Bangkok Hard Time (6 page)

Back And Forth To The Kingdom

The first step off the plane and back into the heady atmosphere of Bangkok that evening was even more enticing than I remembered. I caught a cab to the Honey Hotel on Soi 19, quickly threw my bag in the hotel room and hailed a
tuk tuk
to Soi 18. Because of all the new developments over the last twelve years at the head of the little lane, I began to doubt that Lek’s shack would still be standing. Down the ever darkening lane, I strained to see ahead. Then, out of the gloom, it appeared in the
tuk tuk’s
single dim headlight: Bahn Pee Lek, almost unchanged, in all its former glory and looking like a dilapidated ghost out of the past.

Sending the
tuk tuk
away, I knocked at the door to the shack. When it squeaked open, a fiftyish woman (it’s hard to tell the age with Thai ladies) stood there. I
waied,
raising my hands in the traditional Thai greeting that resembles praying. I apologized for the unexpected late evening visit and asked about Lek, adding that I was an old friend. She responded dourly that Lek had died three years earlier from a disease, the Thai word for which I did not understand. From her description of his symptoms, it appeared he suffered liver failure.

She asked my name and I said “Jon Cole”, which enlisted a round of squeaks and jabbering that was too fast to follow. Over her shoulder, she called to someone at the back room of the darkened shanty “Tookata … Django is here.”

The woman who I had not recognized at the door was Lek’s wife. The person she was calling to, Lek’s daughter Tookata, was now about twenty years old. She emerged from the shadows with a toddler on her hip, giggling and excited, but so shy she could not look at me until I looked away.

Lek’s wife led me down the boardwalk over the ditch past the big rainwater-filled clay urn and invited me to sit on the edge of a step leading up to Pee Lek’s room. Remarkably, it was unchanged. As I sat in the doorway she dug out an old tattered photo album which she handed to me.

Flipping through it, there were photos of Lek as a young soldier, Lek standing with his motorbike, Lek drinking with friends at a sidewalk noodle shop, followed by photos of
farang
ISB kids and a few GIs. Some I recognized, some I did not.

Next to my photo was a note/receipt I had written. It said I had given him a tape recorder. He had wanted the note just in case he needed to verify that he had come into possession of this cheap little tape recorder by honest means. He enjoyed listening to his own singing, which he loved to do, and really was not half bad at it. Across the dimly lit room, I could see the recorder in the corner where he kept it. I wondered if it still worked and still had a recording of Lek singing. His widow said that Lek had often spoken of me, particularly whenever one of the few other ISB kids or GIs who over the years past had made their own return to Bahn Pee Lek, like some odd pilgrimage. I, of course, realized that my own visit was a form of pilgrimage.

As she escorted me out, I thanked her for her hospitality. I had left some money on the floor of Lek’s tiny room, sure she would find it and also sure that nobody would be upset if someone accidentally stepped on the image of Ben Franklin.

As I walked out, in walked a man who lived in one of the three rooms of the shack. That’s how I met Joom. He was Lek’s nephew and was about my age. After we spoke about Lek at some length, I asked about buying some reefer. He said he could help me the next day. I gave him some small money, saying I would visit again.

I walked down the
soi
back to Sukumvit Road and the rest of the way back to the Honey Hotel, stopping along the way at a sidewalk noodle shop for a Singha beer and a plate of
khao pad
(Thai fried rice). It felt like I was really at home now – for the first time since I could not recall.

The next morning I rented a motorbike from a shop on Soi 21 and drove around aimlessly till the afternoon, then went over to Soi 18. Joom was there and, true to his word, had a couple of Thai sticks for me. When asked if I could trouble him to fetch more later, he indicated that he was quite happy to help. Then he asked if I wanted some heroin. Not wanting to open that door, but not wanting to weaken my connection with him, I answered something non-committal like “Maybe later.” Admittedly, it was a face-saving response for both of us. I surely should have just said no, but if I had, the following story could not be told. As it happens, I saw Joom frequently over the next month.

During my stay, I had made a melancholy return, for the sake of silly nostalgia, to International School Bangkok on Soi 15 where I had graduated in 1968. There I searched for, found and spoke to my favorite teacher, Mrs Saluga. She was still a beautiful lady who always looked at you with soft, large doe eyes which expressed a sense that she was listening to you while at the same time looking through you. That gaze was as uncanny as it was unnerving.

