Copyright (C) 2002 by Steven Sills. Corpus of a Siam Mosquito --Steven Sills "So he spoke, and the bright-eyed goddess, Athene, was pleasedthat she was the god he prayed to before all the others. Sheput strength in his shoulders and knees, and set in his heartthe daring of a mosquito, which, though constantly brushed awayfrom a man's skin, still insists on biting him for the pleasureof human blood. " --The Iliad Homer Book I: Palaver Chapter 1 They, with their driver, went down Ramkhamhaeng Road singularly inthe scope of their thoughts but conditioned into repudiating theiraloneness. It was an early Bangkok morning with a new day tripping overthe corpse of the earlier one the way dogs on the Bangkok sidewalkswere walked on. It was early in the relationship of the two passengersand this nascent association contained the complex and awkwardambiguity of not being clearly professional or personal and he and hisprostitute-model were tripping into each other. When she put her handon his leg he would stiffen and both his legs would slightly slant awayfrom her but when she removed her hand and kept it away from him forsome minutes he would put it back there closer than ever to his thighs. Even he had to admit his actions made no sense given the fact that heflaunted her, and others like her, wherever he went; but it was part ofthe game of being desired. Although he wasn't even conscious that sucha game was being played, she was fully cognizant of these subliminalcalculative moves and how a woman was played. She knew that she wasdesiring him more as a consequence. She also knew that being desiredrequired adhering to the rules of withdrawing from the neediness ofwanting to be linked to a man and of transforming herself into themetamorphoses of self-contained fantasies that he would desire. Despite Thai's reverence for royalty, the three of them went downRamkhamhaeng Road without even thinking about the king behind the name. He, his whore, and perhaps the faceless one at the steering wheel aswell, thought of themselves as a unit albeit an insignificant one. They had that sociable tendency to chat at each other to reduce thedrone of one's solitary and melancholic thoughts but it was less thecase with the pensive passenger, Nawin (formerly Jatupon) who, Aristotelian and poised as a Garuda, was a surly contemplative despitelordly debauchery. Through being whirled in vicissitudes he felt thathe could withstand anything fate had to offer. Unlike the others, hedid not need to escape his thoughts as much as a bull from a corral. Instead, he befriended his morose tendencies. Basking in the grandeur of his new stature, the back seat Nawinwas dwelling on himself continually in the concern that his fame, isolated as it was, had not happened totally from the merit of hiswork. He wondered how much the licentiousness of his life and thesalaciousness of the subject matter were the real color of what couldbe marginal talents. He wondered if he should change his subjectmatter proving himself as an artist even if it reduced the virility hefelt as a type of swarthy Thai sex symbol. How strange it was, hethought to himself, that despite the fact that being dark was never anattractive trait in Thailand where the lighter, Chinese skinned Thaiswere thought to have more material success, sensuality, and beauty, hewho was not particularly handsome from being dark as a shoe's heelshould be sexy from his wanton disposition. Likewise, his thoughtswere dark in a land of frivolous irresponsibility. To Thai's the word"serious" had a negative connotation and he was that. Unless one was amonk, being contemplative was a tacit violation of laws in the Land ofSmiles. He had become the rescuer of whores humanizing their sorryplight. Their only sins were to be born poor and to be loyal enough tonot pull out of the loose fetters of family obligations. Theycontinued to remember shadowy figments of obscure rural relatives whomthey needed to feed. Still being a hero was burdening him with asingular motif and he continually shot this thought through hisneurological circuitry until the taxi driver spoke, parting histhoughts like Moses and the Red Sea or Buddha sabotaging a bit of therecycle factory of the human soul. "My son flew into Chaing Mai recently. I've been wondering aboutairplanes ever since-just thinking about how things get off the ground. Have you ever wondered that?" "Ka, " meaning yes, the woman in the backseat croaked like a crow. "I'm trying not to question it. Wondering such things would make mescared that they don't stay up in the sky, " she laughed. Her name wasJarunee but her nickname was Porn. "This will be my first plane ridesoaring off with the birds. " "Thais don't often fly, " he said. His idea was tinged with abitter undertone as if poverty turned one's bones to lead and he foundthat his idea put him back in the solitude of his thoughts for onlysilence ensued. He decided to sound happier. "You sound excited. " "It has been my dream. " She leaned her head against Nawin'sshoulder. "Flew off to Chaing Mai. He lost his job during the financialmeltdown of 96. 3000 baht. That's what the family lived on each monthfor a good many years. Then she was pregnant and laid off from therestaurant and they stayed with us for five or six months. Of coursethey could have stayed longer. After all, they are family. " "Yes, of course. You sound like a good father. I'm sure it willget better for everyone soon, " responded Porn as she looked up at theold face in the mirror hoping with softness to make the tenor of theconversation gayer. "Krap, " he said meaning yes although he wasn't in agreement. "No, he continually got more depressed and then no matter how many jobinterviews he went on, he came up empty handed. Then she took theirchildren to her parents. He came up there a bit later. The in-laws hadhim but didn't want him. He hadn't been trained at anything but workingin the factory. He didn't know how to plant rice or maybe he was toodepressed to learn. It wouldn't seem there would be much to learn. Youjust put them into the ground. Anyhow, he was walking around in a dazeall that time. That's what she claimed they said about him. Soon hereturned with us but before we knew it off he went to Chaing Mai. Idon't know why. I got a post card from there. It didn't say muchother than he had taken his first flight. Can you imagine just buying aticket, leaving, and not saying a word. " "Ka, not really. I can't imagine anybody doing that... Unless hejust didn't want to worry you. Maybe he didn't want to worry you aboutif the idea was right or wrong financially. I bet he has friendsthere and they'll help him to locate work. " "Yes, it is the best thing. I've been going to the temple to givefood to the monks and blessings will follow. I'm sure of that. I'venever gone on a flight. Where are the two of you going?" "To Montreal. " "Where's that?" "To Canada. " She smiled but the word, favorable as it was, didn'thave the flavor of Paris or cities in America. "What will you do there?" Nawin wondered what she would be doing there. She had escortedhim around galleries, parties, and auditoriums where he gave speeches. Bangkok gossip columnists had sometimes even mentioned her presencewith him. What would she be doing in Montreal while he attendedpost-graduate classes? That was a fundamental question he had noanswer for. He had granted unto her a new profession where she didn'thave to spread her legs to anyone but him. He had rescued her fromstripping and whoring in a bar in Patpong but perhaps that would not beenough. Nobody was content. Like any animal, a human always yearnedfor more. They were trying to build up on themselves so that they werefree of all discomfort. A woman was more that way than even a manbased on his judgments and to be left alone in an apartment in aforeign country would be one major discomfort she would not tolerate. He began to miss his wife: she didn't need anything--not even sex withhim. She was free to love other things than him--higher things and hewas free to love higher things than her as well as the lower thingslike Porn. It was for this reason that he loved her but he didn'tdesire her so much except as an intellectual companion. This one hedesired and that love certainly had more thrust than the former one. At least it appeared to be stronger. The sky had tubes of light paint oozing out into the darkness andthe sky could not ascertain if it wanted a moon or a sun in itspresence. The ride was just beginning and yet it was monotonous in thedarkness and the light of the street lamps that refracted glaringly. The three of them still remained as little conscious of the moon or, dependent on the limitation of their eyes, the corona of the moon, thatthey happened to glimpse as accompanying them on their early morningdeparture as they were of the monarch, Ramkhamhaeng, that was thesource of the road's name. The taxi driver was near-sighted so to him, as most things at a distance, the reality of it all was begotten as ablur. The back-seated Nawin with the cigarette fuming and the legssprawled out and thumping to his portable CD player and his model orwhore with her hand again on one of his legs had their thoughts partedonce more in the kinetic movements of linguistic moans. "What airline will you be flying out of?" asked the taxi driver. Following patriarchal social etiquette he was addressing the maninstead of the girlfriend despite not liking the smoke. The man wasmore than a customer but a member of the more affluent class and thisby Thai, although not Buddhist standards, was well revered. How swiftone's encroaching aloneness was purged and thwarted in the retreatengineered by the batons and water cannons of one's linguistic moans. The whore, whose self-image had been disparaged by the unconventionalpositive endorsement of her activities by the wife, was grateful togain the parting of her thoughts from the driver's voice. She waspleased to be once again hearing anything--even the least littleunenlightening fact-about their trip. She smiled. After all, it wasthe land of smiles. "Thai" mumbled Nawin's voice from the back seat. "Domestic or international?" asked the taxi driver as if amnesiahad wiped away a whole section of memory. Porn released an alienchortle that made Nawin think that he was sitting on the back seat withsome type of mythological, hybrid animal he was in the process oftaking on an overseas journey. How quickly she had gone fromseductress to a callow calf and kid. He smiled at the man's ignorancewithout laughing. He felt that his girlfriend was ugly and noticed howmutable the sight of anyone was: at one-time ugly and at another timebeautiful, at one-time virtuous and another point wicked, and at onepoint victim and another time slut. It was not only the physicaldimensions that could vary from moment to moment. The perception of awhole being could change. He moved himself to the window to get awayfrom her hand and feigned a curiosity with the world outside. He rolleddown the window. At that moment they both had a similar jejune feelingof the repetition of old things and new things not fully connecting. It was indescribable to them both. Porn kept asking herself if she wasdoing the right thing in forsaking her responsibilities with herclients for the unknown of traveling with him. "You look like you are car sick, " said the driver. "My son alwaysgot that way even a kilometer down the road when he was a boy. Matterof fact that happens to him now--not quite as bad, though. I can'tthink how he survived the flight to Chaing Mai. That I'll never know. "Nawin, to show proper deference to an older man and to prove to himselfthat he wasn't churlish, looked toward the mirror and front windshieldand gave the whole frontal world a nod. The boy born of the nameJatupon was bleeding inside him. His brain waves wiggled around likenoodles. He was no better than this man. They both had been born poorwith limited opportunities. He couldn't laugh at him for any reason. "Are you going international or domestic, " asked the driver of thetwenty-five year old. Again there was a chortle. "Why does thatquestion seem to make her laugh, " asked the taxi driver. "That is verystrange. That is a strange young lady. " "Krap, " said Nawin gruffly, "I don't know why she is laughing. ""We are going international. Eva Airlines. Eva Airlines, aninternational flight to Japan, " reiterated Nawin. He kept it simple. He didn't even want to think about Montreal. The thought ofaccompanying an animal, of sorts, to the other side of the world wastoo much. No sooner had he said it than she reminded them both of thefact that she would be going to her home first. Nawin had fallen intohis own pensive inclinations but unlike them he wanted the completionof his thoughts. He was scanning his mutating neurological circuitryfor a possible answer to the enigma whom he called his wife. Noppawan's flippant comment that the stoplight wouldn't get any greeneras she smiled and shut the door on him and his whore troubled orinveigled him. One's driveway wasn't exactly equipped with a stoplightso that one sentence bordered on sarcasm. Her placid demeanor was likeplastic and how she behaved belied everything so how was he to know ifshe was discontent with this arrangement if not jealous of it. It was the first time that he would be leaving her to travelabroad. He had offered to delay the trip by a week or two until shehad submitted her grades at Assumption University, which Thais calledA-back. Maybe having his Porn stay over at their house the previousnight was disrespectful to his wife but nice or offensive behavior wasbased upon one's guesswork on how society would interpret suchsituations and unique situations like this were all the more impossibleto judge. His wife was definitely different. That was for sure; butshe was still a woman down deep even if she denied it just as hisAmerican passport and name-change made him abstain from bits ofhimself. A woman had instincts at suspecting a man's activities. Awoman had jealous rages and seductive lures that had a chance ofkeeping a man with her: genetic programming from hundreds or thousandsof female ancestors who had experienced the promiscuity of husbands andwere afraid that they and their children would not be properly takencare of. But there was certainly no chance of children. She slept withhim a few times as husband and wife in a motion of fulfilled andcompleted consummation never to be repeated. Then she went in to getherself sterilized. Why she needed to do both was unclear. She was amystery and steadfast in committing herself to that vow they had madeto each other when they were 14 or 15 years old to not live pettylives. Such was the gray in the gray matter that enveloped them. Lifewith Noppawan had the insatiability of an itch to a mosquito's bite andcontained the same pleasurable discomfort. "Taking a trip to Japan" thought the taxi driver sarcastically. He wasn't certain how anyone could afford to go there. He was stuck tothe boundaries of the car and he resented it; although from it, despiteits limitations, he was always introduced to people so different thanhe was. They were the favored ones whose ideas were not curtailed totraffic jams exacerbated by infuriatingly influential traffic lightsand accidents. Traffic accidents were such chaos because smashed carscould not be moved until insurance agents came to the scene to maketheir reports. Traffic policemen, who could easily be bribed, werenever to be trusted. The favored people did not have everyday to roamthe streets like homeless but highly mobile mendicants, their everymovement enslaved and dictated by the pronouncement of street namescalled out from the back seat. "Do young people like you have money togo off wherever you wish?" The words pierced out of one who waspierced. The ache tore open like a tenuous newly heeled scar with theblade coming up to slit others. He knew that he had behaved contraryto social instinct but he hadn't been able to stop himself. "Don't you know who this is?" asked the whore with arrogantvehemence. The taxi driver looked in the rear view mirror at the brown-facedNawin or Jatupon and asked, "No, should I know you?" "No you shouldn't. Neither one of us should know the other one. Just drive!" said Nawin although again he winced from his darker alterego that only became him when he uttered its thoughts. He wasn'ttotally devoid of societal programming of right and wrong no matterwhat he claimed to Noppawan. Being respectful to one's elders andgiving the prayerful gesture of the "wei" (pronounced as "why") toone's superiors did exist in him at certain times. He would alwaysstand up for the tribute paid to the king prior to a movie althoughthat was more from the idea of not offending the sensibilities ofothers around him or, less altruistically, getting himself possiblythrown out of the movie theatre. Furthermore, the Jatupon who hadbrought cups of ice to customers when he was a boy, the uneducatedslave who had found himself spun up in noodles of sidewalk restaurantsuntil he was 15, often began to stretch like a 26 year old fetus lockedup in a heavily fortified placenta. He would feel how disparagedJatupon often felt. He would feel guilt when he disparaged others thatseeped into his veins while ghosts of yesteryear suddenly vexed himmaking him feel numb and cold inside. He too wanted to stop thinking and he wished that his thoughtscould be intruded with conversation. "I just mean that I'm nobodyimportant. I paint a little. I'm going to Montreal for that reason. "The taxi driver was reticent. "Do you have many hours left drivingtoday?" Nawin asked him. Still there was no answer. He threw thecigarette out of the opened window. "Do you want a stick of gum, " heasked the girl. "I have a tick tack in my mouth now but I'll take your gum and saveit for later. You might not offer it again. " She giggled and hesmiled at her with the tightness of his closed lips. She had lost heranimal, and there she was as his seductress. He kissed her andreturned the headphones over his ears. The savory taste of her mouthwas in him. Chapter 2 The acceleration that took them out of Huamark and throughother adjacent sections of the city eventually led them to her area. He did not remember the name of it: Bangkae, Bangplad, Bang-something. He paid little attention to what his mistress said. Her voice oftenseemed the strident spluttering of burning fuel in an engine thatcouldn't produce motion. King Ramkhamhaeng was a bygone entity. Assoon as his model picked up some of her things that she had forgottento bring with her the previous day and they had some breakfast, thenThailand would be a thing of the past too. For how long he didn'tknow. He was married but it was one signature on many sheets of paper. The significance of spilled ink could not be read unless, like manysuperstitious Thais, he were to seek a fortuneteller-mendicant sittingon a sheet or straw mat on a sidewalk or in a park. Noppawan had her chance to go with him. He had asked repeatedly. He had tacitly exhorted (mostly with his eyes) but she had refusedhim. Maybe she needed him to command her presence. Maybe in thisnebulousness of strong selfishness and altruism called a personalrelationship, so immediate and personal like finding oneself envelopedin smoking and fiery dust, she needed constant reminders that he caredabout her more than any other entity selfishly and altruistically. Thatwould be the woman in her if there were such a woman. He tried to contemplate what love was like for normal people. Itwas surely a dust storm one invented in one's mind to escape lonelinessbut then it became intertwined in more neediness and consciousness ofthe other's feelings and thoughts so as not to be vanquished toaloneness. An individual who was able to overcome the grief of theloss of dopamine in the ephemeral and moribund high of being in lovewould cling to his former pleasure-inducer as a source of meaning inlife's vicissitudes. He and Noppawan had done the same but they wereless like individuals finding themselves separately cast onto lifeboatsin an ocean of random waves for they found oceans of thoughts withinthemselves that seemed more navigable to solid chunks of reality. Theyneeded each other less; or so he thought. Thai women generally had obsequious crying bouts in their rafts, but Noppawan, he argued, was not a woman. She was female withoutwomanity. She was a female who advocated overcoming petty humanexistence for a love of ideals, compassion, and the attempts atunderstanding the human predicament. He couldn't see into the futureto know if he would be returning to Thailand anytime soon to be peeredat through his wife's thick dark framed glasses. At present there wereonly the wills of three individuals cowardly seeking meaning forthemselves in a unit. There were only these socialized wills rollingalong on a road in marginal darkness under the specious assumption thatthere really was a destination. The sensory input of traditional Thaimusic was coming to them from the front and back speakers of the carthat was their confinement. The radio music, no matter if interpretedas harmonious or strident by the three individuals, was a levee helpingto block their pervasive inundation of self-absorbing, mordant thoughtsand reminded them (the patriot and the pending expatriates) of theircommonality as Thais. They passed a mall where he and Porn had gone shopping a monthearlier. That day they had spent together there was the levity of thestroll and the shiny flash of credit cards in this Thai way offorgetting one's impoverished roots. Feeling on top of the world, hecomported the male gesture of having one arm clutching the other onebehind his back. It was a gesture of affluence in the stroll of theshopper's quest. At least twice when he encountered friends of hisfrom Silpakorn Art University with bags in their hands he would talk tothem for a half hour and somewhere into the talk he used another malegesture of affluence. He would slip a foot from a sandal and then slapit onto the floor loud as a firecracker. The sandal would hit thefloor like a hand slapping against an impoverished peasant. They stopped in an alley smaller than a side street called a"soi. " It was in between many Mom and Pop businesses and there, crowdedwithin, was her apartment. He knew rooms like this well. They wererented out for fifteen or twenty dollars a month (600 or 700 baht), barren, hot, and unventilated as an attic. When she had gone in to gether bags he felt less lonely to be momentarily rid of her. Even now atage 26 but with thoughts at certain moments suffering and dragging likea man of 50, there was just himself, the real unit of one, and deludehimself all he pleased he knew that he could not find anyone moresignificant than that. The only thing next to his heart, in thepocket of his shirt, were the slides of his art depicting the naked anddejected whores of Patpong that had ejaculated him into fame and puffedup a latent ego in himself that thought that he was a higher being thanother Thais. He was keeping them there that day because he wanted tomomentarily hand them over to airport authorities so they would not beharmed in airport security. When she returned with an added bag thatthe taxi driver plunked into the trunk the two men smiled at her andshe smiled back. After all, Thailand was the land of smiles and everyinfant understood the advantages of smiling. To bypass his surlytemperament and increase friendly relations, Nawin offered more breathfresheners or chewing gum for everyone. No Thai would refuse suchfriendly gestures and the two of them took from his hand greedily liketamed birds. Then he began his old contemplation of why 2 was greaterthan 1 or why 3 was greater than 2. It was an old argument of hiswife. The first time she posed it to him they both were 16 years old. He had made the mistake of asking her to a dance. "Why do two thingscoming in close proximity to each other have greater value?" sheasked. His only response had been "A le nah?" meaning "What did yousay?" Neither one of them went to the dance but straight to theirbedrooms and their sullen thoughts. Porn was, according to his thinking, an "all right whore. " Shedidn't cause him any problems at all and it was for this reason that hecarried her along with him as a personification of his intellectualdecadence thereby increasing public intrigue with him. She was thepretty doll he could swing about as a reminder of his one-man school ofart. He, Nawin Biadklang, could flaunt her around as the premierexample of the dark vision in his mind and the sexual slavery of hisnation all meshed together. He would have to draw a lot in Montrealand sell everything he painted to pay for any expenses the scholarshipwould not cover. She preferred her title of model. He was not soheartless to deny her this euphemism. She successfully relieved him ofthe tension of his body and to be emitted of it like a squeezedtangerine in such a good rhythmic fingering would well compensate forthe stress level of having to spend so much time with her. He desiredher a lot of the time so by most accounts of love he did truly loveher. Foremost, Noppawan did not object to her. Matter of fact, shewanted Porn to relieve him. She wanted him squeezed. She wanted thepus squished from his brain without having to get dirty. She wanted tocontinuously wear the glasses that caged her tepid orbs and to notsuccumb them to rapturous non-Buddhist primal yearnings. She did notcare to dodge the aloneness of her thoughts through a rapturousdelusion that she was one partial being made whole in sex and love. And yet by her account she did not want to mandate his awareness. Itwas only by tripping on shadows and feeling vapid equanimity that cameafter having absurdly given oneself over so entirely to the sensationof pulling on one's genitalia that a man actually knew anything. This whore was and was not his typical whorehouse girl. On theday of their first meeting he had been sketching runners and trees at astadium near Assumption University where his wife taught. His head wasresting in a fog until she materialized. There she was casting a shadowonto the sun that was sedating him and wrapping him into himself insleep. There she was questioning him on his art and pointing out hermommy, a skinny and frail thing, sitting on the other set of bleachers. He found out that she was a dancer. There was no surprise there. Herflirtatious gestures and the presence of her frail mommy looking overat them and hoping the purchase would take place were tacit butundeniable clues that she was poor and wanted a male companion. Thatwas no surprise either. Yet beyond this calculated small talk orartifice was an ingenuous mouth that glistened in guileless desire. Shewas a money girl. That was obvious, and yet there was more. There wasinfatuation and an accompanying mommy who was like an SOS. Porn was awhore, but if he hadn't been married, she could have been more. Exceptfor Noppawan, who was a flagrant novelty, he couldn't quite decipherhow whores and wives were all that different. Both baited the man forthe fecundity of prosperity and progeny. It was a survival responsethat was selfish in base primeval instincts. It was human andbeautiful. It was filled with womanity. She turned up the volume on her tape recorder and repeated, "Excusez-moi; au revoir; oui; toilletes; papier hygienique. " "Was that the main reason for coming to your apartment: forthe tape recorder?" he asked. She turned off the machine without the least concern about adistraction deferring her scholarship. "Oui, " she said, "but also myfavorite blouse, jeans, a necklace-see, isn't it beautiful--lots ofthings. A tape recorder is rather important, I think. You don't wantme to be unable to talk. " He nodded his head as he frowned wishingthat she couldn't speak at all. She would have been all the morebeautiful mute and deaf. He had proposed getting up early initially tocompensate for his slow, pokey movements but not as early as this andhe resented having lost sleep for such knicknacks. He didn't feel thathe should be subject to listening to her palaver in Canada. His nod wasthat of acquiescence the way the King Ramas had agreed with plannedactivities of the imperialists to divert their attention. He, however, was trying to divert a headache. He looked at the booklet that was onher lap. She was unsuccessfully trying to imitate a product publishedin Thailand as he had guessed a minute earlier from the fact that thespeaker on the tape sounded Thai. It was the blind leading the blind, he thought. "You do know some English, don't you?" he asked. "No, " she said. He could imagine the palaver she would be sayingon the streets of Montreal and he yearned for his wife, Noppawan. Hegot the taxi driver to turn right and park on the side of a street. His eyes were fixed on a barren serenity of gravel and weeds that wasin the vicinity of a pier. The sun was now rising fully and aided by agolden roofed temple on the other side of the river, there was asilvery and golden glaze in the waters camouflaging the sooty sedimentsthat were diluted within. He wanted to go to the gravel and eat alongthe side of begging dogs of which the bodies were deflating like tires. He wanted to sit at one of the red metallic tables on a plastic stoolamong a group of saffron robed monks, with the scents of rice ornoodles penetrating his nostrils. He had to smile that such anaversion as twenty baht meals still called to him pleasantly becausethey were the foundation of memories that constituted his verdantyouth. "What are we doing?" she asked "We're eating, " he said. "Come on, it will be fun to act likecommon people, " he chuckled. "Common. I know common. Common is having a treat of eating friedinsects on the dirt road, Nawin. Common is sleeping on a rug becauseyou don't have a bed. Common is praying for the opportunity of havingone's sandals fall apart or getting them trapped deep into the soil ofthe rice field so as to have an excuse to get out of the hamlet. Occasionally we paid an arm and a leg to the owner of a truck who cameonce a day ten miles down a muddy road to pick people up. Common, Nawin, is collecting rain water in those big ceramic tubs that sit infront of the house, being stingy with every drop of water when you washyour body, and then go to bed exhausted without even eating dinner. Common is getting up at 5 a. M. To feed the water buffalo so that at 6a. M. Your father can use it to plow the field. You don't know anythingabout the word. " He did know. He bled from knowledge but he frowned and for amoment he was taciturn fighting back anger and memories. "Well, dowhatever you damn well please. I need out of this car and that is whatI'm doing. You can feast on what remains of the breath fresheners. Ifor one am dining out. I'll be back in ten minutes. " "When do we need to get on the plane?" "There's plenty of time, " he said. "Plenty of time to eat anothermeal in the airport before departing. You'll get a high price westernmeal at the airport. I guarantee it. " He left the taxi and sat downmeditating on the river flowing at a distance. Soon the angerdissolved and his memories were imprisoned. The idea of paying on a taxi where the meter continued to risewithout his presence enthralled him. Having lots of money was anovelty and flaunting this novelty to patrician and plebian, proletariat and CEO alike still engrossed him. Thais were culturallyprogrammed to give the "wei" to the Buddha and the monk but in theirhearts that steamed with greed as they cooked their food on thestreets, sold their trinkets from their sheets, worked in office jobs, were government officers, part of an educated middle class, and amillion other activities, classifications, and identities, thistraditional greeting with the folded hands in front of the face wasdeeply given in the secret regions of subconscious ideas for those whomthey thought of as rich. And as he ate his pork laden noodle soupwhile the meter ticked on he picked out the pork to feed the dogs; butin so doing he glimpsed someone. Past the gravel were sidewalks andstores and further was a department store. Next to it, beyond thegaunt old woman on the sheet selling and squeezing rubber duckies inthe hope of selling a few and having money to eat, a man clanging bellswith handless hooks above his cup, shoe repairmen fixing soles, a kioskof a key maker, and a blind mendicant with a speaker and a microphonesinging a strident folk tune, was someone. It was a person who turnedhim to stone, froze him like an iceberg, mortified him, and pulled outhis wounded child. It was a strange composite: at one moment appearinga bit like his brother, Kazem, and at one moment like the youngest ofhis elder brothers, Suthep. For a second or two as he saw this cook ata distance, he couldn't remember the name of Suthep-he who had been soinnocuous but in his apathy had harmed him the most. Ten or elevenyears had gone by. He wondered how he was supposed to know anymore:was this man one or the other or neither of them. Another blind beggarbegan to sing a song in a microphone linked to a portable speaker. Hewas being led by his wife. They came to his table singing a loudersong more stridently than the one he heard at a distance. The sun wasfeeling hot and it made him dizzy and mad as Akhenaten in AncientEgypt. Nawin, the legal alias of Jatupon, was feeling a weight death. His whole ideas and feelings were discombobulated. He took out twentybaht wedging it under the canister containing vinegar and peppers. Hewalked quickly to the car and cowered himself in the back seat inmovement toward the airport. Book II: Many Lifetimes Ago Chapter 3 Their parents were dead; the cremation ceremony was over, and lifewent on: he internally recited, swallowed his whispered whit of air, and regurgitated the aphorism. Its cold, laconic and impersonalmeaning was assumed an efficacy to change on this propelling Earth likethe odious taste of medicine and so he could not fail to believe thatit was true since there was nothing to his knowledge to replace itwith. The present moment ravished and trashed all former beings and, like a mountebank, sold its new products as the true goods. To Jatupon, the youngest, there was a vermilion color to the day. It was nowonder. The present had come upon him as inconspicuously as the gait ofthe monk's orange robe in the subtle movements that philosopher madeduring their time of mourning. Carrying suitcases and bags with his brothers and a woman ofChinese complexion, he sensed the rapacious discord of Bangkok--virulent and paralyzing as ennui for the rich and servitude for thepoor--and so he lagged behind them. There had been a time that hewould have sniffed at this new city like one of the myriad crazed butgently starving dogs (after all, in certain areas of the streets, pheromones and urinary molecules dominated over the odors of carexhausts) but, as he guessed, Bangkok was always more tempting fromafar. Even though he had repined for a more promised land he did notexpect that even if he were to live somewhere in "Euro-AmericanBangkok" (Banglampool, Silom, and Sukumvit roads with their seven day aweek travelers check cashing windows) his life would be any differentthan his situation at present; nor would it be any worse than his lifein Ayutthaya unless he were to starve. Still, he felt apprehension; and like a restive boy he slowlydragged his suitcases. He imagined remote Hill Tribe villages on thesidewalks and himself taking his suitcases through the bedrooms ofnaked girls as if, like one of the kings of the Chakri dynasty with hismany wives, he were to declare to them "Honeys, I'm home. " Thedreaminess belied a gloom. If Jatupon were to think of one positivetrait about himself that late afternoon he might have thought that theejaculation of his semen, which he conducted alone, disgorged extremelyfar-- so far he had sunk into a shaky gray within himself that hecouldn't see outside of any void unless it had a rope attached to it. Even the fetid air intimidated him. He felt intellectually obtuse. Hewas like a dog carried by an owner (a woman in a skirt, riding sidesaddle on a motorcycle) that squealed its head off when the motorcycleskid and floundered onto one side. Staring down as his brothers, his owners, pulled the invisibleleash, he knew that they condemned him, the laggard; and nominally, that condemnation made him feel compelled to look down more often thanhe would have done otherwise. Still, when they crossed over toanother sidewalk bustling with pedestrians he was forced to look upsince he was inadvertently bowling his suitcases against the pins ofstrangers. In so doing, he noticed a store windowsill besieged by anorderly society of ants. He was beginning to acknowledge that Buddhistprinciples were curtailed by reality: a few ants allowed to live with ahuman became a hundred easily; multiplying mosquitoes brought diseaseand pain, and one's immune system killed bacteria, viruses, andprotozoa because murder was stamped into the natural order that nohuman will could bypass. And yet this demonstrated that the Earth, herself, was alive and full of creative potential. It was thismesmerizing dynamism that most lured his eyes. The city was fetid as his older brother's shoes in the back of hisgirl friend's car (the car that had brought them here); and yet itsbillboards and tall buildings were opulent. He imagined them glazed inmorbidly saffron or vermilion dust the color of a monk's robe and thecolor of blood and death. All the pedestrians were individually andrapaciously galvanized but banging against each other lesssystematically than the ants. They were ebullient like the bouncing ofhair on a schoolgirl's back since most of them were shoppers. The brothers and the Chinese Thai woman passed another street. Near it was the edge of a small park with one blended shadow of thefronds of palm trees spread out among a patch of grass and providing avisual respite from traffic exhaust and pavement that seemed to definethe city. Here he was slithering about like a snake acclimating toboth a foreign environment and the alien skin that he was now wearing. These three weeks had made him unreal. His parents had ridden in thecar alone; there was the car accident; then a cremation and the sellingof property; the drive from Ayutthaya; the night at someone's house insome type of a fever or hallucination; mosquito bites under a net; andhimself turning into some type of caricature in a comic book orcartoon. Whereas many other boys had books and knowledge he had his comics. He didn't know anything about the techniques of art although he hadthumbed through some pictures from a book at a library in Ayutthaya. Hehad never even been exposed to algebra or other intellectual exercisesthat brought one in touch (so to speak) with abstract realities. He hadheard of the Internet and assumed it was the brand name of a certaincomputer but wished to know for sure. He knew that his poverty createdhis ignorance and felt his ignorance made him stupid. For him there wasnothing but day to day living twisting about like a noodle fried in thejuice of itself under the hot Thailand sun. There was a secondary trait about him that despite his bleaklygray and vermilion self-deprecation he was pleased that he possessed. His 14 years of life had provided him with at least enough acclimatinginstinct or reflexes that, as they crossed the road, zigzagging throughstalled traffic, his feet and ears performed a specific cautionaryduality of quickness in speed and breaks. This allowed him to retreatfrom motorcycles without headlights that were swerving around multiplelanes of cars. Even within Ayutthaya, which was conspicuously absentof operable traffic lights, he had never had an accident. There wasthat time that he had flown off of a motorcycle taxi and over a vendorwho had been wheeling his cart when the motorcycle had run into histoasted buns glazed in feces-tinted Ovaltine, but that was a differenttype of incident altogether. Across the street culinary workers of the sidewalk poured soup andscooped rice dishes into plastic bags sealed with rubber bands or putthe plates of food on metallic tables. So many city residents (all ofwhom lived in apartments) did not possess kitchens from some law oranother. This, he supposed, was good. It had provided he and his familywith an existence. It did the same for them. One worker who rested ona red stool enthralled him. Without any specific gestures or wordssent to him, he nonetheless felt her listlessness and knew her anguish. He knew the 4000 baht that many indigent souls received. It was theirpermit to live; and to get this permit to ride in life they had toharness and ensnare the creative force that had conceived them and werethem, and then allow themselves to be subservient seven days a week intheir robotic roles of reflexes. He saw another one wring out awashcloth and clean another table. He could imagine her travail justas he understood the travail of those around him on overpasses: theemaciated elderly with cups in their hands seemed to cluster on andunder every pedestrian overpass. To be homeless, he thought, would bemore horrific than the moments at one's death: a travail of beingworthless and lost, where dangling blue from a rope inveigled theimagination that could not fathom a means to get 6000 baht and pulloneself off of a park bench. He felt: "I have been where you are with ahair net on my head, many late nights splintered on a wooden stool, orplacid on a red plastic stool, strength thwarted, and with angularcrowds stumbling over me. " Almost without thinking it, he felt thehorror as he struggled for words; and since he did not have his journalwith him, he tried to memorize the feeling. He remembered those years of nights in Ayutthaya when his work hadended and he was free of the vending cart, and embraced within theblack smog of busses. Then there was a reprieve from the gaseous smokeof cooked food (grilled pork and chicken) trapped between canopy roofsand sidewalk. His reprieve and liberation was only in comics borrowedfrom a newsstand. It was a personal life--a bit of himself in avicarious existence. The words under the pictures would often zoomacross the interior of his skull in his drowsiness like cars on aspeedway and he would not comprehend anything much before fallingasleep at one of the tables. In sleep he would not exist. Cartoonimages would run amuck. His pent up needs would flow in action andadventure although his likeness would not be in the dreams. If thought were a product made from the raw material of feeling, he felt more than thought: "Your reflexive and monotonous perfunctorydays and nights are gloomy in starlessness. Face draped on the backs ofyour hands folded on the table, you almost look as if you are makingthe gesture of 'wei' or praying to Buddha. " He remembered that secondsbefore he was in those minutes of sleep, at the end of the work nights, he prayed for a way out or that community and connectedness could begained within his limited life. He walked by the stranger. He walkedpast twenty others. With his eyes he bestowed onto them blessings. He continued to follow his brothers through perennial steps andtime and swayed alone as lifeless as wet laundry hanging on balconiesduring the dry season. The fetid one slammed him with poignantexpletives to which the second eldest smiled and nodded his head. Suthep, however, had childish sensitivities of his own that life hadnot yet hacked from him but when Jatupon quickened his pace to walknear him Suthep looked over toward him with silent rage. Jatupon justturned away and sucked in his bottom lip. It was true that weeks hadpassed since the death of their parents and it was so that life wenton--that it was quickly manufactured and quickly hit the dust bin likeany worn out or broken commodity; but, he argued to himself, anadmission of their own pain and a kind smile would have helped to keephis boyhood suppressed and his manhood poised. Jatupon was still nonplused. The present was an undercurrent inhis inundating thoughts. His vision was often cracked and misted insuppressed tears and his eyes burned from his sweat seeping into them. He felt disoriented and although it was apparent, it didn't seem toevoke sympathy. In virtually his first words that day he hoarsely spokeincommunicably, cleared his throat, and then yelled over to Kazem, thesecond eldest, that he needed to go to the bathroom. Kazem stoppedwalking and told the youngest, Jatupon (to whom he nicknamed"Jatuporn"), to hold his water until they were "home. " The word "home"did not make any impression on the youngest who was now wondering ifthey would be spending the rest of their lives walking in this fashion. He felt that they were sinking in an abyss ofnegative probabilities. Concerning the pejorative comment aboutholding his water, it was no worse than being called "Jatuporn. " Hewas used to it. A facial muscle below Kazem's left eye began to twitch immediatelybefore they again started walking. Conscious of Kazem's disposition, Jatupon became less disconcerted and more guarded, hurrying butmaintaining a consistent space between himself and his brothers. Howstrange, Jatupon thought, that the fetid one did not have the samephysical antagonism: it was strictly mental as if the thought of theyoungest was so repugnant as to be beyond a physical response. He beganto stumble with the bags until Kumpee's girlfriend stopped theiradvancement to help him carry some of his load. Her smile was wideagainst her pale pigment; and her Chinese complexion looked at odds toKumpee, the oldest and darkest of the fraternal misadventurers. Jatupon was jealous of her relationship with the fetid one but thisgesture of pulling away from his brothers to take one of his bagsameliorated any negativity that the appearance had not counteracted. The journey from the parking garage and down through the hecticwhims of Bangkok traffic seemed inordinately long to him and silentlyhe objected to being led this way forfeiting friends and consistency hehad always known in Ayuttaya. The sidewalk and road went over a canal. A woman with baskets of fruit dangling from the ends of a bamboo polethat was on her shoulders must have made Kumpee's girlfriend hungrysince no sooner was she back with her beau than the exigency of eatinghad driven the herd to seek a bowl of tom yam soup with noodles. Underthe canvas, eating and sinking morbidly into himself as he looked outover the cabin-shacks that were along the canal, he listened to Kumpeeand Kazem. "You're the one who wanted to move here and so I said, 'Yes, little brother. Let me fulfill your wishes and needs. It is my dutyas an elder brother. " "I never said that. " "You were always saying that. " "Back up. That was before the accident and it was just talk. " "Man, you did not make any objections. We sold off their thingsand there wasn't one objection from any of you. " "I didn't know then that you would be pocketing the money. " "In other words, you wanted to move over here and now that we areover here you are raising objections as if now we should just get backinto the car and go back. That is crazy. " "I was in a daze. I admit it. I let you lead us around. We don'teven know anyone here. " "That isn't entirely true; but even if it turns out that hedoesn't help us any at least we are in a large city where there aremore opportunities than working in restaurants like this one. " " I want that money-or a share of it at anyway. " "For what?" "So that I won't have to beg for a bowl of soup in places likethis-so that if you and Natenapa take off somewhere" (Kumpee'sgirlfriend, who was listening to them, now looked away and reached forthe pitcher of water that was at the table) "that the money doesn't gowith you. " She poured water into her glass, sipped it once, andreached into her purse for her makeup. "It is Thai tradition that the eldest brother is supposed to keepthe inheritance for the younger ones. If you question that you don'thave any sense of right and wrong. If you have a problem with that youhave a problem with the way things are and have always been. But evenif I were to run away tomorrow you wouldn't have lost much. None of itwas worth anything. Look at these jeans with the holes in the kneesand the pockets. If I want to start spending everything for myself Iwould have started with some new clothes and instead of dragging you toBangkok with me I would have left all of you in Ayutthaya, wouldn't I?" "You buy jeans and cut out the areas around the knees so thatdoesn't prove much. Just see to it that the money doesn't fall fromthe holes and that you keep remembering the duties of an elder brotherto the younger ones. " On foot again with his brothers and the China woman, he keptwishing to be a boy that year that his parents opened what theyreferred to as a real restaurant. He wished for the strange faces inthe familiar space: an area no different than a garage with somemetallic tables and chairs in the center and woks, burners, arefrigerator, and Coke machine in the front. It had taken the family somany years of working on the street to be able to afford this space. This restaurant was more legitimate and less beggarly in appearancealthough not exempt from taxes. His parents were exhilarated for awhile until they discovered that the added customers only compensatedfor rent and taxation and the same subsistence level prevailed. Soonthe mundane set in and the discomfort of working on the streets wasforgotten. Then he thought of a better time: that sweet time that veryyoung children have in harmony with the parents' wishes and thefruition of love. He could see himself pouring ice and water intosmall metallic cups and bringing them to the customers on the sidewalkor making his foray into salesmanship by draping from his arms thejasmine rosaries that his mother linked together from a long needle. One day, as that boy, had he not just looked down briefly to ziphis pants and found that they did not fit all that well; and that, nolonger a cute or special one, he wasn't the same (or wasn't perceivedthe same) being within his new clothes? A metamorphosis had alteredhim to a taller and more aggravating expense and only by working hardcould he avert the faces of scorn. In those years in some bedroom oranother he found some peace. The plastic blinds had the same sounds offingers wedged between them as they bounced around in the Decemberbreeze or in a June storm; and the piecemeal environment seen in thecrevices of those blinds were of