Bangkok Tattoo (30 page)

One karma-laden night he talked that giant godfather Tsukuba out of an M16 on both forearms and into a view of Mount Fuji, snow and all. Granted, Tsukuba was extremely drunk, as was Ishy.

“Do it now,” demanded Tsukuba.

“Where do you want it?” the body artist inquired.

“On my forehead,” yelled the don, provoking a chorus of admiration for his daring. Next day, sober, Ishy knew it was time to leave his homeland for good. A very powerful mobster with a brilliant picture of Mount Fuji on his forehead was baying for his blood. Natural destinations for one of his calling would have been Hong Kong, Singapore, Los Angeles, San Francisco—which is why he chose none of them, for surely Tsukuba would be looking for him there. Bangkok was the place to hide, with its small and discreet Japanese community and the countless tattoo-hungry hookers. He kept a low profile, rarely worked from home, accepted commissions only from trusted clients (Japanese businessmen mostly, who seemed to spend much of their waking lives dreaming up erotic
horimono
with which to decorate their favorite girls, having pretty much exhausted the vacant spaces offered by their wives’ bodies). From time to time, though, the artist in him craved a deeper recognition. Much of the work on his own body he had done himself, but from the start he had known that his destiny lay with
donburi:
total body tattoo. Where even his resourceful
tebori
needles could not reach, he created detailed blueprints for a trusted apprentice to follow. The result was a beautifully integrated tapestry in which the themes that dominated his life were interwoven and explored like melodies in a Mozart concerto: Mount Fuji, a Toshiba laptop, a geisha in full regalia, the first Honda moped, a dish of Kobe beef, Admiral Yamamoto in full dress uniform, five drunken samurai in traditional body armor, each of the positions for copulation recommended by the
Kama Sutra
—and so on. In Bangkok he started parading himself at gay bars, just to exhibit his work.

Drunk together after more bottles of sake than I can remember, Ishy finally undid his shirt, then took it off. The
donburi
was like a silk T-shirt of quite fantastic quality, with a subtle symphony of colors composed on a precise pyramidal structure that, if I am not mistaken, was a clear reference to Cézanne. Thai waitresses all came to admire. “You can take off the rest of your clothes,” one of them told him. “No way you’re going to look naked.”

So he did, and there it was, though I refrained from studying it too closely for fear of being misunderstood. The girls were less inhibited, however, and one of them worked his member, the better—she explained—to appreciate his art. Fully tumescent, his penis provided a unique and very Japanese perspective on the Battle of Midway.

Apparently most comfortable in his designer skin, Ishy poured more sake and shared his inner life.

“I was one of those, you know?”

I had learned by now that much of his conversation assumed clairvoyance on the part of the listener. “High tech from the start?”

“I never really learned to talk to people. It still feels weird to me, which is why I stutter so much. I played games on a pocket calculator from the age of four onward. When the first personal computers arrived, I knew why I had incarnated at this time. After a while I couldn’t leave my bedroom. My mother used to leave food at the door, and my dad left books. Once they had a doctor come to examine me. He said I was nuts. There was no cure, half my generation had the same problem. One day my dad left a book of
horimono
illustrations along with some Hokusai prints—he was at the end of his rope with me.” Ishy paused to swallow sake. “It was like a religious experience. Actually, it
was
a religious experience. I asked my father for more art books and, above all, more
horimono.
He obliged with a virtual library. Above all others the great Hokusai stood before me clothed in his gigantic talent. Even today I could sketch a perfect copy of each and every one of the
ukiyo-e
woodblocks, and I know every stroke of ‘The Breaking Wave’ as another man might remember the words of a favorite song.”

Ishy paused to swallow more sake and spared a moment to stare curiously at one of the serving girls who had brought a friend from the kitchen and, crouching in front of him, was stimulating his member once again.

