One Night In Bangkok "Andrew, my friend", Karl said, "I have received word that Mr. Pong has had an excellent first impression of his new banker. That sounds like me to be cause for a celebration. It’s high time that you learned what the City of Angels is famous for." So out into the sweltering Bangkok night we went. We grabbed a cab and Karl gave the name of one of the red light districts, "Soy Nana". "The place we are going tonight is one of the finest establishments of its kind, with a wide variety of entertainments to choose from, but not," he raised his eyebrows, "for the faint of heart or pregnant women. Well, not obviously pregnant, anyway." I shook my head in mock disgust. We left the taxi and passed through a crowd of greasy German tourists and bored looking girls who were smoking unfiltered cigarettes, apparently on break. We entered a courtyard surrounded by all kinds of bars, from a pool and beer joints to dens of iniquity. Mostly the latter. We crossed to the back corner and entered the dark door of what looked to be the seediest of the lot. The place had a bizarre mix of women, clothed or unclothed, young or less young, thin or cherubic. Those without clothes were up on raised platforms, holding onto glossy metal poles and rocking back and forth with a sad rhythm that had little to nothing to do with the rock music blasting around them. A few nearby turned to look at us, then turned back to their poles, unimpressed. The relatively clothed girls were either serving drinks or sitting on various ugly white Europeans, giving half-hearted "lap dances". One of the waitresses directed us to follow her to a table as Karl described the system. "Any of the ladies on display," he pointed to the ‘dancers’, is available for…private use," he looked curiously at me, as if trying to get my moral stance on the issue, then continued, "You simply pay the bar what is known colloquially as the ‘pimp charge’, work out a deal with your new friend, and you’re on your way." As if to illustrate his point, an obese, stinking, sweating man with an obscene grin squeezed pass us with a tiny doe eyed girl in tow. She looked at me with the dead eyes of a lost soul, and I felt chills run down my back. Karl happily continued his lecture. "For the moment, just sit back and enjoy the show. Make eye contact, and the girl will come to you." Karl ordered two beers and the waitress left us in tiered seating facing out to the room. To our left was a large troll-like man who was bouncing a girl on his leg and flashing his crooked yellow teeth every time he chortled. I worried that the girl might get motion sickness from the jostling she was undergoing, but she looked as unperturbed as the rest of them. On our right was a freckle faced young guy with oversized plastic glasses and a fat cigar in his mouth. Two young women were nuzzling into either side of him. I looked around at the girls holding on to the poles as if they were bits of a sinking ship. I had read somewhere that many of them were sent by their families, by their mothers!, to make money in the city to feed the relatives back home. I wondered if the sorry bastards who took them home thought they were doing some kind of fucking philanthropy. Fucking philanthropy…I chuckled at my own sad joke. Karl seemed to relax in seeing me laugh. I realized that he must be a regular here. It seemed so bizarre that such a good looking, successful guy would engage in this…whoring. I looked him over and smiled, reminding myself not to trust him too deeply. A buzzer sounded as our beers came. "Shift change", Karl said, nodding towards the end of the stage where the pole girls were getting back into their skimpy outfits and half of the other girls were unceremoniously dropping theirs. I saw the leg girl jump down and turn to her troll with a pout that said, "please buy me away from this mess". But he just cackled and waved her up to her waiting pole. On my other side, cigar boy sighed out a puff of rancid smoke and looked wistfully after his two friends as they resumed their duties. "Hallo! I am Werner…from Austria." The troll was striking up a heavily accented conversation with Karl. "Ahem", Karl cleared his throat, apparently unexcited to connect with one of his pimping peers, "this is Andrew and I’m Karl". I nodded to Werner, noting that his facial sweat seemed to concetrate on his upper lip. "You know, zis girl here is very funny!" His accent was nearly as fearsome as his teeth. He indicated his erstwhile companion at her pole, and she forced her scowl into a grin when she caught us looking. "She started working