Chapter 22 Stay or go?

Travelling back with Cameron’s Australian contingent I chatted to the girl who’d stood next to me during the fight, she was pretty, not stunning, but good enough.  She told me she was on a three week vacation with her friend from Sydney. They were doing the speed tour, a few nights in Bangkok, the same in Chiang Mai, some r & r on the islands.

“So, what are you doing when you get back?” I asked.

“Back to work I’m afraid.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Call centre, nothing glamorous, but the pays good.”

The moment she said it I lost all interest.  There were certain things I looked for in a person now and if one was present nothing else mattered.  The factor in question was spirit, the feeling which drove a person in search of something better than working in a call centre.  The only type of Western girl I could be interested in had to have it.  Even the girls who travelled didn’t appeal if all they did was follow the guidebooks and sit around sipping shakes. I wanted a girl for whom travelling was no longer enough, someone curious about life’s questions, someone who would tell me the idea of working in an office made them feel sick. 

“You boys out tomorrow?” she asked.

Feeling obligated to play host I invited her to Bubble and once back at the camp arranged to meet the following evening.  

Cameron and I driving to Nen’s bar we sidled up to the bar near two a.m., taking our seats as I noticed black bruising becoming prominent beneath his right eye. 

“Where you go tonight?” the barmaid asked.

“Fighting, Muay Thai,” Cameron replied.

“Huh.”

“Boxing Muay Thai in Lampang,” she looked at him disbelieving. “Hurt very much,” he said stepping from his stool to hobbling back and fourth wincing.

“True,” I offered.

“You boxer?”

An overweight Westerner looked over at the mention of boxing and ordering a round of beer and whiskey I sat back considering how to reminisce the night.

“Fuck Cam, what a night, the crowd loved you. I’ve never seen anyone take that much punishment.”

He was a genuine warrior and in spirit the person who came closest to sharing my own passions.  He didn’t care what other people thought when it came to his ambitions, he was going fight and he’d fought, he was going to act, and that was it.  Loved Asia, loved travelling, loved life.  Whatever had driven me back to Thailand meeting him had been the biggest dividend.  I was on a path and he’d been thrown in to help me, someone to affirm my beliefs, someone working at a similar pace, there was magic in the air. 

“What’ve you been doing in the daytime?” I asked.

“In Changers, I don’t usually get up till midday, walk round the corner to a German place for coffee and toast.”

“Bierstube?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Then I’ll usually hit the library.”

“Library?”

“The American Alumni place, they’ve got some English books, air-conditioning.”

“Reading anything good?”

“Ah, a lot of short stories and plays at the moment, just read some amazing stuff by Jack London, White Fang.”

The whole concept of short stories was unfamiliar to me, for me there were books where people told stories and everything else appeared in magazines and newspapers.  What was a short story? Something written by someone who couldn’t get going? 

Finishing our drinks at three we capped the night with a trip to Spicy, arriving to a full house and moving to take a table at the back of the bar.

“See that little thing,” Cameron said motioning towards a slim girl in figure hugging dress.  “We had something going when I first got to Chiangmai.  Man she went like a rocket, haven’t been able to get near her since, gives me the come on every time I see her but that’s as far as it goes.”

“Mate, that’s the game they play, get you hooked, keep you dangling.  There’s only one way to play it, you take your hit and you move on.”

It was where the girls got their kicks, going with older men when they needed money, younger guys when they wanted fun and the rest of the time they made us pine.  That was the crunch to pine or not to pine.  Some guys couldn’t handle it, got jealous or angry, but you had to let them fly, should they return, all well and good. 

“I was thinking of offering her a thousand baht,” he continued still watching.

“Mate, don’t fucking do it, I never pay for it, just find another one.”

A pained look crossed his face, “You never pay for it?”

“One of my rules.”

Looking out the crowds were thinning, but close to our table I could see nothing but girls, as if a tide had suddenly swept all the males out to sea.

“Cam, how many girls are there here?”

“Fuck, a lot, twenty, twenty five.”

The girls in Spicy were referred to as bad girls, an identical crowd every night, drinking and smoking till four, tattoos prominent, always leaving with a different foreigner. 

“You know, I don’t think there’s a single girl here I’m interested in,” I said. “Sounds mad doesn’t it, but I’ve got no desire to take one home.”

“Ah, you know, that’s exactly how I’m feeling, I’ve met a nice girl in town, but these girls, yeah.”

The next evening we met at Chiangmai Saloon polishing off a bottle of whiskey and moving to Bubble to meet the Australians.  Finding them at the bar, I collected my Deep Bomb and Cameron made the introductions. The guys were a gay couple from his acting college, a Parisian and a Sydneysider who’d been together four years, the Frenchman wiry and refined, the Ozzie chubby and smiling.

