

“He O.K., we have fun together, sometimes I cannot talk to him but….”

As she trailed off I watched her collecting thoughts.

“Just have birthday, I buy him pool table from Carrefour, you know Carrefour?”

I nodded.

“Big table, I have to carry on my motorbike but cannot,” she giggled to herself and looked at me.

“I try cocaine and ecstasy.”

My head fuzzed over as I took in what she’d said, why had she told me that?

“You should be careful, you don’t know what they put in those pills.”

“Just try one time, want to know how it feels.”

“Be careful,” I said again.

It was the same as before, her wanting to do everything and I was afraid at some time not to far away she’d be gone drugs, an accident.  I didn’t want her back, I just wanted to know she was somewhere, something reassuring about knowing her spirit was at work in the world.

“My brother kill somebody in Bangkok, come to stay with me in Chiangmai.  Man go to his house to kill him but he do first.”

It was like shock therapy, not getting the required response she’d upped the voltage.  Was it a cry for help, a ruse to push me back to her? I didn’t think so, she’d only have had to ask if that was what she’d wanted.

“Why are you telling me that? I don’t need to know that.”

We looked at each other silently, she was beautiful as ever; smart clothes, deep tan, but I wasn’t going to fight for her, this was a social call, an act of politeness between friends.  

I looked at my watch, “I have to train.”

Walking back to the bikes we play fought for a minute and I thought we might be close to holding.

“Take care,” I said.

“Good to see you.”

I watched as she sped into the distance, it was the last time we talked.

I was back up to full fitness in the gym crunching out a hundred sit ups, coming back towards sixty press ups.  Running with a newly arrived martial arts instructor from Australia he met me back at the gym, “Jesus you’re fit, I was trying to keep up but you were just gone.”

Running had become part of me now, another instinct I didn’t have to think about.  The Boy Scout run was my favourite, four kilometres in the afternoon, starting on the flat and then winding through a series of steep inclines.  I was always first to the top, never looking back until I’d arrived.  I’d wait for the others, we’d walk down two hundred metres, line up and race to the top.  We’d do it four or five times.  It gave me a feeling similar to being in the ring, giving everything, pushing to the edge.  Perhaps at a time like that you were as close to Nicolas’s God, at the limit of what a body and mind could do.

Running The Boy Scout with Thomas the next day we had our first proper conversation. 

“Still planning to open your gym?” I began.

“Yeah, Jean’s back in Canada, once he says it’s ready I’ll join him.”

“Is that it for you?”

“It’s the only thing I want to do, train people to box, set up some fights.”

I was struck by the definity of his answer; how out of all the things he could have done he knew that was it.  How did you do that? 

“That easy to break into?” I continued.

“Easy, no, I wouldn’t say that, but if you can make the right connections there’s good purses down in Vegas.”

“Fuck, that sounds like a nice plan.  Every time I go home I seem to end up working in an office.”

“Never wore a shirt and tie in my life.”

“Never?”

“I prefer to work with my hands.”

“What’d you do last time you were home?”

“Worked the night shift in my friend’s glass factory, no one else there, I just had to manage the stock, keep things in order.”

Beginning the incline I felt my legs move into traction mode, galvanized by the challenge as they gripped the gravel.

“You know what fighting is?” he said.  “It's show business, that’s what you’ve got to remember, when you get in that ring your not just there to fight, you’re there to put on a show.”

I was knocked sideways by that statement; it stood at odds with everything I thought the fighters were there for.  It was the ultimate test, pushing yourself beyond boundaries, standing up to the world and letting it beat you, then standing up again and saying ‘I’m still here’.  That’s when I saw it, it was just me who saw it like that, I’d turned boxing into a part of my quest, but no one else thought about it like that.  They hadn’t read what I’d read, asked the questions I’d asked.  For them it was cool, it got you girls, boxing was show business. 

As the week drew to a close I was getting that feeling again, fit enough for The Legion already the desire to follow through on my plan just wasn’t there.  Finishing my latest book I was inspired by the authors life; studying philosophy, becoming a journalist, getting divorced, losing his family, picking up a heroin addiction, becoming a bank robber, escaping a maximum security jail, hiding out in a Bombay slum, learning the language, fighting in Afghanistan. 