the same trash cans on the samepavement near some gravel. That had been reassuring to him. Now, he hadbeen extracted from that environment. Walking on, morose as the abyss of his subconscious disgorged likea geyser, he thought of his boyhood in school satiated in learning. There had indeed been such a boyhood in such a time brief as a few daysof Bangkok winter that makes homeless dogs and cats shiver beforetemple walls when fortunate enough to wander into such an animalsanctuary. Learning had been a series of refreshing stimuli slappingup against him like a cool breeze. It had stimulated him and hadplanted in him an appetite. It was then taken away from him leavingonly the wistfulness and the barren days squirming around like noodlesin pork soup. At the aunt's insistence his mother and father had paidfor him to go to a poor Buddhist school run by the monks. The monks hadbeen impressed by his academic cleverness, and soon, at theirpersuasion, his parents had paid for him to attend special classes aswell. During those three years he had only worked in the summers; andthe last of those summers was the end to a consistent time of academiclearning. They rented him off to pick coconuts from a woman's orchardand didn't see much point in dismissing the added revenue. The aunt, with her excess of money, intervened with special tutors andhome-school teachers. It lasted for a time until she became bored withoverseeing it. During the trip here an accident had occurred on the highway fromAyuttaya to Bangkok and the congestion made irascible beings used tothe quick weltering motion of freedom trapped in their own thoughts. Horns, at that time sounded from all directions and Kumpee, the fetidone, at times irascibly chewed the fetid fruit called durian or slowlyslurped from the beer can in his hands allowing the liquid in his mouthto spread and re-spread before swallowing. He wanted to step out ofthe car and punch someone but instead he bit into the heart of thedurian. When the girlfriend's car gained enough freedom to interweavewithin the slowness (a slowness that caused their minds to be morelamenting), Kumpee, at that time, made their way out of the last lanesand pulled into a town to get another beer. He had hardly entered thetown when he fell asleep for a second and swerving to escape hitting atuc tuc upon awakening (a tuc tuc being a big golf-cart taxi) or abicycle rickshaw, the car nearly hit a truck and then nicked a fruitcart that was being pushed along the side of the road. Kumpee, burdenedand desiring for speed and escape, drove on. During that second of thenear miss with the truck, Jatupon felt that it was their destiny--theirkarma-- to have the same fate that their parents had experienced weeksearlier. He found himself disappointed to be alive but sensed that hewas alone in this. Even if such a thought flashed before his brothers, they were older and quickly regained that cold detachment as if theirpsyches were fully evolved as separate entities. They portrayed, inlegitimate or feigned smiles, that they no longer felt that the fate ofthe parents was interlinked to that of the sons. Suthep, who was just ayear and a half older than Jatupon, had not been so convincing. Whenhe felt that he was unobserved he seemed troubled and twice looked outthe back window. Kumpee, deciding to sleep, drove a little further in the samedirection to his friend's house. He was apologetic. After all, Bangkok (or Krung Thep Maha Nakhon) was only 45 miles from Nakhon SiAyutthaya but to experience traffic problems in Thailand was like noother, and to have sold the parents' possessions after burning thebodies of the mother and father before the inevitable rot (a ubiquitousordeal so individually personal) was like no other. They were exhaustedand needed someplace to stay. The friend welcomed them in without theleast reservation. Kumpee and Kazem put rice mats on the floor. Thenthey began to tie up the tent of the mosquito net by stringing it upagainst light fixtures and unused nails that stuck out of walls. Suthep and Jatupon became aware that their masculine images ofthemselves were dependent on being a builder of the house, and so theyquickly secured two sagging corners so that they would not be badgeredfor feminine subservience. That night, under the net, Jatupon considered the mosquitostealth: that it waited for the concluding restless mumbling of his twoeldest brothers who were rehashing where they would go long-term andwhat they would do. The mosquito waited; and the minute that they fellasleep its wings cut through the black air and time with the buzz of amonotonous chant. The mosquito carried a wicker fan called a "balabot"that monks used to hide their faces as they gave the air their morbidand sonorous drones. He heard the mosquito shuffling around the roomunder the net. There were times, throughout the night, that hequestioned if some less supernatural version of a mosquito had bittenhim and had given him dengue fever which might have brought on thesehallucinations, or if he was experiencing withdrawal from not havingused drugs or sniffed glue for a while. It did not occur to him that athird possibility might have been the variety of chemical substancesalready in his body mixed with the new amphetamines that he had poppedinto his mouth an hour earlier while in the bathroom of Kumpee'sfriend. It was a well-known fact that metropolitan bus drivers inevery city popped amphetamines; and so to him it had been vitaminsfortifying him against depression and lethargy. As he walked with his brothers and the "Chinawoman" through theheat and smoke of the sidewalk restaurants, he remembered having beenvery hot the previous night and how he had felt so miserably trappedunder the mosquito net like a fish in the web and snare of its net. Hewas sick but it did not last for very long. According to his memorythis strange entity as large as himself shuffled under the net from onecorner to the next and the sickness of his stomach was replaced by aqueasy and tightening horror while he cowered in the embrace of hislegs. Thinking himself in a net where there was no extrication heexperienced the adrenalin of bravado. He wanted to confront his fears. Trying to reach for a religion to formulate a rational perspective inthe irrational, he argued that the snare outside had to be lesspoignant than the snare of gluttonous appetites that were the cell, thebunk, and the chained wall within the underground prison that was he. This mosquito evoked in him, or he invoked in himself, such trepidationthat he imagined an equal: prehistoric peoples of Thailand watchingtheir halcyon harmony with nature execrably disparaged in the vehementwinds of a hurricane--the trees along the river, which had offeredprotection now torn and lethally slapped at them. The mosquito landed, crawled, and looked at the bodies on thefloor. "Everyone is separated out into little forts. The others areunder two different nets, " it flared its voice in a quasi-questionwithout looking at Jatupon's face. "Who are these creatures?" it asked. "My brothers" "There's one woman, " it said pugnaciously. "They can't all be yourbrothers. Let's have an inventory. Be specific!" "My eldest brother's friend and my brother, Kazem, are under onetent. My brother, Kumpee, and his girlfriend are in a second tent. Mybrother, Suthep, is here with me. " "And you I know. Don't you think this is a bit overdone: threeforts around a few microscopic insects?" Jatupon opened his mouth but failed to say anything. Then heclosed his mouth in fear of an insect flying into it. "At any rate, why isn't one tent used throughout the room. " "I don't know. I didn't ask. " "Aren't you a little dummy, " it said. "Considering the fact thatone large tent spread throughout the room would be a more economicalinvestment than three smaller ones, one would think that you would careto inquire about it logically. " "We aren't renting them. They are the host's and it would beimpolite to ask such questions. " "'They are the host's and it wouldn't be polite to ask thosequestions, '" it mocked. "You are so Thai through and through: one dummyin a nation of dummies. Here, let me look at this dummy. " After a thorough examination of Suthep's body like a doctor or adepraved sexual stalker, it turned away from the one sleeping and spokeJatupon's disparaging nickname of "Jatuporn" disdainfully. Then ittold him that he and it would be playing cards. It shuffled its bodyfrom corner to corner and then shuffled the cards. One card becamethwarted and dislodged from the uniform movement. It flipped face upand showed a still life of his parents who were expressionless asmannequins. They were a couple of a dark pigment (he from birth and shewith her Chinese skin all burnt and wrinkled brown). She was naked butwearing a hair net and he was without his usual cap but was wearing aloincloth that had been soiled by his weekend work in the rice fieldsin the rural outskirts of the city. The mosquito quickly buried thecard into the others face down. "Lets talk of them, the ashes that they be. They make up one oftwo groups of people in your life and these categories of individualsneed to be discussed. " "Why are you crying?" "Seeing them makes me miss them. They died in a horribleaccident. " "Accidents abound. " " We had to burn their bodies. " "That's done. You don't want them rotting in the streets. Fromwhat I heard, they made excellent firewood in the incinerator. What isthere to cry about? They fulfilled the quest of their lives. It wasthe only decent thing they ever did: becoming a fireball. What isthere to cry about?" "They are gone. They were my parents and I loved them. " "You are sorry for the pain they experienced. I suppose that isdecent of you; but most of that love is just like not questioning whythere are three nets in this room instead of one. You, Thais, are sosubservient to your cultural definitions of right and wrong. Whatsilly things you all are. You are specifically foolish having theloyalty of a dog that is kicked, fed, and comes back for more. You aretoo Thai. It is absolutely sickening. " It again glanced at Suthep. "Tell me about this one on the mat with you. Is he as stupid?" "Are you going to hurt him and me?" "Possibly; or just allow you to hurt yourselves. " "Tell me about him. " "He is the third eldest brother. He is a litter older than me. He likes Thai boxing and snookers. I don't know what to say. I don'tknow what you want. He is my brother. I love him. " "There you go with that word. Do you think that they, yourparents, loved you?" "Of course. " "That's what you think but that isn't what you know. I want whatyou know from what you have repressed. I want the truth. I want toenlighten you, or for you to enlighten yourself. It's a misnomer, youknow. It isn't really light at all in either color or weight. Enlightenment is hard and dark. Don't you think so?" "I've never considered it. " "I know you haven't. " It paused. "You know, I can read yourthoughts. Why are you trying to memorize everything I'm saying. Youflatter me so. " "I want to put it in my journal but it is buried in one of mybags. " "I see. I'm glad you write. I think you should write or draw. " "Why?" "Why not? As an indictment of love if nothing else. I'm wonderingwhat you think about your mother having four sons. Really fiveincluding the miscarriage. " "I wouldn't know. I suppose she loved Children. She loved raisingthem. " "She needed children. Not only did her body push her to makecopies of herself to preserve her DNA but also she needed thedistractions from her own thinking-from love gone awry. She hadmarried a tyrant. The only thing they shared was the scheming ofeasily cobbled projects to make a tiny bit of money they always hopedwould make them filthy rich. The rebellion against her family andsexual felicity with his large genitalia had been eroded in time. Shebecame conscious of his piggish habits. She was always thinking aboutbeing alienated from her former family, which, if she had stayed withthem, would have allowed her to live a comfortable life. Children wereher distraction but when they were older she resented theirindependence. As far as your father is concerned, he loved you evenmore: he loved chasing after you as if you were a cockroach that hewanted to smash. He got your brothers to help him stomp on you. " "How do you know that the need to preserve DNA makes a motherlove?" Jatupon whined sullenly. "I read it in a comic book. " Jatupon became taciturn. His head hurt and he wanted to vomit. He couldn't get up. He tried to stand up but couldn't do so. He triedto vomit in a cup but nothing came up. " "You might as well stay where you are at. If you go into thebathroom for more pills or slip into your bag for some glue you mightbe able to discombobulate my voice like a child spinning around in thegrass but ultimately you'll fall into me and the mordant words will beall the more deleterious. Besides, it is still my hand and there aremore cards to play. It tossed another card from the deck his way. Itwas Kumpee's girl friend. It was her face and shape. "Yes, Jatupon said, "She's a lovely card" and the mosquitonodded his head disdainfully. Then it clapped its feet and said, "Onebaht for the human's ability to at least recognize physical beauty. "Jatupon looked on the table and there appeared a one baht coin with anaked China woman engraved on it. He picked it up. It's weight, whichwas always equal to that of play money, had become less; and there wasa continual sensation that even though it rested in his finger tips itwas being pulled lightlessly away from him to fall endlessly into aninconvertible currency. He watched it vaporize into a gas. "She is one of the second group who has no special significance toyou at all and yet from her your life has been changed. People likethis might be helpful and even compassionate but at the end of the daythey won't stay with you. They are evanescent nectar in thedissolution of events and time. " "Only two groups?" "Only two unless you make up a third. All I know of the future isfrom the perspective of today. " Catered to the limitations of Jatupon's entomological knowledge, this gigantic mosquito was male and a bloodsucker nonetheless. Itlooked into his intimate space with such a bold stare that he felt thatit could easily seduce him in as its prey--that the survival of thefittest reigned with the hegemony of its kind just as micro-organismsalways get the last meal. As he saw its eyes he suddenly knew thesadistic fun it was having with its mind games, and the cruel huntinggames of cats and their dead mice. Deeper into its eyes he saw astarving child and a vulture awaiting on a rock, the fight for dominionof species and nations, and the sexual aggression of making love amongmankind. He felt like walking meat; and he knew that all animals feltthe same of their own lives ceaselessly. He grieved for them. Themosquito knew this intuitively and began to laugh at him for hissensitivity and his naïve animistic thinking, which like a child, madeanimals conscious and sagacious. "You aren't real, you know, but the fever of my own brain, " saidJatupon to curtail his vision. "Oh, let's not start the reality game. I'll make this simple sothat even you can understand it. It foils others I enlighten who giveme the same argument. I say to them that they, who create ideas, willdie in a hundred years but an idea that they might have has thepossibility of living on. To the idea, I say, the man would not seemreal. " Then he obfuscated. "Didn't you read in an encyclopedia onetime that the American president, Abraham Lincoln, said, 'In the civilwar it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different fromthe purpose of either party--and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect hispurpose. '" "I don't understand what you are meaning by that. I didn'tunderstand that long sentence when I read it anyhow. " "You don't understand subtle and abstract meanings because you areuneducated. You sometimes dabble here and there with an encyclopediain the library and then you forget everything you've read when youunderstand it at all, " said the mosquito in a contumelious air. "Onlythe dreamer is the illusion. Not the dream. The dreamer sinks backwith the dirt. " It tossed that card like a coin from its gangling talon tips. Thecard enlarged to a life-sized form and moved toward Jatupon. He almostfelt seduced by it as it moved around him in its mating dance. Themosquito laughed harder and then said that not only had he and hisbrothers relinquished their homeland in Ayutthaya on account of her butthat she was a trap or a symbol of a trap. It was not just she, heexplained. It was all of them. Love and marriage was a specie ** specie ? or species ? **preserving drug induced into a man to keep him bound and limitedthrough passion, fear of loneliness, and obligation. " "Then I should feel sorry for my elder brother if it is a sicknesslike how I'm feeling now. I mean I was feeling really sick but now Imust still be sick if I'm imagining you. I wish I were able to tellwhat is happening to me now. It is like suffering the withdrawals ordengue fever. " Slowly forcing himself beyond his cowardly pose, Jatupon got up and opened his suitcase. He took out two warm cans ofCoca Cola. He opened the tabs and slid one to the mosquito that drankup. "It isn't quite the nectar of blood but it is okay when one isthirsty, " it commented. He was like a wounded soldier who perceived that the enemy wasanother victim in the war and so he wanted to sit down near thisopposing peer. Jatupon crept near it and gradually sat on a mat. Aminute later, after not being eaten, his confidence grew and he feltlike confessing his soul to the insect as if the mosquito's appearancewere only that mask Thai monks hid behind when they said their chants. "Kumpee said he would live with us but I guess he might mean that now. After all, his girlfriend is with him. He only talked to her on ourway here. " He paused and thought deeply once again. "I don't like whatyou say but it's honest. I have no one to talk with, you know. " Hethought of this mosquito as a spirit who came through the burning ofincense placed at a stupa. "I don't have anyone to be honest with meand all of the friends I once had I've had to leave. Would you visit mein Bangkok?" He spoke with such innocence that the mosquito had tosmile bashfully and look away from the awkwardness of knowing that onlya child believes that mother and father are extensions of his own body;only a child walks into the forest with a kind stranger where he isbound to a tree, raped and murdered; and only one warped in the wisdomgained in tragedy finds himself inseparably bound by every stern, euphonious truth uttered by a monster. "Would I accept the invitation to come to Bangkok to bite you andinject you with malaria? No, I'm afraid I would not be able to acceptsuch an invitation at this time and you shouldn't be extending it. Always remember that truth is lethal. To know and to be aware of manythings is like a man too fat for his house and this obese pig of a manis forced onto the streets where he can't tolerate the heat and coldbecause of his flab; and then I come along and suck through hisbaboonish skin before he knocks off. I certainly would accompany youif it were not for there being truth in the adage that a mosquito couldnever live in Bangkok because the pollution would kill him off. " Then the mosquito's eyes were those of the second eldest brother, Kazem, and Jatupon was with him in the bathroom where he had taken thepills. Kazem lifted up "Jatuporn's" bare legs onto his shoulders;inserted himself; and rode. Jatupon realized that he was hallucinatingthis because there was the mosquito before him. He felt ill. He justwanted to get out of the confines of the mosquito net. He just wantedto brush his teeth. The next thing Jatupon dreamt or knew the third eldest one, Suthep, put a cold washcloth on his forehead and then had him take someaspirin. As Jatupon gluttonously swallowed the pills down his gullet hekept wondering if it were cocaine. Suthep vanished and then there wasthe mosquito again. In a transformed madness, the mosquito becameKazem; and this brother kept riding him painfully while Jatuponwondered if Kumpee, the fetid one, had run off permanently with his"Chinawoman. " Somewhere into the night--had it been in the bathroom when he wasvomiting or when he was back under the net with a washcloth on hishead?--he could not place where he was at; and then odd thoughts cameinto his mind. "If love oils are a way to make the anus and the vaginasomething that they aren't designed for maybe I'm pregnant with mybrother's child? Does he love me? What is love? My bottom has spreadout like a damp shirt when stretched" Then it was the mosquito again. He asked what were Jatupon's jobaspirations in Bangkok. "Oh, I don't know, " the boy responded. "I havethought many things. " "Such as... " it asked. "At times I have thought that I could become a monk--one of thosereal monks that live in the cave, eat only vegetables, and have noneeds or wants. " The mosquito scoffed. "What a bloody idealist. Deny your hungersand you deny the animal that comprises so much of the human being-theanimal that developed a high degree of consciousness to fight his wayup as the dominant species, the animal that nonetheless behavesaccording to instinct. If you deny the human you will have wasted yourlife not living it at all. That is what will happen if you are lucky. If unlucky, I suppose you will eventually snap like a crazedimmigration officer who begins to shoot tourists. You are an animalnot that you have to be swallowed up whole into your hungers. Theillusions of being in love, the ambitions that have allowed you tosubdue the Earth under the illusion of gaining some happy plateau aftermaking your conquests, are hardly instincts one can extract. Oneshouldn't extract them. These instincts have filled your kind withpurpose thereby making brief existences on a meaningless planetbearable. Most importantly sexual desire keeps your race proliferating. Tell me something a bit more practical. " "Well... Sometimes I have thought I could become a money collectorin a city bus. I would be a Bangkok Metropolitan Transportationemployee--BMT. " "Well, being prime minister would never suit you. I must say thatthis is certainly less extreme and easily in your reach. What attractsyou to the profession of ticket tearing?" Jatupon imagined the money collector clicking the lid of hismetallic cylinder while shoving through the people. At times he wouldsit on the monkey bar near the open door feeling the artificial windscreated by this fast moving green tube full of standing contortionists. When new customers came in he would put their money into the tube andextract tickets, weightless as stamps, from the same container. Hewould click and click to get their attention. When the bus wasinordinately full, barefoot or in sandals, he would stand on the laststep an inch from death like a parachutist without a parachute. "I just think that I could do it, " he told the mosquito. "Yes, " said the mosquito, "but could you count change to thesatisfaction of the mass transit department of Bangkok?" "I'm not hardly a dummy, " Jatupon said angrily. "Let's not go into that, " the mosquito said. "I know you cancount. I'm just not sure if it goes beyond ten. That's all. Whatother fun things could you become if needed-any type of job that can atleast grant you eighty dollars worth of free falling baht each month?" "I don't know. I'm tired of thinking about it. It is such ananguish to worry about surviving continually. " "Indeed. Just like you were thinking before: animals that haveinsight into the fact that they are nothing but ambulatory meat; onlyyou are the meat of the richer classes. Your life will be consumed atwork for their pleasure. " The girl friend handed her sun burnt Siamese a key to the room andexcoriated him for not believing her about the distance of theapartment building from the department store. She snubbed encounteringextensive numbers of the underclass even though her father owned thebuilding. She stood aloof and contracted the muscles of her face evenbefore the evaporation of urinary molecules from the façade of thebuilding attacked her nostrils. She disheveled Jatupon's hair and thenmaternally combed it back again with her fingers. She told Kumpee thatshe would take a taxi back to the department store and wait for him atMcDonald's. Then she left them in repugnance. Within a glance each of them saw all there was of their apartmentburrowed under the building and became sullen. Kumpee lied that hewould leave his bag in the apartment and then see his girlfriend backto her home. Jatupon lay on the floor. Suthep unpacked and put theheadphones of a Walkman around his ears. Kazem took a shower. Thesubject of his departure was forgotten. Kumpee sat on his case for ahalf hour eating his durian. Then when there seemed an inconspicuousexit he picked up his bag and went away. They felt his missingpresence prod the vacuous air an hour later when they noticed that thesuitcase was gone. Chapter 4 It was 2 a. M. And the mosquito came into the scenes of his REMwith wings piercing through and dominating over every brief episodicnightmare. It was wearing an orange monk's robe and superciliouslyimposed its own presence on all scenes that Jatupon alone was supposedto rehearse. It altered a script that Jatupon's brain had conjured inthe hope of figuring out how to interact with his environment and livewith himself harmoniously. Initially his sleep consisted of nascentdream-roles to find out if feigning a serious illness would havealtered his parents' journey of early demise. Later there were otherssuch as trying to persuade the fetid one's Chinese girlfriend to buyhim a white shirt and necktie so that he could apply at the BangkokMetropolitan Transportation Department and thereby resurrect himself asan economic deliverer and a masculine force to be admired instead ofdog excrement on his brothers' heels that he perceived them asperceiving him to be. There were also briefer skits in the randomfeelings, thoughts, and perceptions he was trying to categorize. Onewas of trying to successfully bite his shirt to stop himself fromcrying out when Kazem's riveting night sports were too painful andanother one was of attempting to remember the few neighborhoods andstreets of Bangkok that he had learnt in past visits and perhaps linkthem to various names that only sleep could recall. Throughout it allwas the buzz of the mosquito. This insect-monk buzzed no differentlythan a bee. "And where were you today and yesterday?" it asked. "I didn't get out the glue and there were no pills to pop. " "Why didn't you get out the glue?" "I want to do this for fun. I want these trips to stay what theycall "recreational. " I'll take them only when I need out. I don'twant to be an addict. " "You aren't an addict. If your body really wanted it, you wouldn'thave been able to resist it for over 24 hours. Still, even though thisis noble and good, you don't want to walk away from your friends. " "I know. " "What did you do this afternoon?" "I went to fly a kite near Wat Phra Kaeo. " "Do you mean you masturbated in the temple housing the EmeraldBuddha? I mean that's fine if it is true. Surely another person ortwo over the past two or three centuries has done that also. All thesame, please refrain from using Thai slang. You don't want to soundlike a dummy when you talk to me. " "No, I mean it literally, Ajarn, " said Jatupon. Ajarn meant"respected teacher. " "I went to the area outside of the Grand Palacein Sanam Luang. In front of the golden and pointed domes of theentrance there is an oval football field of dirt. The radio mentionedthat hundreds of boys and girls were flying kites there. I wasplanning to buy a kite and fly mine with the hundreds that were soaringnext to each other but there was no one my age doing that. " "Neither a boy nor a man: what an awkward state to be in. Anyhow, so you wanted to fly a kite near the golden pagodas and cupolas of theGrand Palace and Wat Phra Kaeo but you didn't do so. I assume it wasmore for lack of money. Is that right? Is that all? I can't imaginewhy you would think that you could use money for such extravagancesconsidering your present predicament. " "I had some. I always get some. " "How?" "I go through Kazem's pockets when he is asleep. " "Do you mean you steal it?" "Not really. He knows I do it. It is kind of like a littlegame... Sort of. " "Oh, I can pick it from your simple mind so easily. The rulebeing that after you provide your sexual services to him he allows youto pickpocket from the pants that he drapes on a chair. If he awakenshe beats you or disparages your existence in front of the family but ifyou are quiet you can take most of what he has in his pockets and runaway throughout the day. " "When I'm not working. That is kind of how it has gone. He hasalways been kind enough to see that I get a vacation every week. Hewas always telling Mother that I needed to be something other than anilliterate slob and the least they could do was allow me to go to thelibrary once a week. I would usually go there... Sometimes a movie orstanding at a newsstand reading the comics. That is sort of how itwas. Now we aren't working so I didn't take very much yesterday. Hey, if you can read my simple little mind so easily, why do you bother toask things?" "To amuse myself a little. Did this pickpocket game occur whenyour parents were alive?" "Yes, it began when I was eleven. What could I have said toanyone? I was hated. You said so yourself. I wasn't going to make itworse by humiliating myself that way. They wouldn't have believed me;and they wouldn't have wanted to think about something so disgusting. Anyhow, Kazem always had me swear that I'd keep it secret and he is theonly one who has really cared about me-as much as people care aboutothers. Maybe not so much. " He became taciturn. "Quiet!" said the mosquito belatedly. "I hear something. " Itpaused and looked through the small window of the basement apartment. "Oh, it is your mother driving up now. " "She doesn't drive. She doesn't own a car. " "She does now. " Jatupon remembered that she always did buylottery tickets that mendicants sold from wooden attaché cases hungaround their chests. "I thought she didn't have the chance of asnowball in hell of winning" commented the mosquito. "Anyhow, here sheis and it is grocery day. You need to help her bring in the bags. " It was raining but he nonetheless heard the car. He sauntered outof the kitchen of the river cabin as the screen door sprang back behindhim. "Mother, " he yelled in a surprised tone. "You're back. " Theengine stopped. "Of course I'm here. You knew I'd be back in an hour. Where elsewould I be?" Her voice screamed out belligerently but it was hollowand virtually inaudible in the container of the car. The Mercedes Benzwas flaxen and waxed and the woman inside was a bit of the same self inan idealized way. She was even more young, beautiful and poised thanKumpee's girlfriend. Her skin was also whiter than the fetid one'sinfatuation and instead of being dark, thick, and puffy like a durableand well tread tire she was a thin sheath, almost like a transparentcondom, and perfectly unblemished. "Did you go to Ayutthaya?" "Have you really forgotten where I've been. Even you can't bethat stupid. I told you before I left. I went to Thee Nhai. " Thee nai was the word "Where" in Thai; but she spoke it with such certainty thathe believed in its legitimacy as a city name like Chaing Mai. She spokeeven more loudly from her encasement inside the car but was stillbarely audible. "To see Grandmother?" "And grocery shopping. After all, it is grocery day. " Shestopped frowning and slowly made a partial smile. "I have something foryou. " He felt surprised. He wondered why he would be given something. He couldn't remember having ever been given a gift. In Thailand (thereal Thailand as lived by the poor masses) children were instruments:tools to ease the task of making a living, and later they weresustenance and emotional pampering for the aging parents. Above thesteering wheel she showed to him a small rectangular box that sheopened like a coffin. In it was a large golden pen that gleamed likethe roofs of a Buddhist temple. Minutes passed. She continued toexhibit the pen and her half-smile while staying encased. All of thecar windows were rolled up. He kept wondering what good the pen woulddo him if it were just a visual appearance seen through the glass of acar. He forgot the pen and concentrated on his mother who was asintangible. He heard the sound of her calmly wrestling unsuccessfullywith a door handle that would not unlock. He or it--this mordant mosquito-- came with wings piercing throughsleep. He again spoke of her, the girlfriend, as "Chinatown skin" anddrawing her from a deck of cards, the mosquito threw her. The card, animated like an email greeting, clicked around as if on high heels. The woman's form, detaching itself from the shell of the card, sang anddanced her dance. Jatupon and the mosquito both lusted for her. Jatuponwanted to rush into the toilet the way he had seen a man in his earlytwenties rush into the public restroom at the movie theatre, MajorCiniplex in Ayuttaya, a week before his parents died. On that occasion, or misadventure, Jatupon, who a minute later went to relieve himself inan adjacent cubicle before going back to his cart of noodles, heardpumping noises. Then on his side of the crack he faintly saw a shadowof a hand stroking a penis on the tiles to the left of his feet. Thatman had sought pleasure in marginal solitude; but for him, with amosquito staring him down with emotionless black eyes, there was noprivacy. His masturbatory time was limited by his hallucinations. He tried to suffocate the thought of the Chinese Thai woman in animaginary pillowcase. He tried to extinguish the sparks of his owndesires by deluging them with more abstract and tenuous thoughts. Hewondered what would be some other choices of jobs he could pursue tobreak away from what was left of this fraternity and become anindependent being. The idea hurt him. He then told himself that henever wanted to leave his brothers. He told himself that he would goout to find Kumpee, the fetid one, if he only knew where in the bigcity to search. Jatupon saw his own pimpled face staring at him; his childhoodfriends who moved or became people he could not relate to; and hisparents that no human sense of bonding, volition, or imagination couldbring back. Orphic memories gleamed and sparkled opaquely like themoving shadows of leaves on the pavement. "So, I can not see my ownreflection without cringing. So, I felt that sense of fear that camefrom thinking that my classmates might not want me to play takraw withthem and that feeling has not left me entirely. So, I'm scared oflosing people, like fumbling with the bamboo ball, as if theirdeparture would be the end of my own personal essence! So, in the end, we all come down in a cruel fate. " He could not formulate theseabstract thoughts. It all was a base and indistinct feeling. He wasattempting to channel the fears that constituted so much of his beingso that they would not burst into his consciousness. "So, have you finished falling so fully and foolishly intoyourself, " asked the mosquito. It paused and looked back at the girl. "She is Chinatown skin, the kind every man pants for: all beautifullywhite, each aesthetic non-deformity ranking her in the realm ofdesirability in every Thai man's mind. 'Won't she, in thisquintessence of beauty, have virtually no chance of making a deformedbaby, ' screams the man's ingrained DNA programming that composes eachand every cell. 'Won't she, in this quintessence of beauty, havevirtually no chance of making a deformed baby, ' scream's thepsychological programming created by the influence of his peers whothink that her money and education have made her as valuable as whiteivory -the type often used in Buddhist statuettes. Hormonaldiscriminatory passions ensue, dopamine hits the pleasure receptors ofthe brain, and make him an addict for a hormonal pleasure with her. " "Is this love? Is this all that we are? Love is the best part ofus and yet it is as this? I can't believe that, " retorted Jatupon. The mosquito, the big "it, " guffawed. "You are truly ingenuous. You are contrary to the natural world around you-a true babe focusingyour trusting round eyes so eagerly on the savage world around you. Personally it is a novelty to me and I don't mind it at all. Do youremember how you felt when you were young?" He remembered the warmth he felt toward his mother even though shedid not like him. He remembered how she cared for him despite thinkinghim a burden. She was the good birdie feeding his mouth. Had he notbelieved all love to be something like a mother's love and that thismother's love was pure? Had he as little as a few days earlier beeninveigled in the optimism of being free from the consideration of howinstinct is passed down in genetic transfer from generation togeneration? Had he not imagined a desire for a woman and being "inlove" as something more spectacular than bottle rockets and Romancandles lit from the bridges over the Chao Phraya River in the Loikrathong celebration? There were times he had even considered love to be a preordainedgift bestowed onto each being in subtle and illuminating graces. Itwas a bit like a lit candle on a krathong, a hand length banana-leafboat sent out onto waters during the Loi krathong holiday. A givenkrathong would perhaps sail a hundred meters on a river before beingtipped over in waves and winds along with one's negativity andculpability; and for this exorcism the river goddess would bestow ontosuch an individual a new year of blessings. As a boy he had thoughtthat this universal love was so pure that it was colorless andtranslucent. He believed that it was so ubiquitous and protecting likea mosquito net around the world, but alive, sensitive, and full offeeling; and that from it came the babies... The babies. Certainly asthe years were placed on the tables like plates of rice and bowls ofnoodle soup it was harder to believe that brotherly love was equallydispersed among mankind. It seemed that the darker the pigment of aThai, the more likely he was to do his menial tasks and the whiter hewas, the more such Thais seemed to own the enterprises of the country. To his brother, Kumpee, like the father, he had existed as a verbalpunching bag to relieve stress. "Night sports" was the term that Kazemcalled his form of brotherly love. "Now... " scoffed the mosquito as it smiled maliciously, "Now, youknow the truth. The truth shall set you free. Babies come from thedesire to both eat healthy human flesh and crawl and slither around inits beautiful skin. " He woke up startled to a void and a room that was at firstunfamiliar in the darkness until memory seeped in and he knew where hewas at. As he was feeling depressed looking at this basement roomwhere they were caged and smelling the stagnancy of air stinking ofmens' bodies more eclectically than just their armpits, he fought withthe rectangular window to which leaned weeds and grass. He barelybudged it open. The patch of greenery flushed its grassy smells aswell as the urinary ones with a gust of wind. Even decay was in thegrass and such smells were beautiful. He watched the blades moving. They whispered of impermanence. They reminded him that as dictatorsdie, civilizations ultimately become nothing but a few buried artifactsand bones, and palaces crumble, he would not stay in this cell forever. Everything would change; and change at times had its advantage. And yet the child in him resisted change. It yearned to declareevery dust particle that had been trodden on its friend. It did notlike parting and it, in him, hated the idea of Kumpee gone. He feltjealous that this woman had taken him. He hated her despite her earlierfriendliness to him. He hated her white skin and hated Kumpee for hisugly dark skin, his abandonment, and his fetid ways. Mostly he hatedhis contemptuously tinged use of the nickname, "Jatuporn, " showing thathe knew everything about this relationship with Kazem. The apathy inthe pronouncement would have been bearable. The contempt would have atleast shown concern. But that particular mix spelled out that he, Jatupon, was really the fetid one and he hated the fetid one for it. Stagnant and morose in feelings and thoughts, he dripped in thesauna of his own sweat; and, careful not to stumble over his brothersin the night, he opened the door for more breezes, for a passingmosquito, for voices, and the dispersing of crowded thoughts. Herecalled untainted and simple memories of Kazem telling Suthep a joke acustomer had relayed to him making all four of them laugh until theyturned red; the shapes and slight variations of the colors of clouds;and lying on his bed in their parents home hearing the sounds oflocusts somewhere in the swaying tree limbs cradled in the wind'scaresses. He knew that such trivial and yet poetical experiences werewhat constituted human happiness. He stepped outside and then walked a couple of blocks in a stillrelatively unfamiliar terrain. To him, the surveyor of the night, thecity spilled out in the oozing newness of black and yellow tubes ofpaint. There was a larger road and across the street was a Seven-Elevenconvenience store. He stood there and his eyes followed the trafficthat went directly in front of it. He rummaged through one of his bagsuntil he found his glue. He inhaled its fumes and popped someamphetamines he had purchased at the drugstore with Kazem's pocketmoney. He remembered that Suthep and Kazem, like curious beasts, hadoccasionally looked in on him during that time, a year ago, when hisbody had its opiate force (really a mixed drug combination adverselyaffected by beer he drank during the Songkran New Year's water fight)poured from it like water from a colander. How sick he had been. FromKazem's suggestion, it had been a monk--a former teacher of hisboyhood-- whom he had stayed with while he was stiff and shaking. Theperiodic vomiting and shaking had seemed so incessant although it, likeall, was fleeting. It had been too intolerable for his parents and yetfor all the talk of the father getting rid of him completely by shovinghim into a monastery, they had been happy to again gain their worker. Lost in the myriad dimly lit trails of his own thoughts, he at lastreturned and went back to his bed of clothes. He smoothed them out. Hemade them even. He thought that he might be reprimanded about leavingthe door open for insects to fly in. It was to his satisfaction but itprobably wouldn't be to theirs and these brothers might easily awakenfrom the dogs that could be heard a block away. He got up and shutboth the door and the window. Then, for a few minutes, he listened tothe howling of dogs muffled through the closed door. For a half hourhis positions changed restlessly on the wad of clothes. He thought ofthe postcard pictures of temples and palaces; of possibly being a moneycollector on the city busses, standing on a step and hanging out of thecontinually opened door of a green bus; of-- "What a pathetic existence. You haven't even paid any rent onthis room. Gifts can be taken back, you know. You could be thrown outat any whim: Kazem's, the girlfriend's, her father who might hate himenough to kick you out. You have no money or jobs. What will you do?" "I thought that you weren't coming here. " "Here?" "To Bangkok. " "Did I say that?" it asked for the first time in a tone that wasintrospective and self-conscious. "You said it. If you make yourself out to be this monster oftruths I can't see how you can lie like this. " "I was with you earlier in a less bright, more murky form of adream when you were anxious that you hadn't gotten any privacy to flyyour kite. You didn't seem to remember quoting me then. " It did not like the merit of its own veracity scrutinized. It turnedaway and paused. It scratched one leg against another thoughtfully theway one might a scalp. Jatupon wondered for a moment if the insectwould disappear wordlessly from the weight of it's own waningconfidence but there was no chance of that. It reasserted itself, attempting to discard its solemn self-interrogations for a more augustposture and attitude. "You would be the aimless kinetic movements of other dust justlike your kind if it wasn't for me giving you consciousness and a soul. You impudent little dummy, you should not speak to your ajarn thisway. Your blood only has worth as the nutrients of my posterity. Thatis its purpose. If you become so calculating and crafty with me I'llreevaluate our relationship. " One of its arms reached over andcaressed his skin. "At a distance, " it said, "the brownness makes itlook as solid as a rock. I forget that it is so tender. Your naivetealso seems so obdurate that I often forget the self-serving anddisingenuous muck underneath it all. " It brought back its arm, openedits mouth widely, and spat at the boy. "Here have an early Songkran, "it said. Songkran was the New Year's water festival in the hottestmonth of April. The month was really March of the year 2445 accordingto the Thai Buddhist calendar. "I come and go by the dictates of my ownintelligent, restless brooding. I move from one rock to another hopingto get satisfaction or at least a reprieve from dissatisfaction. I, anintelligent being, must delude myself that the composite of rocks thatmake up this planet are something other than hardened shells of dirtand that I, wandering from one rock to another, am really livingexperiences instead of hallucinating pleasurable sensations for my selfto stay sane. Only seeing other life forms scrambling around the rocksto be my appetizers engender me with purpose. It paused. "There isnothing too peculiar in me wandering around in contradictory paths. Allintelligent creatures are the same. Boredom drives them to reshapetheir environment to serve their petty and selfish goals. This might beentertaining for higher creatures but it's an absolute curse for thehighest. " It wiggled its face and then pointed with an arm. "I mustrelieve your mind of worry. As they say, ignorance is bliss. You havelittle risk of finding boredom so insanely strong even if you staybound to noodles all your life. Boredom makes me curious. I want toknow many things. I want to know about you boys. " "You are a bit like our guardian, aren't you.. " "Yes, if that is what you need-- a surrogate uncle: that is whatI'll be. " His vision, his mosquito-uncle and deus ex machina, smashed like afly against a car window. Jatupon was exhausted and his mentalalertness relaxed in preparation for sleep. In a REM more troubled, incoherent, and weltering, there were flies seemingly caught between awindow and a screen. The screen was opened a crack and yet the crackonly demarcated freedom and the self-imprisonment of the mind for theyclimbed around the screen and yet never found that opening that hadallowed them to enter. Then there were rocks with a bit of honey andflies swarming in it; and himself echoing the mosquito's question onhow the three of them would be making a living. He disparaged himselfby casting that self as a cartoon of a motorcycle taxi driver sittingsidesaddle with a group waiting patiently in a queue for customers toarrive. Stationary with time passing amuck, and content with empty anddrowsy space and flies buzzing about his face, his life defied moneyand motion. "Get out of the way. If you can't fasten a doorknob takea broom and sweep up that mess in the back of the restaurant. I don'tknow what you are going to do when you get older. You can't even cook. You can't do anything and even walking you trip over your own shadow, "said his father. "You should see his cartoons, " said Kazem. "The boycan draw. " The cartoon of himself had signed the wedding papers and heand his cartoon wife were standing near a monk as relatives came bywith bowls of water rinsing their hands. Flies buzzed around theirfaces. A worker, selling Buddhist statuettes, necklaces, and rosaries, picked her child up, pulled down his pants, and let him urinate in theparking lot. "Love, " said the cartoon of the mosquito, "makes up the vernacularof pop culture. It is innate as a quest. It lances life's old festersgranting a mood of the new. For the male it is a consistentalternative on nights when the hunt for new females becomesunsuccessful. Both sexes need to believe that their own physicalattributes will be passed on to posterity. For sociable creatures theillusion of having a permanent foundation for their lives in marriageand family is indispensable. So much goes into this ineluctable lurecalled love and marriage: most of all a void so enormous that we chipthrough other skulls to record the memory of ourselves in that waterymass called a brain. On overpasses and sidewalks you've noticed thoseweak starving dogs with patches of fur missing from their bodies. Theytoo sniff around other dogs in the hope of confirming and making somepermanent documentation of themselves on those brains. Even if theydon't have energy for sex they still document themselves. Men areprogrammed to deliver the raw material of themselves in any dark alley. A woman's love, once devoted to he who has pierced into her-he who hasengendered in her that overpowering feeling of one inside her-- nowdevotes herself to motherhood and seeing that the child is... His ideas were erratic. They hopped and skipped over each otherand he held tightly onto parts of the clothing he lay on. Then withphotographic images, he dreamed of trees, waterfalls, and Thai islandshe had never seen before and his hands relaxed their grip on theclothes. There was a panoramic view of Thailand-rural, Khmer andBurmese individuals smiling in the northern regions and stolid Moslemand Indians in the south. The rural views in sunrise and sunset weremore real than reality and then the aerial focus went down and down andveered back up to the center. It was Bangkok again and there wasLumpini Park. An unknown girl was sitting on a mat in the gravel in a farcorner of the entrance to the park. Immediately behind her was thegate and in front of her was a large statue of King Rama V. A carentered the circular drive that went around the statue. She got up toguide its driver where to park. She hoped that by helping to ensurethat he didn't crash into parked cars that he would pay her a few bahtas others