Al Culler's strange and savage saunter through the Thai and Cambodian badlands...
The screaming in my head wouldn't go away. A mad mixture of traffic noise, the gearbox's complaining whine and the unruly wail of the two-stroke engine down below my knees. Bangkok traffic at a standstill. Fuming cagers berserk on their horns, puffed up visages about to explode into rage. The vast majority of drivers up to their necks in huge finance payments just to make some necessary face.
The whole Thai edifice about to collapse after a military coup and fast exit by the prime-minister. Surface calmness laced by inner insanity and the sheer fear that things, for once, might actually be revealed for what they were. Would the Thais follow the Khmers into the psycho killing fields? Only real solution, join the masses and live for the passing moment, ignore the pure insanity of the natives when the lights are turned out and no outsiders watching.
Took the Yamaha TZM150 along the pavement. Ped's going crazy as I stared them down. Used the wail of the degutted exhaust to clear a path. The front end flipped up a little as I hammered the throttle, a group of school kids scattered but smiling rather than scowling. Nearly took out the legs of a emaciated beggar who looked frightened out his tiny mind by the sudden, screaming, appearance of a motorcycle into his limited world.
Silom Road for a short stretch, going the wrong way against the traffic. Taxi and bus drivers out for my guts, but I floated like a butterfly, took the bike around their flanks and exited the maelstrom for the home stretch to the Soi 10 HQ.
Somgrai outside, as usual his tuned Honda in pieces on the pavement. A couple of far gone whores loitered nearby, not yet twenty but so out of it they might as well have been pensioners for all the joy they offered - having spent their youth in Chinese brothels where they were serviced by ten or so men every day. Somgrai an enforcer for the boss, the kind of malevolent presence that gave me pangs of remorse and fear even when I was completely innocent of any wrongdoing.
'Bossy, wants to see you, boy.' His leer indicated the time I'd sneaked a look at one of the packages I'd delivered might be about to catch up with me. Being only half Thai, and looking almost totally farang, I was the obvious scapegoat if anything went wrong - one of the major reasons for employing me as it was assumed that I had no face to lose. Having been educated in the UK didn't help, my Thai laughable even by the standards of short-stay tourists.
The boss's deputy a wheelchair bound lunatic, permanently high on drugs and embittered by the time he'd been crippled by a taxi. A pile of hard-core porn mag's kept him amused when business went quiet.
'Where the f..k you been, farang. Could've gone across Thailand the time you take. His Highness wants to see you, like yesterday.'
Another leer. What was it with these people? The rumour, the boss some kind of transvestite, caught in the act, bent over his desk with Somgrai doing the business. But the guy who'd seen it had disappeared the next day, fueling the gossip but never confirming it.
It was hard to believe. The boss looked like a throwback to the apes, built like a sumo wrestler; excessive hair sprouted out of ears, nose and throat... if he didn't shave three times a day he'd turn into a werewolf. He looked as feminine as a Russian shot-putter. A weird mixture of Thai, Malay and Filipino blood, judging by the overwhelming effect of the ugliness the latter in dominance.
'Ah, Marky, how you getting on?'
I tried to look enthusiastic without appearing foolish. The boss had the kind of temper on him that would, in saner circumstances, allow him a job as the head of a deprived state run school somewhere on the marginal borders, where it was hard to tell if the kids were Thai or Cambodian.
'I can't get in contact with that company you mentioned, where you worked before. All sounds like a load of bullshit to me.'
'I want to live a long time.'
'That's no good. Gotta live for the moment. Go for it! No sense holding back. I was in your position once but I was top dog. Fastest guy across town. A cager got in my way he'd end up dropping a load. Know what I mean?'
I'd told a pack of lies to get the job, didn't know whether I was coming or going but it wouldn't do me any good to admit that.