That was my path, high adventure, cocktail nights, mystery and intrigue.  What struck me was how he’d kept going. There were times when he nearly hadn’t but he never got that far.  Never quite reached the point where extinction was preferable to existence and that was me too.  Death too easy, The Legion too contained, what was I going to do?  It was as if I’d become stuck between two extremes normal life or total adventure.  I couldn’t find a middle road, a place in which I felt I had a normal life yet was still testing boundaries.  It seemed most people never found that path either, those I admired would never have envisaged the way their lives unravelled, they just kept doing things they were passionate about, kept taking risks.

That Friday I arranged another night with Cameron, rocking up to Chiang Mai Saloon where he joined me smiling as he entered.

“Sawat dii cap,” he greeted.

“How you doing?”

“Ah good, just had me self a foot massage. I’ve got a little routine massage and a coconut shake every night, need it at my age.”

I topped up his glass reassured by the sound of ice on glass as I stirred.

“So, another night in The Kingdom of Siam,” he continued.

“Not bad, is it?”

“Ah, you know, there’s something about this place.  When I went to New York I just knew I’d be coming back.”

We took a moment to sup our whiskies.  

“How about you, you think you’ll fight?” he said.

“Nar, I enjoy the training but that’s it for me, love being fit but the idea of getting in the ring, I just don’t want it.”

“Spoke to Andy about my fight today, reckons he can fix me up in about six weeks, just have to keep pushing Doi for a date.  I think this’ll be my last night on the source for a while.”

“You serious?”

“Yeah, I could do it all when I was younger but it’s harder now, off the source, off the cigs.”

Taking a moment to consider the loss of my drinking partner I remembered what he’d said in the gym.

“I heard you saying you were acting.”

“That’s it, I’m trying to break in in New York.  Most people go to L.A. but there’s so much bullshit to deal with.”

“You done much already?”

“Jobs?”

“Yeah.”

“I did a bit back in Australia, just finished two years of acting college in Sydney.”

“How was that?”

“Ah great, for my finals I had to perform a fifteen minute piece I’d choreographed.”

He looked excited as he lit a cigarette.

“Yeah, so I make up this sort of catwalk piece involving all these different sports. I’m shit scared when I start out but I’ve chosen some really good music, every time I do a different sport the right music’s kicking in.  I finish and the audience is on its feet…. one of the best feelings I’ve ever had.”

Wrapping the table he continued.

“And, and even more intense was this small piece I had to do about a gay prostitute.  I really wanted to know what it’s about so I go to Kings Cross and find this guy down an alley.  He spends half an hour filling me in on what it’s like and I take it to the stage, had to drop me kecks and everything.  I made it so real the audience went wild.  Unbelievable, all standing on their feet applauding, that’s the feeling mate.  Man I can still feel it.”

“Sounds like you found something you really enjoy, you always wanted to act?”

“Since I was a kid, the old man put me off when I was younger but when I got to my thirties I knew I had to do it.”

“Yeah well, there’s plenty of guys who started late, Morgan Freeman was fifty odd, wasn’t he?”

“Something like that, the hard parts getting the old foot in the door.  How about you? What ya do back in blighty?”

“Still tying to figure that one out.  Can’t do the whole career thing, tried that when I was younger, spent the last few years travelling and doing a bit of work when I needed to.  Really into philosophy right now, huh, I was supposed to be doing my exams in a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, just couldn’t handle being back in England.”

Cameron sat back thoughtfully.

“Perhaps you took what you needed.”

It was a decent piece of reasoning, I’d taken things as far as they were ready to go, and when I was ready I’d be back.  That’s how I’d read it was supposed to be, a subject you couldn’t instantly grasp, something you had to take a bite of and chew until you had it straight.

“I’d like to write something,” I continued. “Not really sure what, but when I was in China there were these English language papers, thought I might write something for one of those.”

“Ah yeah, what kind of stuff?”

“The changes, man it’s all happening there right now, these people who were living in the shadow of communism and boom, they’ve just thrown off the shackles.  Still call themselves communist but that’s bullshit, they’re more capitalist than we are.  They see McDonald’s as the place to be seen, have all these goods that just weren’t there before.  I mean I used to go shopping and I’d see people leaving in a Porsche four by four, my grandparents still think peasants.”