had. She did not beg. She did not prostitute herself. Sheonly did that. "I could do something like that. It's honest, " thought Jatupon. She continued to use hand gestures as the driver backed up accordingto her directions. "This is a good girl. I want someone like that tobecome my wife, " he thought. No sooner had this idea come to him thanthe car sped up and ran over her. Then it stopped and the driverhurried out. The driver held her in his hands and Jatupon felt herpulse. There was none and he dropped the arm. He walked through thegate to a woman sitting within the park on a sheet on top of a grassyknoll. He sat on the sheet in front of her and before the spread offortune telling cards. "I don't see much future in it" she said. "Being in love with anelder brother. There is no future in it from what I see. " "Those are just cards. How would you know?" he whined "Yes, those are just cards but you don't even need to look intothe cards to see something like that. " "How should I live? He's had sex in me. I should kill myself. A boy fucked in the ass can not be a man. " "No, probably not; but you must continue to be the best of whatyou are. Man, yes, some-a few-- might say. Some would say somethingless than that. Whatever you are, maimed or full, you have to continueto continue. We all should go through the whole show until the windscarry away our ashes and the soul returns for more learning, moresuffering. " Chapter 5 Bound for his uncle's home in the far north of the city, Kazem wasforced to reposition himself in the back of the bus next to a bucket ofswishing water and rags. He swatted the mosquito that was hoveringover its sodden progeny. He beat it towards the baldheads of a coupleof monks in front of him who had usurped his seat impudently. From hisnew and more uncomfortable seat, which often lost its cushion as he satthere, he looked out of the window and tried to beat back the infernoof hate for Kumpee that flared in the nerves throughout his body. Hestared down at what appeared as the moving edge of the road from whichbusinesses and pedestrians, from the corner of his left eye, ricocheted. He fingered a slit of the vinyl blue upholstery of hiscushion in a vaginal preoccupation passed onto males through theinheritance of this cellular knowledge called sexual instinct. Lowlevels of guilt oozed from him more subtly than foaming breakers ofbeer in a mug and yet he didn't feel that he had done anything wrong. This moment was no different than other times of malaise in thepast. He wasn't specifically troubled about the fruition of his wantonfantasies to meet his uncle in the hope of using him for some money. Money should never rest. It should be spent or invested. If it wereinvested it would be used to make more wealth or for philanthropy thatameliorated thievery. He agreed in a vague way with Kumpee who vaguelyinveighed something to the effect that a bit of money from a moreaffluent pocket into a poorer one helped the economy and was a justact. Likewise, he was not bothered by the release he had gainedearlier in a bit of sex with his youngest sibling. This activity wasto him just an extension of a back rub in a good massage compounded ina bit of sportive wrestling. It was a due owed to him for undergoingthe stress of looking after the younger brothers and keeping theprinciple of family alive. He was acting his part of the big brother nodifferent than he always had since Kumpee was continually negligent inperforming the role. There were no specifics to this malaise he felt. The malaise was brought on by the wistful craving to go beyond theconfines of his containment and yet reality, petty and limited, toldhim to use what was there under his feet, in his sight, and what hecould touch. A man in the confines of his life used what was under him. What being did not use the Earth? He continued to finger the slit of the vinyl blue upholstery in avaginal preoccupation. He wanted to feel beyond the hole of malaisethat was as empty as the hollow whistling of a wind through a crackeddoor or that numb sensation of lying alone, the fantasy of hismasturbation eluding him, and his semen flowing on his skin in a lastvestige of a river. Using others was as unconscious as a reflex but themalaise came into the equation when he saw what he had to use. Whydidn't he have money to wine and dine a female in the mating protocollike any male black-tipped hang fly? Why did he have to cajole, beg, or charm an avuncular affection from this remote individual who wasn'trelated to them by blood? He began to stare at the driver and a boy who sat near the frontwindow in a padded hump that went over the gearshift. It was just likeseeing a self in miniature that had gotten lost and ensnared in thethickets of time: father driving the bus and this boy seated on apadded metal covering that went over the transmission. At times theboy touched the clutch hoping to one day guide the mammoth beast likehis father (the boy believing that his father was the perfection of allthings possible). A plastic red container of ice and water was on thispedestal where the boy sat and from it a straw stuck out of the lid andhe drank and ate fish chips that were in a plastic sack. He just ateand drank as the bus circled around its route of the city. How drab itall was but for a boy and yet believing his father to be the perfectionof all things, such self-restraint was possible. Their father had hadsuch a job when Kumpee was a young boy. For a year or two of suchjourneys, sitting there with the highest admiration for a father, hewas filled with the highest love that was initiating him into thepositive dimensions of manhood and responsibility. When his fatherlost his job and worked on the street alongside of their mother, helaunched his tirades against the younger brothers who were"suck-calves" on his wife. He hated their neediness and as thespankings continued, Kumpee began to oppose these gestures. Suchself-abnegation caused him to become the full brunt of the beatings. Having been given time alone, Jatupon scraped up his stolencollection of loose change and ran off hand in hand with his freedom. Having no responsibilities for the first time in his life apart fromthe night sports that usually happened in the mornings, his life wasbecoming a purposeless abyss. He personified his freedom and togetherthey broke beyond small basement windows and imagined portals to realplaces. Together, they went to see the life that fulminated within thestreets of the city of Bangkok. Kazem was gone so they did not have tobe there to hear his expletives about the older brother's thievery andthe younger brother's disappearances. The disappearances were onesKazem attributed to Suthep chumming up with Kumpee to have a bit ofmoney to play snookers. For hours and hours they were lost in themovements of traffic, the brown and Chinese faces, movements ofstrangers on the sidewalks, and the swirl of infinite numbers on thequest for money, happiness, and adventure. He read faces and movementsfrom his spreading feelers. They too wanted money bestowed onto them tosquander at will in all forms of self-indulgence. They too wanted tosquelch their routines to live their dishonorable lives in the quest ofsensuality. To have resources and freedom to run around loose as agoose in a department store was something they all yearned for andseeing these pedestrian shoppers of the sidewalk, with more money thanhe, made the boy hunger for better things. Freedom was becoming old as he continued to walk with her into thecrowds but she rejuvenated lasciviously when his eye spotted someonenot in the shopper's swirl. The cravings so attractive to Jatupon weremissing in those deadened eyes and passing from him he fell into theothers. Membership was free. It was lack of hope that was given sogenerously to the majority of the world's populace that wasindispensable to them. Lurid as family, fetid as Kumpee's shoes, herethey were and here he was with them; and yet they were his own or whathe assumed was his own--the little that he knew of himself. It was a family of addicts, addicted to family or even aconcoction of family, cobbled together within the affinity of pain andthe tangles of neurons like brambles pricking their consciousness withold travail at every turn: memories that they couldn't free themselvesfrom. Within this desert of cacti and brambles they poured destructivechemicals and suicidal inclinations to kill and enlarge their bramblyworld. They were landscape artists of their personal deserts: hating, destroying, and replanting their cacti and brambles with each new whim. Here he was with a new family--a mosaic of complete strangers who werenot related to him nor were they relating to him or much to each other. Still, it was a surrogate family nonetheless succumbing to an infinitecurrent of darkness to which they all had understanding. In many waysthey were wiser: they knew that the insatiability of desire that madeone propelled to breed, work, and buy was not going to stop. They knewthat no one in such circles was going to find contentment. They wereall going to fail miserably. They knew that there was a deep discontentin the human psyche that yearned for destruction and death. In thecourse of being degraded by significant others they had somehow gottenexcluded from the participation of such narcissistic, consumeristicappetites and that the salvation of compassion would not beforthcoming. This benign pastel family sat together on the slab ofcement under the overpass while over them, on the overpass itself, werethe trinkets sold by salesmen, homeless elderly women, mothers, thosewho stunk from being unable to bathe off their rotting surface ofscaling skin, and deformed slabs of flesh spread out on parts of theoverpass with fidgeting partial limbs. They all had nearly empty cupsof one baht coins and the most unfortunate of them could testify ofdark currents deeper than regular people could imagine for one moment. They, his surrogate family, knew that there was not just one blacknessbut despair had myriad blacker and bleaker hues. Under the steps of the overpass sniffing his glue while thesetransients already riddled in amphetamines and alcohol (at timesborrowing his glue) smoked cigarettes incessantly, his mind swept awayfrom him like a butterfly fluttering by. When he first met them inthis spot their first words were to offer to him cigarettes but he toldthem that if he were to put one in his mouth it would remind him of thefetid one with his fetid shoes and socks littered everywhere, the onewho had stolen his parents property upon their deaths and had abandonedthem to starvation in the great city of Bangkok. These transients hadthe understanding and listening skills of trained psychologists andoffered unto him a piece of bubble gum instead which he gratefullyaccepted. Still, a thought preoccupied him off and on. He wondered why theywere all seated there in such a confined space; but within a few hoursthe storm clouds moved overhead and the rain deluged the streets makinghim forget about one man complaining of his jock itch and scratchinghimself, another that cried and looked up into the clouds, and a thirdthat kept wanting to barter off his torn sandals for Jatupon's sneakersand kept calling him "uncle" even though he was ten or fifteen yearsthe older brother. Across the road he occasionally saw umbrellas sailout to the gray of the clouds. One of the other five transients wasrepulsed by a spider that crept onto him in its effort to escape therain, cursed at a rock in his shoe that would not leave the obscurecrevice of the sole, and then in one of his shifting moods made adeclaration of happiness that they had found such an inconspicuous spotwhere the police rarely harassed them. The woman transient gaveherself to her man so completely that when he was angry, happy, or sad, she was more this way--so little did she understand her own mind, having become nothing but an extension of his pleasure and pain. Sometimes silent and tacit, these transients who were continuallyjudged by others, judged the sincerity of his callow rebellion withtheir stares. A few times they went beyond that to a more pronouncedjudgment. "Don't you have a mamma to go to? Your mamma's calling foryou to come to lunch, " said the one with the woman. That time the shoebarterer laughed so hard it churned up mucus into his mouth, which hespit into a crack in the sidewalk that already had its share of gum andcigarette buds. "Mamma's calling, " said the woman. "Lunch is ready, honey. Mamma's calling, " she repeated or at least he thought sherepeated. Maybe none of them had said anything. He wasn't quite sure. Jatupon turned away from them and slipped off his tennis shoes, smelling their soles to make sure that they weren't overly fetid. Helooked at one of his bare feet composed of roadways of veins and earlywrinkles of epidermis. He thought to himself that an unrecognizeduniverse had existed right there in his shoes. He sniffed his armpits. They were fetid as glue but he liked the transmission of the sweatmolecules up his nostrils. He deeply inhaled the glue and then held his breath allowing thefumes to permeate within. He repeated the process four or five timesand for the most part he, they, and all went away in a haze. It waslike being blindfolded but instead of darkness there was a soft patchof white haze. At first it startled him and he wondered if thisethereal gaseous mist was Saddam Hussein's lethal spray upon the worldand yet he felt giddy in this laughing gas. When his mind was able toregister the fact that they were seated next to him, the haze made theman and his woman, the shoe barterer, the sky crier, and all(transient and non-transient, imagined and remembered) such specialcreatures. These transients were sordid and brainless but, especiallyin the intense inundation of fumes they were the most extraordinary oflife forms. He was almost moved to kiss each of them on theirforeheads. From this pillar of light the mosquito, dressed in Buddhistattire and carrying its mask, came with the force of God. Its feelerswere like acid and when they touched Jatupon his clothes seemed tosizzle and burn away. He was naked with a smashed ant sandwichedbetween a fingernail and skin. He remembered that a minute earlier hehad been trying to direct it away from his leg and in his clumsymisdirection at the appearance of the pillar of light there it wasunder the nail curled up in fetal agony. As the mosquito slowly descended he could see tragedy more clearlythan he ever did when not snorting the fumes, and yet it rolled off hismind weightlessly. He was giddy in brotherly love and yet naked, hewanted to copulate with the world. Even more, he wanted to reproducehis ideas with her. He sensed that all humans fell victim to thissubstance: they got giddy in love and reproduced, they gained meaningin their lives from this feeling, and then after nature got them tobeget children, she plugged up the dopamine somewhat like the waninghigh he felt with his brother. He felt the insect monster inject himwith the malaria of tragedy: random images were kicked about in hismind like starving dogs allowed to propagate on the streets incessantlyfrom the non-interference of Buddhist principles. He saw all thesuffering species from an aerial perspective for he was being carriedaround on the wings of the mordant mosquito that had scooped him up onits back. Buddha knew that tragedy abounded in recycled life butJatupon could not figure out if Buddha tried to break the recycling oflife like a coward who couldn't endure pain or if he left hisprotective palace to understand the magnitude of human suffering forthe masses. The story was full of contradictions. He thought, "Whereare you taking me... Straight... Now spinning... Now plunging... MoreG-force than I think I can stand. " "Into yourself, " it shouted. "That's a cruel place to be, " Jatupon said. "Yes, it is, " admitted the mordant entity. From their distancedistinct forms were difficult to ascertain but he knew that he was faroutside himself and to be outside of it into a world of motion andforms made him feel relieved. But from a couple of indecipherableforms in movement he halfway made out and half way imagined ahalf-naked baby crying on the outskirts of a park. It crawled alone ata distance from a cook. The cook halted her work to get him. He criedloudly at each initiative at trying to appease him. He didn't likebeing held. He didn't like the banana put in his hands. Finally, sheplaced him in the bucket of water that contained her dirty plates. "So innocent and yet calculating, " said the mosquito. "It waswanting in that tub of water all along. " "Oh, do you see them too. " "No, not really. Anyhow, based on what you see, wouldn't youagree?" "Agree that he crawled away so as to cause his mother to put himin the water?" He laughed. "No, he is just a baby. I don't think heis that developed. I don't think he is that self serving. " "Are these two forms you are now seeing outside of yourself too?"asked the mosquito. "Of course, " he scoffed but he did not know. Then he was descending or falling --falling in a diagonal descenton the mosquito's back, falling onto its feelers, and falling from itentirely. There he was a brown boy in the pool on the roof of The MallAyuttaya with goggles on his face and wearing spandex swimming trunks. He looked so fashionable despite his poverty but the poor anddiscontent always found their stealth means to master petty thieveryand a sullied self-image was easily forgotten. There were imitationmountains and waterfalls all around. He swam to the opposite side ofthe pool and said hello to a foreigner who sat on a rock letting theforce of the fall hit his feet. The foreigner ignored him and againstarted swimming his laps. Then, feeling that he had been rude, hereturned to the boy and asked him his name. The boy smiled and said aneasy two-syllable name, Nawin. It seemed like an easy name for aforeigner to remember. After an uneventful attempt at conversations intwo different languages to which neither party could understand theother one, the foreigner swam off. Still the boy was persistent, swimming over to the foreigner when he rested. This prompted theforeigner to go to the locker room to change sooner than what he wouldhave done otherwise. The boy followed him. He accosted him while hewas at the urinal and looked down onto him. He tried to come in whenthe foreigner was in his cubicle taking a shower. His motives fordoing so were ambiguous ones: he wanted a foreigner friend even if thisman was so much older than he was, he wanted to really learn theinternational language, and although he did not really have sexualfeelings he would have done anything for a bit of money. As the mandressed on the bench Jatupon, the boy, put his hands together in amendicant grasshopper pose with palms sandwiched together and heldbefore his face in the "wei. " He opened his hands with the opening ofthe wallet. A door of a shower booth opened. It was the mosquito dryinghimself with a towel. "Nothing like a good swim followed by a warm shower. You got tomeet an old friend today. That's nice. Earlier you never mentionedthis memory. I guess it wouldn't have been a particularly flatteringportrait to share with anyone. It borders on prostitution. Just whenI was feeling sorry for you as the abused brother I learned of this. It adds a more complex intellectual dimension to your character, don'tyou think? It makes you less moronic somehow. " Jatupon felt ametamorphosis and returned to his 14 year old body. Again he wasriding on the mosquito's back naked as a blue jay and his hair drippedwater. He couldn't confirm or negate the previous memory. It wasvaguely familiar. "Don't you believe that was you?" "It doesn't matter, " Jatupon said indifferently. "You don't think so?" "No it's not, is it?" He began to choke on his saliva. Hecoughed. "Why?" "Oh, dear. Are you okay?" "Yes. Why?" Why what?" "Why is the self such a fearful place?" "Why not?" said the mosquito. "Alone, shut up in one's ownhardened shell there is no logic--just passions running amuck. " Tragedy and suicidal wishes clogged up his head. He did not likeseeing bits of himself crawling around naked as a baby's ass. He hatedwondering if any of his brothers would come back to the apartment orfearing having to beg alone. He got up. "Did you decide to finally go back to your mamma?" asked the manwho had the woman resting her face in his lap. The woman picked a wilddandelion from the crack in the sidewalk and then reached her hand upto Jatupon's shirt. She put it in his pocket. "Here is a flower forMommy. You can give it to her when she fixes you supper. " "My mother's dead" yelled Jatupon with vehement hate andrepugnance as he wadded up the flower in a fist and threw it onto thesidewalk. Then he walked away. A tuc tuc driver, slowing down in passing, beeped the horn at him. The taxi looked like the distorted shape of a fly. He wished that hehad just a chunk of the money Kumpee had plundered. With it, he toldhimself, he would buy his own motorcycle and become a self- employedtaxi driver for his age surely restricted him from getting a job withthe Bangkok Metropolitan Authorities. This, he told himself, would befar better than sitting on the monkey bars near the door of a busclanging the tube of money upon one's knee. Besides, he didn'tespecially want to be one of the many nameless beggars applying forjobs with the Metropolitan Transportation Authorities. He veered somehow from the sidewalk into a labyrinth of outdoorhallways that ran between stands and quasi-stores, under canvascanopies and through the smell of incense that came from a table thatcontained a 2-foot Buddhist statue. Upon finding his way out bycharging through crowds and hangers of clothes, he heard the blaring ofpi phat music, saw a vegetable market, and smelled redolent papayas, durians, watermelons, pineapples, guavas, and tangerines. Furtheralong he smelled tom yam soup, grilled squid, goo-ey tia nam (ricenoodle soup), khow laad nhaa gai (rice with chicken and bamboo), andother dishes in an outdoor restaurant. He passed silk stores, jewelrystores that catered toward ruby and sapphire-loving foreigners, andfast food restaurants. Then he went into Robinson Department Store. In the restroom he relieved himself at a urinal that was furthestfrom the cleaning lady since her mopping presence there made himnervous and had the possibility of clogging him up. Then he sat downin the food court. His head was in vertigo like small children turningthemselves around in the grass or the routine of one's petty kineticlife. He often noticed affluent men walking around with girlfriends orwives in that male gesture of the hand of one arm clasping the otherarm behind the back. The gesture conveyed that they were beyond thethird world now. They had money, Bangkok had everything, and theywould shop as befitting their status. He wanted to be them. He wantedout of his own skin to be a different person entirely but there was noexit for him in fast motion. The only consolation was in alwaysevolving beyond that one seed, that one dividing cell that had startedhis life. There was still hope. He saw a father and two girls with their many bags. He wanted afather like that instead of the one who had made him afraid to standup, sit down, comb his hair, put on his pants, talk, or be silentwithout being excoriated. Only arduous work had offered him a respitefrom that man's criticism. Only work had offered him that escape frombeing the cockroach running from his heels. Family wasn't so ideal. Atleast his wasn't. He was always cravenly scurrying away from one ormore of them and vibrations they made. His mind spun around morewildly. He kept wishing that it would stay stolid and poised asstatues of the Garuda and Kinnara, mythological creatures thatpermeated Thai art, literature, and dance. He tried to focus in on beautiful ideas of family. He tried tobreathe them in like the smell of drying clothes in the breeze or thesmells of life replicating itself eternally in the verdant greenery onthe outskirts of the city. All he could do was summon memories ofKumpee and their parents incessantly driven toward chasing any schemethat would put a few extra coins in their hands; Kazem's secondhandtreatment of his destitute brown Burmese woman a couple years earlier;Suthep whom he shared certain childish sympathies; and Kazem who was his protector. His head hurt and span: in school, out of school, struggling for subsistence as a group, the heads of the group dying, the move to Bangkok, and a thousand phantom faces that plagued hismind, exacerbating the throbbing. He tried to think of monks in theirsaffron robes with strapped metallic bowls dangling from theirshoulders in which shopkeepers requiring blessings placed rice; thesweet taste of rambutans when the spiky core was broken and thetransparent succulent egg was overtaken; and motorcycle taxi driverswith cardboard and pop bottle games that, with the tap of the nails oftheir fingers, kept their time of waiting from overwhelming them inboredom. A persistent fly over the table made him nervous and hethought that perhaps to counter the truths his subconscious spewed outin the form of the insect and his own need for stability (not just hisenvironment changing but he, himself, was continually changing) heneeded to invent a god for himself if nothing other than the God ofDirty Underwear. The persistent fly continued to besiege him so heleft the department store and returned to his friends. The "friends"--he did not know their names--seemed content withtheir circumstances. They, like he, were cuddled together under theoverpass consuming and inhaling their amphetamine and glue moleculetreats, which inadvertently gave them ice cream headaches. This intakedelivered them from bleak realities to that of twirling and dizzychildren while fantasies stepped forward as emperors of the spinningdomain. At times when they were more conscious of their existence andsurroundings (especially when feeling intensely hungry) thesetransients would beg. They had a method. If someone in a suitcarrying a cellular telephone were standing in front of the cashregister at a nearby convenience store with a long serpentine tail ofcustomers waiting behind him, one of them would enter the store. Shocked by such a lugubrious display and needing to quickly expeditehis exit with his bags, such an individual would give generously so asto not be perceived as parsimonious or niggard in the reaction. It occurred to him that this word, "friend, " was not really whatit at first seemed. If indeed people were all users attracted toothers who gave them fresh insight into life or a respite for escapingit, these people were dismissed when that resource was exhausted. Still he wasn't all that fond of them so the issue did not reallymatter all that much. He tried to smile at them but he could not. Hewas feeling sick to his stomach and their faces sometimes spun aroundin an erratic orbit. It was like feeling the rush of air and dizzying changes ofstreets and buildings from the open portals of an old doorless bus thatcast its shadow onto a bridge connecting Pinklao street to the areaaround the Grand Palace--how palpitating was this glue and amphetaminetrip. At times it was a stronger feeling of thrust and omnipotentdominion like a surfer who could easily be plummeted by the waves hewas riding. The waves, however, were verdant and edible. It wasverdant the way nature at times looked like a green-berry cheesecake, and bovine, he wanted to eat it. Seated under the stairwell of steps doing nothing in particular, he at times took out his pocket knife and engraved a puppet man drivenon forcefully by its master to the pleasure and frenzy of rape, depositing its seeds in every possible hole (fertile or fallow). Thisalone was his only conscious achievement that day in a drug induced butsobering mind where subconscious images usurped their rational rulers. Careful not to look threatening with a knife in his hands, he timidlyscraped out a master controlling the puppet man depositing himself inthat meek lowly being. Chapter 6 "Nawin!" Porn whiningly bantered as she confiscated hisheadphones that were plugged into the arm of his seat and punched himin his chest. "Why aren't you talking to me?" "Rachmaninoff, " he said. She did not understand. What didshe know beyond the kinetic rhythms of pop culture? It was in herblank stare. The word had not penetrated. He wanted to tell her. Hewanted to introduce if not explain something so ineffable and orphic towhich a mortal could only awkwardly utter that inadequate word, "beautiful. " He wanted to see the countenance of one being extended. He wanted to change her and take her far beyond the limits she hadplaced upon herself. It was the best of him that wanted to bring thelove of great things to others. It was one altruistic motive in hismany selfish motivations for inviting her here. But he knew that likeearlier, when they were waiting in the airport, she would continue tobury herself in comic books and the latest American sounds when notengrossed in her French palaver with the cassette recorder. She wouldcontinue to disconnect the ideals and harmonies from the plug in thearm of his chair. "I want to know what you are thinking, " she said. Her countenancewas puzzled and remained so for a couple seconds. He loved her so muchthen. He breathed in deeply and wished outside himself to the cosmicforces that she could stay with those features forever: puzzled, probing, and beautiful! "Why?" "Sometimes you leave me, Nawin, and I want to know where you go inthose thoughts of yours. Were you thinking of her--Noppawan? "I'm always thinking of her. I'm married to her. " He reached forher hand but she rejected it and so he smiled brightly, kissed her onthe cheek, and gave her a hug. "No, I was probably riding in my artsywhims. " "Not a woman. " "No, actually not a woman. " "That's not natural. " He chuckled. "There are other things than loving people. " "You are an unnatural person, Nawin. " He smiled and thought. Maybe dopamine, norepinephrine, andserotonin, the components of love, were at work whenever one caredabout something. Maybe being troubled by Palestinians blowingthemselves up was love. Certainly Rachmaninoff was love. "Her glasses are ugly, you know. They have thick frames and whatreally makes them ugly is that they are dark against her dark skin. No, what really makes her ugly when she wears them is that the lenses arethick like binoculars. I bet that even when she removes them everynight before she goes to bed she probably looks as plain as burnttoast. Your wife isn't pretty, Nawin. " He chortled. "You're right, " he said as his eyes looked downshamefully. He thought about telling Porn that Noppawan never removedher glasses when she went to bed. It was partly true. He had even hadsex with her once or twice that way. Then he had second thoughts anddecided that some things were better left alone in the dark. "Can I goback to Rachmaninoff?" he asked while mildly shaking his headphones inthe air. "No you can't. Thanks for asking. When are we going to New YorkCity, Nawin?" "We haven't arrived in Canada yet. " She stood up, stretched, and then crawled over his laplasciviously as she looked out of the window. "This flight is toolong, " she said. "Maybe the pilot, co-pilot, hijacker, or whoever is driving canpark for a few minutes on a cloud and you can get out, " he said. She sat back in her seat. "I think you are angry at me forsaying that about Noppawan. " "No, " he said indifferently. He liked hearing truth but he feltguilty being amused by some of it. He changed the subject. "Do youwant to change to my seat so that you can look out?" "I'd get sick looking out onto that sea of clouds for long. " "Why do you want to go to New York City?" "What's in Canada, Nawin? It's got a few walking snowmen but whatelse? Snowy landscapes and cold temperatures good for penguins. Whensomeone thinks of Thailand it is always Thai silk, temples, Buddhiststatues, nightlife, and beautiful girls like me. What is the symbol ofCanada?" "Snowmen, " said Nawin as he chuckled, "and Canadian dollars. " Hewas enjoying the conversation. "What are they: these snowmen? Are they just Englishmen?" "That but also Americans who didn't want to fight against KingGeorge... Frenchmen, of course in Montreal. " "Why don't they have kings now?" "Well, Canadians do have the British monarchy. Canada is acommonwealth. " He didn't go further because she sighed from intellectual strain. "Didn't you like Noppawan at all?" he asked with childishvulnerability. "No, " she replied thoughtfully. "I liked all things about her. Iliked her completely. It is hard to believe that anyone should be sowonderfully odd. " He liked that response exponentially. He knew that she wouldnever say anything so true. "Montreal will be fun. A little bit ofParis and a little bit of New York City. " "Laos, Nawin, is a little bit of Paris with a lot of dirt poorThailand. " "It will be like going to the Thao Suranari fair in NakhonRatchasima. " That was one of the largest fairs in Thailand. Thisthought triggered his memory of a smaller fair in Bangkok. This avuncular stranger, a member of the parliament and theformer governor of Pattaya, had informed Kumpee that the fair held inMarch was coming to a close this year. This fair, run by governmentministries to raise funds for the Red Cross, was near the Parliament inthe area called Dusit. Tickets to enter were sold at 200 baht each. The two other brothers--all, like him, boys with layers of manhood likealuminum foil wrapped over the small crumbling pieces of cake that werethemselves-did not utter questions. Had Kazem robbed Thai FarmersBank, Siam Commercial, and Bangkok Bank entirely it wouldn't have madeany difference. The psyche needed a degree of ebullience. This wastheir respite from worries about survival to which drugs or snookershad been ineffective distractions. A bit of it insulated them from theattitude of doom that would eagerly zip them up into its body bags. A woman wearing a pointed straw hat, who had a 2-year-old babycuddled around her neck, thrust herself before them. She solicitedthem to her table of snake blood refreshments seasoned with driedmonkey brain. She was one well-seasoned in salesmanship. She knew thecajolery to lure daredevils who would come to such a fair as she knewthe approach to children whom she would sell her krathongs, bananaboats of flowers and candles attached to banana leafs and Styrofoamsailed onto the river for good fortune during each Loi krathongfestival, or Buddhist rosaries and necklaces to old women duringreligious holidays. " Please come over to my table, boys. " They smiled and came. " Iknow you. You think I don't but I do. I can see into hearts-heartswanting to be men, wanting to end boyhood. You've heard those storiesabout men who became more than that from drinking a bit of this. Thestories aren't true. They are stupid. Nobody has ever done anythinglike that; but the real parts of the stories are gaining courage andstrength. My husband was in his teens when I saw him for the first timedoing what you are about to do. I watched him the way those girls overthere are watching you now. Anybody would have second thoughts aboutthis. Anybody would. It tastes horrible because it is strong incourage and strength for those with the courage to drink it. If you cando this you will never run away from anything again. Instead, you willhave it on the run. This is your only time to conquer your fears and dosomething naughty while the police are sleeping. Whatever you do, makesure that you put a few coins in the box to help the Red Cross. " Shepointed at the plastic box at a distant corner of the table. WhileSuthep inserted a few baht into the hole she directed herself to Kazem. "Are those two your brothers?" "Yes, " he said. "I know you won't make them ashamed of you. It's just fifty bahteach. Look. People are staring at you. You've got to do it. Drink!" "Drink, money man, " reiterated Suthep. He glared at Suthep. "Hey, I'm not paying for me alone. I'll doit for the pure pleasure of seeing you stand there all night lookinginto your cup. " Kazem paid for three cups. Jatupon stood there stiffand frightened. Starting from the oldest to the youngest they drankdown their beverages. The liquid molecules of hell were a hundredtimes that of the airborne ones from Kumpee's socks and shoes. All ofthem choked and coughed. All of them swallowed some of the bloodheathenishly but spit out most. It was followed by a sip of watery andcaffeinated whiskey that had been diluted and adulterated in cola. Normally such open liquor drinking would have gotten everyone arrestedespecially when it involved selling to minors but since some of theproceeds were going into the public fund on this day it was overlooked. While the brothers were given a second shot of whiskey again dilutedin cola, new customers came to the woman anxiously. She led them toher table and sat there with the squalling, squalid child. The babywas restless on the apron that she wore. Conscious of how a repetitionof her spiel could spell out insincerity and a customer's aversion, sheattempted to wait silently as they debated doing this. She muted thechild with a firm hand pressed against its mouth. Before she could makethe sell she reflexively responded to the smallest degree of wetness onthe apron and let her child urinate away from the sidewalk and hervirility stand. The ground did not eagerly swallow the fetid and sweetliquid and his recidivist urine came back to the sidewalk with theinsistence of a foul stream. Past shoe salesmen on a sheet, shoerepairmen, comb and battery salesmen, noodle workers, and lotteryrepresentatives-- unlicensed businesses that abounded everywhere- theyentered the gates of the fair. At kiosks, the three of them threwdarts, shot basketballs in moving hoops, and bounced balls againstwalls to knock over bottles for prizes. They continued doing thisuntil the infancy of night murdered the sun allowing it to slowly die, languishingly sliding off golden rooftops of temples. When darknessunfolded around them, they paid to see a woman put her face in aplastic box of scorpions, elephant trainers whose elephants walkedover them to enter into the crowds where they picked up humans withtheir trunks, and oarsmen in the facsimiles of royal barges competingagainst each other. The boats had the same body and countenance ofdragons just like the television shows they had seen of the kings'ancient boats that were housed in the Royal Barge Museum. The night and its dark appetites were mature in fullinsurrection. They had eaten their share of rice and chicken toppedwith cotton candy, and yet not cowering, their stomachs craved for beerso they headed to a nearby bar. Before them a child was walkingslowly on the steps that rose up to the bridge that went over a canal. He slammed his fire-snappers against the cement watching the air burstbefore his feet. They passed him to quickly fulfill the surfeit of beerthat was part of their general yearnings. They yearned for somuch--these three young men. They yearned for relaxation with beer;they yearned for friends and places away from this fraternal group thatthey had been conceived into and forced to work with; and, except forJatupon, they each yearned for a love to come their way so that theywould not be lost in themselves. Jatupon yearned most to be naivelycomplete like that boy they had passed. Jatupon had once been likehim: fascinated by his own thoughts and sensations and self-contained. In late boyhood a boy mastered independence that in infancy and earlyboyhood he struggled to achieve. It was all thwarted, however, by theupsurge of sexual feelings which made a young man want to bondcohesively and addictively to others. The progress of late boyhood wasrazed in a brief year or two. Strangely, the world was a dreamy place and from the modestdisplay of fireworks being shot over the canal there was a dreamy ideaof connectedness and fraternity in the psyches of these young menalthough such ideals varied from moment to moment based upon theirinterpretations of the environment. Lagging behind in serpentinemovements of dreaminess but eager for connectedness, Jatupon hurriedlycaught up to his brothers only to lag behind them again. It was timefor Heineken, Singh, or Bush (not those two presidents). It was a timeto celebrate and dunk the self in artificial dreaminess like onebobbing for apples. Jatupon looked up at the sky when he and hisbrothers reached the other side of the bridge. Then he looked down athis chest. A sweat bee hovered over the glands in his opened shirt likean oil worker ciphering the ground. He shoved the industrial exploiteraway. He felt awe in how complex it all was: one thing feeding onanother. He wondered if, after the immune system conquered a virus, itconsumed it. He wondered how much of his parents' bodies would havebeen consumed by bacteria in decomposition if they had not beencremated. He wondered if things were so clearly defined. Maybe a partof his parents was alive in ways that could be sensed but neverunderstood or explained. It was no wonder, as they sat there drinking beer in a pub on theother side of the canal (remarkably able to afford drinking beer atall) that Kazem was happy: after all, the uncle's gate had opened up tohim when he talked into a speaker. It was also not so strange that hismood of elation had for a short while, when viewing the scorpion lady, gone awry. Seeing the son of the Ayutthaya landlord who had rented hisfamily that small space for their restaurant was depressing. There hewas in his fine clothes with his wife and two small children. Kazemhad thought to himself that as a rich man poverty had not ruined hisinclinations-this man, not much older than himself, copulated in theright hole. Suthep, sandwiched between his two brothers, drank voraciouslywithout any strong inclination to run away. He preferred beingelsewhere but elsewhere without money was nowhere. He preferredplaying snookers and trying to woo a young girl to be somewhatinterested in him while playing against his buddies. Here, however, hehad no friends. The city was entirely new and he didn't know anyone. Once, in Ayutthaya, he had gone with a herd of those wolves to capturea park whore. He and his buddies took her to a cheap guesthouse whereforeigners often went and had their spasms within her. It had been hisfirst time. He would prefer to be with his friends but this wasn't sobad. Drinking with his brothers was like playing football with themonce again or fishing with them at the edge of the river. Somewhere into things the beer changed to whiskey and it was fromthat bottle of whiskey that the mosquito and his female counterpartclimbed out and shook off their wetness. When this canine shaking ofthe wetness was not enough, they used the paper towels as bath towels. They were less grotesquely large at this point but returning to theirmonstrous shapes by the moment. --What was the dinner like that Kazem attended?--It was not a dinner, but the sip of the man's coffee in the den. Itconsequently led to the proposal of a dinner. --And did he accept the proposal?--He did. --On behalf of the family of brothers?--That would seem to be a correct assessment although the eldest wasnot expected to attend. No definitive date was scheduled because thesenator hesitated about this issue. It was a tacit declaration thatcould only be read in a scarce trace of caution on his countenance. Itindicated that he was reluctant to be associated with these thugs. This irritated Kazem and yet he pretended as if he wasn't bothered byit. He probably told himself that he needed the time to rehearse hislines. --What would he need to rehearse?--His part as the benevolent older brother. He thought he was that buthe had trouble convincing others of its veracity. --I don't understand. --A typical female reaction. Let me be more lucid. It is myimpression that he intended to use this first meeting for future oneswhere he could use sympathy as a way of extorting money from the agingman for this group of leeches and quasi-pariahs. --As Kazem and the senator/former governor of Pattaya/formeruncle-in-law drank coffee together, what was the lure that kept himinterested in these boys? After all, he knew them only by name apartfrom that time or two of being irritated by their noise when the twofamilies came together. That was over a decade ago. Isn't that right?--Yes, you are not ignorant. It was 11 years ago. I believe his newfounded interest in them was what they call empathy?--Empathy? I know about that. It is a rather rare and abnormal formof behavior sometimes seen in those evolving beyond their species. From the research I've done on such aliens empathy and compassion seemto be the only emotions that aren't destructive and hedonistic. Insmall quantities all emotions aid judgment calls in social situationsbut unfortunately they are produced and expended in bulk. Unlike otheremotions that are rampant, empathy and compassion tend to be quiterare. Could you elaborate on his nascent burgeoning of empathy forthem and the disingenuousness that prompted it?--It was no different than their aunt who hustled a marriage outof him years ago. Kindliness and loneliness, from what I can tell, havealways been his weakness. It was a simple calculating maneuver onKazem's part, really. Kazem affected being uncomfortable and shy. Hewaited until this uncle asked directly about his circumstances and thenhe gave a modest biographical summary of their move to Bangkok afterselling their parents assets. He was careful not to mention Kumpee, the need for money, or any real description of how they were living. The uncle's attempts at finding out information on those putrescentissues were only marginally successful. As a result, it seemed to thesenator that Kazem was earnest and unassuming. He became more curiousand anxious to help these pariahs as a result. --And can you be more specific on how this was done?--It's rather mundane. I don't wish to really. --Human studies and our intellectual copulation require moreinformation. One would have to be ignorant to not know that or male. --He chitchatted, my dear, in a logical sequence that was a bitdesultory at times. Humans call such an inexact order "variation. "After he told the location of where they were living and that the movehad taken place because of Kumpee's desire to be near his girlfriend, he answered the senator's question on what his brothers were doing intheir state of unemployment (Jatupon with his comic books and Suthepwith his snookers). Then he moved to large ideas outside of hispersonal life: the upcoming elections for prime minister, the questionof the government's role for the flood victims in Hattayai, and if thesenator would run for re-election in a couple years. It was done tocreate a mystique about he and his brothers as well as to elicit theapproval of the senator who preferred people who could break out oftheir own skins. It was deferential. It was noble. It was all ofthose things that were manipulation in a consummate performance. Kazemplayed the part so well that he even began to think that he was thisshy, vulnerable, unpretentious, and caring person despite tryingcircumstances. --Did he directly attempt to exploit the man's feelings of sympathy fortheir plight or the senator's loneliness?--In some respects he did. He reminisced about his mother whom thishigh governing uncle had sympathy. The senator of course entertainedthis sympathy because his wife (their mother's sister) had alwayscarped, disparaged, and vilified her for such a marriage to anilliterate street person. The senator never forgot his sister-in-law'sbirthday even after his divorce. To be specific, Kazem was seatedbefore the senator drinking coffee and eating doughnuts when heironically spoke of how he missed the scents of flowers his motherwould bring into the home or the smell of a freshly cleaned floor. Itbelied the truth of this porcine creature whose domestic tendencies hadsurrendered to male nastiness early into marriage and motherhood. Thesad lonely tone resonated with the senator. It strummed the harp ofhis heart. --What are these three brothers doing at present?--At present they are drinking beer and celebrating with some of themoney that the senator gave to them. --Did the senator give money that quickly?--No, he dismissed Kazem after tiring of him. He said that he neededto return to his work. And then as the teenage boy was leaving aservant told him to return the next day. It was then that a sizableamount of money, by the standards of regular Thai people, was given tohim. --Suthep doesn't seem as happy as the other two. --He is happy with the money and the beer but his happiness sinks downwith the dying fizz of the beer but it rejuvenates again with the fizzof the next beer. His behavior can be attributed to a bit ofrepugnance toward the two companions at his table and a bit of generalmoodiness aggravated with alcohol consumption. He really has been somoody ever since becoming a teenager. He was so nice to Jatupon as achild. Oh well, the world is continually in flux. --The youngest brother whom they sometimes maliciously nicknameJatu-PORN now seems to be sad. What could he be thinking at this mostauspicious evening?--He is thinking of Suthep thinking that these lovers are repugnant. --And I assume that Suthep is now thinking that he is thinking this. --Now you understand why these creatures never go anywhere. --How alone these fickle creatures must be never sure of the acumen oftheir own ideas. These ideas seem to change from minute to minutebased upon the chemistry of the food they put into their bodies, theirperceptions of their own failures, the limitations of work and routine, their hormones, the firing of neurotransmitters left and right, thepleasures gained in social interaction, memories from the past, themood generated from the environment, and the well-being of the body. How lost they must feel wincing from their forlorn inner selves byclinging to others around them. Is not one of them self-contained?--No, my dear, I'm afraid not. --Your summary is very orgasmic, my husband. Mosquitoes 1 and 2 changed angles, this time looking into eachother's left eyes. They were mesmerized in each other's beings andtheir wings flickered from the internal fire of passivelyintellectualizing life's energetic insignificance. Then they lookedaway from each other and breathed deeply before once again looking ateach other face to face with less intensity. --Wouldn't you say that the older brother, Kazem, possessed a lot ofeffrontery to go to the speaker on the brick wall connecting to a gate, push the button, and talk so glibly? Could a clarification be gained onhow it is that he could have acquired that entrance?