“Hi, how’s it going?” said the Sydneysider.

“Good yeah, you enjoy last night.”

“Incredible, couldn’t believe we were watching the same Cameron.”

“When’d you last see him?”

“It’s been more than a year; he was a fat guy with a beard when I last saw him, unbelievable.”

“Cameron said you’re on your way to Paris.”

“Yes, my partner wants to see home.”

As Cameron took his attention I turned to the Parisian.

“Hi, I’m Cameron’s friend Paul, I hear you’re on your way home.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Any plans.”                                                               

“I work on screenplay, it’s based on an Australian novel. The story of a boy growing up in Brisbane, struggling with his sexuality, his parents can’t accept him.”

I could empathize with that, the struggle for acceptance, it was in a way what I wanted more than anything, my family to recognise the life I’d chosen, to understand I wasn’t goofing off.  It had driven me mad when my father insinuated I was a freeloader ‘Can’t you see what I’m doing’ I used to think.  ‘I’m trying to rationalize a philosophy for my generation; we haven’t got a religion, we’re sick of working to buy things we don’t need. I’m trying to restore the balance. Just think of me as being Jesus?’ ‘What?’ my father would have replied ‘Jesus, that’s what he did, isn’t it? Just took a look at life and tried to work out the best way we could get through it, that’s what I do’.

The music rising a notch I silently sipped my cocktail.

“Ah hi,” it was my Australian girl, her high pitched screech rising above the decibels.

“This place is amazing,” she gushed. 

I smiled and nodded, “Done anything nice today?”

“Ah yeah, we went on this boat trip, saw some elephants and some of the hill tribe people.”

As I looked at her, slightly overweight, pretty but not exceptional, I decided I had to ditch her, excusing myself to visit the bathroom and moving to the stage dance among the crowd.  Shimmying to the floor and back again hands closed around my waist and turning I found myself looking into the face of an attractive Thai.

“You like dancing?” I asked.

“I’m a dance teacher.”

Together until the end I offered her a lift home; I wasn’t really in the mood for sex and dropping her at her apartment I made a u-turn to leave.

“You want come in?” she said.

Inside her building the corridors were dim, her room accessed through a metal door, it had the appearance of a communist housing block.

“I take shower,” she said disappearing to the balcony.

Lying on her bed I listened to the splashing of water, gazing around the room.  It was a simple space, wardrobe, draws, T.V, stereo, photos of family and friends.  The type of simplicity I reckoned Thoreau would have approved of, an entire life which could have been packed away in couple of decent sized boxes. 

“I shy,” she said returning in a white towel and coming to join me on the bed.

She told me she was from the countryside, trained as a dance teacher but working in a bag factory. 

As she began to kiss me I took her hand, “I don’t have any condoms.”

“No problem, we go Seven Eleven?” my shy girl replied.

I felt awkward standing beside her as I picked out a packet of Strawberry Durex.  Returning to the room, I went through the motions and waited for her to take control.  She didn’t have a clue, all my preconceptions of Thai girls having first class sexual educations suddenly blown away.  The girls I’d been with had been the players, looking for the foreigners, watching pornos to pick up the tricks, but his girl was a regular girl. 

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The following week needing somewhere to think I took Cameron’s lead visiting the library.  It was an impressive building, traditional Lanna styling, open courtyard at the centre. Inside the library I felt the immediate effects of the air-conditioning, as if thought was only possible at one temperature and they’d set the thermostat to thinking.  It was small, six tables, a room off to the side with a single computer.

I approached a smartly dressed Thai and she rose pointing to the floor,  “Shoes outside please.”

Walking outside I placed them in the rack and returned to exchange my bag for a laminated number.  Daily newspapers and magazines on the wall I turned to find a table, a couple occupied by older foreigners I was drawn to the corner where a young Japanese sat alone.  Placing my pen and notebook on his table I made a circuit of the shelves, the philosophy section empty, lots on economics, half the collection made up of novels and travel literature.  Looking for China I picked out a title by two American journalists and returned to my table picking up a notebook I’d bought and heading a page Options.

Options

I thought back to what my counselling instructor had said during a course I’d taken ‘Let people know they have options, some people just get stuck from time to time.  They will say to you ‘I don’t love my partner anymore, but I can’t leave him, what about the kids? The house?’ You’re there to listen, get them to tell you all the reasons they can’t do something.  Then they look up and say, ‘What if I did leave him, I sold the house, took the kids, went back to work.’ That’s all it is, letting people know they have options’.

I began my list.

1. Stay in Chiangmai and teach English.
2. Go to China or Korea to teach.
3. Go home and get an office job while I resurrect my philosophy degree.