Cameron still listening I wasn’t through.

“It just fascinating, the rise of China and India’s going to flatten out the global economy, America’s looking over its shoulder but it’s too late.  The Chinese are going to be the next superpower and India, ha, they’re just kicking themselves.  Had the head start, the democracy, all the infrastructure we left behind and they just fucked it all up.  Totally disorganised and now they’re looking at China with its strict government roaring ahead.  Yeah, I’d love to write something about that, just gotta find out how to go about it.  Something like the Bangkok Post would be good to write for.”

Pausing for breath I realized I’d just unloaded something that had been waiting for an audience, I was passionate, I had a story to tell. 

“Well, here’s to the future mate,” Cameron said raising his glass.

“Good to meet you buddy.”

We were two individuals chasing our dreams and somehow we’d ended up in Chiang Mai.  There was something about the place, somewhere which seemed to attract creative souls wanting time to reflect; actors, writers, boxers. 

“You gunna to be looking for a training partner in the build up to this fight?” I asked.

“If you’re offering, I’ve decided I’m only training once a day, had a word with Andy and he’s cool.  Was a similar age to me when he started so he knows the score.”

He was his own man, it was almost taboo not to train twice a day but he’d looked at it practically.  He could get away with once a day, do his thing, make it to the ring. 

“Shit look at the time,” he said. 

Nearly ten we drained our bottle and headed for the fights. 

“Lars tonight, isn’t it?”

It was round one when we arrived, the Czechoslovakian staring menacingly over his gloves, tattooed arms like a pair of juggernauts at his sides.  It was the first time I’d seen a Thai looking scared.  Lars walking forward, arms swinging, then bang, he snapped out a long jab, the Thai stumbling backwards.  He was the most powerful puncher I’d seen and setting about his opponent I was waited for him to launch the right.  When he did, his opponent crumpled.  Bang! Body shot to the left, same to the right, two jabs, one right and the Thai was on his back.  Raising a solitary arm he circled the ring, convincing, devastating. 

“Ready to move on?” I said.

Cameron giving the nod we rode to Bubble, dancing with a couple of girls and ending at Spicy. Yaa there and Nen again approaching and asking me to leave.

“I not want trouble,” Yaa said as she joined us.

“Neither do I, so what’s the problem?”

A guy edged in next to her, baseball cap covering his face, I looked him up and down, tall, gangly, skin which had aged too quickly. 

“Hi how you doing?” I offered.  He stood un-answering, staring at Yaa with a stupid grin on his face.  I thought about what I could do to him, one elbow to crack his face down the middle.  It wasn’t that he’d taken her from me it was what he was doing to her.  I was sure the drugs were him, and at that moment I hated him, I wanted him to start, say something, do something, give me an excuse.

I looked down at Yaa.

“Is this it? This guy? Well, if that’s what you want, have it, be my guest, fuck.”

Nen pulled me aside.

“Not now, please.”

“She loves him?”

She shrugged, “I think she still love you but have new boyfriend now, please.”

Walking me outside I felt my heart thumping. 

“I just hate to see her with someone she doesn’t love Nen, she’s too smart for that.”

Taking a moment to let my rage subside I asked her how she was.

“O.K.”

“Still at the same bar?”

She shook her head, “Just do some job for money.”

“Still drink milk?”

“Yes.”

On Sunday I arrived at the Amari pool where I’d arranged to meet Cameron. A four star hotel it was a swank joint, manicured lawn, looming palms, the kind of place I could afford to swim but not to stay.  Paying the entrance charge I collected my towel and looked around.  A couple of pot bellied Germans lounging on loungers, a few couples and a raised hand.  Sitting in Speedo trunks and dark sunglasses he looked like an Ozzie from a beer commercial.

“G’day mate,” he greeted.

“G’day to you, been here long?”

“Ah, about half an hour.”

I pulled across a lounger and lay down closing my eyes.

“Good night on Friday, I enjoyed our conversation,” I said.

“Ah me too, it’s been a while since I got to chew the fat.”

“I think it’s a downside at the camp, great for training but it’s hard to find someone to talk to.”

“You got it spot on there mate, that’s why I prefer staying in town?”

“You like that place you’re in?”