--It could. Such an individual gained entrance by stating that hismother, prior to her death, had prepared a gift for her brother-in-lawin celebration of the Songkran Thai New Year's festival--And what gift did he present to the man as they drank tea and coffee?--He presented to the man a Buddhist necklace his mother had given tohis father. --And the politician took it?--Not immediately. He of course resisted; but Kazem arguedpersuasively that it had been intended for him. It looked new, although the politician wasn't under much of an illusion that it was. Still, in case it was a gift from the dead, he couldn't really refuseit. That would have hurt the brothers and the memory of the woman. --And as the brothers drink beer together, do the younger ones noticethat this somewhat expensive trinket that Kazem had heretofore claimedas his own and had worn around his neck is now missing. --The more perceptive one called Jatupon notices this and infers thathe really did give a gift to the senator and it was probably thenecklace. --They do play their games of trying to affect future outcomes. They'dbe better being as insentient as cows. The youngest should drink hisbeer and be happy to be with the big boys engaging in the naughtinessof illegal alcohol consumption. Instead he seems worried. --He'll be returning like a bound slave. The noodles will bind himonce again when the equipment needed for the sidewalk restaurant ispurchased. He feels that he did not take advantage of the brevity offreedom. --To do what?--He doesn't know either. Even more troubling, he is also assessingthat his brothers are growing up. He wonders if they will soon desertthis first family. He wonders if for the pleasure of women they'lljettison the earlier notion of family as insignificant, weighty, andlikely to cause them to sink. He wonders if they will cast it out likea bad dream that they want to forget. He knows that they arebiologically driven by hungers like a mouse cognizant of the trap buteating the cheese anyway. ---What would he do as a cast away?--Well, there are ways of survival. One can be out there selling hisbody one moment and then find his head shaved and a robe on what hadbeen out there as a marketable commodity. --Such a transformation from prostitute to a monk really occurs?--Indeed, it does. When the goals of money don't arise well fromprostitution, being a monk is a position that commands respect and anescape from destitution. It has a morose facade but in such a somberdemeanor like that of Jatupon it has its own splendor--What splendor can be had in such a pointless and austere profession?--Well for one, a given monk might put on some military clothes and gooff to the local masseuse for a Thai massage of the most dissolutedimensions. It is an easy thing for a young monk to do: just take theexpense for the whore out of the monastery coffer--When Buddha was born in Lumpini Park in Nepal was it so that menmight engage in the recidivism of their animalistic natures?--All you need to do to answer that question is see the types of whoresparading themselves in Lumpini Park in Bangkok, Thailand not to mentionthe male prostitutes waiting for money and sexual experiences in theshadows of the trees. Everything changes. Good men are distorted intoGods, and philosophy is made into a sordid religion. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism-it is all a perversion of the founder'sideas. --How do you know these things?--What things?--About the meeting with the senator--How do I know about the meeting with the senator?--Yes, how do you know this?--How do I know this? mumbled the mosquito confoundedly. -They are inJatupon's head. --And how does he know them?--How does he know them? Because of the night when they were drinkingtogether... The night of the fair... Were you sleeping when I was talkingto you?--No, I heard you earlier. So it came from Kazem's mouth and Jatupon'sconjectures. Those doesn't seem like reliable sources. --What?--Those don't seem like reliable sources. The two mosquitoes stared at each other nihilistically. There wassilence. Chapter 7 Childlike, Jatupon had assumed that togetherness, firecrackers, celebration, and the proud moment of that manly initiation of cold beer(not that it was his first) to be the ending of negative events. Theday had resurrected him the way Kazem had once pulled him out of thelake on the outskirts of the city, Kanjanaburi. He was wading then ingradually deepening waters when the sludge beneath his feet suddenlydipped and he was thrust off the precipice into a watery abyss. He wasjust a boy then but one who owed his life to his brother. When he wasolder and they had returned to Kanjanaburi on a two-hour train ride, Kazem refused to allow him in stagnant waters. This was fortunatesince a few days later two people died from a protozoan infection. Kazem had saved his life in both occasions and delivered his spirit onthis one. He had never deserted him. Unlike Kumpee who despised work, Kazem could have gotten a slave labor position by signing an employmentcontract for construction work where he would have found himselfassigned to one of such places as Taipei or Abu Dhabi. A few yearsthere would have added a solid savings that he could have used forvocational training that would have broadened his opportunities. Broadened opportunities and a bit of a savings beneath him would haveprovided a chance of luring a woman who wasn't a noodle worker. Instead, while knowing escape was an option, he fulfilled his highshepherdly calling. As he entered the basement cell that they lived in, Jatuponcouldn't remember a time more linked in fraternity than this one exceptfor the memories of early boyhood. Boyhood was summarized in that onephotograph Kazem had salvaged out of a box of pictures that were thrownout with so much from the move. It was a photograph that prompted asolid memory (imagined or real). It was of the four boys. Jatupon, three years old and fully nude, trailed behind. Kumpee led the way. Kumpee had on a cap with the visor inverted to the back of his head. The four of them were walking down a sidewalk that went along thecanal. Immediately to their left and across the canal were row housesof tiny wooden cabin shacks with metal roofs that housed residents andtheir scavenging businesses. The four of them were going to purchasesome candy. --They are copulating?--Yes, and he has just awakened from the brother's penetration of himon the basement floor. The belief that the world has been resurrectedin pure and gentle intentions has been thwarted. His brain waves arestill discombobulated from the liquor and none of what he is presentlyexperiencing seems real. It is though. Innocence has been disgorgedlike a squeezed tube of love oil in a ride more painfully andphysically intimate than any intimacy he has yet experienced. His head was spinning and he couldn't grab himself in all of thespinning images: sounds, smells, and visions all spun randomly. Finally there was a bit of a shape and texture to his thinking and hedressed himself. He wanted to use the wave of consciousness to exit. --My dear, pain and pleasure have become inseparable in his young mind. In this act a few minutes ago-maybe a few hours ago-- there was ayearning for this violation. The abuse was aggravated by too muchalcohol consumption but it wasn't entirely unwanted. Being a creatureof habit and addiction, Jatupon yearned for his brother-only hisbrother-since he vaguely felt that sexual experiences with two peopleare totally unique and the physiological and emotional feelings hisbrother induced could not be duplicated by any other person. Themadness of wishing to be overtaken, however, was confuted by painfulsodomized lances and an ejaculation of the one who did his stressworkout within him. In other experiences like this one Jatuporn, asthey call him, always masturbated to allow the desire to peel back likea tide but this time his highest hopes were limp like a noodle. He isopening the door. He is glancing at himself to make sure that he isn'twearing his underwear outside of his pants. Now he is outside asinsentient as a fleeing animal after it has been attacked. Here he isfeeling better in the open air. He is returning. Jatupon reentered the room. For the first time, since awakening, he noticed that Suthep had not returned. He had not come "home"-whatever that word meant. Jatupon scavenged the pockets of hisbrother's pants that were wadded in the corner near Kazem's sleepinghead. In it was money and a sheet of paper. He put it all in hispockets. He got on the first bus he could and paid the ticket salesman. The idea crossed his mind that being a coin collector on a city bus wasnot anyone's best choice. It would be much better to be one of the fewmen who jumped onto the piers or docks to tie the city boats. Such aBangkok Metropolitan Authority would give three brief whistles so theboat driver would give a backward thrust as he tied it down for thecustomers to enter or depart. He could picture himself whistling once, untying the boat he was assigned to, and jumping onboard at the lastpossible second. The second mosquito spread out its wings andcopiously fluttered them about femininely. Jatupon began to be alittle conscious of himself as a man coming out of anesthesia. --But the instinct of a man is to fight off predators. Is Jatuponnever tempted to take a knife and slit his brother's throat?--No, not for the most part, my dear. He loves his brother; and insome ways there is intense intimacy and pleasure involved in the novelact that he would hardly rid himself of despite the pain andhumiliation that is involved. I explained that earlier. Were yousleeping when we discussed this issue? There was nothing. There was movement while he sat in a city bus. All elements had burst out of the Big bang. All things (even ideas)were conceived violently in movement. And so he moved, switching tobusses only when the former ones parked and all passengers had toleave. He did not know where he was. He didn't care. In one bus ridehe suddenly became sentient to the feel of stiff paper in one of hispockets. He pulled it out and looked. It was his uncle's name andaddress. That was no surprise. The bus was stalled in traffic. Riders of busses who were near their destination began oozing out ofthem like leaking oil. He realized that he was on a bus going on astreet that he had traveled on earlier in the day. "Ajarn, Do you know what street this is?" he asked a monk. "Sukumvit" the monk said. "Which soi are we passing?" asked Jatupon. "Forties or fifties" said the monk. "I really don't know. " Jatupon looked at the sheet of paper. It read, soi 51 SukumvitRoad. He got out and ten minutes later he was standing at the wall ofthe opulent mansion that Kazem had stood at. He didn't stay long. Heneeded to go to the bathroom. He didn't want to wet his pants and hedidn't think that being a distant relative with a hangover and urinesplattered pants would be very impressive to the senator. In abathroom at a KFC he looked at his face. It was of a dark Laotian orKhmer. He was from a family with the last name of Biadklang from theNorth. His face was as dark as the soil. He looked into the mirror. Just with the amount of light, darkness, or expression one appearedlike a totally different person from one moment to the next. "Where do you want to go?" he asked the reflection in the mirror. "To Sanam Luang to see more of the kites" the reflection said. On the bus ride to Sanam Luang he had to stand. He noticed theother people. They were also wistfully discontent for their ownpersonal reasons. They wished to sit down when the space was congestedand there was nowhere to sit; and in times of sitting they yearned tohave vacant seats next to their own so that they would be free fromhaving to sit next to strangers and could have a little area of theirown to monopolize. They were all so petty and he told himself that hedid not want to be like that. At Sanam Luang he bought a kite from a mendicant kite salesman. Feeling chagrin that the forlorn child within him had taken over histhoughts instead of the man, he flew his kite in a more obscure area. He was somewhat relieved to find an innocent pleasure to engage in. Ahalf hour later the child diluted into his manhood and there he was infull embarrassment of himself. So he reeled in the kite and sat downon a park bench. A sidewalk salesman smiled at him. On a rug this mendicant had six-inch motorcycles crafted frombamboo. Nobody knew the art of a smile like the people in the Land ofSmiles. Toothless as babes they contrived smiles with the curl thathas distinguished a smile from a bite with a full opening of the mouth. Thai infants and toddlers knew. They intuitively knew that withenough naughty actions a toss into the trashcan was not inconceivable. They intuitively knew big sister would be sold off to a man when sheturned 14 and the fetus that was little brother or sister had beenforced out by deliberately rowdy sexual liaisons, making his or herexit no different than menstruation. With enough shaking of the can ofsoda pop all beings disgorged the same when the tab was opened. Thaibabies knew. They had their instinct to smile because of the cellularreplication planned by the DNA architect who made all Thai babies thesame as an American subdivision. How gullible was a human to the wishof being struck down with pleasant feelings. When a mendicant salesmanwith teeth sparkled them from his tanned face even an impoverished Thaicouldn't resist the inclination to buy. It was the congenial feelingmore than the product itself that a consumer wished to gain. Consumersbought to get a fuzzy feeling and forget the hostile 9 to 5 workingworld (9 to 9 Thai time). How manipulative were the benevolent lies ofThais in the business of survival. Jatupon bought one of thosepurposeless products. He argued to himself that he could put it on ashelf-that is, if he had a shelf to put it on. On the bench he pulled out of his book bag the Lao classic, "ThaoNok Kaba Phuak which in English meant "The White Nightjar. " The backcover said that it depicted the second queen consort's birth of a birdand her exile from the kingdom. The preface stated that both Laotianqueens had prayed that life be recycled in their wombs but only theyoungest became pregnant. At the consort's request, the oldest queenblindfolded her when the labor pains ensued. She solicited the help ofthe court magician in particular to take advantage of the youngerqueen's squeamishness over the sight of blood by using the time toswitch the baby for that of a bird. When the child was replaced thesoothsayer could then deceive the king by making him believe that theyounger consort had had sexual relations with a foul bird monthsearlier. This was not needed since the consort actually begot a bird. Jatupon stopped reading the preface. It was spoiling the book. Hebegan to read the first chapter. "I, who have composed this narrativefled far away just like the little one for I, your servant, sleepalone; I am very lonely, in my bedroom, with my arms dangling empty. It is destiny that keeps me away and prevents me from embracing mybeloved. I am here, without my younger one, since I left my home to goamong the Thais where I have no friends... " Jatupon thought about hisbasic nature. He had lived for 14 years in Thailand but still he didnot feel particularly Thai. He wished that he had been born in someother place like America with a nice American family. As he wasfalling asleep he heard the counterparts:--What will happen to him on that bench?-- I can't imagine anything good happening from it. He could apply fora job but instead he plays with his kite and sits on the bench. Hewants to be an aristocrat. --You don't say. --Yes, it is true. He thinks that all whores, laborers, andprofessionals are slaves. He thinks that they all have petty lives. --How would he gain such conclusions?--Partly from me. Partly from the amphetamine-poppers under theoverpass. Partly from his own original thoughts. I am surprised to seethat he is half way intelligent. --There isn't much chance of him being an aristocrat. --No, none. He will soon be accosted. --By whom?--By a man desiring to have sex with him. --Explain this approach. --The same as any other I presume: hello, hello, how are you, I'm fineand how are you. The man will be thinking to himself, while engaging insmall talk, that he'll put twenty dollars into Jatupon's underwear whenthey are alone in his apartment. He will not have any doubts aboutbeing able to buy him. --Just for the feel of human flesh?--For a human that feel is indispensable. They are gadabouts and theyexpend themselves in motion as a defense mechanism by which to avoidtheir own thoughts. It is the same for feeling the silk of other skin. It breaks them from isolation. They find their thoughts such a prison. He and Porn had an American style apartment. She was content withit for a few days and then became discontent with the furniture. Thechairs and the sofas, despite their padding, were still wicker andstiff. He knew that having the landlord take away the furnishings andusing his credit cards fully for the purchase of her wishes would notameliorate the discontent that all beings had and few could rein in. He had met her and her mommy on the bleachers of the stadium onRamkhamhaeng Road while sketching out a field and trees and yet stillNawin felt that she did not know who he was. He went to classes in themorning and from late afternoon he was busy painting. He couldn'tunderstand how she thought that he should just conjure up imagesinstantaneously with his brush, spend money, and take her places. He kept avoiding the issue of taking her across the border. Shehad a student visa since she was technically enrolled in a languageschool (although she rarely attended) so it wasn't in fear of her visastatus that made him want to avoid the issue of the border. He hadhis American passport and yet he still had never spent a day there. Hetold himself that he should. And yet it continued to seem to him likesuch a dreadful place. He told himself that it had been a mistake to bring her here. Hehadn't known how far the campus was from the city. In part he chosethe location with Noppawan and Porn in mind. Still, it was a mistakeand he knew it all along. In Thailand she had seemed so excitable. She was a gadabout and she always made friends out of strangers fromadjacent tables in restaurants they frequented. She had seemed so opento the world. Now she seemed like such a Victorian whore, jumpingaround in motion but prudishly obdurate to change within. She wasconventional-this Victorian whore of his. Like virtually everyoneelse, she was part of the big band and the universe of movement fullycognizant that the most popular and sexy people were the ones who couldtwist and turn with universal movement. He was the oddity. This Nawin, the romancer of whores, was allfor show. Deep inside was not impetuousness but paralysis. Thisartistic brooding was not part of the natural course of events and whowas he to chastise her normalcy. He just smiled and evaded her wishes. Chapter 8 A little disparate to the poem, Thao Nok Kaba Phuak, he dreamt hewas a black version of a nightjar cradled by the Laotian queen whosepigment was as light as a northern Chinese woman. He suckled at hernipple with the violence of his beak as she scavenged for dew toappease the parched walls of her throat and berries that would provideher with fortitude against failing strength. Her breast bled from hisappetites. She grappled with waning confidence that she would find away out of the labyrinth of trees that overtook her. She wanted tokill this disgusting child that by its birth had usurped her of statusand had prompted her exile from the kingdom. This feeling embroiledher psyche but feelings did not thwart her motherly instincts for thestrange creature that she named Jatuporn. Then, immediately in front of the park bench there was a womanbefore him who carried two heavy buckets of ice and drinks. Startledto an awakened state by the woman asking if he wanted anything todrink, at first he gave a negative answer, "Mashai" but then he changedit into a formal feminine ending, "Ka" which could mean "yes. " Howabsurd he must have seemed to this woman speaking like herself insteadof using the masculine word, "krub" or the neuter yes-word, "chai, " butat the time, he had thought of himself as a bird when he spoke and sothere had not been any gender confusion whatsoever. He paid the womanfor a bottle of water. Then a man with his stinking body holding a bagwith little bags inside came to his bench. Jatupon bought two of hisbags and began strewing the ground a few feet from the bench with thedust of crackers, breadcrumbs, and corn. He did this slowly while trying to solve his indecisiveness onwhether to stay or go home. The thought of suicide seemed to him evenmore repellent than the two major options but it was a tiebreaker hewasn't going to reject absolutely. He had a pocketknife. He thought tohimself that when night came upon him he could find an obscure area ofa tree's shadow in complete darkness away from the gas lamps and slithis throat. He looked down. Pigeons were beginning to come to him andeat what he had allotted to them. He liked giving to ostensibly smalland insignificant creatures. When the bags were empty he saved himselfby his impetuousness and returned on bus #203. He dangled from thesteps because of the lack of space provided to him. Standing there onthe precipice of the step he looked in the bus at the crowded Siamesepassengers. At moments this mosaic fusing of contortionist-bodiesseemed as a mass of amorphous human flesh, a multi-head, body, and limbmonster, which choked air and breath from the bus and, worse, had theoutline of Kazem. Bus #203 zoomed along the river and then over thebridge of the Chao Phraya River. The cool breezes slapped hard againsthis flesh. He felt like the 15-year-old nightjar that took its firstflight from home, strutting its bird-body independently and findingitself watched attentively by the princess, the older queen'sdaughter-- only in his case he was homeward bound and no one waswatching him. Matter of fact, he thought, if he were to slit histhroat his body might after some hours just be kicked off into a cornerof refuse somewhere to rot. When he arrived in the basement cell no one was there. He satdown in front of a strange box. His kneecaps never splayed in thenormal outward direction of crossed legs. Moreover, attempted prayerand television trances in imitation of the usual posture had alwaysbrought to him extreme pain making many people over the years perceivehim as someone who was both anti-religious and, worse, counterpop-cultural. Kazem and Suthep had vehemently criticized the shoddyconstruction of his kneecaps. Kazem had always been pleasantlyindifferent to this subject. As always, all he could master before thebox of chocolate was an irregular sitting posture that looked like theletter M or W depending on the perspective; and most likely, and mostcomfortably for him, the letter N as in Nawin. It was indeed a strangesight: the letter "N" in front of a small box of Russell Stoverchocolate candies with the parent company of Kansas City, Missouri, USAon the label. Inside, more than half of the chocolates still remained. He helped himself, almost feeling like an American spreading outrelaxingly over the world with Thailand and other countries as hisfootstool, carefree and gormandizing chocolate down his gullet. Healmost felt that nothing bad could ever happen to him again. And thenhe remembered being six years old standing with another dirty boy infront of the Dunkin Doughnut shop near a mall in Ayutthaya lookingthrough the glass window that was a partition between them and thecustomers who were inside. Even more, it was a partition betweenfeeling hungry and dirty to the immaculate ones consuming theirdoughnuts within. He made funny faces and danced in front of thewindow where a young man and woman sat at a counter looking onto thecommotion and air pollution of Bangkok. He pretended to kiss the womanthrough the glass. She laughed and he kissed her more. Then as the manwas putting his doughnut into his mouth, Jatupon opened his own mouthwidely as if, through the glass, to rip it out of the man's teeth withhis partially rotten fangs. The couple laughed and the man motionedthem inside. They ran in and were given doughnuts. Like then, sweetshad an antithesis of meanings for him. They made him feel as one ofthe elite, carefree and happy and yet at the same time reminded him ofthe disparity to which he was one of the largest masses--that being theunderclass. Half an hour later, from his gluttony, the box was empty. He dranksome bottled water and fell asleep to more images of Laotian queenswalking through cocoa fields with their little black birds. When Kazemcame home with more shopping bags and saw the symbol of a moreauspicious life that he wished to share with his brothers totallydevoured by one alone, he wanted to vituperate him if not slap himaround a few times. He restrained himself since, for other reasons, hedid not want him to again run away. He saw that Suthep was not in theroom for whatever reason and this absence triggered in him a desire tomolest the youngest. It would be a punishing pleasure, a desperatehegira from one's solitary domain to brief moments of coupling, bangingonto empty walls, the release of stress, and the intimacy of "love". And yet he again restrained himself by comparing it to the gloom aftermasturbation. To Kazem, a boy shoved off into manhood, sex withJatupon was an innocuous pleasure like some marijuana or a brief rollercoaster ride but the gloom was of being a puppet of wanton desire forsomething that was far from his ultimate wish. And gloom for a man oflittle self-respect was deleterious. It was fine for the brain toforfeit logical restraint for that relaxation of fleeting pleasure thatcouldn't be sustained or for one to use whatever was before him, butsomeday he wanted a wife as much as he now wanted to think that he wasliving up to his ideal of the fraternal benefactor. He didn't want hiswhole life obsessed by the inconsequential pleasures of his nightsports. Kazem disheveled Jatupon's hair with his fingers and slapped himon the head. "Where the hell were you all day, you bum?" he asked. "Youthought we'd start work again so you took off. " He laughed and sat downon the sole wooden chair that was the furniture of the apartment. "I don't want to talk to you, " Jatupon said. "I bought you both some clothes. I don't know if any of it willfit since neither one of you came with me. Also, I had to see a movieall by myself. Suthep could have had some type of a tom yam tastingpopcorn. They called it Mexican. " "Why didn't you get a girlfriend and bring her with you? Isn'tthat what they are supposed to do: go with you shopping and to movies?"Jatupon sneered. Kazem felt an icy sword in his heart. "I wish I could take theseclothes back. Neither of you deserve anything. " "Why don't you get a girlfriend and leave me the hell alone, "continued Jatupon as he turned over on his side and glared at him. Kazem lit a cigarette, smoked, and blew it into his brother'sface. "Because you love it too much. " He paused. "You're right aboutme getting a girlfriend. I should get a nice Chinawoman like yourbrother Kumpee and then run off with her leaving the two of you to eatworms from the sidewalk. What a good idea, Jatuporn. " Jatupon turned away from him and feigned sleep. Sometimes he hated all of them--they who had made a funnyvulgarity of his name; Kazem, the creator of the nickname, who solvedhis stress by physically accosting him; Kumpee who always flayed andflouted him at every chance; and Suthep who treated him with the bladesof indifference (the worst of all weapons). He vehemently hated themsometimes and yet-- He imagined the mosquito speaking to him. "And yet you'll gainthe antibodies of hard, fortified indifference from the illness ofhate. It isn't so bad. It is a practical emotion that has beendemonized as of late by Buddhist and Christian practitioners althoughthoroughly embraced by the Jewish, Moslem, and Hindu world. I'd thinkit over carefully before exorcizing myself of it. It is just one moredarkly pragmatic aspect of life as needed imperatively asmicroorganisms are needed to lunch on the deceased. " "I don't want dark things. I don't want to hate them. Tell mewhat to do so that I won't hate them. " "Hmm... You are such an idealist. Well, Suthep couldn't care lessabout you except when he cares to sting you with not caring but he isthe one who taught you to play football and takraw, and although Kazemviolates you repugnantly in painful tactile thrashings much worse thanKumpee's socks and sneakers ever did to your olfactory nerves he is theone who saved you from drowning and being beaten to a pulp by yourfather. Also he probably does genuinely care about family despite hisbombastic proclamations of now being the eldest brother. He is the onewho stifled the sadistic belittling of you that would have pulverizedyour self-esteem to dust had the father and eldest son been left toinveigh against you incessantly. When you are financially free andindependent you can kill off all three of them from the present andremember the children they were. Then, you won't hate them any longer. Maybe then you will even feel love but you will have to kill them offfirst. " If only good things beget good things and bad things beget badthings then, thought Jatupon, there would be divine order. Then, theinvisible presence of God or the forces that be would not matter. Deador bored as God might be, still the laws of the land would have beenlaid out like that of a deceased founder of a company. The principlesof Buddhism would be in place and operative. But such was not thecase. Kazem was not a devil and he, Jatupon, was not a saint. Heloved having Kazem's tongue enter his anus prior to his entrance. This"priming up" was a pleasure that he was addicted to have. Wasn't hisresentment of his brother this evening more from the fact that suchpleasure had not been given to him throughout the day? Wouldn't ithave been lovely if he had been made into a sexual slave 24 hours aday, totally free from logic? Somehow, he felt that the mosquito wouldagree on this point. The politician, judging aptly that a deposit of 20, 000 baht wouldbe like asking a pack of dogs to put the chicken in the refrigerator, had one of his aides escort the boys to Chatochok Market which hadalmost everything for their business (woks, burners, gas canisters, icecoolers, utensils, glass vegetable shelves, carts, oil, noodles, cabbages, bean sprouts, tomatoes, meat, cucumbers, and rice). It wasone of the world's largest outdoor markets and Thais always gloatedthat everything in the world could be obtained there. The purchaseswere made in double since the senator believed that they needed morethan one joint livelihood and a hungry pack with meager resourcesforced into the same struggle for sustenance would foster acrimony. Hehadn't exactly thought that they would be jumping onto the same preyviciously. He didn't really have many thoughts about it. He hadn'tgiven this issue, or them, much thought apart from how to best uniteand part benevolently within the space of a week if not sooner. Thiswas just his assessment of males in general. He saw males in action ona daily basis in their debates on various bills. These were rich menand yet their lust for sinking their teeth into prey was great. He did care up to a point. He felt that he had aggrieved them bynot attending their parents' funeral. He hadn't wanted the discomfortthat his ex-wife would feel standing beside him again. Being human, hehadn't wanted it for himself. It would have made him feeluncomfortable and more out of place being there. It hadn't occurred tohim, then, that she wouldn't attend. Furthermore, from what little hebelieved in Kazem's answers to his questions, he felt that he shouldhave protected these three from having their parents' assets sucked upinto some unrevealed bank account. They had been clinging onto theidea that ultimately Kumpee would act the part of the oldest brother. They had watched him go away without accountability and did this withhardly a whimper. The senator could have taken it upon himself to hirean auctioneer and then could have put the money into his own account. He would have given out the money when wisely warranted. He hadn'tacted responsibly and he regretted it. Jatupon stood by, inert and despondent, as these purchases soabstract and foreign to his hopes were loaded off onto a mover's truck. Despite his wish to survive being fulfilled, it was the aristocraticlife he yearned for. Only leisure was life. A laborer was justmovement and reflexes. A laborer did not run barefoot through theweeds and allow the smells to be one with him, transfer the beauty to acomplex style on canvas when the beauty passed through his complicatedmind, or attempt to understand why the pollen attacked him like asickness. He wanted someone to grant him the honors of placing him inan orange robe, which he felt he was entitled to have--that specialrobe not of monks but of the type that surely belonged to aristocrats. He wanted leisure to see the rhapsody of every small movement under thelambency of both sun and moon. He wanted to meditate on coruscatingcity life as the Buddha of Bangkok. He wanted to be free of thenoodles that were winding about him tightly and to grasp the leisurethat should be his and no doubt was his in an earlier life. Povertyravaged the mind in desperate acts--the mind ached in one continualgroan for something within or without that might be sold. Noappreciation of the present moment could be had in such a state. Hewanted to know the splendor of the veins of each distinct leaf toweringover him. Still it had been determined by the powers that be that hewould float between the businesses of the two brothers who would havetheir separate livelihoods in different parts of the city. Still, there was something to be gained in being so lost frommemory and he was inured to being forgotten. The baby of the familythat he was, he had been pulled out of a cranky woman tired of havingchildren and responsibilities. Nursed and taken care of like anychild, still as the years passed he often felt guilty for being hismother's burden and his attempt at being his mother's little helper didnot engender her appreciation. Forgotten again this time, he wouldnonetheless be the instrument that fused the two carts into a familybusiness and he could get along with both all right, he supposed. Hedidn't think that his brothers were so different than himself: likehim, they would work hard and feel themselves, at times, strangled innoodles. Suthep would be seeking an alternative being in video games, snookers, Thai boxing matches, and movement; and Kazem would seek hisbeing through sickening carnal releases on his brother the result of animagination that could make Jatupon into one rapturous whore oranother, and a propensity to always take things apart, beat on them, and put them back together. For Jatupon, his escape came in his rideof feeling in love (tame as it was for new love), comic heroes thatpulled him into more noble pursuits, and dreams of an aristocraticlife. There was a garbled mass of half-remembered faces that gnarledNawin's thoughts when he woke up one morning. No different than noodleworkers toward customers buoying in their brains at the end of thenight, he had to let these myriad faces-most of whom he had encounteredin high school and at the universities he had attended -to graduallysubside into forgetfulness. He sat up in bed and rubbed his forehead. His mind felt like one whose shoes were trapped in the coils of fallenbarbed wire. He looked at Porn, this woman with whom he had mentallysigned a contract to serve her needs and she his. Her hair billowedagainst her pillow like feathers. He thought to himself that she, being a prostitute, and he actually establishing a relationship withone, were so different from all other human beings. Maybe they weresurviving hominids. They were definitely a divergent species of animal. He thought about Songkran Festivals. All of his grandparents weredeceased early into his boyhood. In his family there was no traditionof each relative taking bowls of water and cleansing the hands of theolder family members and this tradition of offering good luck for theNew Year, respect, and deference had never really embedded itself intohis mind as a moral duty. He had never been Thai. Circumstances hadmade him into a hominid. He wondered pityingly about the circumstancesthat had maimed and freed her. He stared at her face with great painand pathos. Tears weltered in the corners of his eyes. He did notknow what to do with this feeling so he buried it and made love to her. She took him in her mouth. The quicker and deeper she went the morepleasurable it was. Little did he care if she choked on it. When he wasready to ejaculate he pressed her head so that he could penetrate moredeeply. His body had its cellular knowledge that a quick thrusting anda deep penetration would be more pleasurably exciting and theexcitement and especially the depth of the penis in the vaginal openingwould cause the male to ejaculate more semen that had a greater chanceof impregnating a female. Such was the primitive making. When hissavage frenzy had ended he knew the extent of his own selfishness andwas relieved to be exorcized of it. He felt a humane sensitivitydescend on him. He knew that of all the selfish and negative energiesthat influenced his thoughts, they were, for the most part, not him. With the exception of times of sexual frenzy, he was able to find adeep and benign part of his nature and knew it to be the true Nawin, the artist who drew the oppressed and had sensitivity to the pains ofothers, the one who wanted to enrich Porn and all he knew intimately intruth and beauty. Perpetually the same, those of leisure yearned each year for thehalting of time and, in dissatisfaction gained from comparingthemselves to others more youthful, yearned for a return to earliertimes of higher pleasures. But it was the laboring classes whocontinued to labor in insentience without reflection. They cookedtheir rice and noodles ceaselessly. They clung to their jobs liketiny, sedentary, clinging salamanders to windows during a storm. Theyfound their beings (their minds and the feelings that would be refinedinto thought within them) lost to the reflexes of the day. Months blewaway like empty bags skidding on the pavements. Evanescent and mutableto their ultimate end, their lives passed by blandly in dizzyingheadaches caused by the sun of the weatherless country during the dryseason. When the rainy season set in there was the discomfort ofleaking and wind-swept canopies, the lack of customers, and beingdrenched by the rain; but these issues were minimized by the fact thatvaried weather made each of the days more memorable. The brothers, transplanted into Bangkok with a livelihood, continued on as if inAyutthaya. Memory of the uncle's unfulfilled promise of a dinner hadworn away like the memory of their parents or the abandonment of Kumpee. At first Suthep strutted around in his independence like adominant rooster but as the months went by the independence underwentthe metamorphosis to loneliness and by 1 a. M. Of each early morning, anhour or two after Jatupon would leave him, Suthep would often feel thechill of adulthood. One late night/early morning as the smoke ofcharbroiled fish and the steam of rice, noodles, and pork soup rose upthe sweat-profuseness of his face and into his hairnet, he watched agirl giggle and slurp up her noodles with her boyfriend. He imaginedall traffic on the streets and sidewalk gone and that there was justthe three of them. He imagined those customers leaving unhappily. Then, as they were beginning to walk together, there was a dispute thatintensified to the point where he attacked her. He imagined himdragging her by the hair, slapping her down, and denuding her. Suthepimagined himself walking over toward them and watching their caninecopulation for a period of minutes. Then an idea possessed him and hestarted up his motorcycle and circled the couple, eventually chasingoff the body that had been forcing itself into her. He imaginedhimself helping the trembling body of the female dress. He didn't wantto cover her but he did it to comfort her so as to gain her confidenceto obtain a new round of banging that would involve himself and wouldlast longer than if he were to force another encounter on her now. Pleasures that had the potential of being perpetual were always thebest. He imagined that he learned about her life with contrivedsensitivity and with time secured himself as the being whom she yearnedfor. Then the happy couple was again a reality and he was standingalone in front of his cart. There they were at the table slurpingtheir noodles joyfully. Adulthood was the maturity to relinquish therebellion against society for relegating one to his petty station inlife bereft of the pleasures he sees around him. Being wise wasrealizing that most of such pleasures were neither good nor beneficial. Although Suthep was an adult, he was a bitter man and he bit his lipin the thought of all the pleasures that were out there waiting for somany others and not for him. He resented being such a lowly clod. After the couple paid for the meal and left he sat at their empty tableand looked out across the cars that veered near a discothèque until atlast he fell asleep. For a moment or two of REM he dreamed of hisyoungest brother dangling by some friend from an open window of anappliance warehouse only to have his shoe slip off in the friend's handand the body unwillingly succumbing to gravity with his force trippingoff the alarm. But unlike what really happened two years ago toJatupon and a teenager once they extricated themselves and arrived inthe big city on a bus, he, Suthep, was the friend and when the shoeslipped off he laughed and ran. He woke up, shook off his sleep, andthen began washing his dishes in big plastic bowls. He felt aloneliness eat up on him. Each evening it seemed to be exacerbated. The next evening he was struggling in ambivalence on continuingto work or closing early. Feeling forlorn and lonely, and yet needingto talk to Kazem about a decision he had made, he chose the latter. And when he arrived near Kazem's cart with a hairnet still on his headKazem's countenance was at first chiding. "You couldn't have lost your shirt already, " he said. Suthep took off his shirt, wadded it into a ball, and threw it atKazem. Kazem wadded it up and threw it back. Soon the three, inhairnets, were Thai boxing and laughing with each other. The fewcustomers they had were ignored. It was dereliction of responsibility. It was a hiatus. It was bantering. It was enjoyment of each other. Itwas a bit of love followed by the sharing of duties. On that fine evening of gentility Jatupon was able to leaveearlier than usual. While the other two brothers washed dishes, wheeled away the cart to a parking lot, chained it up to a fence, andtook supplies they couldn't lock up into and under the cart back to theapartment, Jatupon went to Sanam Luang. Once there, he walked on thelong cobbled oval track; interweaved aimlessly around trees andpedestrians; and watched the wind animate a bag with absolute breathand power. The wild, breathing plastic, reminded him of being--theputative lightning that struck the ocean and caused the crystallizationof elements. Six adroit teenagers playing a game of takraw were in a crescentposition like the broken face of the moon. They hit a bamboo ball backand forth with their feet and heads in a motion that depictedcontinuum. Perhaps they needed to believe in the continuum of actionand being (the random balls of matter that they were). Inside thestadium-shaped park were homeless families lying on their thin sheetsof rectangular bamboo mats and towels. Above the center of thisfootball field of dust he saw a few prolonged kite flyers and theirinstruments swishing as mad serpents of the open night skies under gaslamps. He felt the lifelessness and perfunctory movements of being anoodle worker further exorcized from him and became enriched in thefreedom of his own impulses. Still, he told himself that even thoughhe was almost as poor and homeless as those strewn about him, he shouldnot be out here to be possibly robbed. It was an inherent defensebecause, more than fearing robbery, he knew that he would most likelydo anything for money. Also there was a secondary voice of a cruelconscience that taunted him for being such easily sold goods eventhough he had never really put himself up for sale and had never beenbought. As American as he wanted to be, in Thailand (even Sanam Luangin Bangkok) there was little chance of being robbed or murdered. Herealized that he wasn't really worried on that score. He was the same as the visual images of street life that had cometo him earlier that day: dogs that gnawed through the trash; a man whomhe had seen in the middle of the afternoon holding a tree of hooksattached to small plastic sandwich bags where water and goldfishdangled within (how his child cried particularly for the sake of thefish); strangers pushing against each other in the mad rush to sellsomething and improve the lot of their lives; and a blind man who hadscreamed a song into a microphone to gain the one baht coins he wasbegging for. Like them, he would do almost anything for survival andthe gaining of a better life that would shake in the pockets of hispants. Life was rained on one like rocks thrown at the emaciated dogsas they scavenged for their food or listlessly lay in the center ofcongested sidewalks. Like those homeless individuals on their mats, he wanted someoneto look into his eyes and confirm his humanity. He wanted to hear avoice in the solitude of the night that would give him hope that lifewas not entirely random and that he had an importance. He wanted tobelieve in illusions. He wanted to believe that the incidents thathappened in one's life were for a good reason and that they were theiron scaffolding that built up his life into one monumental edificewhich would go on and on. And yet if his family didn't care to deceivehim into seeing connections and connectedness in random events andtime, no stranger out there would be benevolent enough to attempt thetask. He was a rotting organism there to be trodden on like anyinsect. He sat on a bench and reread the earlier part of his Laotianpoem: the queens' prayers; the youngest queen's pregnancy; the oldestqueen's plot foiled by reality stranger than the plot; the birth of thebird; the exile; the growth as a boy in the shape of a bird; thegrowing independent striving of the boy-bird and the longer flightsaway from home; the princess who saw the bird and wanted it... "Who are you?" asked a girl who was around his age. Jatupon feltnonplused. Beauty and truth were extracted from him. He was forcedout of himself and his reading like a boy who stared at the light solong that when he walked away from it he fell into a ditch. Stupefied, he did not say anything to the dark skinned glasses-girl. "I'mNoppawan Piggy, " she continued. "What are you reading?" "A poem. It is from Laos. " "Are you Laotian?" "Not really. I don't know what I am. " "Why wouldn't you know who you are? If you were born here from aThai mother or father you are Thai and if you weren't you are aforeigner. I can't think of anything simpler. By the way, yourgrammar is awful. It's 'who I am. ' Not 'what I am. ' Maybe you areLaotian" "Well, I do. I do know who I am. Maybe I'm just wishing to notknow. " "And you are reading poetry to not know?" "Yes.. I... I know its different, " he said with diffidence, "but I'mwanting that. " "You are wanting to become a different person by reading poetry orpoetry will make you someone different? Maybe you are wanting to bedifferent than other people" "All of the above. Why is your name Noppawan Piggy?" he asked. "It is a nickname. " "Noppawan isn't really a nickname, is it?" "No, Piggy is. I got that from watching too much of the Muppetsand Sesame Street when I was a girl. " She laughed. "People don't have last names as nicknames-only their first names. " "Well this person does. " "Why?" "Why not? I don't like my last name. " "Well, it has to be the same name as your parents. " "Now you understand why my last name is a nickname. It would berather dumb to have two nicknames. " "I can't see that I understand at all. And no, I'm not Laotian;and my Thai grammar is impeccable. I'm not stupid. I am a self-taughtindividual. " "Good for you, " she said. "They are the best kind. " He slapped the park bench with his hand and moved to a corner sothat she could sit down. She sat there. "So explain your reason forthe last name as the nickname. " "I thought I did. Well, I've chosen to make the last name anickname because it is my decision to do so; and foremost, I want to bedivorced from my parents. " "Children can't get divorced from their parents, can they?" "Watch me. " He chortled. "You are so honest. Most Thais aren't that way. Sometimes they act like servants and sycophants and then talk behindthose people's backs. Sometimes they are scared to say anything at alllike about the kings or anyone higher. You say everything openly eventhough you don't even know me. I'm beginning to think you are the onewho is not Thai. I've never met anyone like you. " "I'm one of a kind, " she said. "I've never met a poor boy with aneducated head sitting on a park bench before. " "I'm one of a kind, " he said. "I like people who read something different and imagine somethingdifferent. I hate people who read comic books and play video games allof the time or buy lots of things from the malls each day, don't you?"There was no answer. He had trouble denouncing these items that seemedto him so alluring although already his rash flood of feelingsprematurely told him that she was the best thing that had happened tohim while living in Bangkok and he didn't want to destroy an emergingfriendship with