Chapter 9 Crocking the Norwegian

Entering my sixth week of training I’d eaten sparingly over the weekend and looking in the mirror the outlines in my stomach had grown clearer.  Chest and arms swollen through my Legion exercises even during my bodybuilding I’d never looked so strong.  Muay Thai seemed like the best exercise you could do, running stripping away the flesh, endless sit ups tightening the torso.  My goal for The Legion aside the perfect body was something I’d always aspired to, my desire based on wanting to be with someone beautiful and in return being beautiful myself.  I never subscribed to the ‘I’m beautiful on the inside’ theorem, for me a whole person took care of themselves inside and out, it required a discipline, a choice about the type of person you wanted to be and I wanted to be perfect.   

Outside the ring Gunner broke our pact on Monday going to see his girl and leaving me to visit the cinema alone.  In the city’s largest mall it was a plush setting, huge atrium, VIP seats for those with money, tickets costing only a pound I picked out a subtitled Thai movie and took my seat.  ‘Please pay your respects to His Majesty the King’ The subtitle read as the trailers finished.  The entire audience rising to its feet I followed, a delicate piece of music beginning accompanied a slideshow of his highness meeting the people.  As the notes rose and fell he looked dignified in his bulbous glasses, shaking the hands of a frail woman in a rice paddy, a fisherman on a dock, a smiling child.  The people seemed to respect him.  You’d see his picture around the city, not in the way you’d see a dictator, but small frames in people’s homes or hanging above you as you ate in a restaurant. 

The film itself was the story of a Bangkok taxi driver down on his luck, mid-forties, divorced, every night returning to his room to sleep alone.  Picking up a group of call girls one night the last to leave asked him to pick her up the following evening.  She was stunningly attractive and stunningly lonely, coming to the city to earn money for her family in the countryside.  Continuing the routine for a couple of weeks they began to spend more time together, him taking her to his ballroom dance hall, her taking him for his first McDonald’s.  I liked it, I was sure it wouldn’t win any awards but it gave a portrait of universal loneliness we experience and the kind of relationships which save us.  It reminded me of Lost in Translation, Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson whiling away a week in a Tokyo.

“What did you study?” Murray begins at the bar.

“Philosophy.”

“Yeah….. there’s a real buck in that racket.  You figured out what you’re gonna do yet?”

“Not really, I’ve tried taking pictures, but everyone does right? Like every little girl wanting to ride a horse.  I’ve tried writing, but everything I write seems so dumb.  I hate what I write.”

On Saturday winding down from a solid week of training Gunner invited me for a session of sparring.

“O.K., we just go light,” he instructed as we stood in the ring.

As he spoke the words I considered the idea of ‘going light’.  I’d seen how the other boxers did it, tending to flick out punches whilst holding back the power and I made that my strategy.  Strapping pads to my shins I picked out a pair of the lighter sparring gloves and stood facing him.  Neither of us experienced we discussed what we were going to do.

“O.K., you kick and I block,” Gunner instructed.

Taking time to set myself I moved forward delivering a controlled blow as Gunner raised his knee in a block.  Repeating the movement I invited him to strike me and we began alternating between attack and defence. 

I thought he was weak in style, knowing the mechanics but only able to awkwardly put them into practice, the missing fluidity removing power from his shots.  Stepping forward I teeped him in the stomach. 

“Oh.. wait, I not ready for this.”

“Not ready, what do you mean not ready?”

He shook his head and we returned to alternating kicks.

‘thwack,’  I felt a hard shot to my rib.

“What happened to going light?”

“O.K., accident, I get a little excited.”

Moving back to our exchange we began picking up speed, rapidly moving from attack to defence ‘thwack’.  I hobbled backwards pressing a glove against my side.

“Shit man, you really got me with that one.”

“Ah, mai ben rai.”

“Never mind mai ben rai, that fucking hurt.”