“Ah, it’s alright, Smile House, clean room, pool, a bit expensive.  Got a monthly rate last time but I’m paying three hundred and fifty a night now.”

Breaking for a few lengths of the pool we resumed.

“So, this the beginning of the pre-fight preparation?” I asked.

“Looks that way, ah fack I can’t wait to get in that ring.”

Hearing the bell for happy hour I watched a young waiter circle the pool in a crisp white suit.

“You travelled a lot?” I continued.

“Started in my teens, went to Europe.  Lived in London for a while, but had all me cash stolen so I hopped to Egypt and made my way home.  Got back at twenty two but my head was in a real mess, didn’t know what to do.  Went back to school, did a business degree, got a job with Microsoft.”

“Nice.”

“Ah yeah, when I tell people I used to work for Microsoft they’re always impressed but by the time I got to thirty I was sitting in a basement staring at a screen all day.  I just thought fuck it.”

“You went to acting school?”

“Yeah, well, it’s been a long road.  When I got back from travelling my mates said I looked depressed, recommended me a shrink.  So, I go to see her and she tells me to go back to my friends and ask them to describe me.  One of my best mates says ‘You look like a haunted soul’.  A haunted soul, that scared the shit out of me.  I go back to the doc and she asks me all these questions, turns out my old man’s at the root of it all.”

I smiled.

“The old man fucked with my head so much when I was younger, put me off acting, sent me to this highfalutin fucking private school.  I got through, but only just and then I’m gone overseas.  The old man’s a real fuckwhit, got his own business, thinks he knows it all.  Hit the fucker last time I was home.”

“A proper shot?”

“Straight on the button.  I’m fixing his computer, doing the idiot a favour and he comes into the room standing over me, always does it, invades my space.  So I’ve turned round and told him to back off and he’s still standing there, when he leaned closer I lost it.  Stood up and punched him full in the chest.”

“You still in touch?”

“Haven’t spoken to him since I left, sent my mum a letter from Phuket, but I’m done with the old man.”

Falling to silence I pictured the scene, a wooden house somewhere near the harbour, blue sky out the window, Cameron concentrating and the looming figure, The overbearing presence, hanging silently. Cameron’s mind split, unable to get down to it and then boom, the aggression, the surge of rage, the figure silently accepting the blow.

“Saw my counsellor for seven years, seven years man, that’s how long it took to sort out all the issues.  Finally I got the confidence for the acting.  Once I jacked the Microsoft gig I just tunnelled in, found one of the best academies in Sydney, did two years full time.”

“And now New York?”

“That was always been the plan.”

“Looks like it’s working out.”

“Yeah, well, early days, get myself a couple of juicy parts, makes a few hundred thousand and I’m set.”

“You never think about getting some security behind you? Buying a house?”

“Mate, I went through all that when I was in my job but you know what I just thought, ‘I’m too old? I either do this now or it’s never going to happen’.  I’m still in touch with a few of the guys I worked with, would have been on sixty K now but I wouldn’t swap it.”

“That’s exactly what I thought, I mean, I’m not as clear about my plans but I spent four years in an office and on the last day I remember sitting in a meeting having no idea what anyone was talking about.  You know what I thought? I thought, ‘I can stay here and do this for another forty years, settle down, collect my pension or I can go and see everything’.  So here I am, surfing the globe, my mates back home can’t imagine a life like this.”

“Your family supportive?”

“Ha, you’ve got to be joking, they all think I’m mad.  My old man’s a carbon copy of yours.  I wanted to go travelling when I was eighteen, took a year out before university and he convinced me I’d be better off working in a supermarket.”

“Ah shit, that’s insane.”

“Yeah, so I get married, house, cat, car and it’s not until four years later I wake up.  We’ve sold the house and we’re upgrading to one of these fancy city apartments, about to get locked into another twenty five year mortgage.”

“Fack.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t happen all at once, but after a while I decided I just didn’t want it.  My wife didn’t seem to love me anymore, job sucked, and yeah I read this book, ‘The Backpacker’ or something, a bunch of English guys living down on Kho Phangan.  Great story, pretending to be aristocracy and getting everything for free until the Thais find them out.  Once I read that I just knew I had to see everything.  Ha, you know what my old man said last time I was back, he said he didn’t understand why I had to go to all these places when I could watch them on T.V.”