honesty. After all, at present he had no friends. "Aren't you going to ask why I'm out here?" He couldn't let it be shown that he was feeling scared to speak forfear of saying something that would make her turn away from him. Hedidn't realize that his vulnerability could be read from hiscountenance and the sweat that was beginning to come from his forehead. "Well, why are you out here so late? Are you a homeless orphan?" She laughed. "Listen, funny guy, see the pendant on this 14carrot gold necklace. " "Yes, I do. Maybe you should take that off. It would be safer. Put it in your pocket. " "Oh, " she said diffidently. She took off the necklace and stuffedit into a pocket. "Thank you, " she said. She paused and then went on. "I have parents and they are very rich. I live in a nice home. I'mjust running away from it. I'm running away from them. You have a kindface but you should wash it more often. I see a pimple. " "So. I've got oily skin. It doesn't mean I don't wash it. Nowit's my turn to give a question to you. Your parents did somethingthat upset you. You are running. From what?" "I wish I could slip into your poem. " "It can't happen but if you read it you can let the poem slip overyou. That's better really because that way you don't slip away at allbut just put on some modern armor. It is like feeling invincible--likeslipping on a soldier's uniform and strapping on a new gun. " "I like that idea. That is beautiful. What's the book about?" "How a prince born as a hawk changed into a man through love andatonement. I've read it before. Here. " He gave her the book althoughhe hadn't completed the poem itself but only the preface. "You won't read it again?" "No. " He lied. He wanted her to like him. He wanted to give hersomething so that she would remember him. "Did you know that my father owns three factories and is a highofficial in the government?" "How would I know that? I just met you. " He felt that it wasstrange that someone so dark should have parents who were entrepreneursand high government officials. He also felt that it was strange thatshe should think that he would know her so deeply. Still, theirconversation seemed to him so uniquely intimate like long establishedfriends. "Here's a pen and the book. I want you to write your nameand address on the front cover. " "Okay. " He took her pen and wrote it there. She took back thebook. "Jatupon Biadklang. No email address?" she asked. He didn'tunderstand much about such things. He just said "No" and shrugged itoff as if it lacked importance. In his heart, however, he wanted to askher questions about this technological age. Then the girl said goodbye and went away. He did not understandthis needy feeling suddenly brewing within him that yearned for thepresence of another to stitch his open wounds. He wanted her to comeback to him and he waited there on that bench for an additional hourwith that one thought dominant in his mind and a foolish expectationthat she would come back to converse with him further even thoughneither of them really knew the other. Still, when he eventually left, he felt hope in something within his disappointment that she hadn'treturned. He wasn't quite sure what the nature of this hopefulnesswas. Like lightning flashing once to which the unaccustomed eye blinkstwice it pierced darkness and restored faith in forces beyond mortalknowledge. Like the refracting rays of the sun coruscating at 5:00onto the Chao Phrya River in round wild and random organisms of lightbefore motor-gondolas and barges, so he felt that something brief butbeautiful had happened to him and that the residue of it would alwaysstay with him. Born in boredom and anguish at seeing snow fall while doing herdishes in front of the kitchen window, delivered meals, disposableplates, and throw-away silverware of plastic came into being. They hadseemed at first to her the perfect tools to minimize discontent. Thenshe kept the drapes shut at all times to keep from seeing the snow. Still it did not help; and one evening she beat on his locked studiodoor and screamed to it that she was going to her language class. Shehadn't been there but once following her enrollment. While she went out with the snow and the wind, Nawin stillremained locked away but free in his colors. They flowed in tightbrushstrokes of an earthy tone. They were of French-Canadianmannequins performing their perfunctory duties of marriage. A summarysetting of a banquet table was under the window. A profuse ochresunlight poured through the window permeating the scene at the weddingbanquet. The table cast a shadow that inundated around the feet of themannequins like a pool providing the scene with form and volume. However, greatness was in the details and that he was still lacking. He was listening to Thai news from his computer. The anchorman saidthat Moslems and Hindus were burning houses in one Indian community. Hindus were throwing Moslem children into bonfires, telling them theywould meet their deceased fathers. His pastel colors began to have afiery gray bleakness. He felt great despair. He wondered why in the 3million years of Australopithecus through the 100, 000 years of hisspecies (if his species was to some degree related to Australopithecus)humans had not learned love. They had learned speech and social skillsfor society to exist but they hadn't learned love. He wondered if thisword was totally empty without substance. Maybe it was a make-believeword to make humans feel better about themselves. He wondered if therewas anything outside of human selfishness. He had once gotten out of noodles--Noodles stirred in a wok oralive, like worms, in a vat. Briefly, he had gotten out of his boyhoodassignments of washing bowls in tubs, being the seamstress attachingjasmine flowers into rosaries from a long, thick needle, selling themon the streets in the traffic, and then returning to wash more bowls. There was a time when his aunt had had mercy on him and had come intohis life despite the inauspicious marriage that her sister had made. Italmost seemed like a dream. Hadn't she first enrolled him in a BibleSchool class? Within that class so long ago, from a lost being ofhimself, had he not taken a paper image of Christ and varnished it ontoa piece of wood? Then his aunt let him dabble in education and gainthe full thirst on the new taste buds. Neurological responses burgeonedand bifurcated within him. Now this wooden, shiny-faced Christ or theashes of it were somewhere in a colossal garbage heap with so muchKumpee had coerced them to throw away or sell "to have as savings. "That image of Christ or the conceptualization of it in his head had notspared either himself or it from the trash heap. He was, nonetheless, fond of it. Strangely, Bible school for him had been the initial stageof his education at the temple school. He wished that he had thatplaque to keep forever. If he were to have that plaque now it might beprecious proof that a young scholar had actually lived. This part of him was undeniably gone. Gone it was, for hecontinually slid out of his skin so fully and naturally even though hewas rarely cognizant that this continual sliding away from himself wastaking place. He was just slumbering as all slumbered. This was life, and unlike a movie, music did not accompany it's plotless plodding oftime. The sliding out of his skin happened every minute of his life andyet there was perhaps some consistency one might isolate as a Jatuponif one were to imagine such a being when Buddhism stipulated that theself was nothing but a delusion. Whenever he saw an emaciated dogwadded into itself like crumbled trash or sprawled out onto thepavement as if dead he would always say, "poor baby dog. " It was along embedded sensitivity that he had developed in Ayuttaya from earlyboyhood. In Bangkok where they seemed even more pathetic, thesensitivity was exacerbated and he repeated this phrase over and overagain no different than when he was six years old. This was surelyproof of a bit of a consistent self. Friends always went away afterthey learned, shared, or enjoyed the company of a given person for theyneeded to evolve to the next level and forget previous levels. However, one surely did not lose himself completely. He did not know. Still he was changing and within the darkness that wassubjugating him into doziness a new embedded consistency wasformulating. His mind kept flitting back to the thought of this girl, Noppawan, and his imaginative curiosity invented a mansion where she nodoubt resided. He could imagine her governess and feel how containedand alone she might be within a rigid schedule of private teachers andtutors. He imagined her accompanied by servants while her continuallybusy parents remained remote and detached from her life. He was as happy to be returning to his sordid smelling cell asthat time when he had returned from the fair. With hairnet as a tailin his back pocket, his eyes gleamed of hope, and curiosity brewedabout Noppawan. Change also marked the life of Suthep, who was sittingon two bags of his clothes, latent with the night, when Jatuponapproached the apartment building. "What are you doing?" he asked. Suthep was smoking near a tree. "I got an apartment. I'm about ready to leave. I thought I'd tellyou goodbye but maybe get you to help me with a bag if you don't mind. " "You're leaving?" He felt nonplused. His senses tingled andthrobbed in confusion like the onslaught of the mosquito when drugs hadconjured illusions and excavated buried, opaque truths. "If you wantto leave us, why were we all working together earlier today?" "For old time's sake. I'm not leaving completely--just from timeto time when I'm tired and want to be able to sleep without having tocome all the way back here. " "What does Kazem say about this?" "What he says doesn't matter. What does it matter what he says?" "I guess none but I want to know. " Suthep paused. He wasn't accustomed to confessions in theconfessionals of tree branches. He sighed and spoke with begrudgingreluctance. " I've explained this to him for months. He has told memany times that he wants me to stay here. He always gets angrywhenever I talk about it. Now I've stopped talking and am doing it, aren't I? No, he does not want anything to interfere with his notion ofwhat big brothers ought to do. He acts like he is a lot older than Iam. Anyhow, he is obnoxious: always dropping by my business when hecan't catch me here pretending to be concerned that I might needsomething. Most of those times he was just trying to persuade me thatwe need some type of joint savings. " He coughed a deep chroniccontinuum that shook his body. He was of an average build but seemedto Jatupon as gaunt and sickly at such moments. "I laugh at his faceeach time he does that. I've been there, done that. Kumpee made ussaps enough. " "After Mother and Father's death we were stunned. " "Maybe. Maybe or just believing that only bad things would happenwhich is probably about right. Anyhow, I'm more or less gone. You bothshould be thankful to be rid of me so that you can carry on withoutbeing witnessed. " He laughed. "Go ahead and look innocent andconfused. " "I don't know what you mean. " "About looking innocent and confused?" asked Suthep in a chuckle. He also wanted to keep the conversation murky. "About any of it. " "Good, stay that way. None of us want to know anything-least ofall me. Here, you can help me by taking a bag. " As Jatupon reached fora bag he uncorked his flatulent gas. "How disgusting! Are you going to fart all the way up there?" "Where is your apartment?" asked Jatupon, anxious that thesubject be changed. "You need to have a doctor check you out with all that fartingyou do" said Suthep. He was enjoying Jatupon's embarrassment. "A fartdoctor, " he said. They both laughed. They began walking down the soito the main street. Suthep smoked and coughed. His face cringed andthen he spat out some mucus in front of a 7-11. He buried it with thesole of his sandal. They began walking again. Jatupon was feelingeven more reluctant to experience change and this reluctance spoke tohim in the scraping shuffle of their talking sandals. Jatupon did notknow what his brother knew and his mouth opened a couple times as ifwanting to ask him. Still, he could not speak such things. "How much is your rent?" he asked at last as the two of themwaited for a period of minutes for a bus. He was anxious to wedge themout of the coffins that buried each of them separately into themselves. Only words and actions were his crowbar. "Just a thousand" Suthep grumbled. But from there the journey wasa wordless void. Before they arrived at the smaller cell Suthep bought a couplecartons of beer from a convenience store and the two of them sank intothemselves within the barren room. Exhaustion stung them and yet both, wishing to find a chamber of themselves not mandated by work and sleep, let the liquor and marijuana smoke toss about their beings--beings thatwere sprawled on pillows on the tileless wooden floor. Suthep stared at him so directly for a period of seconds with aface that looked like his aunt when she had peered out at him from herglasses. His stare seemed incessant and those eyes burned his facethat blushed from the worry of what the stare and the invitation tovisit here all meant. His aunt's stare through her glasses had longago been like a version of the sanphraphun, the dollhouse of thespirits that was often placed in front of businesses and residences. At such sanphraphuns Thais put down plates of food and lit incense thatwould carry to the gods their wishes. She had been his guardian spiritin a sanphraphun of those glasses and yet she had abandoned him. Likethe aunt, Suthep's eyes were probing. In the smoke of the cannabis hetoo seemed like a spirit. Suthep's gaze attempted to measure thetraces of manhood that were in the youngest brother. They attempted tonot be repulsed by the boy, the victim, that still surfaced. Suthepnoticed that even in the masculine activity of beer drinking Jatuponsipped the beer in little suctions like the infant to its bottle. "Go ahead, little man, swallow as much as you can in one gulp. " "Why?" "Why not?" "I'm not so little. We're nearly the same age and I'm taller thanyou. " "Age and height don't make one big. It is experience, and you arelacking experience. " "Lacking experience in what?" "In what? In everything. In women, in outlook, whatever. You'rea child. " "And you dragged me here to tell me that?" "I didn't drag you. You are making yourself the victim again. "Suthep chuckled. Jatupon avowed the truth of this with a smile. "You make it sound like Mother and Father defended me as the babyboy" he half joked. "Well, Kazem took up that role when we were out to beat yousenseless. " "Don't you ever want to return?" "Return where?"Jatupon swallowed in larger sips while his head was like a boat swiftlychurning its propellers but going nowhere. "To what we were. Like when we were able to finally afford arestaurant and Mom would come with Kumpee in the taxi and they wouldslide sacks and boxes of vegetables, rice, and pork that we would putaway enthusiastically; or when we ordered a plastic ball from box topsof cereal boxes like the one that we spent months getting... The spaceyone with many suction cups... It would stick to about anything when wet;that one Sonkran where we were in the back of a pickup truck with abarrel of water for ammunition, aiming at every moving target. Fatherhad rented a truck to pick up something. I don't remember what. Butthen, for some reason, he changed his mind and took us... " They bothsank into their father's rare episodes of kindness and then their mindsswitched to the pure fun of Songkran chaos where society became freerand fragmented to thoughtless instinctual responses of guerrillawarfare where aiming guns for the open windows of busses and targetingother rival gangs had no consequences. "I am a man now. I don't want to hear bullshit about returningback. What good does it do to be sentimental, anyhow? Chance tookthem and if they are looking down on us it will be with as littleconcern as when they were alive. As I see it, whether we honor theirjars of ashes at the temple or spit on them it doesn't much matter. Their spirits didn't keep Kumpee from running off with what he could. Do I want to return back? Back wasn't any good either; so, no, notreally if I were to be honest about it. " Only the high he wasexperiencing allowed him to be so honest. Anxieties began to wreak Jatupon's sensitivities. The rag of adrape hanging against the window in a knot looked like a giganticcondom. There was a huge hole in the wall symbolic of life being avoid. His brother was a person whom he was beginning to know well atone moment and a stranger with a strange face reminiscent of an aunt, dreamed or real, the next moment. He thought how odd it was that thewhole perspective of someone he had known his whole life wasinterchanging so randomly with the worst moments being when his brotherseemed to have a stone alien countenance. He let another golden wave hit his tongue. It was like being hitby a wave from an ocean all bitter and suffocating. He began to laugh. He couldn't help it. Pains and pleasures seemed to him as such anirrelevant and comical absurdity slapping a person around in itsinundations. One moment he would be here and happy and then he wouldbe there and miserable. He drank more of the beer and laughed. "Chug it all down!" repeated his brother. He thought to himself that here they were-- two very young men whohad once run freely together through puddles on the streets and yetdespite their history (regardless of it not being a particularly closerelationship) Suthep and all that should seem him was tenuous andfrothy when it should be solid in his memory. Staring at him for acouple seconds, somehow he couldn't believe that someone who said "Chugit all down" was his benefactor. He looked down. As he did so, hesensed that the bubbles were increasing in his can of beer. Themosquito, that had been folded, spread out its large mass once itclimbed out of the beer can. "I don't want to be lectured to by you, " said Jatupon in his mindto the mosquito. "I might want an education but not some garbled ideasof an insect created by my own inebriated brain. " "You get what you pay for. These opportunities of hearing me on mysoapbox is as much truth as any noodle worker will be exposed to. " "I know you are horrible but I don't mind it anymore. I'm notscared of it anymore. I'm used to it. If I can't get rid of you, atleast you will no longer upset me. " "So quickly you people acclimate and adapt to rough ways. Howhave you been?" He felt stunned. How good it was to hear those words. "Okay. " "Is the job going okay?" "It is the same old thing. " "Don't you feel proud being there enslaved to the needs of higherclasses than yourselves-especially when they are rather lowly to cometo you to begin with? All of these department store workers and soforth. " "It's all right. I don't know any better. I want to know whyyou like blood. " "A bold childish inquisitiveness without considering order orpropriety. You really aren't afraid. You are getting bolder by the dayin a more childish way. Why do you like chocolate?" "I don't know. I just do. " "But why do you think that you like it so much?" "I wouldn't know. " "You can guess if you follow your instincts. If you follow yourinstincts they will take you into prehistory when the sweet taste budsformed for succulent bone marrow. Which came first: the taste buds forwhat was sweet or the experience tearing into bone marrow? For theanswer to that question you don't need a PHD. You just need to followyour instincts and they will let you know everything. " "I guess people in the past were often desperate for nutrients andfound that they could survive by eating bone marrow. Nature began toinstill man with a taste for that which was sweet so that he would morelikely eat bone marrow when in a desperate situation. " "Excellent. In answer to your question, maybe the boredom offlying around this rocky planet causes us to need to bite intosomething deeper. Anyhow, I came to find out how you were doingfinancially now that you have employment" "We don't need to worry about staying alive. " "What more can you expect from life than that?" "Jatupon!" There was a pause. "Jatupon!" "A le nah? (what is it?). "You are fading off completely, " said Suthep with a grimace. "Ithink you need to get the hell out of here. Your lover's waiting foryou. Thanks for helping me bring some of this junk. " Chapter 9 Nawin fell asleep in the suds of his bathtub and when he woke uphis thoughts were frothy. Melancholy dripped from the shower nozzle andfrom time to time hit his head (the contents of which emulated the slowand sad repetition of the dripping). A year earlier it had been insuch a bathroom at an artsy party at a friend's house near SilpakornUniversity that he went away from the crowd to sit on the edge of thetub and weep with the fatuous wrestling of personal pain. Noppawancame into the bathroom to find out what was wrong. She sat on the edgeof the tub next to him and heard about the crash of the United Airlinesjet. Without words she took one of his hands. Without trying to absorbthe sadness of his face in the emotion of sympathy, he could tell thatshe was imagining details beyond his relationship with his deceaseduncle or the explosion of the plane. Seated there, quickly overcomingpersonal loss in favor of a more philosophic stance, he believed thatAmerica was a self-centered bully and the Moslem world would continueto attack her for being so opulent in a famished world, controllingworld policies without giving smaller nations a voice, cuddling theZionist entity of these self-professed "Chosen people, " and for havingthe dominant culture of individual freedoms that went contrary to theirIslamic tyranny. The couple looked out into nothingness with similarthoughts. Both knew the naturalness of hate in recreating civilizationand that destructiveness in society was no different than the kineticuniverse as a whole. Both knew that only hope came in recoiling inone's passive intellectual pursuits. At that time he felt sick likewhen one hadn't eaten for days: people who should have been importantand salubrious spun around in his head as hollow as all the others. Only his uncle, a man who did not love him and had no particularself-interest in the boy had saved him. Only Noppawan, during his timeof mourning, kept him from complete despair. He wiped off his handsand arms and made his call on the telephone as his body leaned stifflyto the edge crushing through frothy embankments of his bubble bath. "Piggy?" "Yes?" "Piggy, is that you?" "Yes, Nawin. " "Piggy, I feel tongue tied here. This shouldn't be a question ahusband poses. I... I don't know what to say. We are marriedtechnically. Technically, and emotionally from my standpoint, that isthe case so as a husband don't you think I'd be curious when my wife isgoing to start making love to me?" "I have, Nawin, but there isn't much I can do with us on differentsides of the planet. " "Well, you should be here and she shouldn't. I asked you to come. " "And I said that I had papers to grade and research to do. " "I understand all of that. Nobody is to blame. I'm not eventalking about that. I'm talking about three times before we gotmarried. 2 1/2 times afterward. We're newlyweds. I need for you toneed to smell my feet, massage my back, do womanly things I can't talkabout on the telephone. I need you. " She thought to herself that appetites were not the substance ofmemory. She wanted to lecture him but only muttered, "Did Porn leaveyou?" "No, she is here. But that is not the point. The point isfiguring out if you will ever need me like a wife. " "The way Porn does? Honey, she is a businesswoman. I'm sure sheenjoys you immeasurably but you would go broke paying for both of us. "She laughed. She was fully amused by herself; but then she noticed thatshe had caused him to retreat in silence. "Hello?" she said uneasily. She picked up the poetic story, Thao Nok Kaba Phuak (The Nightjar) thatwas on her bookshelf. She opened the book, which had his name andaddress on it when he was 14 years old and her name since he haddedicated the book to her. Her fingertips caressed the illustration ofthe Nightjar on the cover page. "Yeah, I'm here. You continued to encourage me to have myrelationships after we were married. It was crazy but I went alongwith it. I thought it was a game: playboy artist encouraged by hiswife to continue to draw saddened whores. I even went to the airportwith Porn thinking you would come there and stop us. " "Surprise, surprise!" she said. She laughed lovingly. "Menexplode, Nawin. They get it out of their system for a few hours but awoman percolates romantically throughout the day. She loses all senseof reason. She does everything for the sake of that relationship. Sheloses herself. " "So-no one wants to reason 24 hours a day. You can't think thatpeople get married to stop sexual intercourse. If that was your idea Iwish that you had told me before we got married. " "Nawin, the reason I married you was not to percolate nor was itto be a recipient of your explosions when you can't get any temporariesto service you. I realize that temporaries are more erotic than wives, Nawin, the same as temporaries are probably more erotic than husbands. Anybody new will not be like stinking socks kicked off under the sofa. " "Is that what I am?" He remembered the stench of Kumpee. Shecouldn't have chosen a more grotesque image. He again felt like theugly dark skinned Jatupon with his pimples. "You understand what I mean. " "I don't understand you at all. I don't understand what we are, honestly. Do we even have a relationship? Do you know?" "Of course, we've known each other forever. We're just trying tofigure out some new movements-our own ways of behaving. " "I just want us to behave like normal couples do. " Both of them were silent, digging deep into their brains formemories of what normal families and normal couples did. They couldn'tfind what they were seeking. Both exhumed half-dead children ofthemselves whose eyes were blinded by pain and too much exposure todarkness. What did they know of families, couples, and what normalpeople did? "We have a relationship but it's a peculiar thing. It is one ofthose rare finds based on understanding and admiration. One greatthing about you that I admire is that, despite your moral turpitude, Idon't have to worry that you will someday become a bitter old man whohates life. Bitter old men, Nawin, tend to be that way because theyresent young men off having pleasures when they can't engage in themany longer. You have your art, your permanent window on the world. Youaren't just wasting your life on the next thrill-I mean not completely. You'll have something to show for your life. " "I need intimacy with my wife. " "Isn't what I'm doing now intimacy?" she spoke with a bit of anger. "Isn't going to an art museum even a higher intimacy? Isn'tbeing an artist or in my case sharing my research on zoology to aconference intimacy at its highest degree. You're ignorant but youaren't stupid. You're not even so ignorant: just a victim of too muchtestosterone clouding over your senses. " "I need tender love. " "Tender love isn't in a man's lexicon. You think you need women tobe tender enough to let you bang away on them. Pleasurable banging, andone or two women as your permanent trophies: that's your need. Idon't think it is much of a need. Wanting the right people is good. Needing them isn't. " She paused and waited but his voice was notforthcoming. "Nawin, are you still there?. " "I'm still here. Piggy, you haven't contacted me in weeks. I wasbeginning to think that you were filing for divorce. " "The line was too large at the lawyer's office" she joked. Hechuckled. "Are you okay, Piggy?" "I'm fine, Nawin. Thanks for finally asking. How are you andPorn? How are your classes?" "The class on the influence of Caravaggio is useful. All of theclasses are fine. Noppawan, I think that Porn hates being with me now. I think she is disappointed being here with me. " "Why?" "I'm too busy to take her wherever she wants to go. " "Where does she want to go?" "I think anywhere but here-New York mostly. " "Why don't you go? It is just a day's journey, isn't it?" "I don't know, " he sighed. "Piggy, I've tried to call you twentytimes. Why are you at your sister's?" "Oh, Nawin, that is a good question. You know how the landlordlet four Chinese students rent out an apartment near us. " "Yes. " "Do you remember that we always heard that sizzling sound of themfrying food in their woks. " "Yes, so-" "Well, they fried most of the apartment building. The sprinklersdidn't turn on. No one was hurt fortunately. You had only a fewcanvases. I took out your paintings and my computer and ran out beforethe flames reached our door. Our ideas are safe. " "Thank God! Thank God, no one was hurt. " He imagined the horrorof having all his canvases in that location and his image emblazoned inlight, heat, and smoke. What a way of setting his reputation on fire. What a way of enlightening the world. And yet, in accordance with Zen, burnt canvases would nip his ego and remind him of the true tracelessaspect of being. If this had happened, to which his whole being pouredout praise to whatever forces of the cosmos intentionally orunintentionally caused it to not occur, it would have taught him theawareness that permanence was an illusion. It would have taught him anacceptance of fate and an appreciation of the simple pleasure of justbeing. He thought of the time that he and Noppawan were in a SongkranFestival water fight in Banglampool. Both were unlucky enough to haveboth sides of their faces shot with water containing some form ofcaustic chemicals that burned lacerations which later changed intoblack eyes. For a few weeks the friends had been freaks but then theywere always freaks, and at the age of 14 or 15, the inception of theirfriendship, they had attended the natural science freak museum atSiriaj Hospital. In Thailand no one told the truth. They were carefuland obsequious with their "wei, " their traditions, and their buriedtongues. They were in favor of just getting along. To Thais, he andPiggy would be perceived as intractably strange. The couple couldn'tclaim to be comfortable as freaks although freakishness was theirnatural order. "Also, the monkey, the cat, and the parrot: I got them out too. " "Noppawan? Noppawan Rongthang" he said timidly in the fog ofself-doubt. "Jatupon Biadklang" she mocked him and laughed at his insecurity. "Why didn't you move into the condominium?" "My sister's apartment is near the university. " "I'm feeling lonely, " he said while laughing at himself. "I loveyou but I'm doubting if you love me. " "Feelings come and go, Nawin. We have a commitment to each otheras friends and we're married. The way I look at it that is more stablethan what most people have. There is me and there is you and fromthose two important things we create us. Where's Porn at now?" "She went to her language class. " "Oh, is she now trying to learn Thai?" He laughed victoriously choking on his saliva. He coughed. "Youare jealous!" he said gleefully. "You do love me. You are jealous outof your mind. " "Dream on, Nawin. " "Piggy is jealous. " "In your dreams, Nawin. " He stopped laughing. "Piggy? I want to tell you about something. " "Are you whining, Nawin?" "Well, I was ready to. " She felt that husbands used women to rape or as confidants for therelease of their suffering boys. She found it vertiginous and a bitnauseating. "Yes, " she said coldly, "What is it?" "I just want to tell you something that happened... I think I sawmy brother-one of them when I was leaving for the airport. " "The one who beat up on your face when I first met you. " "Yeah. Maybe. It's nothing. It is just on my mind. " "Did you talk to him?" "No, just saw him from a distance. " Hanging up, he got dressed and, paintbrush in hand, he returned tohis dreams: dreams of people in movements imitated from their fathersand forefathers-those in traditional marriages and traditional jobs whowere in their movements as perfunctory and dead as noodle workers. Heswept color on his canvas. He made imagined forms of those who hadnot, in their early childhood been maimed in this mechanical apparatuscalled family. For selfish reasons, like those tiny salamandersclinging to windows during a storm, he thought that he should spendtime with Porn, know her in more detail, listen to her, and understand. In part he was able to click into that tender inquisitive probing andnon-judgmental listening called empathy, but the thing that clicked hisbrainwaves in this circuitry was often selfish. He knew that he, hiswife, and his Porn were all maimed ones. They were indeed a family. They were part of him and he did not want to lose them. Both broughthim pleasurable respites from himself who was often attuned to the painthat was rife in all things. When Porn came home he went to her. Heasked how her day was. He listened to her complaints. He paused andwaited. He understood her isolation. Still he did not promise to takeher to New York. Impermanence was in all things. Galaxies collided or were pulledinto joint oval orbits. Planets were sucked into those suns in therealignment. The suns themselves eventually flared up into supernovasconsuming all planetary bodies orbiting their realm and died. Long agowhile the senator was in his first year of law school his sister hadbecome one of the hundred women on a given day that sought to gettraveler's visas at the German Embassy escorted by their boyfriends soas to begin a departure that would keep them in exile. His parents werenow beginning to act the parts of invalids and leeches. To his parentshe had failed them by being divorced and not having children that wouldhave fostered the illusion of continuum. They also thought he hadfailed them by not inviting them into his home. The result was acontinual stream of their calls on his mobile telephone where themother and father diagnosed themselves and each other, listing allsymptoms and proposing materialistic requests and more time togetherthat would alleviate or distract their mental and physical suffering. Women whom he had thought of as having permanent relationships gainednew perspectives from the intake of new information. They also gainedmore immediate and dominant feelings engendered by newer relationships. They went on and became something different without any way of relating back since, like the expanding universe, it all needed to go forward. With aging parents and relationships awry came the growing dailyawareness of the limits of his lifespan making him all the moreglutinous to have money, status, and women who could produce for himchildren. But with each year of impermanence his identity of himselffell on its own weight like a black hole and he did not know who hewas. The loving neediness of wanting that special woman who wouldtake care of his sexual needs, give him children, and not extort him offinances with a divorce grated against him stridently. There was nosecurity against another mishap especially at his present age of fortywhen his physical attributes were diminishing and a woman would not belikely to marry him for how he made her feel. Jatupon wanted to be an aristocratic bum. He wanted to communewith inner voices within himself and to have the relationship of greenblades of grass firmly poking into the crevices of his toes when he ranabout barefoot in a park. He wanted to return to that state of knowingperfectly what to say when others asked him, at age five, what hewanted to become when he grew up. "I want to become a tickle-man, " hewould always tell them and then he would try to tickle them before theytickled him. A decade later, this old long-lost game with Kazem inparticular could not be surpassed. He still couldn't think of a bettervocation than a tickle-man. Outside of the continual wish to have an aristocratic life free ofthe specious ambition to either sustain himself as a working classslave or by the stretch of his imagination a CEO slave, a doctor, or asenator, Jatupon's inward feelings were beginning to subtly change awayfrom his love of his brother, Kazem. His ideas and feelings wereshifting toward impermanence with each letter he received from NoppawanPiggy. Finally, he had a friend although for the past few yearsJatupon had virtually had none. As much as new manhood awakened oldinstincts deep in cellular memory for the odor, the touch, the pleasureand the pounding of any type of sexual activity where the differingforce of the thrusts and the stirred waves of his hormones all whizzedhim in a unique frenzy for a brief time, he yearned more for Noppawan. He yearned for her ideas and her presence. He considered his need for her one time as the two brothers laynaked immediately after a sexual encounter under a ceiling fan that wasnewly installed. He watched the blades chopping through the musty airand in a very minute sotto voce of his thoughts he yearned fordestruction. He wanted for the wobbly fan to fall and guillotine hishead. For the most part, however, sexual acts like this one were hisrocket fuel to Nirvana. It always brought him into a religious statethat he couldn't duplicate in any other way. That one moment after hisbrother's sexual act and his own masturbation, he was free of wantinganything. At such times he just lay there breathing in the oxygendeeply and feeling fully satisfied with being. This too he yearned forand only his brother was able to grant him Nirvana. At last he had a friend. This relationship gave him more meaningto the days than even the rain. Sustained reflexes as an assistantcook had caused the days to stumble along on deformed feet souneventfully after his parents' death. Now it wasn't so bad. After thewashed-plate monotony of late evenings he would often pull out of hisback pocket a letter that he had read many times before. At bothrestaurants Kazem and Suthep individually razzed him about his newgirlfriend but they believed that he did not know anyone. To them thegirl had to be some remote villager wanting to learn about life inBangkok by advertising for a pen pal in the back of the comic bookpages. On one night of one particularly troublesome week without aletter he went to sleep from his banal world at an empty table anddreamed his anything but banal dreams. Within Jatupon's sleep therewere at first tire swings and butterflies nestling on succulent flowersbut then on the flowers there was the perfidious couplings ofmosquitoes. He smelt the pheromones that the male had emitted to makethe female believe that it was following a whole army of male hunterswho had procured food when really there was just that one male poisedrelaxingly waiting for the ovulating specimen to come to its perch. The female was as white as Kumpee's Chinese girlfriend and she hatedand loved the guile as much as the deceiver in that unique mix thatmakes sex such a delight. Then, after finishing its frenzy, themosquito was back with him. "I don't understand this delay in meeting" he dreamed of himselftelling the mosquito. "Still, after nearly four months in this city, you think that thesenator is really trying to fit you into his schedule of dinner guestsand your sweet mother and father are going to return from the dust. " "Something like that. I don't want to be forgotten. If Motherand Father are really dead in the true sense of the word I won't beable to see them again. " "Dear me, when are you going to shake your boyish Thai ways? Beingrespectful to a couple morons who accidentally conceived you in theirsexual frenzy is too preposterous. Regarding death, I can't seeanything wrong in just plain death. You kill enough of us when you doyour laundry each week. I see you emptying out puddle-remnants of theprevious week's water from your plastic buckets where we are laying oureggs and then pouring in new laundry soap and water. You attempt toflatten us with the palms of your hands. You never seem to considerdeath such a tragedy in those circumstances. I can't see why anybeing--mosquito or human--would want to continue on for thousands ofyears anyway. A being continually growing from the same old bud in anenvironment not all that conducive to growth becomes as fallow as theworld around him. So much negativity from all of those disillusionedexperiences withers one in ennui-I can't think of anything more horrid! Then comes petty greediness to have something; and no one is pettierthan old men whom you give the "wei. " Thais extend this deference tothese beastly wrinkled beings as if age makes such grumbling, maundering creatures continually thinking of their mortality and theiraches and pains enlightened beings. I can't see that it would be goodto live forever. It is better to die off completely and let the energycome back as something totally different. This new being will danceits dance and celebrate the novelty of the world before adulthood hitshim across the face with a mallet. " When they got home it was sleep again so that they would wake upwith energy and motivation to do more work. Before Jatupon awakenednaturally to the sun-god (the night having deadened his soul and puthim to sleep as any ancient Egyptian laborer long ago believed of hisown life), so Kazem in darkness came to his startled awakenings with analarm clock as well as the alarm of and in his own brain that yearnedfor sustenance and more which always came from money. With no loveoil, and no rimming, he took Jatupon with maximum thrusts engenderingwithin him the inclination, if not the incitement, for violence. Jatupon's first thoughts of the morning were that he wanted to slit hisbrother's throat. He wanted to cut off Kazem's head, stuff it, and putit on a bookshelf had they purchased a bookshelf. It was no wonder, hethought, that this one had no girlfriends. Who would care to have oneso large-so large! As the lovemaking subsided, it tossed Kazem backinto a nap like the soothing backward movement of the tide. Jatuponfelt that he was bleeding and so he went to the toilet and sat on thestool feeling beneath him from time to time to see if there was blood. There wasn't any. He sat and sat virtually thoughtless until the ideareturned that he could kill him. He wanted to kill him veritably. Hecould take one of the new television sets that Kazem had purchased forhe and Suthep and smash his head while he was sleeping. He could spraypaint the walls with air freshener and light a match. The whole roomcould be set ablaze like a funeral pyre. He got up and dressed. Heneeded to escape. He needed to run away to the street people beforehis actions matched his thoughts. He needed to be with the streetpeople. He told himself that he loved them veritably. He scavengedmoney from Kazem's pants and took a taxi to an abandoned railwaystation with its severed tracks where weeds or moss grew a little onmost of everything and homeless, crippled dogs with one or more smashedpaws found a respite. He purchased some amphetamines from one of thestreet people and, done in sync with his glue, his head began to spin. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which he was exposed to from a movie on thetelevision earlier that week, played in his head and the dogs withtheir mangled paws began dancing. Plaid or corrugated he thought twothings intermittingly as the dogs continued to dance:* Kazem, when he thought of Kumpee, wanted to twist off his head like acrawdad-he who had stolen their money and put them in this hole. Thenhis anger subsided by again recalling a good thing that had come out ofit. He, as yet, did not have to pay for rent or utilities. Also thetwo of the siblings were gone allowing him to be liberated. The ideaof being a teenager free of mother and father had been intriguing tohim. As much as he mourned the deaths of his parents, their deaths hadseemed to him liberation to manhood and his own sexual fulfillment. The same was true of Kazem and Suthep. He didn't resist Kumpee's planto replant them in the modern sordid capital of Bangkok. He sensed allalong that Kumpee would leave them and he didn't murmur a word. Hisopposition to Suthep's departure was mostly a show. He wanted to pursuethat liberation with impunity. He went to work . * "I can't stand the boredom of everything around me" "But you have tosurvive, " said the mosquito. "All animals have to survive. " "I amdeclaring a day off. Besides, when I see you I can't do anythingelse. " "Aren't you the lucky one?" said the mosquito. * Kazem liked how obscure his petty actions were in the city. Nomatter what one did here it was obscure. Here no one pretended tocare-so absorbed they were in making sure that their own sordidactivities were kept inside that they didn't need to feign beingshocked or to gossip about human anomalies all which were as old as thespecies. * "Why aren't you sitting. You are just leaning against the building, staring across severed train tracks. " "I'm in pain. I can't sit. "* Long before light or orange robed monks made their alms he hauled hiscart from a lot where he stored it for a fee. Hauling it on the edgeof the street like any other hapless ones, occasionally he met gauntdogs, salesman of real stores helping the deliverymen get their produceoff the trucks and dragging the boxes to the sidewalks, ice-creamsalesman on tiny bicycle-driven stores, and the glass aquarium fruitcars with their gravel of ice that other hapless ones pushed along thestreet; and from it all it was hard to feel alone. Sound and motionbeat off the cruel static morbidity of his own thinking that had thecompunction of criticizing him for his actions with the youngestbrother and saw no future outside of monthly drunken vigils with fellowrestaurant workers and those rare occasions when he went off withSuthem to ladies of the night he paid for. -is he thinking about me, thought Jatupon. -as he sets up the restaurant, is he thinking aboutme?