here, my fa-avorite bar, three months ago. I was quite happy to see such a nice fresh face, so obviously new to the city." I was having trouble deciding if he was drooling at the memory, or if some of the lip sweat had made it down to his chin. He barked out a laugh with his mouth wide open and whatever the liquid was, it joined a lot more on his shirt. Karl looked amused. "So of course I took her for a date that night, and in the morning, I wake to find both my new watch, and the girl…gone!" He looked at us intently and stretched out his arm to show off a cheezy gold-plated Casio. "My watch, you see, was a gift of ten years of membership in the Bangkok Rotary Club!" He made this sound like knighthood. Karl nodded appreciatively and I bit my lip to keep from laughing. "Sooo," Werner continued, "this girl, she took my watch and left. Well, I come to the owner of this bar, who is my old friend, and, as it happens, a member of the Rotary Club with the same watch!" This earned us another laugh, even louder and accompanied by a breeze of fetid breath. "He brought down the girl who apologized and handed back the watch. She had thought I would not pay! I, Werner Von Hausbraun, not pay! Well, she knows better now." He gave her a big wink and she nodded vigorously towards the door. "Oy, I can imagine not paying over heah", came a cockney drawl and a cloud of cigar smoke. "These girls will bleed you dry if you let ‘em". The kid was so pale that I believed he must be speaking from experience. "It’s not like back in ‘Nam, upcountry, ya know. I’d have a whole roomful of lovelies all to me-self for not more than twenny quid!" He sat back and drew on his cigar, basking in the glory of the memory. I started wondering how the hell I had come to such a strange place, when a loud buzzer sounded indicating that it was about to get much stranger. "Showtime, ja!" yelled Werner, his beady eyes gleaming with anticipation. I looked to the stage in front of us which was being evacuated by the forgotten dancers. They left behind one small woman of unspeakable talents affixing what looked like a paper funnel to her crotch. A particularly young looking girl (though I’m sure the law the provided that they were all at least eighteen) was distributing plastic balloons to float a foot or two over the guests heads, scattered throughout the room. I looked questioningly at Karl. "Just watch, " he advised. An announcer’s voice came over the music system. "Gentlemen, I present you Kuhn Booreep, Shahpshootah!" which brought up a meager cheer from the crowd. Booreep has apparently finished her preparations, for she was sitting back on her elbows with her legs spread wide and a paper cod piece in the middle, as if she were about to give birth to a Sno Cone. Suddenly, her legs shook and her pelvis tensed. There was a loud bang a little ways down from us as a balloon exploded in mid-air. Claps, whistles, and confusion, at least on my part, followed. "What the hell?" I mumbled. "Duck!" Karl shouted, grinning like a delinquent schoolboy. I turned to see that the artillery had swiveled to face us and seemed to be aimed right over my head. My eyes met Booreeps and she gave me wicked grin, followed by a frown of concentration and a pelvic spasm. I was deafened by an exploding balloon, not a foot from my head. A needle of questionable hygiene fell into my lap, and a wave of disgust raised goosebumps on my back. I wanted to make for the door and get back to the relative normalcy of the Thai streets, but (BANG!) I decided it would be more polite to wait out the surreal spectacle. Werner’s massive girth wobbled with merriment as he watched an unhappy Japanese guy in a suit try to lean away from an approaching balloon. Bang! The guy jumped like he’d been shot and nearly tipped over his chair. Werner gave a hoot and unintentionally shed a greasy tear of mirth. I imagined years of schnitzel suddenly congealing in his arteries and siezing up after one chortle too many. But no such luck tonight. Finally, the show ended in a raucous round of sirens, clapping, whistles and cheers. The announcer came out and held up Booreeps arm like a prize fighter. Werner cheered long after the others and Booreep smiled at him. I wondered how much she would need to be paid to miss the balloon and get him in the neck, and thinking about this made me realize how desperatlely I needed to get out of there. I asked Karl if we could move on and he grudgingly acquiesced after seeing the psychotic light in my eyes. I breathed the sweaty night’s air deeply as I left the bar, never to return.
Copyright © 2002 A Johnson |