Deciding he seemed comfortable raising the level I stepped back delivering a heavier kick with my stronger left, and cracked in a right.

“Ah…”

He moved back wincing.

“We go light, light…”

“You O.K.?”

“I don’t think so,” he slowed his breathing sucking in a gulp of air, ‘Ah shit, I think maybe it’s broken.”

“Broken, come on, that was my weaker leg.”

Leaving the ring he spent five minutes resting. 

“No good, I go home,” he said as I approached.

“Well, I’ll come and see you when I’d done.”

Not better by Sunday he told me he’d wouldn’t attending training the following week and I got the impression he was happy for the break.  Eating dinner together at the nearby Joy O’clock pub I proposed making up for missed training with a week exploring the city’s nightlife.

“So, how about it?  Beginning here and now we’ll find the best places in town, get a few nice girls.  We’ve done Bubble and Spicy to death, how about finding where the Thai’s go, one hundred percent farang free?”

Loosened by whiskey the normally cautious Gunner agreed excitedly.

“So, how about tonight, where do we start?”  I said.

We sat in thoughtful silence, there were plenty of bars downtown but they were all frequented by Westerners. 

“I went to a place last week?” Gunner started.

“Oh yeah, what kind of place?”

“A place where they have girls dancing.”

“A strip joint?”

“Not exactly, the girls wear bikini but you can just sit and watch.”

“And how exactly did you end up in a place like that?”

“Well, I go for a massage and when I come out a girl ask me if I want to see inside her bar,” he shrugged as if he’d acted with perfect logic. 

“So, how long did you stay?”

“Just for one drink, I watch the girls, then I go.”

“You want to go there tonight?”

Telling me he’d prefer to do it later in the week he suggested another club in a four star hotel and placing our whiskey behind the bar we made our way towards the bikes.

“I might buy a shirt like yours on the way,” Gunner said referring to my sleeveless training top, it was perfect for showing off the arms and I suggested a market on the road to town.  Riding down and screeching to a stop outside we received nervous glances from passing shoppers.

“I think I can feel the whiskey,” I said.

Not finding anything appropriate we continued to town, Gunner stopping his bike near Thapae Gate.

“You want to see the place?” he said.

“The strip joint, I thought you said later in the week.”

“Ah, mai ben rai, just one drink.”

I took a second to think about it, ‘O.K.’. It was the perfect kind of night, the one you hadn’t planned, the one when you woke up that morning you’d never even considered.

Inside we were greeted by a thirty foot runway, a dozen girls dancing in matching swimming costumes.   Dimly lit there were stools circling the stage surrounded by tables and more intimate diner style booths against the walls. 

“You want to sit there?” I said pointing to the stools next to the stage.

Normally I’d have opted to observe from a distance but the alcohol had given me confidence for a closer inspection. Taking my seat and ordering whiskey Gunner disappeared to the bathroom and I lent forward passing my gaze from one girl to the next.  There were a couple of decent physiques but the majority were disappointing compared to what I’d seen around the city.  Some with big thighs and wobbling bellies they looked more like washerwomen than eye candy.  Each with a number I figured they were available but exactly how it worked I wasn’t sure.  As Gunner rejoined me I ventured a question.

“O.K., which girl?   If you had to choose one, which number?”

I gave him a moment to think about it and made my own appraisal, instantly dismissing the overweight and not so pretty.

“Twenty eight,” he said.

Looking through the crowd I saw I’d dismissed her in my first cut.

“No fucking way, she’s got a big ass, it’s got to be between four and thirty six.”

“Ahh…” Gunner scoffed as we returned to silently watching.

As I worked around my favourites new girls joined the stage.  It was a dreary atmosphere, customers sitting silently with their girls, the dancers going through the motions.  They looked completely disinterested in what they were doing, occasionally talking to one another, the rest of the time looking on blankly as if their minds were elsewhere.

“So, do you know how this works?” I said.

“How what works?”

“If you want to take a girl home.”