* "And taking that makes you feel less blue?" "At least less alone. ""Maybe you are an addict. " "I don't think so. It is recreational. ""Sounds like a venereal disease. It sounds American. "* He liked being unmonitored. Sure, there was adrenalin gained fromthe hunt of a woman but more came from the more forbidden pleasures. Aman with money was more alluring to a female who needed this morevehemently than sperm for the making of offspring. What did he have togive a woman. He had dated before. He was big. It fascinated butrepelled them. * "I told you. I was feeling blue; and I like how the world turnsaround like a carousel of caricatures when I mix the glue and thepills. Tracks, dogs, and the old abandoned railway station seem to bebreathing. I don't have anyone else. Sometimes I like hearing fromyou. " "How kind!" said the mosquito stoically. * Suthep's apathy had come from the acceptance of something deeplysordid in himself. Policemen were paid their paltry sums and hadbigger crimes to corner than family perverts. His was a business someager that it retained a tax exempt status by the nature of no statusat all, a business existing with no address although this oversight wascompensated for by a policeman who came to extort money from Kazemweekly. Being sordid was a type of wisdom. From it he was cognizantthat such instincts to conquer sexually were part of the sadisticimaginings of the creative force or the pragmatic cause and effect thatengendered the floundering of human existence and he was hardly thegod for redesigning it all-especially he who rarely thought of it asbeing essentially wrong in theory despite feeling nominally guilty. * "Do you think that he loves me?" "What definition of love are weusing now?" "The real one. I'm older now-almost 15. I know. Do youthink he loves me like someone with a great sickness inside of him whodesperately seeks medication or a yearning to slam himself into mefully like one entity?" "Okay, I'll grant you that one, " said themosquito and then it guffawed. * And so, unchaining the tables from beneath his cart, pulling out theplastic stools underneath, and kicking away a few sleeping dogs thatwere lying there to be tripped over like disheveled rugs, alone hestarted his business. He chatted with those he encountered and feltthe light commotion of an awakening world fill him with its harmonybefore routine tasks dominated over him. * His father had tried to squash him. He was excoriated for standing, sitting, combing his hair, where he parted his hair, the food he ate, the meat he abhorred, and the clothes he put on. He couldn't doanything. He wasn't anything. * Stirring a pot of rice deep memories ran by him in glimpsed ghostlypassing stirring up raw negative feelings that created the hard productof his thoughts. His father had been an aggressor at all times whonever mellowed any to his death. For many early years Kazem's ears hadbeen pulled daily. He had been dragged by the hair. He had been forced to sit daily on alittle red footstool next to his father as punishment for not onlyyouthful exuberance (youth which ran around on two feet whereas he hadto flounder with a cane) but for the intractable insolence that wouldinterfere with his punishment of the two "suck-calves" of the youngestbrothers whom he hated. Kazem still had the scars of cigarette burnsin his brown skin as palpable and tangible proof that the man hadreally existed. -No, more than that. His love for me is more than justa sickness although it has that in it, said Jatupon to the mosquito. He couldn't tell where he was. Faces of his parents, Kumpee, theaunt and uncle, the monks at the temple school, and that boy he hadbeen friends with for so many years (the one who had been with himbegging in front of the Dunkin Doughnuts shop and, a couple years ago, had allowed his feet to slip from an open window that time they hadmade their petty attempt into major thievery on that runaway trip intoBangkok) all were without faces but wandering around like ghosts in histhoughts. He could see the forms of these people in his head but only afew of them had the slightest trace of a face. He had somehow defacedthem. Time had defaced them. Memory was fading. As the hours passeduncomfortably he became more aware of himself. He forced himself to bemore rational. He was hungry and tired. He wanted to go home. Hetold himself that he'd kill his brother the next time he did somethinglike that. And yet, when he was about ready to be put in jail that timein Bangkok it had been Kazem who had stolen money from their parents. It was Kazem who had paid off a police officer. Nawin reflected Porn's feelings. "So, you don't feel purposeful. You are in a relationship with a man who spends his time with hispaints leaving you alone in the cold of Canada without feelingpurposeful. You got so sick of washing dishes that we've now gone topaper plates. " He chuckled. She smiled. " I care about you. I'm gladyou are here with me. Regarding purpose, we'll work on that. I'll seeif I can get you a job on campus. I'll definitely stop things from nowon anytime you want to talk. If you want to go out to a movie, I'll goout with you. " "I want to go to New York City. " "That is something to be considered too, " he said evasively. Hechanged his cynical ideas. It seemed to him that empathy was love. Chapter 10 Jatupon agreed to meet her at Siriaj Hospital. From a bus hetook an express boat. Seated there, he tried to read the StudentWeekly published by the Bangkok Post but attempts at understandingEnglish were to no avail. The sun and wind together shot him withtranquility darts that took him to an ethereal, unearthly peace exemptfrom the conflicts of consciousness but also from assemblingunderstanding from the fragments of the pieces to the day that camethrough his senses in a mosaic. He wanted to understand his place inthe world. He wanted to understand the premise of his life thatconstituted a compromise of the internal conflicts of the mind. But healso wanted peace of mind and he sank in with his ease until he wasasleep. He woke on the hard orange chair inside the boat to a splash ofpolluted water against his face. Once again he was staring at thewaters that gyrated against the boat. He watched the frothy mist fromthe motion of the boat arise to the window-sized glassless hole thatwas beside him. Again he was in the world of conflict and for a momenthe resented being there as if breathing and thinking deigned him. Hisconflict was what he was doing now. He was continuing his part as theabsent employee and he worried about the consequences. He thought ofgoing back. All he had to do was step out onto any dock and wait for aboat going in the opposite direction; but his legs were like stone. Hewould not budge. The boat was moving forward and so would he. Heremoved his sunglasses, put his hand into the water, scooped in aresidue of the moisture that did not fall from his fingertips, andcooled the hot throbbing of the swollen blackish blue skin beneath hisleft eye. He was proud of his courage. Four nights ago Kazem hadfinally given into his demands for his mail but it had been acalculative maneuver to mitigate their protracted altercation that hadgotten out of control over his noodle soup/fried rice-truancy. His thoughts carried him piggyback at a gallop. There were savageimpulses amuck in that instinctual need to dominate in procreation andyet how was it he had let himself become the one who was ridden oninstead of the one riding? It was a mystery as to why he should becontent to a role so clearly defying the male instinct to be the sexualaggressor. Maybe, he half-wondered or felt in some murky and illusiveway that failed to come together as a cohesive thought, it was from nottaking on that masculine pose of one ready to preempt his own selfishand sadistic impulses onto others for his own self-gratification. He wasn't addicted to drugs any more than he was to love, he toldhimself. One needed a bit of both. He wasn't weak. Except once ofclearly finding himself addicted and being forced to go throughdetoxification with some charitable monks (that had been the cocaineperiod the result of frequent raids of the cash box and an episode ofthievery in Bangkok), he believed that his mentality was a strong one. Of course, until the move to Bangkok, the family had ensured that forthe past two years he was rarely allowed out of their sight and nevercame near the cash box. This had assisted his lack of addiction. Evennow his interaction with customers was overseen suspiciously. Andlaboriously friendless as his life droned on (with this new exceptionif indeed she cared to really be his friend and he was anxious that sheshould be such) he perceived himself as a freakish aberration to somany boys his age that had normal if not exceptional lives. Theywalked together in throngs-schoolboys in their light blue knit shirtsand dark blue shorts walking the streets, entering 7-11s, clustering infor "All You Can Eat" Pizza Hut specials, or walking hand in hand withgirls to the malls. He half hated them. He hated their laughter, which seemed to deride him. Sometimes he wanted to hit against thewall that entrapped him. It was like he was a Mexican and America haddeliberately concocted a wall to keep him out. If only it were aneggshell, he thought to himself, he would be able to peck his way out. And here he was at the Siriaj pier. There was a Dairy Queen, and a Black Canyon Restaurant near the pier and a long winding outdoormarket. He wondered why she had chosen Siriaj Hospital for theirmeeting place and why, given the location, she had not chosen for themto meet in one of those restaurants. Instead, he was supposed to meether in front of a museum. He meandered in different pathways throughoutmany buildings until he noticed her sitting on a stoop under a signthat said "Museum" in English. Her hair was shorter than the last timehe saw her and her cheeks seemed chubbier. She was dressed in herschool uniform. "Sunthon Phu, there you are, " Noppawan said. Sunthon Phu was animportant poet long ago who had risen from humble parents to become aprivate secretary for King Rama II because of his literary abilities. "Here I am, " he said. He smiled glowingly. There was nothingabout it that was affected. He came nearer to her. "I was worried that you wouldn't get my last letter. " "I got it yesterday in my new mailbox at the post office" he saidwith pride. "Good. That brother of yours was really keeping my letters, washe? What a scoundrel . " "I'll always get them from now on. Do you want to go into thecoffee shop? I can buy our coffee. " "What happened to you?" She was staring at his left eye. "Oh. " He realized that he had forgotten to put the sunglasses onhis face. "I got into an argument with him. " "Over stealing the letters?" "Yes. " " Is he the brawny one you told me about before-the oldest one?" "Yes. " "Well, then he should be put in jail for thievery, assault andbattery, and being a brawny moron. " "I have money. Do you want to eat at Black Canyon? You might notwant coffee. I never drink it. Just water and cola. " "If we were to eat at Black Canyon or someplace less dingy--really elegant-- I'd make sure my father paid for it. We wouldn't needmoney. The whole day could be put on a credit card. " "No, as the man, I insist on paying. " "Maybe later, " she first spoke in irritation. She wasn'tinterested in his chivalry. " I want to go in here now. Have you everbeen in here?" "No, what is it?" "Do you like museums?" "I love learning. That's all I love. " "Not just Laotian poetry?" "Everything. " "Now you know why you are my friend. When I saw you reading on abench-and reading an English translation of a book-- I knew that wewould get along well. This is a special place. When I run away, Ioften come here. I spend hours not just learning about natural sciencebut becoming friends with it if that makes sense. " She took his handand led him in. "Don't be alarmed, " she said, "Things that arebeautiful are often ugly, and what is ugly is often beautiful. I likecoming to someplace where everything is true. I hate lies, don't you?Even ugly truths are better than that?" He thought about what the mosquito had said. "I've been told thattruth is sometimes a little ugly. " "I think it's always ugly and beautiful-not just a little bit. "They climbed up three flights of stairs. The air in the buildingsmelled like a biology laboratory during the dissection of frogs. Theyentered: internal organs in glass boxes of formalin; brains; an earwith a joining canal; and then there was an entire baby standing therealso in formalin and also inside its large glass aquarium. The childwas hauntingly ceramic in a grayish orange or ochre complexion and hisbody was so tightly rigid. It had calcificans congenita and, she said, it must have been born as a non-movable rock. Then there was a childthat had a gigantic, alien head. It had suffered from internalhydrocephalus . It was all there: babies born with amencephaly (somewith partial heads and all with no brains); fetuses; four month oldfetuses with placentas and umbilical cords (one with hands together asif it were praying or gesturing the "wei"); fetuses that were zygotictwin quadruplets; babies born as Siamese and conjoined twins such aspycopasus twins that were attached from their buttocks and Siameseepionathus parasiticus that each had a brother's foot inimitably in amouth; full term fetuses with their chests dissected so that theirinternal organs were exhibited from the slit; gigantic skeletons; dwarfskeletons; twisted adult skeletons; regular skeletons upright in glasscupboards or in standing coffins each with his photograph above hisskeleton--a photograph of what was; fetuses of all sizes and ages; anda naked man and woman in whole with the front skin, muscle and skeletonremoved to give full view of their internal organs as one saw theirprivate exterior organs. There they were more than naked and fullyintact as if basking in a tanning booth in order to get a suntan-onlythey were ochre and stiff as ceramic vases and floating in formalin orformaldeyhyde. He told himself that that from which one should hide he shouldappreciate since it delivered him from the way he wanted the world tobe to what it really was. He repeated this to himself many times toquell the weltering tremble of nausea and to hide his horrified childin the presence of Noppawan. He told himself that seeing this almostdelivered him to a new level of maturity. If one could confront thiswithout losing his nerve, he reasoned, he could break from the ghostsof mother and father, the innate need for family, and the wish to be aless damaged "good for nothing. " He could sense the nuance of manhoodbegin to brew up through him like a hot spring. Passing through anotheraisle of stocked fetuses, he wondered about his conception. Had itbeen from loving caresses or a desperate release of stress andfrustration on one who had capitulated? Yes, the exhibition wasbeginning to deliver him into a new awareness and the two of them couldsense that it affected the other in the same way and also thrust thatindividual into a soft sensitive regret for those who were never givena chance to sense themselves against the tactile sensations of the sun, the warmth, the feel of grass under bare feet, the wind, the caresses, the rain, and the respite from inordinate heat and sun. Feeling virileand assured of this new manhood within him, he grabbed her hand swayingit in the pretense of joy as they interweaved slowly around the myriadcabinets. He stared at it all as fully as he could. It was thereshelf after shelf with some of it towering so high that he couldn't seeit very well at all. "I'm so happy that you aren't afraid. When you come enough italmost seems like there is a spirit hovering above it all and that theyappreciate someone being there for them. I know that is silly. I'mnot even religious. Maybe it is just that it is very quiet. I oftenbring my books to the table near the skeletons. I just do some reading. The doctors, the nurses, and the museum curator don't seem to mind. They just say, "Hi, Piggy. " And again, it is a good place to run awayfrom it all. Maybe it is a bit of a strange place to hide out for mostpeople but most people are scared of their own shadows. If nothingelse this museum is a good place to know what death is-or at least comeas close as one can. Most people haven't a clue what really happens toone's body after death. Decaying corpses would of course be betterthan this but they are vile to one's nose with everything going back tothe elements and all. " They descended the stairs. She sensed that hishand was very sweaty. "You are glad that I brought you, aren't you?" "Sure" he said although he wasn't fully. He knew that seeing thishad made a dark impression on him that he would never be able to shirk. He suspected aptly that this friend of his had intentionally stabbedthe little innocence that was in him to match that of her own. Enlightenment had punctured his innocence. Outside, he stuffed hishands in his pockets. He felt a cold numbness in his limbs, a slightcoldness toward her, and ennui from memories of his peculiar historythat would impair his future relationships with girls. They sat on thestoop. "I hope you don't want to run away from me. " "I'm not running. I'm sitting here with you, aren't I?" "Okay, I guess so. " "When you said "at least this was not a lie, " what did you mean? I mean what are the lies?" "In society?" "Yes. " "There are too many to count. " "Mention one. " "All right-religion. My parents are Christians. The servants areChristians. When I was little the servants took me to Sunday school. There, the teachers would always talk about heaven. I couldn't figureout why if one would be with her family in heaven after she dies, asthe church teaches, that wouldn't mean being there with all humanityregardless of religious preference. If one were to be there with herfather and mother, she'd be there with hers, and she with hers, and shewith hers, and that seems to me like everyone. After all everybody issupposed to be related to Adam. That to me would mean that heaven issome type of polluted hellhole a million times worse than Bangkok withovercrowding so that you can't turn around without banging intosomeone. I don't know. It isn't important really. It just shows thatnobody thinks anything out. Maybe Heaven is just a Country Club onlyfor Christian Hara Krishnas who say Christ is salvation in rote but Ican't see how they'd extend much of an invitation to me. I never havebeen much into rote. " Jatupon didn't know who the Hara Krishnas were orwhat a Country Club was but these items didn't detract from hispositive impression of her opposition to sententious punctilio. Hesmiled. This was certainly better than talking to a mosquito. "Tell me another. " "Another? All right. I can keep firing them all day. I can't seehow they can claim that King Phraya Taksin was really insane. I meanthe man created military strategies that were successful at getting theBurmese out of the country, or at least removed to Chaing Mai. Then hedecided to control the church as well as the politics. He becamearrogant and said that he was now equal to Buddha and could dictatedoctrine and political laws. The people said that he was insane andhis military executed him. He didn't just go from being a greatmilitary strategist to insanity and if he was insane, that's a sicknessand they wouldn't have executed sick people-just people they werescared of. " "How do you know that?" "It's easy, Jatupon. Just think it out. Use some intuition andcommon sense. He just was overly ambitious and they hated him andtoday we aren't supposed to think of him at all except as someone whowas insane. We don't even have a road with his name attached to it. Have you ever traveled on Taksin Road? It doesn't exist. Back thenthey put the first general in his place and declared him King Rama I. Kings emerged from the Chakri Dynasty when really it should have beenthe descendents of Taksin. I don't even know why, in such a poorcountry, we throw away tax money on these guys. " "Be quiet. Someone might hear you. We could get arrested. " "Do you really think they'd arrest 14 year olds?" "They'd arrest a 14 year old's parents. " "My father should be arrested. " "Why?" "Do you promise, as my best friend, to not tell anyone. " "Sure. " "He raped me. Don't run away from me Jatupon. Promise youwon't. " "No, of course I won't. " He felt nervous. He didn't know what tosay. "I'd never do anything like that, " he affirmed. "So, you will buy the coffee?" she asked; and on the second floorof Black Canyon the fumes of the molecules of coffee steam and "love"slapped his senses. From the window of the air conditioned restaurantthey watched motor gondolas and express boats stir the waters the wayhousewives in America would watch as their electric blenders stir cakemixes-each wave falling, being sucked into the force that pulled in thenew part of the wave and then being pushed out into the wave again. Itwas all so fast and all so interconnected and systematic that each ofthe waves looked like frozen motion or like society itself. He became mesmerized in the weltering waves. He spoke glibly. "Families are supposed to be shelter. They're really just wallscobbled up from dirt, you know. Mine doesn't even exist but in Kazem'shead. I feel sorry for him in ways. But sometimes I think I shouldjust run away completely and become a monk. " "Why don't you?" "Monks don't have sex. At least they aren't supposed to. As yousaid, lies. " "Do you have sex?" "No, of course I'm a little young for that, " he lied. He lookedaround the restaurant to make sure that others were not listening tothem. "But I don't want to give up that part of me. I don't think thatis right. " "My Auntie --well, really the servant but sort of the same exceptthat she must obey me usually-she says I should never come ten feetnear a monk since they are sexually repressed and might try to reachunder a girl's skirt. " "Maybe but I've never heard anyone talk that way about monks. The newspapers rarely but that is with individual monks accused ofcrimes-- not monks altogether. " "My family is a bit different that way. It's their only goodattribute. " They sipped their coffee and then went to Silom Road on theexpress boat. The annoyance of standing there in a crowd without a seatbecame an ethereal essence of truth and beauty for him. He could notremember being so happy. It stayed with him as they road the bus toLumpin Park. At a lake, in the park, they rented out a fishing boat. Theypaddled it chasing one puff of cloud in the hope of using it as anumbrella. They had cheese sandwiches, cola, sticky rice, and potatochips that they consumed intermittently. "If I stay much longer, " she said an hour later, "they will startlooking for me-or at least the servants will. I usually only run awayon Saturdays and Sundays. I don't like missing too much school. " He knew what he had suspected on their first meeting: that herrebellion was far larger and more personal than anything he hadwitnessed before. She kept mostly to intangible subjects like religionbecause her repugnance toward religion had been easier for her tocommunicate. He felt her rebellion. It stood out like a Long NeckedKaren (the native Burmese people living in Chaing Mai who had thetradition of distorting the growth of their necks). He felt herrebellion and it was a novelty for him. It intrigued him and it feltwholly real. He thought, in Thailand one gave the "wei" to Buddhiststatues, stupas, shrines, temples, and people who were older and ofhigher classes if such individuals exerted a powerful role over him;and yet one did this not understanding why it was done. It occurred tohim that it was all ludicrous in a way and not just limited to Thaicustoms. How could she or anyone communicate the exact items that theywere rebelling against? Rebellion was seen in the eyes but it couldnot be readily explained and in ways it went contrary to nature and thesocial response. Greed and aggression were entrenched in the survivalof a being and lay latent but active within every cell but those cellswere sugar coated with that cloying substance of Thailand, the land ofsmiles. As they paddled back she looked up at the puffy whiff of cloudsabove her and said, "This is real. Relaxing and being part of theclouds and the second, attaching to the mystery of it all . . . Theuniverse and time-that is the only thing that makes sense, don't youthink?" He smiled and nodded his head in pleasure. Yes, this wascertainly better than talking to the mosquito. How strange they were. Their serious probing of life and their awareness of the geyser ofunique thoughts that erupted in them certainly didn't seem Thai. Atypical urban Thai yearned to languish if not extinguish himself orherself in strolls in a shopping mall, a movie, a video game, laughter, cellular telephones, beer, and comic books. Jatupon did pursue thepejorative in comic books as most Thai males from five to fifty and thetwo of them were pursuing their quest of leisure as lazily as the bestof Thais; still to him they seemed so different from all others. She asked about his parents and was saddened to hear of theirtragedy. She probed into it further in interest and then backed awaywhen she saw his pain. Kindness and empathy illuminated hercountenance. She tried to mitigate his pain by becoming absorbed inher own that she pursued philosophically exempt of emotionalism. "Myparents are always moving around in the future. Ambition moves themaround like the places on a board game of chess-or draughts played bymotorcycle taxi drivers when they wait-with the pop bottle caps-haveyou seen them?" He was startled by how her ideas had such confluencewith his own. She was an augmentation of his own thoughts. They left the park reluctantly. She did not want to leave at allwithout assurances and he offered them. He told her that his brotherwas not a violent person. He said that Kazem sometimes belted him whenhe really deserved it but that there were plenty of times he deservedit and yet his brother wouldn't touch him. She seemed to believe hisassurances and went away. As she vanished from his senses his empty hollow mind was filledwith images of half-headed beings, twisted skeletons, rigid corpseslike old ochre vases, the naked man and the woman floating in theirformaldehyde glass coffins with their fronts carved out for the displayof their entrails, the fetuses and their placentas, one child that hadsuch a gigantic head and another one that had been born like a solidnever feeling motion. These images attacked his consciousness. Itseemed to him that the world was a loveless and ceaseless factory thatreplicated over and over again manufacturing slightly damaged andterribly damaged products with impunity. He paid his two baht to thelady in the glassless window and went into the public bathroom. Hewept for those who had deserved better than this. Then his weepingpoured into himself. He knew that after what he saw he should not wantanything more from his life than the noodles that sustained him and yethe did. He knew he should not want a more purified love than whatKazem extended to him and yet he nonetheless did. The hours of that spring day came and went indistinguishably fromother seasons, and all days were clones with stoic dispositions. Hismajesty, King Rama IX, a few hours earlier, had changed the seasonablerobes of the Emerald Buddha like a girl dressing a doll. He thenpresided over the plowing ceremony with its blessings to the ricegoddess; and watched one cow predict the agricultural future of thenation from its bovine appetites--the cow wandering over to preferredtroughs filled with anything from brandy to barley, beans and rice, orjust plain water--instinctively consuming something or anotherinterpreted as conditions prosperous or economically disparaging. Further into the heart of the city, Suthep slept removed from themooing of omniscient cows in Sanam Luang which stood on an island ofdirt where kites had flown surrounded by inundating dark black exhaustfumes and fast, obnoxious wheeled beasts, honking their loud voices asthey passed each other. Tucked in his smaller cell he rode the REM ofbeing. He dreamed he was on a motorcycle leaving his uncomfortablytight partial apartment that was comfortably free of brothers andawkward moments of catching them together. Hired to cater his friedrice with chicken he cooked it, put it on paper plates, and sealed theplates with plastic wrap. Then he put them in baskets on opposite sidesof a bamboo pole. Balancing the pole of baskets on his back, he droveto a government building. Why the banquet only had that one dish of"kow pat" (fried rice) was a point that the dream did not address. Also the street names were not those of the Dusit area but those ofcentral Bangkok. As he came near the building, a limousine hit him andhurried off. Blood poured from the orifice of his face. There wasnothing but gray and a firm belief he would die. The ambulancedrivers, none of whom were paramedics, came to pillage him of hiswallet and watch. He got up, Thai boxed them for his things, andrealized as they ran from him in fright that he was as ethereal as acloud. And then his parents came out of nothingness and he told themthat they needed to go away since he (ghost or man) was now a freeagent and did not need them any longer. As he got back on hismotorcycle someone knocked on the door. He woke up but his brain was retarded in an earlier being. As heheard the knocking he imagined that Jatupon was lying beside him andlistening to his scurrying feet move toward the door. So many yearsthey had slept in the same room. They had slept side by side until afew years ago. Did he love his brother so much that he would wake upwith him skirting around in his dreams? Maybe he did since the habitof being with him was long. The youngest sibling was so much of hispast and he had been accustomed to him without major aversion. Thehabit of being with someone without major repugnance was indeed theonly thing that constituted fraternal love; and yet, little as it mightbe, it was what the particles of black space in the universe werecreated for. Suthep, slapped a cap on his head with the visor inverted to theback of his head and greeted the knocker in his underwear. "A le nuh?, " (what is it?), asked Suthep as he straightened thecap. It was a man in livery asking the surname of this family ofimpoverished brothers. Suthep imagined the stink of his armpits as headdressed the guest and the staleness of air in the room which was indeep need of a deodorizer. He began to feel foolish but he kept hisboyish poise while the man tried to withhold his laughter. He didn'thear the question. The man repeated it and Suthep wanted toprevaricate. Then he reluctantly said that his last name wasBiadklang. It was the senator's page and they were finally invited tomeet the apotheosis that had given them their living. Chapter 11 It was no wonder that one set of freaks felt cognate with anotherset. For him, the sight of the formaline or formaldyhyde-laden corpsesat the Siriaj Hospital Museum as well as the girl who introduced him tothem seemed to have exhilarated a nascent courage, an oozing, a growthhormone of the mind. New neurological connections were burgeoning orthe same ones were reconnecting in different patterns. Anyhow, he feltthe inception of something new that made him feel that he wasn't quitethe same: that he was outgrowing patterns of behavior. He was not ableto distinguish if his freakishness was exceptional, deficient, orexceptionally deficient to the point of being inept. Certainly if hisgray matter made him innately exceptional, his noodles made him lessthan ordinary. His gray matter was becoming grayer with each dusk of adying day. Being with noodles so long no doubt loosened this compacttissue of brain into something quite slimy. The use of his brain in themundane tasks of thinking about the size of meat he wanted to cut withthe butcher knife had perhaps cut his corpus callosum. At least hethought so. But regardless of being superior or inferior in hisfreakishness, this was who he was. There was a history: the history wasof being maimed. There was the character of Jatupon: there were darkprodigious forces inside and outside that frame that were ineluctable. No celestial power would rectify his life by making family better thanwhat it was or himself, the sordid bastard that loomed there, ashallowed and saintly as what he once believed monks to be. Naturebegot freaks of the worst kind and so becoming a freak in the tossingof the passing years was understandable. Jatupon's ego was not turgid. In ways it was self-deprecating. That which hadn't been squashed by his father and eldest brother, poured into countless bowls, or slapped onto myriad plates had suchdeformed and stunted growth. He had trouble making opinions aboutpeople. He did it with shy reluctance and usually the feelings he hadabout them never emerged all that much in a cohesive thought. Heconsidered Noppawan Piggy to be his superior in intellect and yet therewas one thing about her he had to admit that he detested and that wasthe abhorrent smell of baby powder that came from her body. It madeJatupon feel like his nose had gotten trapped in a dust storm in whichnaked and screaming babies flew with the dust in an attack against him. Not all girls and women in Thailand smelled the same but those who hadabhorrent smells, although not abhorrent themselves, couldn't be saidto be totally agreeable. Upon leaving the park his intention was to go to the library andlook up information on the peculiarities he had seen in the museum thathad smiled upon him freak to freak but he found himself distracted by alarge comic book kiosk that whisked him off from this world to that ofanother. One such comic book was set into the future of 3000 AD andnon-existent creatures with little resemblance to anything extantpropelled him into problems of their non-existent agricultural andmining planet-colonies and he lost himself there for an hour. Howsplendid it was to lose oneself wholly and he savored the time thereuntil his left foot fell asleep while he was seated on a plastic stool. Then he stood up. "Your time is up again. " Jatupon faced a scrawny teenager withglasses who was a year or two older than he was. "Are you reading orbuying?" "Reading" he said; but afterwards he stretched his neck only tosee his reflection in the store's anti-theft mirror. The skin aroundhis eye looked darker and it felt even more painful. "You need to pay another fifteen baht to continue reading. " "No, I guess I'll stop reading. I'll go, " he said. Standing there ready to go, his taciturn heart pardoning Kazemwho had been the only one who cared about him, he tried to not thinkabout the hot stinging of the swelling around his eye. Instead, hethought about this uncle whom he had only met on rare occasions longago. It seemed that it only took the frequent utterance of his nameand they had been granted a livelihood--a continuing sustenance as ifby magic. And yet it had not exactly been much of an effusion ofmagic. It had been the most niggardly and scanty display that anyaffluent magic man could bestow and it brought the renewal of theirservitude. Before they were restored to a similar but diminishedlivelihood, they had often spoken of this vaguely real or super-realentity (this uncle by a marriage) as one might think of the early kingRamas of the Chakri Dynasty. Walking away from the kiosk, he wanted to return to earlychildhood: of hopscotch, climbing trees with his brothers, Suthepteaching him how to throw a ball, taking cups of ice to the customersso that they could pour out the water in pitchers that were on theirtables, skin around the eyes that wasn't black and swollen, and thetime when his body wasn't being invaded. He could run away for good;but where would he run? There was nothing in Ayutthaya and if hereally wanted to run away he would be more invisible in Bangkok. Hewould need money. He considered becoming a Luk Thung singer ofTraditional Thai music. They wore their heavy makeup and pointedgolden tiaras for beggarly bits of baht. However, he told himself thathis voice probably wasn't as good as the worst of them and even if itwas he did not want to do tricks for a few baht. It was too demeaningand contrary to the aristocratic life he envisioned. There was a famousSwedish Luk Thung singer named Jonas Anderson who had lived his wholelife in Thailand but only someone with vocal training and boldnesscould persevere to be someone accomplished in this musical genre. Hecould run to Noppawan Piggy's home. He had the address on the mail shesent to him. But there would be no sense in running to someplace thatNoppawan herself was running from and the likelihood of a rich familytaking in a strange teenager, and an ex-burglar and quasi-drug addictat that, was more than a remote possibility. An emaciated dog withclumps of fur falling out had a greater chance of being made into apet. Just as the need for the enzymes of animal protein was one traitof many linking the human to and as an animal, so enmeshed in soul, sentiment, and survival he clung to Kazem for his sense of home andfamily. He knew that he was just a collection of molecules being shot outinto space and time. Others were the same but they flew away from himin their own deviant paths. He knew. He thought he knew. Did heknow? Did he really know anything? Thoughts were so dreary. Theyenervated him. He got on a bus to go home (that stationary foundationfrom which outlook, experience, thought, and restoration of energy formovement were generated). Even on such a simple event as going home hewas lost in the intricate circuits of his brain, lost in the labyrinthwithin himself. But through the window he saw the clear beauty of other beingsthat passed; and even in the ugly faces there was a posture, a smile, even a vehement depth of lonely despair so uniquely beautiful and yetuniversal. The bus passed four stores each of which seemed to alternate a presentation of boys, dogs, and combinations sleepingagainst the facades of buildings. The passing was quick like fingersmoving against a keyboard and the sight was as euphonious as melancholyin sound. Then for a second, in stalled traffic, Jatupon found himselflooking into the deep eyes of a deformed boy beggar. Jatupon was insidethe bus and the boy outside of it, but they both saw an affinity ineach other. They were the same. They were both unfortunate beggarlyoutsiders beaten up by life; and yet he was riding around in anair-conditioned bus. He was not one of the 2 billion people who livedon 2 dollars a day in a rural area on the verge of starvation. Insidethe bus the facial expressions of the money collector were stone asdeath with monotony that was distinct, ebullient, and luminous assunlight against wind-rippled leaves. A woman sleeping in a seat to hisright had a head that fell toward the aisle, straightened, fell again, and straightened like a pendulum. He might have gone back to work to appease Kazem. He might havestarted taking orders from the customers with no explanation and letthe hours make the whole issue of his long absence mute. His brotherwould not have made an embarrassing scene in public. The hours wouldalone have just slowly uncorked it all allowing the rage to disperseslowly and unnoticed. The restoration of old habits would have madethe past issue so irrelevant that a bit of the mind would havequestioned if his absence had even occurred. It had been his intentionto do so when he left the comic book kiosk and it continued to be hisintention when he sat on the seat in the bus. Yet a human beingfulfilled few intentions. Scholars were sociable creatures who neededmeaningless action and cacophony even when it adulterated their aims. Petty government officers on their meager salaries, as well as thewell-paid top tier, didn't need to be cloistered in the politicalissues that mired the day but yearned for sports columns in theirnewspapers and genuflected to the action effusing from their televisionsets. And tired people on Bangkok busses that were plodding their wayslowly through traffic had intentions other than sleep but yearned forrest and an easy way home. He was one of the latter that needed sleep;and yet when he was in the cell, which was his home, his mind wasactive in dread. Its color was gray, its texture coarse, and themolecules that oozed up from it acrid. Within the space of his ownhead he was vanquished in the gloom, the nothingness, the vanishedthoughts of the hollow cavities that were part of one waiting forpunishment. He lay on the floor with an old, previously read comicbook in his hands. His head was so preoccupied with the barrenness ofthought and the feeling of dread that he didn't understand the picturesand the words. He got up. He dipped up a bowl of rice from a ricecooker, drenched it in soy, chili sauce, and a bit of pepper andvinegar. He did his pushups in front of a televised soccer game andwhen the game was over he shut off the set and in an hour sleeppercolated over him. In his dreams he was in a penthouse on thefifteenth floor and below him were beggars like moving dots. Above themoving dots were moving golden skies of sunset. Gigantic clouds movedthrough the air in the shape of viruses. Then there was a punch on his face and it reopened the facialwound causing blood to rush on the floor. In that second his dreamfragmented into many dreams and spun out of control. He was no longerin a penthouse but was a sidewalk-based seamster with his littleantique sewing machine, a pedal, and a hill of torn clothes he wassupposed to sew. He was all alone on a cement cover of a city sewerthat went under the sidewalk. Then he fell into the sewer. Self wasgone. In the last of his dream or dreams, before he completelyawakened, there was no self. There was just the scene of a large parkahead of him, the aesthetic glow of a withdrawing sun, and an old manwho bought some phad-thai and found a pavilion near a lake. He satdown and began to eat his noodles, watching the lights of skyscrapersand the fast moving traffic far beyond the lake. The cacophony of boysplaying football irritated him because he was envious of it. He puthis empty Styrofoam container back in the plastic bag and laid it down. A rat scurried from one flower and fern bed; and dragged the bag intoanother flowerbed. The old man could hear the gnawing of theStyrofoam. Jatupon sensed that the rat might be himself. He felt blood oozing from him and uniting as a puddle under hisface. Kazem, dumbfounded by the vehement rage that disgorged from him, floundered a few steps in the room, sat down, and whined, "It's all onme. If you are on drugs or stealing something, I've got to get you outof it. It's all on me. I have to be responsible for you but you justdo whatever you please. " His voice trailed away and faltered. Hecleared his throat. "You don't ever behave with any responsibilitytoward me. I give you days off here and there. I don't get any. Youwork or don't work or work for one of us and not the other based on howyou feel on a given day. You steal money out of my pockets and I don'tsay anything. Don't blame me. You've brought it on yourself. " Jatuponsat up and glared with one eye. The second eyelid was already droopingfrom swelling. It wouldn't open fully and it squinted from a bit ofblood that sank into it. He intuitively guessed that his brother knewhe was losing control of him. He waited and observed the guilt-riddencountenance and the gauche retreat from the offensive. He judged thatthe assault had been a desperate one. Jatupon smiled malevolently asof a masochist exuding pride that the pain had only brought theopposite wish of the inflictor. Kazem's unpaid noodle worker whowasn't allowed to loosen his fetters and shackles had slipped from themanyway. He had gone out to see Piggy and there was nothing Kazem hadbeen able to do to stop him. Jatupon smiled wider. Then he guffawedscoffingly like a lunatic although the pleasure soon extinguisheditself. "Do you want me to come over there and squeeze the juice out ofyour head?" The muscles in Kazem's arms and legs suddenly stiffenedlike one ready to suddenly stand and attack. "I'm not listening to you, " Jatupon spoke firmly. "You are apathetic bully-a fucking ape--and it is the end of it for me. It isthe end of it!" Manhood's conviction and effrontery reeked from hismouth like foul breath and Kazem, who already wanted to wreak havoc onhis impudence, flipped him over with the elastic of his underwear likea pancake. "Okay, swim in your own blood. Swim! Let's see you drown in it. "Jatupon's hair was twisted in Kazem's fingers and his face was in hisown blood as the thick leather hand swatted him a few lateral slaps. Then Kazem's compunction again caused him to flounder back to his seat. It was the only chair in the room. He put his elbow on his leg andhand on the forehead of his genuflected head. His ideas werediscombobulated. Jatupon was floundering too from more than the nausea of lost blood. He was half a boy and half a man and this newly begotten half called a"man" was having manhood castigated, excoriated, and leaked from him. Callow as he was, he was not just half a man or half a boy the way theNightjar poem concerned itself with a bird-boy. He was a hybrid ofboy/man and God with vast wisdom from fathoms of himself examined fromsuffering. He again stared at the other presence in the room. It was amonster, a being of violence, and an unknown phantom. Still thismonster was the one who had delivered him from the watery abyss, theone who did not chastise his addiction (at least then he didn't) butwas with him through the withdraws, the one who fixed his bicycle, whohad introduced him to basketball and his first beer. Appearing like hisbrother it was the brother mixed with some type of shadowy creature hecould not comprehend and this being, familiar and unfamiliar, heloathed. The elastic of his underwear had been encroached. He hadbeen violated with those fingers. His body had been flipped over like apancake. He had felt his face pushed in a puddle of his blood. Sitting on the floor, piercing him with his eyes, he wanted to purgethis beast from his life. Then a few seconds later his next consciousassembly of understanding only made him want to vanish. He wanted somuch of the impossible that second: for the substance of his own lifeto vaporize swiftly and meaninglessly and opposite of this, to kill themonster and resurrect his dwarfed manhood in his own eyes. Sittingthere he felt as if time had ended and that all entities on the Earthwere waiting and watching the two of them in silent dread but neithergod nor man cared about any aspect of this relationship at all. Thingswent on as cruel as death. In one second a fly flew and landed in abottle of water, a dog barked from outside, a rat scurried around infront of the building for food, a family was feuding in the apartmentabove him, and a car came onto the thin long back-road called a soi. Kazem looked onto this bludgeoned ugly little face reluctantly andJatupon felt like a piggish or bovine woman whose acquaintance said, "We could never be more than friends, you know" and she--Yes, she couldsee. She could see--hadn't she seen it before? Had she reallydismissed those countless earlier smirks of repugnance aimed at her fatenervated face and her clumsy tense body both of which made hernothing. Mother nature made the being breed with the best of bodies tocreate a good physical specimen in the baby. Sex, romance, or just anintimate talk with a man would not be hers since she could not triggerthe pleasure response--not even intellectually. Romantic and sexualinclinations were discriminatory. They were as cruel as death and shewould tell him that sex wasn't intimacy although she wouldn't believeit. She craved such intimacy more than she could ever articulate andshe would not tell him that. She would tell him that being in love wasa delusion that one biologically craved to propagate the species. Shewould say that she did not want to go through the brief illusion ofbeing in love. She did not want to be high in urinary molecules fromhis underwear flying into her face when he had her denuded and lying ona bed littered in clothes. She would tell him that one generation afteranother would dance its sexual dance before passing and that she hadbeen fortunate enough to be born a disagreeably unaesthetic thing witha face like a mushy old apple. Feeling sick and weak, his mind was running away from him. Hishead was thinking himself a different gender. He was believing that hecould hear the content of the feuding family upstairs. The eldest son, having gotten his girlfriend pregnant, had been compelled to bring herinto the home and the fight was about him running away from the familyevery evening after work to drink with his buddies. Then suddenly, without even knowing it, he stood up, grabbed thetelevision that Kazem had given to him as a gift, and he was runningtoward him. There he was aiming the television at his brother's headonly to have it reflexively snatched from him by Kazem's dexterousfingertips. Finally, there he was peering up at it and backing awayinto the corner where he came from, realizing that one impulsematerialized in action had caused a counter action that was about readyto kill him. It had been just one unrestrained impulse that, repulsiveto the consciousness, he hadn't even considered; and it had slippedfrom his brain slimy as a worm. It had materialized in action and nowit had lethal consequences. "Don't play so hard, boys" said Kumpee. In Jatupon's perspectivethe stink of his smoke-ridden clothes and the beer of his breath gavean acrid and fetid cloud which was miraculously saving him. Kazem lowered his arms. "Where the hell have you been?" he asked. He put the television on the floor relieved at having escaped the worstpassion that can fulminate in a man and lose him in the deepest abyssof regret. Sweat poured from Kazem's forehead and his face became adeep red in chagrin. "With my woman. If you were to have a woman you wouldn't have somuch time to play with your Jatu-PORN. " "Where's our money?" "Invested. " "Invested how?" He grabbed the chair and sat down. He wiped thesweat from his forehead. Jatupon was already seated in a corner withhis puddle of blood. "But your worries have ended. The senator's page visited you, didn't he? Maybe he was our uncle's chauffeur. I forget now. Youlook confused. He came to my apartment to tell me the definite datefor the agreed dinner after somehow finding Suthep and informing him. Well, anyhow, it happened because of my own efforts. " "You visited him and got him to agree to see us? You? How couldyou do that looking as you do? I tried many times. I don't believeyou. " "Well, there's nothing I can do about your hateful beliefs, butall the same I'm telling you the truth. " "So, you are the big brother looking after all of us now" saidKazem incredulously. He snickered. "Sure. It's obvious by age and merit. I've never tried to killone of you in the entire duration of my 18 years. Aren't I the luckyomen? I saved you both from killing each other and had some additionalfavorable news to spill out. " "What was your reason for coming here?" "Nothing. Just to make sure you were coming. " "When?" "Next Saturday. " "Time?" "6 p. M. " "You can deal with him. I don't want to stay here tonight. I'mfinished watching over these two. I'm leaving. " "Two? I only see one. The other monkey didn't like you and ranaway. And where, might I ask, are you going?" "A Hotel. A bar. A massage parlor. Anywhere I like although itisn't any of your business. " "It seems rather wasteful to me when I have provided thisapartment for you rent-free but I guess you can go ahead. " Kazem laughed sardonically for a minute. He needed to releasethe shock of discovering the vile hatred that had arisen in himself andJatupon and the serendipitous arrival of Kumpee, who if worthless ateverything else, had delivered them from being sealed into the bodybags of unrestrained emotion. "It hasn't been rent free for a longtime. We get billed from the father of your Chinese bitch and we paythe money like responsible tenants-bank transfers. " "She was a bitch, " said Kumpee pensively. He became preoccupiedwith this self-absorbed thought. "And her father just couldn't warm upto what could have been his son in law. I'm seeing her sister now. "Then he stared at Kazem with a specific intent. "Just remember theappointment and that you need to be punctual. Since you need sometime away I'll look after the little one. " Jatupon mumbled a response. "What did you say?" "Nothing. " "No, come on. What did you say?" "I don't need you. I hate you worse than I hate him, " saidJatupon. Kumpee laughed and then all of them were taciturn for aminute. Kazem folded some clothes and put them in a bag. Kumpee got abottle of coca cola from a carton in the corner and pulled off thebottle top by wedging it like a lever between the drawer of a cabinetand its handle. He drank slowly savoring every sip. "Maybe that attitude toward older brothers is what has caused yourhead to be kicked around like a football, " said Kumpee after Kazemleft the apartment and he heard the door shut. "What do you thinkabout that, you little monkey, " he said as his fingers disheveledJatupon's hair abrasively and then pulled his ear playfully. "Just youand me, Jatuporn. Jatuporn. Why do you think that you are calledJatuporn?" Jatupon slithered into a dry corner and began to shake. Hetried not to cry. "Why did you do that? I'm not going to hurt you, "said Kumpee; but it was really the loss of blood, the trauma, theopaque surrealism of what had occurred that made him tremble. "I seeyour eyes all watered. You want to cry, don't you?" "I want to sleep. I don't understand any of this. I don't. " "You've got to know more than I do about it. " "Well I don't" "Mmmm. Well, he was ready to put you in the television. You didsomething you shouldn't or maybe you just wouldn't let him put himselfinto you. Have you become a frigid bitch? Have you, Jatuporn? Youthought I didn't know about that, didn't you? You thought that thenickname we created for you didn't mean anything but just meanness butwe had a reason for giving it to you. " He chuckled. "I keep an eye onmy boys. That you can be sure of. " Kumpee sat down beside the sprawled body of his brother and drankhis cola in equanimity, from time to time placing the bottle betweenhis legs. "I needed more from my life than this, you know. Do youremember when we were kids and we collected bottles like this. We gota few baht from the stores for every twenty we brought into them. Wethought we would buy a Chinese restaurant for father and mother withair conditioning and an electric juke box. " He laughed. "Maybe youdon't remember. You were four or five. " "I do. " Jatupon really couldn't remember this but yearning forsome unadulterated version of innocent love or compassion not linked tothe selfish inclinations that were part of being