“It was as though I was remembering a previous lifetime. I directly
experienced
the excitement of the first woodblocks: to be able to make unlimited prints: what a breakthrough! And Moronobu’s genius in seeing that
ukiyo-e
was the perfect subject! I followed
ukiyo-e
from these beginnings, through Masanobu, Harunobu, Utamaro, Hiroshige, and ultimately the incomparable Hokusai. But like any good apprentice, I perceived my master’s weakness. No, that’s too strong a word—let us say every generation must reinterpret reality in a form most suitable for them. This is the age of immediacy, is it not? How many kids have the attention span to even visit a museum or an art gallery, much less meditate on the wonders therein? But a Hokusai indelibly etched into the fabric of your own skin, now
that
speaks to the twenty-first century,
that
—I knew—even the dullest Japanese, even a mobster, would be able to appreciate. As soon as I could, I moved into a microscopic apartment in Shinbashi, the old red-light district of Tokyo. It was exactly like coming home.” To the serving girl: “You only have to make it hard, darling, you don’t have to make me come.”

“It’s amazing.”

“Thank you. Another bottle, please.”

I confess I could not resist watching while, suddenly bereft of care and attention, the great battleships sank into flaccidity. But it was four-fifteen in the morning—the Japanese manager of the bar, apparently in awe of Ishy and his tattoos, had allowed us to stay long after he locked the front door—but now the serving girls were in jeans and T-shirts. Having exhausted the power and wonder of Ishy’s
donburi,
they were ready to go home to bed. I myself could not think straight, otherwise I would never have made the blunder that still haunts me as I write.

“Mitch Turner,” I mumbled, hardly able to remain on my stool. The name slowly penetrated Ishy’s drunken skull, light dawned, and he stared at me in horror, then slid off his stool onto the floor. I wanted to assist but fell down myself. The manager helped me into a taxi. I gave orders that Ishy was to be taken care of, his address obtained if necessary by going through his pockets. It had taken a week of hard footwork to find him—I didn’t want to lose him. But I fear my instructions lost much of their original clarity to the alcohol that twisted my tongue. It had been an extraordinary night. I needed to pass out.

At about ten in the morning I woke up in a panic from an alcoholic coma. In my dream Pichai had come to me again:
Why didn’t you arrest the donburi?

Staring wide-eyed into cosmic darkness:
He got me drunk. I think it was the tattoos. Who in hell is he?

Pichai’s voice cracked up as with a defective satellite connection:
Renegade . . . naga in human form . . . Nalanda . . . way back . . . tattoos . . . powerful magic . . . try decoy—stakeout . . .

From my bed, head splitting with the worst hangover I can remember, I called the Japanese restaurant. Only the cleaning staff were on duty. Using Intimidating Voice, I persuaded the woman who answered the phone to get me the boss’s home number. When I rang him, he denied knowing anyone called Ishy. No, he had never met a Japanese of that bizarre description—was I sure I had the right restaurant?

36

N
ow you find me in familiar mode,
farang,
sitting in front of a computer monitor in my favorite Internet café, scrolling through various entries in the online version of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
You need not feel inferior, I don’t know what the hell
ukiyo-e
is either. Here we are:
These depicted aspects of the entertainment quarters (euphemistically called the “floating world”) of Edo (modern Tokyo) and other urban centers. Common subjects included famous courtesans and prostitutes, kabuki actors and well-known scenes from kabuki plays, and erotica. Ukiyo-e artists were the first to exploit the medium of woodblocks.

The coincidence strikes me as almost grotesquely literary. Now Vikorn calls me on my mobile. I am summoned to the police station, where I am ushered into Vikorn’s office. Hudson is there, somewhat wild-eyed, pacing up and down. The impression of a mind unraveling is quite strong. Or to be more accurate, the Alien Within is clearly taking over. I suspect an Andromedan, although I’m not an expert.

“Progress?” Hudson asks.

I tell a tall tale of tattoos and whores, a drunken night with Hokusai’s posthumous apprentice, the effect that the two words
Mitch Turner
seemed to have, although in the circumstances it was hard to be sure.

“I need the Islamic connection,” Hudson barks, staring at Vikorn. “That bitch is gonna have all our balls if she finds out about that little trip of yours to Indonesia.” Swallowing: “I also want that fucking laptop.”

Vikorn is hard to read at this moment. Is he actually intimidated by Hudson, or is he merely being obliging? My intuition discards both possibilities. Something is going on here, some drama long suppressed reaching back to before I was born. Vietnam/Laos: what is my karma here? My father? It is disturbingly easy to see Hudson as the source of the seed that became me, even though he is not Mike Smith. As Hudson turns his gaze to me, Vikorn stares at Hudson in a way I’ve never seen before.