“I guess you pick a number and the girl comes to sit with you. You pay something for her company and if you want to take her home you pay the bar fine.”

I’d heard about the bar fine, a commission paid to the madam if you wanted to take a girl home before the end of night.  It didn’t apply solely to the dancing bars, Loi Kroh road which I’d walked on my first night was stuffed with bars offering girls by the night. They didn’t have numbers but if you wanted to take one home you could make the payment.  Then there were the average bars frequented by Westerners, some girls working on a freelance basis.  Strictly speaking they weren’t whoring but should you see something you liked and make the right offer you’d rarely be refused.

Finishing our drinks we’d seen enough and headed for our hotel a short ride from the night bizarre.  One of the tallest buildings in the city it had money etched all over it, the revolving doors delivering us into a marble lobby, we approached the reception desk where balustrade stairs curved either side.

“Sawat dii cap, you have dancing here?” I asked the male receptionist.

“Dancing, oh disco, disco closed, make new.”

Wobbly legged I turned to Gunner as a couple of well dressed Westerners entered and disappeared in a brass elevator.

“What now? I really don’t fancy Bubble.”

Taking a moment I turned back to the receptionist.

“You know good place for dancing? Want Thai place, no farang.”

He chuckled and interrupted a girl writing at her desk, talking and turning back with a smile.

“Best place to go Bossy, not far from here, Bossy very good.”

‘Bossy', now that sounded like a name, taking directions and thanking our guide we returned to the bikes, missing the turn and circling back to a road lined with small karaoke bars. Crossing a couple of speed bumps we spotted it, motorbikes lining the street and a stream of customers making their way inside.  It was perfect, just far enough from town that most tourists wouldn’t know it was there or wouldn’t feel the need to venture so far.

“Looks good,” I said.

Pushing through the heavy doors silence gave way to noise, a large floor packed with groups of Thai’s huddled around tables, a large stage at the front where a pretty girl sang a familiar Thai pop song in clumpy knee high boots.  An orange shirted waiter stepping out to meet us we followed up a flight of stairs and emerged to a balcony, standing as he dragged a table to give us a view of the stage. 

“Well, what will it be?” I said holding the menu. “100 Pipers and soda three hundred baht.”

Gunner giving his assent I ordered and we gazed at the stage.  There was an absolute intensity in the air, the crowd singing along to every word, a huge screen at the back relaying the action, strobe lights darting back and fourth.  Every table was capped by a triangle of whiskey, mixers and ice.

As the waiter began preparing our first drinks I turned to Gunner breaking into a drunken ramble.

“Gun, this is one of the best nights of my life, one of the best.  Coming to Thailand, discovering a place like this, I bet you won’t have many nights better than this, perfect company, perfect everything.  Where can you find a place like this on a Wednesday night? A live band, everyone singing along, endless whiskey, they don’t exist mate.”

As we made our way through the drinks chain smoking cigarettes I took a break to visit the bathroom.  Leaning against the wall as hands began to work on my back, a massage; it was just what I needed, strong hands loosening my knotted muscles.  As I zipped up he hooked his arms beneath mine, lifting me from the floor.  Back to back and he lifted me again.  As I moved to the basin he placed a hand either side of my head, making an audible crack as he jerked my neck from side to side. Tipping twenty baht and returning to relay my story I found the table empty, sitting alone for twenty minutes until I spotted Gunner at the end of the balcony.

“Hey, what happened to you?”

“Just having a look around,” he replied dreamily.

I missed training the next morning, lying in bed thinking about the night before, it was still one of the best I could remember. I’d come to Thailand to prepare for my next challenge but I’d found something else, a place which screamed about every reason for living; great food, available women, endless nights out.  Do I really want the Legion? I asked myself. It was like every time I’d made a plan since I’d left my old life it had to have totality, a challenge to suck up every moment, but the pleasure came by accident, the unplanned nights out, the places I discovered along the way.