She liked to quote Socrates as she passed out her tests: “The unexamined life is not worth living” she would say, grinning openly at her own dry humor as she said it.

Riveted in my memory is the time she had delivered this quote while walking around the classroom handing out tests – and I had giggled. As a rule, she moved through the room so smoothly that, if you could not see her feet, she appeared to float. When she heard my giggle, she stopped floating and fixed me with her piercing gaze; so piercing that, for a fleeting instant, I thought she was perhaps looking at something behind me. I even turned around to look, but saw nothing.

By the time I found the nerve to look back at her, she was smiling a sincere though reserved smile and floating again. Now, twelve years later, she looked exactly the same, except that her smile, though just as sincere, was less reserved. I had been fond of her as a teenager. Now as an adult, I was totally enamored with her. I was so bold as to call her by her first name (Carolyn) when we said our goodbyes. As I left the campus, it struck me how young the high school kids looked.

I had told her about my entrepreneurial endeavors in Thailand and she said I should go speak with her husband who was a gemstone trader on Silom Road. Mr Saluga, I discovered, was a most admirable man and very helpful with suggestions on my business model. “Buy the one best and largest stone you can afford. Then you only have to find one customer,” he advised. Of course, he happened to have just such a stone for the offering. I begged off since I had just started to test the market and was not sure what to do.

On the flight over, I had met a fellow American who was on his way to Bangkok to attend the Asian Institute of Geological Science. Following up on his invitation to visit here, I was happily surprised to discover that the AIGS and adjacent gemstone bourse was owned by the Ho family. The two elder Ho sons, Henry and Halpin, were not only the company’s managing executives – they were ISB alumni.

I discussed Mr Saluga’s advice with Henry. He allowed that it was wise advice only if I was in a position to wait until I could find that one customer. “A few good stones is best,” Henry said. “There’s more chance of quicker sales, thus maintaining a cashflow.”

The next few days were spent bartering for stones in his gemstone bourse. I traded for three very substantial rubies and one of the better blue sapphires I saw. I was trying to feel confident about my purchases. I had to be, having just spent almost every dime of my business budget. After another two weeks of Bangkok style R&R, my credit card balances were also climbing as I climbed aboard the flight home to Tulsa. I left pretty much unsure, even perplexed, about the chances of success in the gemstone import – export business.

Forced Into New Beginnings

The taxi from Tulsa airport stopped in front of my now empty house. There was a “For Sale” sign with an “under contract” sticker on it in the front yard. That was OK with me. I had been lousy as a husband anyway. My male Boxer, Butchie, was in the backyard. He, at least, was glad to see me.

The taxi driver took us from my former home to the Chevy dealership where I bought a custom Chevy van; on credit, of course. Then I drove to the post office and checked my business mail box. Inside was the normal stack of bills you might expect to find in a mail box which had been neglected for a month. Among the stack was an envelope with a divorce summons document, a contract for a storage unit with my name on it and a key.

I went over to the storage place, opened the lock, found a few pieces of furniture, my clothes, my guns and my motorcycle. So this was it … OK, no problem, I thought. There had been lower moments in my life. Hell, I was a man who had once stolen a turd.

After I’d gathered up a few clothes and my Colt .45, Butchie and I then checked into a cheap motel. That evening I went to a friend’s restaurant. Bill was a huge former pro football defensive lineman. Now retired from the NFL, he owned the finest seafood restaurant in Tulsa. He was an extremely gentle giant. When he greeted you, your hand disappeared into his garden shovel-sized fist. However, his grip was not very firm, almost as if he was afraid he may hurt you.

Bill got some drinks from the bar and we went to his tiny office off the back of the kitchen. The room could barely contain his considerable bulk, making him look even larger. Sitting in his oversized office chair, he reached next to the desk and opened a floor safe from which he withdrew a bag of white powder cocaine. Bill had a cocaine habit bigger than himself and would die a few years later at the Tulsa County Fair from a coke-induced heart attack.

On this evening, he laid a line of powder for himself and, even knowing that I did not care for cocaine, he offered me some anyway. (I suppose out of some odd druggie etiquette.) In deference to his warm hospitality, I sniffed a little of the offering. Having launched into a conversation about my Thailand trip, I showed him my best ruby, and he said he would take it without even asking a price.