human, he halfwaybelieved that he remembered and he put his hand on his brother's arm. Kumpee's posture tightened. The eldest brother felt squeamish from aman's hand on him but, not wanting to reject the youngest outright hedid not move his arm. Also, a sick curious depravity began to floodout of the squalor of the recesses to his mind. He looked at thehalf-empty phallic bottle, picked it up, and said "What about thisbottle? Would you take in anything hard?" But the youngest brother wasasleep and so, a minute later, he removed the hand and abandoned him. Chapter 12 It was their third time playing the board game of Monopoly thatweek and Porn sensed that another ineluctable habit was being imposedonto her more from within than without. She often deliberately tossedthe dice directly into his token when it was near her side of the boardbut mostly her rolling was with a lethargic rattling in her palm andthe apathetic dropping of dice from her numb fingertips. Once shespilled the content of her glass, which then flooded over Marlboroughand Vine Streets as well as Community Chest. She snowed her popcorncrumbs over two colors of property. He silently blamed her clumsinesson the vodka that she had mixed into her cola. From time to time hecould see irascible facial expressions cutting through her guile ofcomplacent concentration and close lipped smiles but he told himself itwas just a bit of competitive strife or tipsiness even though he knewbetter. At the beginning of each game, for the brief period that itlasted, he felt for certain that she enjoyed playing and discussinglife with him. He was right about the former. For her the beginningof the game brought the rush of accumulating play-money, gibbering herattempts at English to play the game, and having one monotony replacethat of another. The game was one way of killing an hour or more of agiven day as sedately as a hot bath. She hated cold weather to suchextremes that, outside of her irregular attendance at the languageschool, the nearby grocery store a block or two away from this distantcampus had become her only cultural attraction. She was waiting forspring but meanwhile her life was becoming as frigid as a housewife. "It certainly is coming down, " he said as he heard hail beatagainst the windows. "You surely aren't thinking about going out inthis. " "I never do, " she said. "I mean you can if you want. " "Yes, master. " "You get to massage my feet for that comment, dearest. Iespecially like it when you go down on each toe the way you do; but, asa gentleman, I don't force that on you. " "No, master. " "Do you like anything about the classes at all?" "The students and the teacher are old, Nawin. There's nothing tosay. " "How old?" "Old. Retirement age. " "Hmm... It is strange that they should be immigrating to Canadaat an old age like that. " She ignored him. "Don't you think so?" "I don't know Nawin. Roll your dice. " She knew that the only force really binding her on that chair atthe kitchen table was herself. She was uncomfortable with histenderness because it shackled her at his side but out of courtesy tohim she tolerated the situation with only a few major grimaces. Thisquality time together had occurred for her sake but she minimized itseffects where she could. She cynically told herself that these gameswere his pathetic way of finding relief from his solitary ways. Shefelt sorry for him and this sympathy ameliorated the loathing she wasbeginning to feel for the introverted bore. Looking back on what sheknew of him, she assessed that this wooer of whores had always stayedin safe circles. In Thai parties that they had attended following hisexhibits he had never been much of a mingler and had relied on her tobe his public relations gadabout. Here in Canada he wasn't acelebrity. For him there were just classes and an occasional sale of apainting. She had no role with him here. She was a bed partner and agrocery shopper. Even when fulfilling the wifely forgery of groceryshopping, she was curtailed by financial considerations. If she didn'tbuy generic food of inferior taste he reprimanded her for overspending. Porn asked if Park Place and Boardwalk were real properties and hetold her that they might be. It was a question that she had also posedtwo days earlier but Nawin responded to it with the same cheerfulnessas if there had been sense in asking it a second time. She asked if hethought they were well known New York City properties and he told herthat was quite possible. She glanced at their quality time togetherthrough the slow perennial movements of the second hand. Thesemovements of the long second hand were so wobbly as if 60 seconds werelike climbing over a mountain range. She would not only glance up atthe kitchen clock but also the window as if expecting the snow to bemelted and birds singing in her window. She had wanted his attentionand now that she had it she realized that this was just aspirin dullingthe headache. There was a bigger problem. Being poor and lackingchoices had caused her rabid craving for more of everything just assomething long ago down deep in him was probably responsible for hisartistic brooding. The past was always sucking one into its whirlpool. He rolled the dice and moved his token. "Oh, Old Kent Road-I wantthat. " "Why do you want worthless properties like that?" "I don't think either of those two properties are worthless. " Hesmiled as radiantly as a child pleased to have one of his best friendsparticipating in one of his favorite games. He closed his lips in atight thoughtful smile. "You know what I've been thinking about?" "No. " She didn't really care. "When you met Piggy for the first time. " She frowned. Was this what they had become: a couple of tycoonwannabes, two individuals acting like a married couple, or worse twopeople acting like an old couple reminiscing about their early days infront of bored games or a deck of cards? They did not have yearstogether-just two or three months of knowing each other--and shethought he had no right to reminisce about anything. As much as shehated the past, the present was equally bad at absorbing one in itsreality. She had now become his wife because she was with him atpresent. His wife had been relegated as one force that had brought themtogether because she was not immediately accessible nor was she sexual. "Oh, " she said disinterestedly. She rolled the dice with more force andmoved her token from the present to the future. "I'll take thatrailroad, " she said. Still she couldn't help being influenced by himand for a couple seconds she was absorbed in that immediate past. Thatday had been good but strange. After Noppawan had taken her shopping atChatuchok Market for clothing, they briefly went into the ButterflyFarm and Insect Museum (a neutral alternative to the deleteriousproposal of Siriaj Hospital's dead people museum that made Porn gasp). The butterflies were fine. She enjoyed seeing their colors flitteringaround the caged park although the encasement of dead insects in theadjacent room was not to her liking. The face bug with its humancamouflage on its back was for her as frightening as it was fascinatingto Noppawan. She watched this wife of Nawin. She was the type thatwould put her nose and glasses up against, in her opinion, thedamnedest of things. When they arrived at the married couple's secondhome on the opposite part of the city he was fixing a meal for thethree of them. He was preparing salad, toasting hamburger buns on abarbeque, and microwaving meatless tofu hamburgers in a culture thatwas all his own. As the two women chatted on the balcony Porn tried toovercome feeling like a face bug caught in a key chain. As they ate, dusk elongated and then intertwined their shadows before nightapproached. Soon the remnant of the day became a violet, a purple, anda black and she felt like a child first introduced to colors throughcrayons. They watched the lit barges on the river and gorgeous glassyskyscrapers with lit angular tiaras. Strangely enough she felt atpeace with them as if they were more than friends but family and thewords of model or prostitute did not exist. Still it was strange anduncomfortable because it was so strange. He dreamed that he was in her mind, that there was adrenalin inthe rebellion, that this adrenalin was the meaning of it all, and thatthe meaning of all luminesced from her. Immediate relatives and somemore distant ones had her life planned for her; and her parents, themain instigators of the status quo in their family, were rocks. Theydidn't change apart from greed that intensified with years and tiers. Stratums of higher and more violent winds raged them in insatiableappetites. Wants fed more wants insatiably. They stayed on the samegrowing pieces of land, had the same opulent homes and efficientfactories (although more and more of them), matched political ideas towhatever brought benefits to their wallets, and with these governmentpositions they implanted such aspirations on the little brother's mindwith the idea that he was clay by which a conqueror with a double edgedsword of business and politics was formed. After going into themonastery to have his foray as a monk and finishing his universityeducation he would be this and once she found a man in college shewould be that. She, the girl, would be less of the plan but still, years into thefuture, they would partition a piece of their land and give it to herhusband. She would be expected to reproduce her higher beings on theirland allowing the elderly parents to be spared loneliness by thesounds of young voices. She would be expected to take care of them astheir servants had taken care of her and to absolutely inebriate themagainst any suffering as if Buddha's attempts at bypassing humansuffering had been an avoidance of it. This would begin in a decade orso (such a quick passing of time). She would be expected to succumb tofemale yearnings-this needing of another to escape the lonely void, this need to reach out for the silk of human flesh, to consume, tocare, to be intermingled entities in love, and reproduce. And yet shehad been nothing but a little doll that they had shown off and shovedinto a storage room especially when she was dirty or naughty. And then her bedroom became a limb of a tree and there she wastransforming into an adult female mosquito and he was becoming a maleone. There they both were in complete maturity. He did his dance andhe rubbed his legs so as to attract her with his sound. She wasceramic in her stiffness. Her skin was ochre like the dead bodies atthe Siriaj Hospital museum sunk into their glass caskets offormaldehyde. Yet her eyes were lively even though they looked at himso askance and distant. She smiled with her closed insect lips. Thesmile was ingenuous and warm but wry. He could tell from theseinfinitesimal muscular contractions and relaxation in her stony insectface that she did not want him to think of their friendship as arelationship and the words passed from brain to brain (hers to his, histo hers, and hers to his like a mutating ping pong ball) something tothe effect that a being was born selfish and two selfish beingstogether were a compounded selfish knot and so something new was inorder. Something new was in fact in order. There, ardent in her eyes, was the relationship of her parents: it was based on hoarding propertyand power. It also was based on begetting emotional servants for theirold age and that in particular was abhorrent to her. But he, the malemosquito that was programmed for copulation and no other task, lovedher. He had to since he needed her for the satisfaction of his hungersand a deliverance from the past. He continued with his male-on-the-make dance. She bit into him. His blood was on her lips. And when he woke up he wasn't himself. His ideas werediscombobulated and he could tell that his consciousness or sanity waslike a loose button on a thin thread dangling from his shirt. He wasill and numb as if all of his senses were bandaged over in gauze. Hewoke up fully, checked his face in the mirror to see that it was stillthe same, and washed it. He tried to desist from many thoughts. Thoughts were pins stabbing him. He turned on the television, muted thesound, and saw images as the hours of the day became vanquished. ThenKazem came back early to bring him some food and in so doing hesuspended their mutual reticence briefly. "I have some food for you, " he said in disgust. "Thanks" Jatupon responded in insolent despondency. The next day it was the same. Kazem came back briefly with somefood and a new pair of sunglasses for Jatupon's face. "I have some food for you, " he said in disgust. "Thanks" Jatupon responded in insolent despondency. "I also have some sunglasses for you" Kazem said in disgust. "Thanks" Jatupon responded with a surly and begrudging tone of anearly mute volume. He controlled his contempt out of an instinct for self-preservation. He wanted to keep himself from being bludgeoned with thesledgehammer of his brother's fist or beaten with the leather skin ofhis slaps. Kazem wanted to ask if Kumpee had said anything more abouttheir dinner engagement with the senator as an effort to establish itsveracity-a senator they called uncle as a disingenuous ploy to bringthem into a greater stratum of wanting and needing, winds of higher andmore pleasurable velocity. The mosquito buzzed around Jatupon's blackened eyes and thenaround the opened bottle of glue. With his wings he made a pejorativeclick the way people use their tongues when they shake their heads. Jatupon was not glad to see him. He did not want the condemnation. Atfirst this glue-begotten ride had been an enjoyable thrill. Thenewness of a newborn was at that time gleaming out of his orbs. He waslike a child in wonder of himself flossing his toes in the grass, having his hair massaged by the winds, and chasing god in the clouds. Now the mosquito was here spoiling the solitary party of one which wassteadily waning. The mosquito greeted him in English. "Hello, little man. " Hethought it was Kumpee at first but, to his knowledge, Kumpee didn'tknow any language apart from the strident sounds of Thai and was morein favor of using the word "monkey" in place of "little man. " Jatuponlooked down at a gigantic insect that was nonetheless smaller thanhimself. He responded in the same international tongue with a hello. "Where did you learn your English?" asked Jatupon; but no sooner had hedone this than he realized how foolish the question was since themosquito was an extension of himself. For some reason he was bothcognizant of the fact that the creature didn't exist and yet believingin him. It was undeniable that if Buddha was right in claiming thatthe self was a delusion there was a chance that instead of the mosquitobeing less real it might be more real than himself. It was true thatthe mosquito wasn't afraid of a man but a man was afraid of a mosquito. Wasn't that, he asked himself, proof that the one who wasn't afraidwas more real? "Where did you learn your English? "asked the mosquito. "Music, TV shows, story books from the library, Newsweek in mymore ambitious times, cartoons mostly. " "Well, then, me too" the mosquito said. It paused and then pulledout a cigarette from its gums and lit it without a match by striking itagainst the metallic hair on one of its legs. "Another day withoutgoing to work?" "Another day. " "Taking it a bit easy?" "Taking it a bit easy. Yes, " answered Jatupon. "I would like to know why you have a black eye and a swollen face. " "You know everything and yet I'm supposed to believe that ithasn't it occurred to you that I'm not wanting to think aboutthis-about this situation I'm in. " "I understand that but am nonetheless curious what you have to sayon the subject. " "Very little, if you don't mind. " "All right. Are you snorting glue because of what has happened toyou?" "Why ask so many questions?" "Because I am cruel. " "Yes, you are, you know. " "You don't like me at all?" "Oh, " Jatupon sighed, "I do like you in ways. " "What a charming endorsement! I elicit the same responseeverywhere I go. Oh well... Truth doesn't have to be a comfortablerealm. It rarely is. " "Yes, " said Jatupon pensively, "I imagine it rarely is. " "The pain is so overwhelming you can't work?" "The boredom is so overwhelming I can't work. It is a rot-a rotunder my hairnet. I can't do it-reflexes every day and not with-" The mosquito waited to hear the word "him. " "Go ahead and sayit" was in the mosquito's thoughts but it was Jatupon who articulatedthis oblique command, "Go ahead and say it!" to twist the direction ofthe conversation . "I don't understand, " said the mosquito. "Aren't you wanting to give me your lecture that I have tosurvive?" "I wasn't going to say anything but you are meant for more thanthis dizzying work and the instinct to survive is thrust on all livingthings in all actions. You can't but help obey it to some degree. " "I can't do it any longer. " "You might have a nervous breakdown if you were to continue. Kazem was your link. It's gone now. " "I'd rather die than go back to it now. Die in the streets if Ihave to. " "I think you are zipping up your pants again and finding them tootight. You are shedding your boyhood. " "Do you really think so?" "Yes, " said the mosquito pensively. "Unfortunately, it was yourbest trait. " The mosquito dissipated with the smoke of Jatupon's cigarette thathe rested and twirled in his fingertips. Smoking was his new habitthat he pursued in the hope of having a more insouciant image, whichwith practice, he could learn to believe in. Boys of himself at earlierages came and pressed their noses near him as he had done long ago tothe glass outside the Dunkin Doughnuts Restaurant in Ayuttayha. Longlost versions of himself at various ages passed up against him andpassed him by. They too dispersed with the gaseous midst of blackcarbon smog released by the traffic. His head was spinning aroundskyscrapers and billboards. They, he, a single homeless woman whorented out babies to increase the chances of getting more substantialalms, two dogs copulating, and all, were dwarfed in advertisements forshark fins for the man with refined taste, Electric piecemealbillboards for Singh Beer and cellular telephone companies with newimages rotating with the pieces, plain billboards of pimpleless whiteskinned Thai models selling or hustling some facial cream, flashing andmutating signs advertising various self-improvements seminars atdifferent universities and at the Convention Center, neon animationsof Barcelona's Bangkok tour for the Invitation Cup Football Match, and advertisements for every international and domestic product imaginablethrust into the hands of consumers in the form of flyers. Indeed, itwas obscene enough to make a man become a monk: orgasmic organisms, sensation of void. Chapter 13 The glue-induced waves of befuddlement came to him curled liketalons and this twisted and grotesque inundation beat his shore pullingand pushing bits of himself fervently in all directions. It was as hisfather had told him often: he did not know if he was coming or going. He was both becoming more conscious of himself and his environment andyet more despondent with strange thoughts fulminating out of his livingcarcass, controlling him. He was moving toward reality and yetdiverging from it. He believed that he was downtown with Noppawan andthat they were wasting some time before the meeting with this formeravuncular image. They were walking through a mall and he was thinkinghow long ago in boyhood he and his brothers had entertained the thoughtof this man really being family to ease the pain of routineconstricting them in noodles. In the hallucination they left the malland went into an adjacent 80-story building and then took a high-speedelevator to the top of that skyscraper. There the couple sat in theopulence of the Baiyoke Sky Lounge revolving around glass windows andordering their cappuccino. Then he wasn't there. He was in his room, his cell, staring outof the window. He was watching a tiger watching the descending sun. Hewas startled. He hadn't known that animals would look out at thebeauty of a descending sun. The tiger noticed him and got up; butdiscerning this human's own benign posture directed toward the samesunset, the tiger returned to where it was at and once again reveredthe sun. Then he was walking the streets and feeling such a crazyloneliness. He began to mutter nonsense and he felt himself numb andslipping on his own frozen thoughts. It was very strange for he wasn'tmoving and yet the streets moved him--strange as the fetid one, Kumpee, having been the angel who had come at the right second delivering himfrom his worst impulses to kill Kazem. If anything had given him foodfor thought that week of idleness and recuperation in his cell, it hadbeen the irony of the fetid one as his guardian angel. If the fetidone had not stepped in nothing would have intervened and he would havemurdered his brother or been murdered by him. If Suthep had come atthat instant, instead of Kumpee, he would have believed in Buddha orGod. As it was, he believed in Glue and its power to imitate thestrange magic of the world that was all around him. His hallucination took him through the drenching storms of heavyrains and again to the heavily billboarded world of downtown opulence:iridescent Isuzu Ascender, its back wheels aired above a city, frontwheels ascending toward the fiery black nothingness of space, ascend, it says, ascend, as if it, a thing, were the portal to creation, thewhy, the reason of it all, ascend; Compaq Computers, don't be leftbehind, don't, easy just a don't; large, sprawling cursory sentences oflumination on these black moliminous rectangles towering above all thetiny traffic, tiny cars and tinier lives, advertising self-help andget-rich seminars; a more conventional but gigantic billboard placednear a skyscraper lit like stage lights on an actress, a gigantic faceof a beautiful Chinese Thai with clean and white Chinese skin thatstayed pimpleless with Johnson and Johnson's Clean and Clear. Therewere electric rotating piecemeal signs advertising cellular phones andinternet providers (instantaneous messages not for his patronage). Advertisements were on the sides of busses and bus stops of happy soapfamilies and big-breasted bra wearers both of which made the salivaincrease in his mouth the way an orange would. Shop signs crouched lowwith sidewalk beggars, international fast food restaurants and flyersthrust into hands: and it all spoke of the city the same as theskyscrapers that alone were the epitome of opulence and disparity. "What do you want from life?" said the whore at her door. "Enroll atSiam University and find new opportunities. Don't let bad grades stopyou, " she continued. "Come in, and I'll give you a massage that willmake your body feel in ways you've never imagined, " said the sharkrestaurant worker who made a commission luring those of supercilioustastes to a cuisine laced in marginal traces of mercury. "Shark Finsthis way, " said the tuc tuc driver eager to compound a taxi fee with anagency's commission for bringing a foreigner to a beloved half-hourlady of the night. "Want a girl?" asked the white robed female Buddhistnuns who had shaved heads and collection canisters in their hands asthey stood on the steps leading to the platform of the sky train likeHara Krishnas. Jatupon heard the door open. "Oh, God, " he heard Kazem's voice. Surprisingly, it wasn't angry. He heard footsteps of restless movement. "Oh, God, " he heard again. Then he heard the footsteps move toward him. The movements were slowand careful. He opened his eyes and saw his brother. Kazem wasscratching his head in confusion. "I'm sorry buddy. I'm so sorry. I know I'm late saying that, butfuck, you were ready to throw a television into my head. I don't knowhow all that happened, but what a mess. Why did you have to getyourself all doped like that at this time-especially this time; and oh, fuck, did you get into my whiskey? You did, you little thief! Right?Right? Was that a nod? Was that a nod? Do you like that? I'll pullyour ears off the way father nearly did. Man, we've got anappointment! Did you take anything besides sniffing this stuff? I meanbesides drinking my liquor and sniffing glue was there a third thing?Think: I've got to know how serious!" This had been one of Jatupon'sonly times of being in the cell and flying within his own head. Nearlyall the other times he had gone out to the streets to gain his high andstayed there until he was able to return home halfway sober and feign asickness successfully. He regretted being witnessed and scrutinized byKazem. The environment was bouncing to the cadence of Kazem's voice andstung Jatupon's hands through the conduit of the rubbery stickiness ofdesiccated glue that still hung in patches from some of his fingertips. He was pulled into the shower with underpants still on. The hair ofhis head was locked in Kazem's fingers. He could smell the sweetness ofhis brother's sweat. He could smell his body odor like any dog gettingits molecular high. Jatupon thought it was very romantic. He smiledwidely at Kazem whose fingers clenched him by the throat pinning himagainst the back wall of the shower as the cold waters ran over him andthrough his underpants. Jatupon fought like a suffocating fish and whenhe was free from the loosened grasp he gasped and then kissed andlicked the body that he was denuding--the same body that had broughthim near death but the same one who had saved him from drowning longago when he was a boy. Then after a good long vomit and a brief nap he exited with hisbrother into the light rain and they were off to see the wizard. Theywent by taxi with the idea of picking up Suthep along the way. Kazemwaited in the taxi while Jatupon knocked on Suthep's door. Jatuponknocked, stood, and waited repeatedly for five or ten minutes withoutsuccess. Then he began to return to the taxi looking down andscrapping his feet against dirt and rocks like a child preferring to beleft alone in his imagination. But when he returned the taxi had turned into a limousine like apumpkin into a carriage. He wondered if he was hallucinating onceagain. Then standing there like a diffident and disconcerted child intotal confusion, he noticed the window descending for him and out pokedthe head of the fetid one but his hair was cut, greased back, andnicely groomed, his face was shaven, and the cologne or aftershavelotion that he was wearing had molecules that poignantly bit intoJatupon's psyche favorably. Here was a dark but handsome man. Henever knew him, before, to be such. "Get in you little Monkey--upfront with the driver. " When Jatupon was seated comfortably in softnessand space he glanced back at his three brothers who reclined in anopulent shadow. "Cheers, Jatuporn, " said Kumpee. Kazem clanged his glass against the glasses held by Kumpee andSuthep. "Cheers to every boy, girl, hollering hound, and wide spreadwhore on the planet, " said Kazem. Suthep and Kumpee laughed. "Yes, I'll have to say my cheers to them too, " said Kumpee. Allthree brothers were drinking wine in the back seat. "Should we give him something?" asked Suthep. "Are you kidding, " said Kazem. "That boy goes places we can onlydream about. No more fuel for that tank. He's been there, done that. He's gone on one round trip today. That's enough. " He drank more ofhis wine. "Sometimes I have to sleep with one eye open to make sure hedoesn't drift further into mischief. " "Did you like how we fucked up your mind?" Kumpee asked Kazem. "It was Suthep's idea of parking on the corner. When you didn't leavethe taxi we still waited a little until you fell into a smokingaddiction. Suthep said, 'Just wait, he'll go into the 7-11' and thatis exactly what happened. While you were in there buying yourcigarettes we paid off the taxi driver and sent him away. Then weparked in his place. " "Well, if that trick was for me, it didn't do anything. I wasn'teven surprised let alone shocked. I definitely didn't think I was outof my mind. " "Well, Jatuporn sure thought he was seeing things, " said Suthep. "He looked like the Emerald Buddha was talking to him, " saidKumpee. The brothers laughed. Suthep farted. "Bangkok bus exhaust. Plug your nose, " commented Kumpee. Theirlaughter intensified. Even Jatupon was laughing with them. "I want to know why Jatuporn is wearing sunglasses, " said Suthepanxious to diffuse their thinking of his odor. Horrific odors wereusually attributed to Kumpee and he cared to keep it that way. "You know already, " said Kazem. "Leave it alone. Why are youwearing that gold chain around your neck?" "A girl gave it to me" said Suthep. "What girl? Some girl behind a cash register. Did you pull out agun and make her believe her brains would be splattered?" "That wouldn't have been me. I am a woman lover. I don't makewar, " said Suthep. "Show me your eyes, Jatuporn. " "Leave him alone, " said Kazem. Kumpee grabbed Jatupon's head, yanked off the glasses, and twistedthe face so that Suthep could see it. "A regular raccoon, that one is. "No, even a raccoon is lighter than that. Maybe it's like watching araccoon after he and a bear have been going at it: the bear with atelevision in his paws and the raccoon cowering near his puddle ofblood. Thai boxing doesn't get as exciting as what I saw. I justregret not having been there for the whole show. " "Stop it!" ordered Kazem. "Does he always give orders like that?" asked Kumpee to Suthep. Then to Kazem he said, "Hey, remember that I am the oldest one here. Could you say that in a more pleasant tone?" "I would like for you to stop picking on him. Look at him upthere. " Jatupon's eyes were withdrawn and his head was slightly tiltedto the dashboard. "Here are your glasses, " said Kumpee as he stood and bent forwardwith effort to give them back. His hand disheveled Jatupon's unkempthair even further. "You need to comb that mop. " Arrows of the past, mostly from his father and Kumpee, shot out ofthe neurological circuitry of his brain paralyzing him in a numbwithdrawal of survival. It was no different than at earlier stages ofhis life when he wondered why things didn't move forward but at thesame time was fearful that they would. He was back in the horror knownas family withdrawing himself from it, living in his protective bubbleof withdrawal. "You are afraid of your own shadow. " "Are you preparingfor a flood? Those pants look stupid on you. " "What are you doingsitting over there? Get out of that seat?" "I'll mop up the floorwith you one of these days. " "Why aren't you working? You areabsolutely good for nothing. " "What do you do in that back room, youpimple faced monkey? Get out of that cage of yours and put down thosebooks. No use you thinking you are any better than the rest of us. ""Get out of my seat you ugly little fart. " He heard it even though noneof these disparaging ideas were articulated in the limousine. Jatuporn, Jatuporn, he thought. They knew and they mocked himwith his ignominy. If he had been a girl and someone had sexuallyabused him he could speak of it and have a good purifying cry cleansinghimself of his stress but his situation was different. It was one hehad invited upon himself. He'd sleep with the others as well if itwould make them kinder to him-so vehement was his need for their love. How horrible it was to meet this rich avuncular stranger, he thoughtto himself. It would be horrible enough meeting a bag lady with a facethat looked like a raccoon and an aching in his raw bottom. He put onhis sunglasses. In an odd way for him it was like traveling on a poor man's cattletrain back to the town from whence an exodus from the rice fields hadoccurred. No poor man would want to return to his farm and admit thathe couldn't obtain employment in Bangkok and no one with any realself-esteem wanted to link again to a wealthy man who, for good reason, had been reluctant to have any association with his ex-nephews-in-law. His father had tried countless times to get money from the senator. His mother had been subtler and more industrious. She got a campaigndrive active in her neighborhood to do her little part in trying to gethim reelected. The senator never forgot such hard working activistsand always remembered her birthday with a gift. She was content withthat but for her husband it intensified his yearning for better things. And so it was with his brothers: they thought about how their dreamscould be effectuated with a bit of the senator's savings. Jatupon didnot adhere to this disingenuous wish for a family reunion and sotrapped in a moving box with brothers who had one converging theme thatwas not his own, he felt like an unemployed laborer returning back onthe poor man's train even though he was riding in a limousine. The recurring idea that the aunt and the uncle had not gone to thefuneral made him even increasingly repellent toward this meeting withthe senator. He halfway wanted to jump out of the door and let aphysics lesson ensue. Would he just drop or would he be thrust outlike a projectile. Would his blood ooze out or would it disgorge likethe insides of a tossed pumpkin? He looked out of the window at thequick passing of buildings and then up to the billowing clouds. Theywere gas with distinct and individual form. They were energy that wasdistended and fomenting. How mysterious it all was. When one wascremated he would be such gas. Man was ephemeral noise but nature wasreticent and swelling. Distending and distending, it extended himbeyond his petty thinking. How good it all was! Well, he thought, there was no resisting the inevitable. Hewould be entering the senator's house mortified from his sunglasses andblack eyes but the issue was petty enough that there would not be anyserious consideration about avoiding this eventuality through jumpingout of a moving car. Kazem had attempted to put a story into his headthat might save them from being scrutinized about this subject. It hadseemed plausible enough: an injury from the recent Songkran festival inBanglampool gained from a water fight where some water in the plasticguns had been adulterated with some caustic chemicals. However, he didnot like casting shadowy illusions into the senator's mighty halls. No, he shouldn't be with this chain gang of prisoners going to thewarden's home, dragging the noodles that bound them, asking for him toremove them. This avuncular stranger hadn't come for their parents'funeral. He hadn't wished them condolences. It would have been such alittle thing to do; and since it wasn't done it was monumentally wrong. Reticent and deep in himself so that his brothers' pejorativecomments did not hurt him tremendously when they pierced, heimplemented the same defense mechanism that had saved him frompsychosis in such a family all of these years. This withdrawal made therational self into a deadened membrane and shield. This shielddeflected their arrows. How profoundly intricate the psyche's defenseswere. What wouldn't the brain do to spare itself wounds! The mind, perhaps, did the same with love. Within life's physical titillationsin this sordid realm through the smell and feel of breath rhythmicallysliding onto his nose from the spewing mouth of his mate --a warmsoothing wind crossing the hill of his nose; the tactile wearing ofanother's skin by touch more luxurious than any silk; merciful orgasmicclemency from logic; the moving of a chest; the heart beat; and yes, the feeling of being in love addictive and sensitive toward anotherhuman presence, one's ideas of life were whitewashed and exhilarated. For him, sex in the shower had annulled his hatred of Kazem. It hadmade the world into less of a hostile place. It had provided thespecious idea that he was not alone. He looked out of the car window. The palm trees seemed like rock solid Cyclopes eating away the remnantsof the sun. He noticed that the car was stopping. The gates opened toan acreage far from balloon peddlers, sandwich salesmen with a boxstrapped onto their chests, holy jasmine makers, goldfish in the bagmountebanks, car window newspaper accosters, and the sidewalk noodleworkers. "Will he be alone?" asked Suthep. "His staff will be there, " said Kumpee. "I mean women. An Old guy with lots of money must have new onesaround each week. I mean they wouldn't like him but they would feelimportant and ornamental to be there at his home. " "I wouldn't know one way or the other. " "What did you do when you were together with him?" asked Suthep. "I wasn't really. It was through a speaker. I finally got him totalk through the speaker after pleading with all his servants that way. I made him feel guilty. I told him he should have gone to thefuneral. I told him he needed to help his relatives or I'd see if anewspaper reporter would talk to me. " "You said that!" yelled Kazem angrily. "Oh, he agreed with me that he was wrong. He said that he wantedto see us. He told me that. Then we got visits from his men and this. " When they arrived into what was to them an opulent mansion (acouple of the dozen rooms that were only marginally spacious by westernstandards) they saw him in the living room in front of a big screenwhere, what to the gods, were tenuous carbon copies of men falling fromthe windows of a skyscraper with their myriad papers. America(specifically New York City) was under siege. The boys gestured the "wei" to him. He saw prayerful hands infront of faces and, except in the youngest who was hidden behind hissunglasses, their beggarly downtrodden expressions depicted theirunworthiness to meet him. That was their ploy. He gestured the "wei" inreturn. He was begrudging of their entrance in his life and resentedhaving to comply with the wishes of the eldest that the meeting takeplace. However, his plan was to neutralize the possibility of negativepublicity. He just wanted to allow these meetings to take place fromtime to time. If the "thugs" thought that he would be giving themanything more than an occasional meal it was their own delusion and inthe meantime he would be keeping any problems from occurring like theunlikely eventuality of an newspaper article scathing him for lack ofinterest in the welfare of his relatives and making an assumption thathe wouldn't be interested in the welfare of others. Something likethat, unlikely as it was, could nonetheless happen if he didn't pacifythose who had the power to possibly create such problems. "Come in andsit down over here, " he said. The tone of voice of this avuncularstranger was grave and his face hardly glanced at them as theirbarefooted feet ascended into his domain. The television tugged intheir diffident movements to plush, white, upholstered chairs and thesechairs kept saying to Jatupon that he and his brothers had no right tosit there. Still and seated, they became like spectators at theColiseum. It was a CNN glimpse into the future: skyscrapers ablazefrom passenger jets deliberately being slammed into them. They werebeing made aware of horrific ways of dying and since it was so horrificthere was no self-centeredness and movement by which to callouslydisregard it. They were empathic and there was no escape. Jatuponwanted to shake the gods from their slumber, to knock the emeraldBuddha from its pedestal, and to hijack fate and turn it around atgunpoint from the cockpit. He wanted all life to cease and start againin parity and respect. He wanted deliverance for Siriaj Hospitalfreaks, the aborted, the stillborn, deformed, diseased, and thedowntrodden, those who die from malnutrition, old men who always thinkthat their lives have been for nothing, the elephants that lose theirmolars and so search for a soft shaded area of grass to lie down incomfortable death, weaker animals not yet dead fallen as prey, soldierswho must lose their lives in war, and child soldiers whose short liveswere as instruments of hate. To him it was no wonder that they(humans) were bad. They were all conceived by greedy sexual devouring, these selfish absorptions and attempts at fitting into silk skinnedrobes and hallucinogenic shadows. The World Trade Center disaster wasproof not only that people were bad but that there was no god overseerabove looking at this clashing of wills. There was just malicious andinane preying on others and this time it might well be that thesehijackers had not even been incensed at opulence and starvation whichstood back to back like America and Afghanistan or a domineering statelike America to a stateless one like Palestine. If this had beenplanned by the rich ex-Saudi, Bin Laden, it was just hate (senseless, irrational hate that existed for no particular reason at all), thedesire for power, the idea of heroism and a sure ticket to heaven, andthe dramatic thrill of destruction that would go down as historical. It was strange that people should perish so terribly and thatthose perpetrating this action could rationalize America as a monsterworthy of monstrous actions that would humble this one nation underGod, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Foremost it wasstrange to him that such suffering could be ignored, if not partiallyforgotten so quickly when Vanont, the servant, came in for the thirdtime telling them that the dinner was getting cold and he wasn't goingto warm it up for the second time. No longer mesmerized, they cameback to themselves. At the dining room table they began their banalchatter. They asked about the number of his servants, how long he hadlived here, his typical working day, and what he did when he returnedhome. They wanted to ask about their aunt but they had determined asthey rode over here that the subject might alienate their host. Exceptfor Jatupon whose lips slightly frowned, the brothers gained pleasurepointing out various items in the room, asking questions about them, and feeling pleased to be in such opulence. The senator asked aboutKazem and Suthep's restaurant businesses. When Suthep made a moreobvious attack to evoke sympathy for their nominal existence thesenator said, "You are young. It is a first business. " Then to averthearing anything more on that matter, he switched to Kumpee who hadextorted this family reunion. He asked what he did for a living. Kumpee's circumlocutory answer was no different than any hustler'sgrandiloquence about selling one thing or another real or imagined. His quick words were inarticulate and glib. Nobody understood what hesaid for the words were mountainous heaps of illusion. The senator didfind out that Kumpee had fathered a child. He had a baby girl. Kumpeetook out the photograph from his wallet and then he passed it around. The senator affected a smile when he saw the picture but he conjecturedthat "this boy" was living from this arrangement with the girlfriendand the baby he had fathered. Jatupon, surprised like his othersiblings, found pleasure in the thought that he was now an uncle. Fora moment he felt love for this unseen entity and a desire to ensurethat her life turned out better than his but then he realized that hewould never see her, and being the child of a rich Chinese Thai, shewould have a better life than he had. The senator asked Jatupon why he was wearing sunglasses. He gavethe rehearsed answer and then had to remove the sunglasses at thesenator's insistence. "The Songkran festival ended over a month ago, "said the avuncular stranger. "Why do you still have black eyes now?" "Yes, but my face was really hurt badly" Jatupon responded. Thesenator looked at him sternly. He didn't want to waste his nighthearing their lies, and if they were all like Suthep, he didn't want tohear the truths either. Kazem opened his mouth. He was prepared tosay that Jatupon had gotten himself into a fight but when he saw thestern expression of the unbelieving host his words retreated. Jatupon saw himself and his brothers shaded in the dismal gray of thosewho could not be trusted. A man's mind was a tenuous object swayed inthe winds of discourse so when it sensed a disingenuous response in thesurreal uncertainty of understanding a matter fully it cringed. Hefelt like he was casting shadows onto the senator's grand walls likechildren using their hands to project shadows of rabbits and dogs. Butthen his conscience waned. He again remembered that the aunt and unclehadn't attended the funeral of his parents. He remembered his aunt'smagnanimous crusades to become so important in his life, seeing himeducated by paying his tuition and sending him to private tutorials, the Bible school, the varnishing of Christ's picture on wood, the tasteof punch at the Bible School, and how outside the building there was asoccer ball tied to a string and a pole and how the children tried tocompete to get the ball wound up on their side of the poll. She wouldsometimes come to pick him up and take him to an ice cream parlor. Shedidn't have any children of her own. He frowned at the senator'sscolding facial expressions. He met angered glances with those of hisown. The family chatted on. The senator seemed friendlier and Jatuponeven began to look up from his plate. The distrust had diffused to thepoint where it ceased to matter. They chatted and their chatter wasirrelevant. "Why did this happen?" blurted out Jatupon from nowhere. "If itis Islamic terrorists how could they hate that badly? Is it envy of awealthier and more powerful country, or the hatred toward Israeli aidfrom the United States? I don't understand it. We talk and talk andyet people are falling out of windows of 100 story buildings. How canwe eat and carry on with things?" Kumpee and Suthep scoffed at him. "It is barbaric, barbaric no matter what line of reasoning theyuse to justify their actions. Do you know anything about the Islamicworld and why it dislikes the west, Jatupon?" The choice of his wordswere influenced by his Moslem background. " "I don't really, " he said. " If Bin Laden is so rich it isn'tinequality that he hates. Tyrants like building up empires but hedoesn't seem to want one-- just wants to destroy the west. I don'tunderstand it at all. I know that there are 7000 American soldiers inthe holy land of Saudi Arabia to protect that area from Iraq'saggression and-" He swallowed hard. He knew that his brothers wouldhate him. "I know that America continues to supply Israel withmillions of dollars in aid and billions of dollars in weapon sales eventhough Israel still occupies what was once Palestine. " He knew that heneeded to summarize these issues with some scanty understanding toimpress the senator. "America imposes sanctions against Iraq out offear of its military buildup but these sanctions cause thousands ofpeople to die from malnutrition. America financially backed Iraqagainst Iran in that war and the Taliban against the Soviet Union andnow those regimes were the wrong choices. The enemy of my enemy is myfriend was the wrong philosophy. Those were bad foreign affairsblunders. They continually interfere with the policies of Moslemcountries so that the oil that drives their economy doesn't cease. Itis economic considerations that cause them to back the governments ofAlgeria and Egypt that they can influence even though those governmentsare not democracies. They've made Iraq and Iran as strong as America. " The senator knew that this was a good understanding for a14-year-old boy. "How do you know these things, Jatupon?" "He reads a lot of comic books, " said Suthep. They laughed. "I go to the library when I can, " he said modestly. "Sometimes Igo there just to read comic books and once in a while I read Newsweek. " "Do you know English?" "Yes, I do, " he said proudly. The senator found himselfinterested in the boy the way his ex-wife had been. Her reasons, however, had been maternal ones and her disinterest had been from thesame source. A voice of an alter ego that was fettered in a privatechamber in the cellar of her mind shrieked stridently that this was nochild of her own and it had been for this reason that she had droppedhim from her life suddenly. His interest was of a man who seescontinuum of what he is or a rejuvenation of what he was. Bothreactions were selfish ones but this was the planet Earth where mostgood actions were dictated by egocentric realms. Vanont yelled that one of the buildings was imploding and thesenator got up from the table. "Continue eating, " he said as he exitedthe room. Jatupon looked out of the window. Thai thunder crackled theskies like an empty bag of potato chips. Lightning streaked across theThai skies naked and ominous. There he was seated with his brothers inthat home they had always wanted to enter for so many years. And yetinstead of being the happy family members visiting the relatives, theywere nothing but a group of extortionists who had manipulated their waythrough locked gates. This fraternity of boyhood had evolved on highertiers of wants into a Tower of Babel, a tower of thugs. Low levels of hate still exuded from him toward Kazem who had donethis to his face. He was sedentary in his own guilt for his attempt tomurder Kazem, which later led to the best sexual experience he had everhad. Hate and the frenzy of love were rotting the best aspects of himthat was so neatly named a soul. Hate and love had been horriblefulminations of neediness that ignited a person into another being, possessed will, and thrust reality into chaos. Sure this release ofsexual tension, in the acme of ecstasy, led to Nirvana like any wellthrust missile but each intimacy was like a cow that jumped over themoon. He heard his brothers talk but did not listen to anything. Talkwas a kinetic sport. The mouth was a spout. In it emotions were likeboiling water steaming out the teapot. For him, the introvert whocommuned with the original wisdom deep in the stagnant pool of hisbeing, there was only the window and a landscape of waxy greenery inthe rain. He was mesmerized in the mellifluous monotony of rainslapping against the window. Men falling from the windows of the World Trade Center in NewYork: the world was an evil place and he wanted to sink under the veilof Childhood for it was benign. Guileless, ingenuous, innocuous, worriless childhood was where the imagined was tangible and personal. Planes deliberately crashed into skyscrapers incinerating buildings andpeople: this was solid proof that it was a godless universe, but thenhe had always assumed that it was such. Still to take a deep breathwas amazing. To be thinking was amazing. To see from the window such abeautiful verdant acreage and rain pouring onto it making it greeneryet was like fecund life commencing after the destruction of a forestfire. His parents died but in so