Glancing at what I’d written I felt like I was back at the beginning. I had choices but what the fuck was I doing? I thought back to my Sunday with my wife standing above Manchester telling her I was going to make a change.  How I wanted to see what I could do with my life.  I wondered whether anything I’d done really amounted to anything; the charity fundraising, all my reading, what difference had that really made? 

I started writing down everything I’d ever done, everywhere I’d been, the conversations I’d had.  I didn’t stop for two weeks, returning day after day to sit opposite my Japanese. He was always in the same seat, his books and stationary arranged in identical order.  When I drifted from my scrawling I wonder about what he might be doing there.  He never took more than glances at the page in front of him, at times asleep, sometimes just gazing around the room.  Perhaps we were there for the same reason, a weighing station where we could consider our next moves. 

Four hours scrawling usually did it for me, occasionally I’d get up to make a cup of oatmeal or scan through the book on China.  I thought about how wonderful it must have been living in China twenty years ago, foreigners under suspicion, having to make clandestine missions to collect their stories.  One tale told of a failed bid for the Olympics, the government hastily throwing up walls to disguise the poorer housing, a young disabled man taken into custody to ensure he wouldn’t cause embarrassment. The next day he’d been dead.   

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Visiting a new bookstore that week, I was interested to read something about the crash of the Thai economy, picking out a title and thumbing through the main points; investors got scared, pulled out their capital, people had over-borrowed, the economy crashed.  Not feeling the urge to buy once I had an overview I continued to peruse and picked up ‘Slave Nation’, it was about the future of work, the things I’d been thinking about, the age of manual labour passed, people hanging onto the perception that we needed to be busy.  The female author talked about working smarter, needing to redefine work.  The age of leisure was coming, perhaps in the future entertainment would be all there’d be; massages, meals, sex, conversation.

Back at the gym I met an Australian who’d been working as an English teacher in Korea.  He’d graduated at home and started working as a civil servant but had been gradually overcome by the dull routine.  It was as if everywhere I turned I got more confirmation of what I’d found. As if we were all in a giant office and one by one we were standing up to say, ‘What are we doing here?’  When no one replied, we left.  I wasn’t advocating a return to the total freedom of the hippies, just that we work smarter, do only what needed to be done and free up time to see life, to travel, to see friends.  Do what needed to be done and leave behind all the unnecessary seriousness, all those false smiles.

The Australian filled me in on his work “It was a good job, and I worked hard, but after two years I’d had enough,” he told me.  He’d taken a teaching post in a rural town and kept up a daily routine of swimming, after a while the parents asking him to teach their children.

“The Koreans can’t swim, before I know it, I’ve got a dozen students.”

“Paying?”

“It paid better than the teaching.”

When I asked him how he liked Korea, he told me he loved it, living in the mountains, using his spare time to explore with his motorbike.  It was the reason I’d travelled, to find a place where I could still explore, a place where Henry Ford’s production line wouldn’t reduce me to days pressing buttons.  I didn’t imagine my Australian friend ever envisaged himself teaching swimming in Korea, but he’d listened to his heart and he’d found a niche. 

Checking my e-mail later that day I had one from Gareth back in England.  ‘I’ve got a job for you, we just opened a new studio in Birmingham.  Give me a call when you get back.’

It was another option, and meeting Cameron for dinner I expressed anguish over my next move.

“I don’t know where I’m going.  Yesterday I’d made my mind up to go home and today I’m thinking of staying to teach, my plane leaves next Friday”

“It’s a difficult one buddy, I’ll be in Bangkok myself next week if you wanna hook up.”

“Yeah.”

“Got an audition for a pirate movie, if you want to meet up, I’ll be at the Sawasdee.”

It was the wooden place I’d visited with my Thai friend on my first trip, “I know that place.  Ah, I don’t know, well, let’s just say this, if I’m in Bangkok next week I’ll meet you.”

“Great.”

Two days before my flight I still hadn’t made a decision.  My orange notebook now filled with my life story, the only thing I knew for certain was I needed another change.  Waking at nine I drove down to Bake and Bite, taking bagels and coffee.  ‘What to do? What to do?’ I asked over and over.  Having spent two weeks in solid indecision I was on edge, riding back to camp and rounding a corner of the moat to find myself confronted by a dozen Police.  ‘Fuck’ I cursed as I pulled to the side.  I’d been caught without my helmet before, paying the bride, but not today.