Bill sold cocaine as well as seafood. His high-end clientele included doctors, lawyers, oil businessmen and – no bullshit! – an Indian chief. “Executive dopers” he liked to call them. “Nice guys with more oily money than sense.” He would help me sell my stones.

Then he asked, “Why didn’t you bring back some heroin?”

It turned out that Bill’s cocaine supplier was a big heroin junkie, spurning his own product for the harder stuff. “Bring me some Thai heroin,” Bill suggested. “I can sell that.” At that point, I explained that I surely could and would but that I had to sell my stones first.

“Hell, I’m practically homeless,” I pretended to whine.

“No problem,” he replied. “How much do you need?”

I left the restaurant that evening with a Tulsa Bay Seafood take-out bag full of cash. I had sold all my stones for over twice what I wanted for them. However, I had obligated myself to invest some of my profit in heroin on my next trip. Bill would even keep Butchie for me while I was gone. The call to Thai Airways International reserving a flight ten days hence had already been made before I left Bill’s cramped office – a space much larger than Pee Lek’s room and about the size of a cell at Bangkok’s Klong Prem Central Prison.

“Call me later,” Bill had said as I left. Fortunately, the days would creep slowly by. I had to figure out how I was going to pull this off. The question of the ethics or morality of what I was doing never really crossed my mind. Why it did not still bothers me today.

I rented a larger storage unit to accommodate my van along with my stuff from the smaller unit. A few days later, with excess cash stashed and Butchie left at Bill’s house, I was on the flight to Bangkok. I did not sleep much during the twenty-hour trip. The reality of what I was doing started to gnaw at me. Finally once again, the Bangkok night air was in my lungs. This time, the excitement I usually felt also came with an unexpected shudder.

After checking into the Honey Hotel, I caught a
tuk tuk
to Soi 18. The gate-cum-door of Lek’s place was ajar, so I walked in and there was Joom standing by the huge rainwater jar pouring water over his head from a plastic bowl. Before the impact of
deja vu
dissipated, he looked up and invited me into his small room that had a less than level floor covered with newer looking roll vinyl. There were two small beds in opposite corners covered with mosquito nets and separated by a tiny window. A little fan stirred the humid air in the flickering candlelight. Joom’s wife reclined on one of the beds. Joom asked her to fetch us something to drink and she scurried away.

Arrangements to buy heroin were made and front money exchanged hands. It was much cheaper than I had expected. Only days later, I was in possession of a 350-gram plastic bag of Golden Triangle-produced heroin with a brand name emblazoned on it in red: Double UOGlobe. The logo was two rampant lions clutching a world globe. Back at the hotel, I poked a small hole in the plastic bag to let the air out, took a small taste and slid it under a heavy, flat-bottomed wardrobe in the hotel room

Days later, I went to the Ho gemstone bourse and bought some gemstones, spending much more than I had spent on Double UOGlobe. The following week was spent engaging in R&R style activities.

Soon, departure time was upon me. When I removed the plastic bag from under the wardrobe, it was as flat as a heavy piece of cardboard. I taped over the small hole, placed it on the bed, applied a thin layer of Super Glue around the edges of one side, and then lay down on it, which instantly affixed it to my back between my shoulder blades. I stood up and looked in the mirror, then chuckled morosely at the thought that I was now literally stuck to this proposition. The phrase “monkey on my back” came to mind.

I swallowed a Valium just before getting to the airport. It was starting to kick in as I got to the check-in counter and I was enjoying its calming effects while going through the entire boarding process. Sleeping during most of the flight which terminated in Dallas after short stopovers in Tokyo and Seattle, I tried unsuccessfully not to worry about the upcoming Customs check in Dallas. As the plane set down at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, I downed my last Valium, which was helping stifle my anxiety by the time I collected my luggage and waited my turn for baggage inspection.

Suddenly the realization that the contents of the plastic bag glued to my back had shifted became apparent to me. It felt like a big lump in the middle of my back. Standing as upright as possible, I laid the suitcase on the table in front of the Customs officer. He opened and inspected it, asking if I had been in Thailand on business or pleasure. “A little of both,” was my answer.