Cameron sniggered.

“Yeah, that’s it, isn’t it? Who cares if we work in McDonald’s we can go to Hawaii every night.

“Fack, sounds like you’ve had a similar deal to me.”

We fell silent for a while and I looked at the pool.  It was the most ornate I’d seen, the entire bottom lined with jade tiles.  I considered the hours it must have taken to lay them, each carefully put in place, each representing a moment in some workman’s life. 

“You know, I don’t think most people can even imagine a life like this.” I restarted. “All my mates could travel if they wanted to, but there’s no desire.  I don’t think they believe it can be like this.  My best mate’s girlfriend once said to me ‘Some of us are home birds and some of us are astronauts, and you’re an astronaut’.”

“You know, I definitely see myself retiring out here.  Once I’ve got the acting out the way maybe ten, fifteen years, I wanna come back here get a condo, do a road trip through Asia.”

I thought about that for a moment.

“You know, it’s funny, but it’s not like that for me, I want to live out here now.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I’m just trying to find some way of making a living which doesn’t involve teaching English, but yeah, I definitely see myself out here”

“You been in Cambodia?”

“No.”

“Ah, my last time I did a little side trip to Phnom Penh, didn’t intend it as anything major but I meet this English dood teaching, he’s on heroin every night.  I don’t know how the fack he got up in the morning but the guy was insane.”

“Injecting it?”

“Nar, snorting powder.”

“So, anyway, this guy invites me to join him for a week.  Seven days totally coked out of my head.”

“Sounds a bit hardcore.”

I’d never tried hard drugs, a little marijuana that had left me feeling dizzy and sick, but now I didn’t know, a week for the heroine experience. 

“I tell you what, if we’re ever back here together we’ll do it, a week in Phnom Penh?” I said.

“Ah, now you’re talking.”

In training the following week I stuck with Cameron during the afternoon sessions and made morning runs in the company of two ex-army Brits.  John having just left the navy had had a decent pay out and plans to qualify as a dive instructor. Jamal by contrast still thought he was in the forces, cleaning his room with military regularity, carrying himself with an air of superiority.  Running up the mountain one morning we were joined by another Brit with a similar mentality.  Letting him build up a lead I passed him panting at the side of the road. ‘Why do they do it?’ I thought, perhaps it was the need to prove something, to push ourselves, to compete.

Later in the week I was joined by a rookie in sparring, a pretty boy from England and not in bad shape.  As we began the first I circled him, bobbing my head from side to side as he threw the jab.  When I’d picked up his rhythm I waited for his shots, moving to the side to counter with combinations.  Shaking his head and nodding he advanced again with the same result.

“Ah shit man, you’re killing me” he said at the end of the first.  I had enough craft now, waiting for the bull to rage in, making him miss and then bang, the counter.  I’d let him hit my guard from time to time and sure he was distracted fired shots to the abdomen which had doubled him over. At the end of the second I stood back surveying my work, a couple of grazes on his forehead I could tell he was confused.  I hadn’t really done much but somehow I’d picked him off. 

The same week I enjoyed a more intense session with another Paul from Birmingham.  Having just returned from a run I shouldn’t have taken the challenge but adrenaline flowing I accepted.  A skinhead covered in tattoos he’d told me he’d been in the ring several times in England and beginning the first he was on the game.  Stepping in, forcing the pace, then bang I countered with a stiff jab and moved to the side to deliver a hook. 

As he continued to advance he caught me with a few good shots and I responded by working the body, throwing the occasional right when I’d caught him off balance.  By the end of the second I was exhausted, using the last of my strength to hold up my hands. I imagined myself as Ali, leaning against the ropes as Foreman beat me to hell.  I wasn’t as proficient as Ali, pummelling shots landing with regularity, by the third I’d been a punch bag, able to do nothing but stand and see how much I could take, combination after combination rattling off my brain.  Leaving the ring he hooked his arm around me.

“You’ve got some power in those arms,” he said.

A bruise under his left eye I looked in the mirror and saw I had one to match.  It had been the closest thing I’d had to a tear up.  Like the ones I used to watch between Benn and Eubank in England, it felt good, every time I pushed it, it felt good.

a