A sentry standing in the middle of the road I looked behind, there was nowhere to go, a one way street, a sharp bend I couldn’t ride blind.  Righting the bike I trundled towards the cop, ten yards away twisting the throttle to hit full pull power and jolting to a stop as the engine died.  He’d seen what I’d tried to do, blowing his whistle furiously as I cursed.  Holding up my hands I calmly re-started the engine and drew level, then boom!  The engine caught, for a brief moment he gabbed the grip bar, but my momentum was too strong, ‘Left turn, left turn’ I screamed in my head.  Finally reaching one I lost myself in the old city, weaving left and right until I was safe. 

My heart still fluttering as I pulled up at the library I smiled in self-satisfaction, noting how rarely I experienced such a rush of adrenaline.

Inside I took out my orange notebook scanning through what I’d written over the previous fortnight.  The break up with my wife, my first travels, my discovering philosophy, deciding Buddhism was too nihilistic, the realization no one knew it all.  I thought about the Chinese scholars who’d said the more you learn the less you know.  My whole life seemed like a never ending frustration, a head filled with ideas, a theory for workings of the universe but no way to put it to use.  ‘So, what now?’ I questioned ‘What should I do with this body, which stage should I perform on?’

Feeling no answer would be quick in coming I decided to buy a ticket for Bangkok.  Even if I didn’t take it, it wasn’t expensive and it kept my options open for another twenty four hours.   Visiting Andy I told him it might be my last day.

“So, what will you do in England?” he asked.

“Maybe get an office job for a while, save some money.”

“That doesn’t sound like it pays too well.”

He was right, it wouldn’t, perhaps I’d stay, perhaps I’d go back to China. 

When I woke the next morning I still hadn’t made a decision, taking breakfast at the Blue Diamond, I returned to my room, ‘Stay or go? Stay or go?’.  I took my bike riding the lanes and glancing at my watch, I had three hours, I was going, even if I decided to stay when I got to Bangkok, that was fine, I could spend some time with Cameron, see a bit of the city. 

Sitting in the departure lounge that afternoon everything felt good, I had options, I’d had another adventure, met Cameron, but training was through for me now.  Taking my notebook and pen I sat them on the table as a new idea entered my head ‘If you do come back you could fight and write a book about it’.  That was it, a way of building on the experience, stepping up to another level, a way of sharing my thoughts and experiences.  I lit a cigarette to celebrate the epiphany. 

On a tighter budget than me Cameron had taken the bus the previous evening and would have arrived that morning.  My flight getting in a few hours after him, I took the bus to Khao San Road and walked to his guesthouse.  It was a warmer in Bangkok, the restaurant full of travellers sat lazily in deep wooden chairs, a slow procession of backpackers moseying by on the street, not really doing anything, not really going anywhere. 

Approaching the reception I paid for a night, “You have Australian man staying here, Cameron Mayo?”

The receptionist flicked through the arrivals and turned the book face me, he was in 302.  Depositing my bags in my windowless room I climbed to his floor and knocked without response, pushing a note under his door and making my way down to the restaurant I met him on the stairs.

“Sawat dii cap,” I said smiling.

“Ahh, I knew I’d see you, how fucking great is this, the old team reunited in Bangkok.”

Meeting downstairs five minutes later he told me he’d had his audition that afternoon, handing me the script.  He’d been cast as Blackbeard, the interviewers saying they liked his skull and crossbones tattoo.

“So, are you doing it?”

“Ah, I don’t know, they’re not shooting until July, don’t really have the money to hang around till then.”

“I still don’t know what I’m doing? I was thinking about maybe heading back to China.  I’ve got that job offer from the guy at home, but I just don’t feel like going back.” 

Mulling over our ideas we were joined by a young Canadian in dreadlocks. Cameron knew him from Chiang Mai, he’d raised money and come to Thailand to help, working in an orphanage he was now visiting prisoners and teaching English to the monks.  It seemed evangelical coming to help, from what I’d seen they didn’t have too much money but they were happy.  I always wondered what the world would be like if they did get help, get civilized until everything was the same as home.  How miserable I thought they’d be when they swapped their street stall for a place behind a counter at KFC, their family shop for an aisle in Tesco. 

As the Canadian disappeared for his daily lesson I turned to Cameron, “So, how about tonight?” he looked at me with a mischievous smile.  “We meet in Bangkok for one night only, we’d be doing an injustice to the world if we didn’t kill this town.”

“What’s the plan?”

“How about a club? A proper Thai club, meet a better class of girl?”

Collecting my Lonely Planet we thumbed to nightclubs, settling on a place in Sukhumvit and ordering drinks to celebrate.

“Two beer Chang handsome men,” our waitress said as she deposited the order. 

I’d noticed her already, the most confident of the team, calling out to passing foreigners, a permanent white toothed smile etched to her face. 

“Cam, that girl's got the greatest smile I’ve ever seen.  I tell you what, if we go out tonight and we’re having a ball, I’ll miss my flight.”