He directed me to remove my sport coat. As I complied, I removed a thick padded manila envelope from my breast pocket and handed it to the Customs officer. “I am a gemstone courier and I need to have this parcel placed in bond for A.J. Fritz Customs Brokers,” I announced. He handed me my coat back and closed my suitcase.

“Follow me,” he said.

Throwing the sport coat over my shoulder (thus hiding the lump), I grabbed my bag and happily followed him to a counter where I did the paperwork for bonding to a broker. A few moments later, I was out the door and home free. It had all been so easy. Perhaps too easy.

In a hotel room, I struggled to get most of the bag off my back without losing the contents. The next morning was spent at the Customs brokers’ office getting my gemstone import business accomplished and picking up my stones. By late evening, I was off the flight to Tulsa and picking up my van at the storage place. I dropped off my stones and a portion of the white goods in the unit.

It was late in the evening as I pulled into the long driveway in front of a sprawling rock house with bits of plastic still glued to my raw back. I had to yield to a limo that was just pulling away. Bill’s massive frame was silhouetted in the doorway. He invited me in with a huge grin on his huge face.

“Whose limo was that?” I asked.

In reply, he smiled and dropped the name of a well-known Country&Western singer who was a frequent guest at his house.

“Damn; you mean I missed her again?” I bemoaned.

And even though he said no, the response sounded duplicitous, so I dropped it. I was happy enough to see my boxer Butchie, who was just as happy to see me. The subject turned to the business at hand when I gave Bill the bag I had brought. “Wanna taste it?” I offered.

“Hell no!” He snapped “Are you crazy?”

As Butchie and I left, Bill said to come by the restaurant in a couple of days. There had been no talk of money. I only knew that my obligation had been more than settled. Even if for some reason I never saw another dime from this deal, I was still way ahead due to his extreme overpayment for the gemstones from the first trip.

Two days later, I was well received by Bill at the restaurant and he sat me at the bar. He left and returned momentarily with two large takeout bags of seafood. “Here is your takeaway order, sir,” he said. Taking the hint and the bags, I left.

Back at my cheap motel room, I opened the bags. In one was a large broiled Maine lobster with a baked potato and a double order of steamed asparagus. Bill had remembered that I was fond of that particular side dish. Inside the other sack was a plastic bag containing enough cash to buy a small house in the nicer part of Tulsa. That is, if I had wanted another small house in the nicer part of Tulsa. I was floored. Butchie and I ate butter-dipped lobster while I explained to him how and why we were not staying in any more cheap motels. Butchie did not care for steamed asparagus and I was glad of it.

After another run to the storage unit to drop off cash and pick up my smack, I went to the lawyer’s office to sign divorce decree papers. I signed without reading them and wrote a check for what now seemed like chump change to me. Butchie and I then set off on a road trip.

We headed east to see some old Bahn Pee Lek friends. First, we went to see Dennis K, followed by a visit to others on the East coast. One of them told me of another International School Bangkok acquaintance who was also showing up from time to time with heroin he had brought back from Thailand. I would look for and quite by accident find this fellow alumnus the next time I was in Bangkok.

What with sharing my stash for a month with the others and smoking a little more smack each day, I was soon on the phone with Thai International making reservations for another trip.

This time I was returning not just for greed, but for a burgeoning need. Without realizing it, the drug had snuck up on me. Upon waking one morning, I discovered the first thought of that day was to ingest more heroin. For a few hours that morning, I tried to put the desire for it out of my mind until the physical ramifications of resisting it set in. I realized then that I was an addict.

As I recalled Pee Lek’s admonition of “today OK, tomorrow no OK”, it was becoming clearer what he had tried to impart. After dropping Butchie off at Bill’s house a few days later, I was back in the air on a flight to Thailand.

During the next years, the fear of that certain day to come when I would have to dance to the tune of the withdrawal blues was always lurking in the back of my junkie mind. The trepidation of withdrawal grew stronger until it became the only thing that I truly feared. I would – and could – do anything to postpone the moment of its arrival.

Maybe truly spiritual beings have no thought for the passage of time. Meanwhile, the wise man, the wife and the squirrel are concerned with providing for the unsure future. The average Joe exists from payday to payday, as he can. The poor man, the beggar and the young child live hand-to-mouth, day by day. But to the warrior, the prisoner and the junkie, life is measured by one uncertain moment to the next.