“Forget the fucking tattoos,” Hudson is saying. “Forget the whole Japanese connection. It’s a red herring. Follow the Islamic trail.
No Victory but Allah’s.
” He hesitates for a moment, then recites what I take to be the original words from the Koran in Arabic. To me his accent sounds impeccable; there is relish in the guttural tones. Defensively (catching the look on my face): “I’m a good American, I’m entitled to my schizophrenia.”

He paces, goes to the window again, stares out, then begins to speak in that narrative voice that might belong to a different man, or at least an earlier version of this one. There is heavy metal in the midtones.

“Most people don’t stay in the Agency very long. It’s like any other job in the States—Americans get restless, bored, enraged that their talents are not properly appreciated. We move on.
We move on
—change the view every ten minutes, and you can convince yourself for a while that you’ve escaped the treadmill. But not forever. After a certain specific moment in life, you start to look back. You discern a pattern. Something ugly, manic, cramped, tortured, and repetitive. That pattern is what you are, what your culture has made of you. But that’s not a reason for giving up. It’s not a reason for becoming a Mitch Turner. It’s not a reason for changing sides. You got to soldier on, right or wrong. How you ever gonna know how wrong you are, how you ever gonna learn your life’s lesson, if you’re just a feather in the wind? You gotta suck it all up—there’s no other way.”

He resumes his seat as if nothing unusual has happened. “I want you to go back down south. Stop frigging around with mad Japs and crazy Bangkok whores. Stay there for a month, a year if you have to.” He passes a hand over his spiky short hair as if to enforce patience. “And I want that fucking laptop.” Another pause, then: “Before
she
gets it.”

I raise my eyes to Vikorn, who nods.

But I really don’t want to go back down south on a wild-goose chase. A brief prayer to the Buddha does the trick. I have no sooner stuck the incense in the sandbox than my mobile starts twanging.

37

T
hat’s exactly how I found him when I came this morning,” Nat whispers, hoarse with horror, sharing wide eyes with Lek (to whom I had to talk sternly before he would get out of bed; he apologized in the cab, the estrogen is upsetting his system, he’s starting to feel moody even though his nascent breasts are hardly noticeable). “I stayed with him every weekend. He gave me a key.” She shows me.

We are standing in a rented two-room apartment on Soi 22, Sukhumvit. Stephen Bright had a beautiful body; its youth and sinewy texture are apparent still even though its internal organization has already failed. At this very moment cell walls are breaking down, bacteria are burrowing into previously forbidden zones, the composite has lost all integrity. The entity that played Bright for twenty-seven years is frankly relieved to be rid of its chemical prison and at the moment of writing is having a lot more fun in a gentler, kinder galaxy. He did all he could to avoid yet another early death by violence but, having performed his duty as he saw it, now looks forward to a long period of rest and recreation. He hasn’t totally rejected our solar system but will probably favor Venus for his next visit. Looking at it with terrestrial eyes, though, his body, minus the penis (discarded in a cheap wastepaper bin), with a great gaping gash in his gut, purple tubes hanging out like bunches of grapes—well, what can one say? It’s a mess. This time I am the one to turn the corpse over. Yep, afraid so.

Lek covers his mouth, shares another very female glance of terminal terror with Nat, then finds a carpet to kneel on while he
wais
the Buddha. Seeing this, Nat immediately joins him. (Over here it’s not death but the dead who send the green balls down our trouser legs. Believe me, there’s nothing more depressing than a clinging ghost on your back for life.) I wait while the two of them, palms joined in high
wais,
silently inoculate themselves with a potent mixture of magic, superstition, and customized Buddhism. Nat is the first to stand up, followed by Lek, who cannot resist a second glance into the wastepaper bin. He involuntarily touches his crotch area. (I’ve resisted this reflex myself, but only just.) Nat reads his mind. “It’s different for you—they’ll use an anesthetic, and anyway you don’t need yours.”

“I’ve always hated it,” Lek agrees, “but I’m used to it, you know?”