doing here he was in the senator'sdining room: wasn't this an amazing chain of events even if theirarrival had been obtained badly? The senator called them to come inwith their plates and drinks. For Jatupon it felt like they were afamily huddled together in front of the television--images of tragedyshared together in common. A half hour later the senator found himself irritated by the onelikable thug looking the part. "Can you see anything with thosesunglasses on?" he asked bitterly. "Not much" said Jatupon. "I've seen what you look like. Take them off. " "Take them off you little idiot" said Kumpee. Jatupon obeyed butglanced at Kumpee with a strong glare of hate. "Did you really get that from Songkran?" asked the senator. Jatupon sensed that the senator's tone was jocular. He could tell thatthe avuncular stranger, like them all, just needed a respite from thegrave images they were witnessing. "He's always getting into fights" lied Kumpee stealing the wordsthat still wouldn't come from Kazem's mouth. "Is that so?" asked the senator but it was to no one specific. "All the time" confirmed Suthep. "Is that true?" the senator asked Jatupon. "Who with?" "I can't imagine who. I guess myself, " said Jatupon while hestared into the senator's eyes with a bold earnestness. The senator laughed "I'll interpret that as a need for privacy, "he said. He backed away from the truth. He sensed it already and itwas really none of his business. In a strange way he was evenbeginning to like their presence. It was the closest thing he had tofamily, and so he told himself that maybe he should enjoy it. Jatupon looked out across the senator's spacious living room andthen returned to the center where they were. He noticed a bowl on anend table. The bowl contained wrapped caramel within it. "Help yourself, " said the senator as he passed the bowl first toKumpee who was seated nearest to him. They chewed. The senator continued translating pertinent bitsthat were anchored on the news program. "America under attack" was thelogo at the bottom of the screen. The brothers had no label for thissnack but they knew that it was catered to the higher status of palateand because of this they ate it gluttonously. The taste and the gummytexture were foreign to them. Jatupon thought of his own insatiableneed for sweets any time he saw his aunt. If she continued to buycandy necklaces for him to slobber on she continued to care and it wasfor that reason that he craved for sweets so voraciously. "The wrappers are labeled with the names of American states onthem. " "Yes, I like caramel. I always have since Chusanee and I weremarried. She liked them so much. Anyhow that's over now. By the way, I'm not sure if you know this, Jatupon, but after your mother andfather separated briefly, your mother went away to the states. You wereborn in America. " Jatupon sat there in numb surprise with a caramelsquare smashed into the back of his mouth. He didn't chew or swallowas the senator elaborated on a trip that their aunt had arranged fortheir mother to give her some time to think. "I'm mentioning it to younow because you are American and you should know that fact if ever youhave an opportunity to travel. It is easier with an American passport. " Then his face focused on the images. A second tower imploded. Howmany thousands were dead and dying was anyone's guess. It was ahorrible thing and yet he felt that they all, rightly or wrongly, werelinked together in the belief that gluttony and poverty were the maininstigators. He wondered if his brothers thought that justice wasbeing rendered. Later, when Jatupon was returning from the bathroom, Vanontstopped him and asked him to go into the study. Ten minutes later thesenator came in and sat down at his desk. He handed Jatupon a can ofCoca Cola. The senator had a second one that he also opened and drank. "Why do you think that your brothers have been so persistent aboutseeing me?" asked the senator. "I don't know for sure. That's the truth. I don't think there isanything too planned in it. They're selfish. I know that. It waswrong how Kumpee arranged the meeting. Even Kazem thinks that; but itisn't so calculating for a bunch of boys with no real family--not evenwith each other--to want to know their uncle. I know that you aren'tmarried now and it isn't as if you are an uncle like blood or have tohave anything to do with us. Anyhow I think more than anything theyjust wanted to meet someone respectable when their lives aren't of anyconsequence. At least that is how I feel about it. Maybe they thinkthat they can get something out of it but I don't think they've reallyisolated what they want. Maybe it isn't much more than just wanting tofeel a bit linked to you. I guess I want that in ways, but in ways Idon't. I mean you've been really nice but I don't understand why youdidn't go to my parents' funeral. There was nobody really but us. Nobody came at all really. " "Maybe I should help you, " said the senator. " The words ran out ofhis mouth like a loose dog. He was surprised to see them running away. Jatupon could see that he regretted the words. "I need out. I don't mean to come here with you. I want, on myown, to break from them. I can't go back there again. " "Which one beat up on you like that?" Jatupon didn't say anythingbut looked down at his legs. The senator asked, "Does it happen veryoften?" "Well, I'm not a kid. " "You're 14, aren't you?" "Yes. " "Well, that isn't manhood yet. It is an awkward age. " "I won't return. I hate him for doing that to me. He just leftme in the puddle of my blood. I hated him so badly I wanted to killhim afterwards. " "Which one?" "All of them hate me. Suthep and Kumpee resented what AuntChusanee tried to do for me but I don't hate them. " "She always said that you were clever. " "I wish I could go away and be somebody different than what I am, and yet I wish that I could be important to them and that the four ofus could be a close family. You too, if you want. " "Jatupon, families aren't forever. Boys grow up and they gaintheir own lives. They have children. Those children grow up. I don'tknow what you might or might not have done to get into a fight withthem or one of them but it didn't deserve a fist in your face. Youlook awful. Give me a week. I want you to contact me in a week. I'vegot some work I need to do and Vanont will show you and your brothersout. He'll point you in the direction of the bus stop. It isn't allthat late. All the busses should still be running. Tell your brothersthat we'll try to get together again in a couple months or so. " From the window of the classroom, Noppawan saw the wind kick aboutthe branches of the trees in an anomaly not characteristic of Bangkokweather. She hated feeling hostage to proctor the eye movements ofthese students, to walk every several minutes through the aisles of thedesks, and to scrutinize wanton little individuals prepossessed ofschemes for cheating that could improve their chances of getting goodgrades and hasten the end of the tests. Their main wishes were for theresurrection of their still cadavers to the kinetic movement of goingwith their friends to the next Hollywood movie, the next shrill oflaughter, gossip, and karaoke booths in the corridors of malls. Sheliked the wind's attitude of just knocking around the day, kicking offthe old leaves, and dancing about. She wondered why she admiredkinetic movement in nature and not in the uniformed idiocy of thestudents before her. It was, she answered to herself, because each ofthese uniformed specimens probably did the same exact actions of theirfathers and mothers before them. Certainly year after year new groupsof freshmen were identical to each other. They engaged in senselessprogrammed activities like ants: the mating frivolity before workingand hoarding. As rich as they were (these future owners of theirparents' factories) they were walking down the same hill toward theirdeaths no different than the worker ants. None of them contributed tothe permanency of thought and understanding. They just followed andfollowed. Nature experimented, she caused uniqueness in form if notattitude, she continentally drifted lands for the hell of it, sheerupted volcanoes and earthquakes in the damnedest of places and lether creatures adapt or perish. Nature was an alchemist and a lover ofthe extraordinary. Noppawan wanted to open a window. After all, thestudents were cold in the air conditioning and she wanted to feel thebreeze, but some fool or another who supervised proctors would complainthat something in the room wasn't orthodox. She didn't want to get aletter in her mailbox complaining that she hadn't sealed up theenvelopes of the tests with enough tape or another odd irrelevant ideabecause she hadn't been as orthodox as she should have been. It was the administration that consisted of desperate fools duringtimes that were irregular. She had been forced to teach ananthropology class this semester. How that was related to zoology shecouldn't say unless the administration was privy to the philosophy ofmice and men. All she knew was that the anthropology teacher ran awayand they were in desperate need of someone to fill the gap as well asperform her regular duties. A numb throbbing of life's drearinessovertook her as she walked around these handsome faces and thought toherself how she really wanted to open the window. Her husband had not throbbed his body in her inordinately so shedid not understand why she was jealous of his activities, and yet shewas. It was this beyond all other things that was a gloom over hersedentary thoughts that were constricted to monitor the eye movementsand actions of the students and to be the perfect guard of theseprisoners that had been assigned to her. She looked at the girl testtakers. Unlike Porn, whose focus was business, they were disrespectfulwhores whose interest was only in sucking up the pheromone fumes, having babies, and raising them to fulfill their need for stability andpermanence. To have a role in the world (that of being a mother) wouldoverride the love needs of the contributor of the sperm, and they wouldcling to motherhood as salamanders in the rain. That "salamander inthe rain" idea had been one of her husband's more clever thoughts thathe attributed to the lack of creativity he saw around him. He wasclever and she had liked him so much for so many years. She hadn't beenin love with him until his departure. If she had been like all otherwomen she would have succumbed to these feelings and thoughts that sheneeded her man terribly. Their overwhelming power tried to destroy herresolve and only the idea that these feelings were illusions was sheable to maintain her integrity. The feelings were unadulteratedneediness because of his adultery-the jealous biological programming ofa woman. This feeling of love, this motif of women and pop culture, vexed her. It was annulling her marital contract that had beenengendered out of friendship of two people who were complete untothemselves. Well, he wasn't so complete. He did whine. That was forsure. There was a boy that came out from time to time needing a mommy. It had been nauseating to tolerate to say the least; but she had doneso under the firm belief that most men were worse than he was on thispoint. And for her, there were female vulnerabilities but earlier shehad been prudent enough to get herself sterilized and minimized hersexual activity. Before she came into the classroom she had encountered a coupleof her colleagues laughing shyly. In the couple seconds that she drewnear them before passing they were tacit in the shamefaced ways ofThais. She knew that many of them gossiped about her who was the wifeof a man celebrated for his adulterous debauchery. She could have beentheir holy martyr as the object of sympathy and the icon of women'ssuffering but her frank endorsement of her husband's activities tonewspaper reporters had made her the subject of ridicule. A man wouldbe totally lost if he didn't have his extramarital affairs, she said. He would have no knowing of the nothingness of his misadventures unlesshe were to experience minutes of despair after the orgasm was complete. This is what she told the reporters on a few occasions-each timeexpanding on her ideas and making them more colorful than at previoustimes. She was proud of creating the Noppawan doctrine and she knewthat because of it the university wanted to get rid of her. In waysshe was proud of being sneered at but it was uncomfortably lonely. Sheimagined the thoughts of these two instructors who passed her, "Craggything, no man would mount you. It is no wonder that you're forlorn forthe whores. " No, they'd never even say anything like that even to eachother. They wouldn't even consciously think it. Thais were too politeand too deferential to even the despised for that: instead there wasthat shamefaced laugh and that reciprocal glance. Then, as she waswalking to Building P with the tests that she had picked up from theadministration office, a boy and a girl were in front of her. Thispair, holding hands, were taking up the whole sidewalk and blockingeveryone from passing in their slow movements. The girl had books onher head that she was trying to balance. The boy watched her lovingly. She wanted to smack them-these dummies who were dopamine gluttons. Everywhere she went it was young couples in love. She wanted to getout the biggest can of Raid and perform a major insecticide/genocidethat would give Miloshevik a companion in the Hague; but being a humaneindividual such hideous thoughts could only instigate a wry smile or anoccasional chuckle. When she saw such couples everywhere it made herfeel an antithesis of things: like an uncomfortable young girlexperiencing the wetness of blood being absorbed into her tampons forthe first time and as of a 26 year old tripping around in her days withan old woman inside of her. This subject she was proctoring was business law, a subject sounrelated to her field. She unfastened a sheet of paper that wasposted on the window and looked at this list of student names. Shematched their identification cards to the list of names and got each oftheir signatures. Weird ideas took over her brain as she looked intotheir faces one by one and at their photographs on their studentidentification cards. "Surawit, without glasses you would be as uglyas with them; Wilawan, that bun of a pony tail is one thing that hasjust got to go; Sira, you have nice swarthy skin so fuckable but thatnose is like it came from the days when wild boars used to roam thewhole planet-totally obscene and pugnacious; Kanoknant, really are youthe same girl in this picture I. D? How strange! It looks like yourolder sister and you look like you'd be one of the proud little girlswho possess one of these book bags near the white board with little stuffed animals dangling from them-oh, god, I bet your parents holdtheir heads in chagrin after giving birth to you; Pornpitcha, ya'frizzed orange hair is of a disco queen; Wiliwan playing beauty shopwith your pony tail-better on yourself than on other girls since thatis the usual preoccupation in classes; Pawisar, wouldn't that fat facebe less obtrusive if your hair was put in a pony tail-well, maybenot... Maybe it would be worse but still that hair is dangling into yourface distracting you from taking the test and more importantly lookingdownright uncouth and stringy; Ekkachai, you certainly have a longtie-I wonder how big your penis gets. " Those thoughts droned on and onin the same pattern of crude novelty. Chapter 14 Restless in the dewy grass of the hard ground, he was asleep. His dreams registered what, numb, he hadn't comprehended so well theprevious evening. His brain rehashed those images surreal and slow:Vanont slipping them a thousand baht; the decision on the sidewalk togo to the whores; Kumpee saying that he, Jatupon, was a ladyboy andcouldn't go with them as if he had wanted to go with them (He mighthave wanted to go but not with them and not with that thousand baht);his numb malevolent smile at their laughter; being handed some loosechange to go home with; and then getting on a bus randomly, handing theticket tearer ten baht and pretending to be mute and dumb when askedhis destination since there was none. He hadn't even said goodbye tohis brothers and all of those years together. He just contemptuouslysmiled at their contempt and disappeared. One day he would be inAmerica. In time, he told himself, in time. Being the cockroach hadpassed in time. He had lived in the world as that of an insect allthose years. These family members didn't even have to ferret out hismiserable little existence to stomp on him daily. It hadn't been muchof a sport just to see him scurry around in the same space within hispain and yet it had been their main preoccupation. Bad as it was, ithad passed without the necessity to kill himself. He just said tohimself that it would pass and it had. He was no ladyboy. Maybe hisserious intensity made his limbs rigid and his movements circumspectand gauche. Maybe it was strange that he rarely walked with hisbrothers but instead walked behind them. Undoubtedly he had been thesexual recipient. Still that didn't make him into a ladyboy nor did itmake him gay. He was liberated. He was a changing creation. Pastactions did not have to define him. The word, ladyboy, for once did nothurt him deeply since he was undergoing the metamorphosis of manhood. Manhood was indefinable since it could be anything one slipped off andslipped on at will during times that were critical junctures, as heknew this was. If he were to go back to Kazem or scurry over to thesenator so begrudging innate inclinations to help him, he would be aman but a dependent one with childish yearnings to be shaped by others. He told himself he would smell like the fetid one, he would let thesagging elasticity completely peel off his underwear embarrassingly, and he would eat stray cats in the park but he would not sacrifice hisnewly discovered integrity for the sake of comfort. In the early light of morning he woke up with maximumdetermination despite the lack of solid sleep and seeing that his newhome was on the outskirts of a park. It was a grassy fringe that wentbehind the wall and gate that enclosed the actual park. The sprinklingof rain was falling onto him and he could smell the stink of his dampshirt as if the metamorphosis to manhood had made him into the fetidone. Behind the wall he heard the squeaking chains of empty swingsbeing moved slowly in the wind. Cars that infrequently passed the parkwere unreal and eerie as descending ghosts. No sooner had he awakenedthan a middle-aged woman in a red jacket rode up beside him on herbicycle. "Fortune teller?" she asked. "No, " said Jatupon. "Don't you want your fortune read?" "No, " he said. He knew he didn't have one. "I teach English too. " "No, " said Jatupon. "I don't have anything for you. " "Here. Give this to someone who needs it. " She gave him abusiness card that was nothing but a sliver of paper with a computerprinted, reduced, and photocopied message of Thai on one side andEnglish on the other. In her palm she had a whole stack of these tinysquare bits of paper. As she rode away he read the English. "Nattanatnear Lumpini Park. (13:00-21:00) Office 3761/296 soi Yudee 9 ChanRoad Tambon Bangko, Kate Bangkolaem, BKK 10120 Thailand. Tel. 02-673-1436 Time call 04. 00 AM or after 10. 00 PM Fortune Teller:I give you many gifts I am teacher English teacher/ Thai languageRide big bicycle. " She was one of the lucky ones. Occasionally sheprobably was able to find a foreigner who wanted to learn Thai and eachday she was able to give some fortunes that allowed her to have her ownlittle room and a telephone. Thin as she was, she was able to liveeven if, in part, she had to seek clients in the beggars themselves. Hewaited around for the park to open. Slipping into numbness withnothing industrious to do, his integrity was shaken. He didn't want tobe here. He could still go back to Kazem, he told himself. Kazem had always been "kind" in the respect that he had domineeredover him and protected him from harm except for times when he harmedhim; and this interestingly contradictory reality was what made theirrelationship more sexy and beguiling the way a similar one mightbeguile a battered woman in love to have more sex and children despiteher wish to leave him. Sex (heterosexual or homosexual, conventionalor incestuous) was a passion of frenzy based on pleasure bonding andemotional dependency, an inordinate amount of semen and sperm needingto be ejaculated especially after a few days of sexual abstinence, andforce and self-consumption in a hunger to defy aloneness in rhythmicbanging and basic hedonism. Kazem was strong and being a force thatcould reckon with the world physically, he engendered in others aninstinct rife in interpreting powerful figures such as him as a primebreeding experience. A kind individual could never elicit the sameresponse. For Jatupon a muscular presence that could harm him oozednot only a pheromone but triggered in him a yearning to breed with aprime specimen who asserted his will. If he had been a woman a baby ofthis kind might well be created. It would be a baby who would become aman well equipped to survive and be sexy enough to perpetuate anothergeneration of this kind and deep in the psyche of every human was thatwish to breed with the best physical specimens. This being "in love" was an addictive rush and despite his mentalconvictions, his body craved for the beloved. Still one night hadtotally passed without him and there would be others. The time on theground had been uncomfortable but he knew he could be inured to it. Hecould numb himself to survive and it wouldn't be all that bad. Thiswound Kazem had given him was a blackening of perspective as well asthe eye. It was the only gift he had really given him: the gift ofmaturity. He did not know what he was to do with the day. Was he to spendthe last of his baht on bags of breadcrumbs that, like an old man, hewas to spread out for his friends, the pigeons? He paid a couple bahtat a public bathroom. After relieving himself, he took a partial bathby cleaning part of his upper body in a sink. Then he went into abooth that had a faucet, which leaked water into an Asian style toilet. Through effort he was able to catch some of the water before it wentinto this urinal that was embedded into the floor. He was able to washoff a bit of his lower extremities by these sprinkles. He didn't wantto splash too much water or he might be fined or arrested. Numb and wary how to proceed with the hours of the days, he didnot know what to do with himself or how others in his predicamentwrestled with their time. Was he supposed to meander along withnothing to guide his walking? Was he supposed to follow behind thosewho seemed like herds and those who seemed like flocks? If so, he toldhimself, it should be with those who were homeless. By following themhe could learn how homeless people survived best and fulfill, at leastin a minuscule way, one's innate need for society. He felt loose anddisconcerted. His thoughts insurrected him and it felt as if they weretowing away bits of his brain. The post office would open in a fewhours. He could make the long sojourn to his mailbox and see if he hada letter from Noppawan Piggy but public transportation cost money so hejust needed to comfort himself with the ideas that she had presented tohim. She often said that everyone from ambassadors to beggars sewedsuch petty lives for themselves. At least he thought those were herexact words. She said something to that effect. Each time that hetried to remember exactly what she had written to him, and what she hadspoken from the boat, it became different. It was distorted by theimpermanent neurological circuitry of the brain (so little did onepossess himself). The world was godless, love was a selfish realm, andfrom what he knew of friendship, it was with people who used each otherto grow for a certain time or share similar attitudes in the hope ofnot feeling alone when going through certain stages of life. Hewondered if even his friendship with Noppawan was evanescent as a whiffof clouds. Why should she write to him, he thought to himself. If there hadn't been a bit of a thrill in becoming independentand killing off past associations with family, he told himself, hewould commit suicide. He couldn't really see much point in survivalanyhow with the inevitability of death biting at one's heels. It wasgood to kill off past family associations. His aunt, he thought, hadinvited a boy of his realm into her domain only to find that he had toomany needs and wasn't worth the trouble-the dog that needed to be sentback to the pet store. He resented her and was pleased with hisindependent stance at severing family from his mind. He tried toforget the comfort of sleeping in his cell and never having to worryabout having money for meals and public toilets. He slept intermittently on park benches throughout the day. Toavoid hunger and thirst he took a cup he found in the trash and beggedoutside the park. He watched a blind old woman with a wooden attachécase of lottery tickets, a jasmine rosary salesman with merchandiselooped around his arms like long bracelets who went from car to car, awoman at a table stringing them for her own sales (even the mendicantshad to compete with each other to gain a mere sustenance), sidewalkseamstresses with their antique foot pumped sewing machines, and a manwith a bicycle-pulled ice-cream cart who stood there scooping out a dipfor someone. A sock salesman at his table sat on a stool with hishand poised under his chin when the rest of his life was faltering. They did have such petty lives. They, no different than the rich, consumed food and expended their kinetic energy and liquids in thebedroom in this perennial trap that human instinct and physiognomyconcocted. He put on his sunglasses to blind himself from the motionaround him and time became stagnant as a traffic jam he waswitnessing-the people finally oozing out of trapped busses and aroundhalted vehicles like leaking oil. The hours passed somehow and againthe park closed and he slept on its fringes with many others. The next morning taught him that breakfast could be waived ifbegging from the previous evening had not gotten him the twenty bahtrequired for a meal but he needed to always keep some coins in hispockets so that he could go into a public bathroom. Around 2:00sidewalk restaurant workers tended to need their own respite fromdrudgery and a barter arrangement of a meal for an hour's work couldsustain him and keep him from having to buy food. As non-preferable asit was, the police did not badger one if he washed away his rottinglayers of stinking skin in the polluted canals or the Chao Phraya Riverso long as he entered and exited with his underwear on. The waters didgive him a skin rash, after a few days of bathing in this manner, butthis itch around his thighs was bearable. Lucrative ventures cameevery now and then when men wanted him. He, at such times, wassufficiently numb and insouciant in manhood and he would go there andserve them safely without letting the whining child within him clamorout. He performed, was paid, and left never combining emotions withsuch a physical act. These men would not be his deliverance. He hadto force that idea into his head and fight off his wish for a savior. Within a month and a little bit of persistency against refusals, the metropolitan authorities scheduled him for an interview as a moneytaker on a city bus. He was scheduled with a score of others despitehis age. He might not have gotten any job at all let alone a betterone than what he was applying for had English not rescued him. Theyneeded someone knowledgeable of English in the information booth in anair-conditioned cubicle at a skytrain station. He would not be wearingthe grungy blue suits of the money takers but white ones that lookedlike a captain. The thought of it filled him with pride. They gave him an advance so that he could buy this clothing, rentout a cheap room, and not fast when it came to purchasing his lunches. They didn't give him a day off but outside of making change for thecustomers that needed to be done quickly, the work was easy. It justrequired a familiarity with major landmarks around each of the stopsand that he be able to direct foreigners where they needed to go. National holidays (when he got them) were spent in the vicariousborrowing of a personal life from a movie at a theatre. He didn'treally know his coworkers. Since it was his first job, and a new oneat that, he kept quiet and focused on his work. He looked gauche andfoolish and he worked around them trying not to get into much contact. They gossiped about others whom he didn't know (perhaps himself aswell) and repeatedly asked how he knew English so well. Their tonesalways became more caustic in addressing him; and when it came tojustifying his knowledge of English he would always vary his answersfictitiously so as not to feel that he was buried in a rubble ofmonotony. His introverted awkwardness was at variance with theircomplacent self-assured movements, and he withdrew into a world ofshadows surreal as being sucked up into random scenes of a silentpicture show. He was friendless and alone. Outside of Noppawan, hecouldn't even imagine anyone who really cared about him a little; buthe did not have time to go to his post office box and he feared thatshe was lost to him forever. A solitary person usually needed toinvent a commiserating individual out there even if that person did notreally care; but he did not know anyone with whom to fool himself andhe saw that despite the Noppawan Doctrine against pettiness, he wassecuring a petty life for himself like everyone else and theexhilaration from his independence was waning. As Vanont slipped 40 baht through the hole of the window, Jatuponchanged it, attempting to keep his eyes steady in a marginally sunkenpoise of professionalism without any special recognition of thecustomer wanting the change. The old man smiled at him warmly. "Wherehave you been, my boy?" he asked. Nawin Biadklang: it was a label, just a simple and different groupof words in which an entire metamorphosis took place. He was new andglorious and the lost and forlorn being that was Jatupon had fallenfrom him effortlessly like the stink of scathing skin that he hadshowered away in the morning. Nawin Biadklang stood near theHualampong train station, watching the mosaic of light and shadow athis feet like a child fully in the splendor of the present moment. Hewas drinking milk at a newsstand and thinking about his recent meetingwith Piggy in the Siriaj Hospital Museum. He had asked her to go withhim to Wonder World Amusement Park but she wanted the silence away fromthe meaningless of action. He turned to the headlines of the BangkokPost glancing at the cacophony of human relations. He read that a very passive anti-war demonstration had occurred inPattaya. 10, 000 Thai Moslems had prayed for peace. Well, he thought, it was certainly gentler than placards and banners outside the AmericanEmbassy in Bangkok, equating Bush as Satan; however it was probablyless effective. Was the God who allowed thousands of people to beincinerated in fire and melting steel caring especially about the fateof the Afghans from a meditation and a chant? He thought that it wasno wonder people tried to shut out larger issues than themselves andseek comfort in the personal domain of their petty lives. He turnedaway from the newspaper. Four filthy boys came to him forcefully. Theywanted milk from his grocery bag. They wanted the same as what he wasdrinking while reading the horror of the daily news. He gave part ofwhat he had but he didn't want to give out the rest. He was alreadybecoming coarse in his luck and he knew that he was guilty forproviding them with a nominal gratuity and shooing them away. He wentinside the building, looked for more food and magazines to take withhim on his trip, and then entered the train. When the train began to move he went into a corridor connectingtwo cars and rinsed his face in the sink. He looked into the mirror. Even his reflection seemed different. His eyebrows seemed more bristlyand masculine. He wasn't Jatuporn any longer. A good son must jointhe monastery for a while to fulfill his mother's wish to see her sontake on such holy head-shaven rites. A good son must fund thelivelihood of his middle-aged parents who wanted to be free from thehardship of work. A good son must renovate and extend the house of hiselderly parents. A scenario of filial loyalty to serve the parents' wishes abounded in Thais' simplistic notions of "good" behavior buttragedy had freed him from it. Then abuse disabused him of fraternalloyalties. Now he would be educated and find new compounds in hissunrises and sunsets. A train officer asked him to get his luggage out of the way ofthe aisle. Jatupon put his suitcase onto the ceiling rack and sat downwatching the scenery go by-watching Bangkok zip past him and become thevanishing point from which something different would emerge from hisexperiences at Chaing Mai International School. He pulled the postcardout of his pocket. He read the words again and again, "I got them toallow me to come to Chaing Mai. I'll transfer there. See you in aweek. " He smiled, slapped the postcard against his lower lip, andwatched the departure from Bangkok where the scenery becameincreasingly green. When he came home he opened the door onto plentiful space. Hisbody became stiff and cold. He needed to give directives to his legs inorder to move. The movements of his splayed legs when he walked werelike parting ice cycles even though the furnace was operating and itwas warm inside his apartment. Nearly everything movable by two handswas gone, as well as most that would have required an additional mover. Only the heaviest things remained although clavicles of hangersdangled from the bedroom closet and pots and pans were loyal andsteadfast. The sofa remained. It had been difficult to get in. Itwas no wonder that it hadn't been budged. His socks and underwear hadbeen knocked out of the dresser before it was taken. He sighed. Hiscanvases were gone and from them his new leitmotif that was maturingbeyond Patpong whores in Bangkok to something more thoughtful andoriginal. True, most of those canvases had been of her so she must havethought that she was entitled to them as well. She was the model andmore who was seeking justice, he told himself, and justice was equity. He hadn't paid her so she was seeking compensation. All relationshipswere a contract. All contracts were based upon the two parties gainingsome entitlement from the agreement. Was there nothing better thanthis, he asked himself. There wasn't. He had thought that he washelping her, that he was enlightening her, and that he was involvedwith her. A tear rolled down his cheek. She thought that she wasentitled to the canvasses too, he repeatedly thought. She thought shewas entitled to it all. Then, for a second, his attitude changed aboutthe stolen paintings and he was glad that, at least, she had caredenough to take them. Then he knew that she would shake sentiment fromthem no different than tossing out the contents of his clothing fromthe dresser. She would sell even those portraits of herself wherevershe could. He backed against an empty wall and slid down it squatting like adog ready to defecate. Then he pulled into himself in a fetal position. He was Jatupon in his puddle of blood yearning for the love of theviolator. If love was mixing oneself into someone like vodka and cola, he loved her. If it was a child crying over the loss of his favoritetoy, he was feeling that. Should a Thai newspaper reporter get a lookat him now, he thought, the nonchalant seducer of the souls of Patponggirls would seem to him as a fraud. The reporter would bedisillusioned that this young man championed for his bit of hedonismhad been an illusion. His head throbbed. He needed love from anyone, sex with a stranger, anything that would stop the pain in his head. With difficulty he slowly removed his winter coat and gloves with theawkwardness of a child. Love, glue, or cocaine-it was all the same. It was all moleculesof smell and taste. It was a vertiginous freedom and insobriety ofaction exempt of logic. It was the personal adventure in a world ofimpersonal actions. It was admiring certain characteristics that werelacking in oneself and it sometimes contained some degree of friendshipand caring or wanting to be cared about. Maybe it was a vulnerabilityof a human's weaker domain that wanted to merge with another being toseem to himself as if he were less petty than what he really was or torecord himself permanently in the thoughts of another being. It was all gone including those canvasses on French Quebecmannequins. His evolution as an artist had been stunted. He wanted tocry but beyond that one tear there was nothing. All he could do wasmoan and pick up the telephone. He needed a connection. He neededNoppawan. Her sister answered. "Nawin, " she said nervously, "shemoved. She got a different teaching position. She wanted a change. She doesn't want to see you-I'm not really sure why and I don't thinkshe means it permanently. Well, I do understand why. She's moving on. I don't think that she sees it as much of a marriage. Surely youunderstand that point. I like you but-" He clicked off the telephone. He couldn't help himself. The void was sucking him into its blackhole. He wanted to lie on his bed. He was thankful to still have one. He wanted Kazem to materialize and to copulate with him on that bed. He remembered then, long ago, having his thoughts in a black hole anddoubting if Kazem's love was real, seeing the abstraction of love incolors and design like cubism, and how hungry he was in love with Kazemespecially when doubting that love. Nothing had changed. He lovedPorn and Piggy each in their own way as desperate as a clingingsalamander in the rain. He called Thai information. He asked the operator to search forSuthep, the youngest and the one closest to his sympathies. At least heused to be. Then he had her search for Kazem and even Kumpee. None ofthe three had phone connections in their names. His aunt, if she werestill living, would be married to someone else. How would he be ableto find her again in this vast and mutable cosmos? He wouldn't. Theoperator gave him the number of Amorn Tuwayanonde. Maybe it was thesame one whom he had sometimes begged and played with as a boy-maybethe same one who had grabbed his shoe instead of the ankle causing hisdangling body to fall from the window and into the warehouse triggeringoff the burglar alarm. He dialed the number. A man answered. Nawindid not know what to say so he hung up the telephone. The one hereally wanted to connect with was his uncle and he was dead. And yetthey hadn't really had a relationship. It was strange that the man hadpaid for all of his tuition and stay at the international school, allundergraduate and graduate expenses, and yet had remained a stranger. He had been the man's son, in a way, and outside a couple times ofstaying at his home, during Songkran, he had not known him. When hedied he did not inherit anything. He didn't even want or expectanything. He was grateful for the educational transformation that hadbeen bestowed unto him. What happened to the man's money was anyone'sguess. If only he could commune with him somehow to again thank him itwould solidify a meaningful connection in his barren heart. The cardscongratulating him on his first art exhibition at the art museum atSilpakorn University and later, the temporary exhibit at the NationalGallery showed that he must have cared about him. He must have beenproud of him. "Congratulations on the showing. " That was all they hadsaid. Nawin guessed that the man had read about him in the newspapersand knew of the exhibits that way. It was all strange. On his knees he scurried through his socks while discarding hisunderwear in a pile. Most of those socks that she had littered on thefloor were folded into each other as mates, but not all. He feltinside each sock and when he couldn't find anything he would throw itinto that pile like a dead fish. Within the toes of one pair he pulledout four plastic bags of cocaine. It was his stash for periods of lossand he monitored what he took according to the dictates of his third ofa teaspoon rule for self-rations. The Nawin rule stated that onceevery three months if an emergency arose requiring exhilaration orthrust away from the void, then he might administer the prescription. Such was his doctoral degree of addiction and from this philosophicalislet inundations from void and addiction could not take him away. Hesat on the unmovable sofa and snorted the cocaine from one of itswooden armrests. He could feel it like a Thai massage over his entirebody and the insouciance it brought to his thoughts. He put on his winter coat and gloves and got in a taxi. He toldthe taxi driver to take him to a go-go bar called "Foxy's. " He hadbeen there several times before. He watched women twisting theirbodies around poles as if each movement of being a woman was centeredon waxing the shiny phallus. Tissue paper probably enlarged theirbosoms but he didn't care. He would eat the juicy fruit and itswrappings no different than any nigger his melon. He wanted to relievehimself in one or more of them. Lost, he wanted to be lead by thehallucinations of his mind. When one who was on break said her hellosand sat down on his lap, he put his paws on all parts of her body. Shetold him that he was a "naughty boy" and asked him where he was from. He told her. She said that she liked Asian men since they were sosmall. He told her that he wasn't small. "I've seen them before. They are itsy bitsy small. " She used her fingers as a measurement. Itwasn't what he cared to hear and although he wanted to pierce her withhis lengthy sword, he left in disgust. He walked further down thestreet to a male go-go bar that he had never been in before althoughhis wistful eyes had scanned it numerous times in the past month. When he entered young men from their angles of the platform werepulling on their genitalia within dark frothy briefs of an opaquetranslucency that made the movements of their genitalia obvious. Hewatched and waited not understanding why it was erotic. He watched andwaited for the midnight all-legal fuck show. He was tempted to takethese sly masturbators by force until what little was rational in hisbrain contrived a belief that he was shackled against the wall waitingto be attacked by them. That portion of the brain said to him, "Evenif you were to get out of your shackles and fetters it would be badmanners to attack these men before they come to attack you. " Hewatched their contortionist-twisting and the surreal images on thestage became more like flames and smoke. The why-the reason that themovements were erotic--eluded him. The why-the reason-that flames andsmoke plumes made these adonises erotic in a spinning room of gnarlingmetallic walls was a mystery. He wasn't sure if it was a dismembered part of a woman, atransvestite, or something amorphous and alien, but lips in the skyspoke to him. "Do you want to take one home, honey?" "I want all of them, " he said. She laughed. "Do you have that much money?" she asked. "Maybe for one, " he said. "I need one to fuck me and mygirlfriend throughout the night. " "That will be double the price, but well worth it. We'll see tothat. Satisfaction guaranteed. What's your girlfriend's name, honey?"asked the lips. "Foxy's, " he said. "Foxy's, like the girl go-go bar across the street?" "I don't know her name, " he told the lips. "You don't know your girlfriend's name?" guffawed the lips. "I never checked the birth certificate. " "Never checked the birth certificate! What a crazy mother fuckeryou are!" The lips laughed hysterically. "Do you have paint and canvases?" "Do I have what?" "I need paint. I'll paint the fuck show on the walls. I'm afamous artist in Thailand. Don't you know?" "No, is that so?" "I have to draw when the fuck show begins. " The lips laughed hysterically. She coughed from choking on herown saliva. "Wanting to pay in paint?" she asked. "Wanting to paint a fuck show, " he said. He looked through hermouth. He could see down her throat into her entrails. Her brain waswhere her stomach should have been. "Where to?" asked the taxi driver. The voice again seemed likeone he could vaguely recall. A boy who had been on top in the fuckshow (a boy 18 or 19 who was a snowman with a bit of a Frenchcomplexion) was seated next to him. He remembered paying top Canadiandollars for this boy. "Just keep going. " "You said that 15 minutes ago but I need a destination. " "Foxy's" he said. "We passed that long ago. It was right across the street fromwhere you were at, " said the taxi driver through his gray balding scalp. "Okay, just take us out of the city. Someplace rural. " "Okay, I'm now turning on a highway going north. " "Do you still want me with your girlfriend?" asked the boy. "I was going to pair you up with a girl: voyeurism. I've hadsecond thoughts. " He kissed the boy on his lips. He wanted to drainhim of all liquids including his breath. The boy pulled back his face to come up for breath. "Where arewe going?" "I don't know, really. Maybe we should go to a hotel. I guesswe can't do it in the backseat here, off of a road somewhere. " "Yeah, the back seat of a taxi thing wouldn't be too comfortablefor anyone. " "Yeah, okay. " "There's a sign pointing out a Best Western, " he told Nawin. "Canyou take us to that hotel?" the boy asked the taxi driver. "Excuse me. Is that the decision? Best Western?" asked the taxidriver. "Yes, " said Nawin. Turning to Nawin he interjected, "You aren't a psycho, cannibal, or anything, are you?" "I'm a vegetarian, " said Nawin. He chuckled. "Don't worry. Iwon't cut you up into pieces. I'm harmless, and I hope the same istrue of you. " "Sure, most of the time, " said the boy as he yawned. "Jatupon, don't be shocked! Look at me in the rear view mirror. Face your fears, " said the taxi driver. Jatupon looked up. He wasstartled but he wasn't horrified. He saw that the mosquito was in theold man's form. "I made a merger, " said the mosquito. "I bought out the stock ofhis blood. With controlling stock I am the head of the company. Icontrol all movements. " He laughed. "How do I look?" Nawin did not know what to say. "My God, I haven't seen you in 12years, my boy. You've grown up. You have money and nice clothes. Who'd ever think we'd meet again and in Montreal of all places. " Nawin laughed bitterly "Don't use that word, Jatupon, with me. Okay? I hate that word. You didn't need to emerge. My lessens aboutlife are all my own, now. " "Can you face life without clinging to anything?" "It is the way of the Buddha" "But is it your way?" "Sure, why not? If I choose so I can do anything. If I choose, Ican swat you out of existence. " "The only friend you've ever had?" "Sure, why not? Just like with a gnat. " He slapped him on thehead and the mosquito seemed to shrink. "Please don't. Who will drive you then if you get rid of me? Youkilled my ancestors in your buckets of laundry soap and slapped theminto your palms like a sport. I think that is enough. " "I can get into another cab if I choose. I can stop the coke if Ichoose. I don't need women or anybody least of all you. But you know, you aren't so bad. You certainly aren't scary any longer. Maybe I'lllet you stay. " "Gee, thanks. " The mosquito paused for a moment. "Why do youhave this go-go boy in here? Who is this boy? " he asked. "Someone I'm ready to fuck" "I gathered that; and that the tenor of the conversation hadturned against back seat liaisons. I'm just puzzled by these changeablesexual patterns, Jatupon. Something's not right in your head. " "Listen! Don't use that name with me or I'll take you by thefucking neck and smash your face against the windshield" "Okay, Nawin, calm down. " "For that matter, I could roll down the window and let you fly outand drive myself. I have an international driver's license. Nawin isa big boy, now, Mosquito. " He guffawed at the pest and slapped him onthe head. The mosquito/man hissed and stuck out its fangs. "Youwatch yourself. You are in forces over your head. You're not even incontrol of yourself. Why did you get married? Why did you bring Pornhere? Why am I and this boy with you now? What forces drive you?" "Hunger. " "Porn?" "Hunger. " "Noppawan?" "Union. " "Hunger again. Hunger for stability. " "Okay, hunger again. Women are a turn on" "Are they? And here you are with a boy, Jatupon. " "The name's Nawin, " he shouted. Then he calmed down and laughedat himself. "Yeah, it's Jatupon; and you're right, here I am with aboy. " He laughed again. "Variety is the spice of life. That is anAmerican aphorism, Mosquito; and Nawin here is a full blooded Americanborn in the states. " "I don't see a Best Western. How far out on this road do you wantto go?" Nawin looked at the boy next to him who had fallen asleep. "Helooks like a child-a hurt child trying in sleep to just figure out howto make sense out of his situation, survive and not sell himself outtoo fully. I should be saving kids like this-even in Canada kids canbe trashed. " "Will you save him before or after you fuck him?" "Maybe I ought to just go home. This guy on top or bottom isn'tgoing to stop me from hurting or from being hungry. It just propels mequicker to the next hunger. " He smiled. "I think I can get a grip onme completely. I really do. Having people plug up my pain is the gluethat I disgorge into my nostrils, the caulk and the repainting thathides the broken facade. I don't want to be a wrinkled blackthing like you and still picking up prostitutes. Piggy had the rightidea. I might as well start the habit sooner than later. " "She's left you. She's gone now. " "It's okay. Maybe she needs some time to grow away from being aBiadklang. Maybe she needs to get rid of my name completely. I can bealone. I need a relationship with myself anyhow. Maybe I'll see heragain and maybe not. Anyhow, there's some Aristotle and Plato I wantto read-a textbook on tenebrism I need to get through for my Caravaggioclass. I'll have to begin my doctoral thesis shortly. " "Hollow ideas. " "To the impetuousness of human feelings, hollow; but not to themind. There the theory of forms is sensed as eternal. Take me home. Drop this kid off wherever he wants first. "