Authors: Chai Pinit
Pa’s funeral had few attendants, which for me was further proof that many villagers had somehow been involved in his death, even if only by refusing to talk. They might have feared that Phisanu would interpret their attendance as disrespectful, or even as a way of pointing the finger at him. For others, I’m sure an uneasy conscience kept them away. I was enraged and threw all caution to the wind. I began accusing whoever I saw partying or merrymaking at the time of Pa’s funeral. His so-called friends, who eagerly soaked up free booze and money at his expense for years, were nowhere to be seen. At the end of the day, despite his reputation for kindness, my father had very few real friends.
My mother still hadn’t come to terms with Choke’s death and the loss of my father crippled her. After the funeral, she began to complain of powerful headaches, which she believed were a sign Pa wanted her to follow him into the afterlife. She claimed he called to her softly in her dreams.
The police finally recorded my father’s death as a murder; however, to this day, no arrests have been made.
I went back to Bangkok drained and defeated. It took me a long time to readjust, and to be honest, I never really did. I relied on my trusted friend, alcohol, to help me cope with the loss. Gambling also diverted my thoughts from the pain.
The last time I met my Hong Kong sweethearts, I brought my wife and son along to meet them at the airport. I lied again by saying Nuan was my cousin and Chuan my nephew. To thank us for welcoming them so hospitably, they treated us to a lavish dinner in an expensive restaurant. Nuan and Chuan then went home and I stayed on to take care of Anna, at Tony’s insistence. After I’d pleasured Anna in the usual fashion, I brazenly asked her for 30,000 baht to help pay off my gambling debts. This was the first time Anna had ever heard anything of my addiction. Tony interjected that he didn’t have that kind of cash and instructed me to come to see him the following day. They stopped taking my phone calls and abruptly vanished from their hotel room without a trace. I’d overstepped an invisible boundary and due to my greed, shot myself in the foot. I was not a charity case, so by stepping outside of my designated role they simply discarded me. I’d deluded myself, believing I had the upper hand in the relationship thinking they actually needed me and my sexual prowess. I felt that Tony’s shortcomings in bed gave me licence to take advantage of them. I found out the hard way that Tony had the power all along. He hired me to be his wife’s lover, but the moment I became too demanding he simply replaced me with someone else. I might have been able to penetrate Anna’s sex, but her bond with Tony was something I could never interfere with. I was hired help and nothing more.
A year after Pa died, my mother called me on a regular basis, begging me to help her organise a ritual called
riak kwan
at her house. This religious ceremony is supposed to help strengthen and secure the spirit and thus prevent its being robbed from the body. She believed Pa desperately wanted her to join him in the spirit world, and that through the strength of his desires, he somehow stole part of her spirit. She claimed that Pa’s powerful yearnings were manifested in physical form by the mind-numbing headaches she was experiencing. I suggested that it was her negative thoughts causing the headaches and begged her to see a doctor. I swore she’d be able to heal herself if she followed my instructions.
In reality, I was terrified of returning to my village. I’d accused countless people of being involved in my father’s murder and believed that they might come after me. When I learnt my mother had been hospitalised, I sent Nuan to care for her, rather than do so myself. Mae died in her sleep in a lonely hospital bed. She was 59.
The doctors told us afterwards that throughout the hours preceding her death she appeared to be incoherently talking to someone. Of course, no one was present. Lau generously gave me 20,000 baht to pay for her funeral.
I lost three family members within a short period of time and I was inconsolable with grief. I alternated between moods of depression and guilt. I wondered if my mother might have lived longer if I’d helped her carry out the
riak kwan
ritual as she’d asked. She’d suffered two great losses and her will to live just ebbed away. After Pa’s death, Mae was all alone; one by one her children simply returned to their families. My mother’s only companions had been the neighbours—many of whom we suspected had been involved in Pa’s murder—and her relatives who visited rarely. I could’ve asked her to come live with us in Bangkok; instead, I selfishly stuck my head in the sand. I’d disappointed her so many times, and when I had a chance to make things right, I chose not to.
I have made many mistakes, but the wrongs I committed against my parents really are the actions I regret the most. I often worry that one day my own children will abandon me in the same manner. And if it does happen, I will have no choice but to accept it.
My life was collapsing around me like a house of cards. Losing a large part of my family in such a short space of time was too much to cope with. Each death brought its own tidal wave of sorrow, and my own will to live seemed to be drifting away.
Shortly after my mother’s funeral, Wu discovered I was sleeping with Lau. I’m not sure how he found out, but I suspect he instructed one of Lau’s workers to spy on the true nature of our relationship. Wu stopped sending Lau’s salary and thus the allowance I received from Lau was substantially reduced. Lau had no choice but to close up shop and return to Taiwan to make amends with Wu. Everything happened so quickly that I was left reeling in uncertainty. I was still up to my eyeballs in debt. The rent on the apartment was very expensive; so Nuan and I decided to pawn whatever furniture we could and move into a small room. My life was truly built on the shifting sand.
My dreams of buying a fancy car and house with Lau’s money would never be realised. We were now worse off than when we had started out. I was older but, sadly, none the wiser. Had I listened to Lau’s warnings, I might have escaped the clutches of addiction and emerged from our relationship financially secure. I was given an opportunity to better myself and I screwed up.
I should’ve stayed in touch with Lau, but I was too lazy. I mistreated him badly. It will take many lifetimes to make it up to him. I truly wish him all the best and hope he has found a man who loves him and treats him well.
Unfortunately, the abrupt termination of my relationship with Lau coincided with the bird flu epidemic in Thailand in early 2004. The tourist industry crashed and burned, taking with it our T-shirt stall. I returned to the go-go scene, but at 35 years of age I had passed the sell-by date and clients rarely bought me. The outlook was bleak. When punters did buy me, the
Mama-san
and bar captain would mockingly congratulate me with a standing ovation. I wanted to yell out how I once had been a top boy over whom
farangs
fought but there was no point in aggravating them and risking losing my job.
I could no longer move from bar to bar; my reputation as an unreliable alcoholic preceded me. Nobody wanted to invite trouble into their bars, so I was turned down at most places.
Nuan decided it’d make more economic sense for her to go back to work full-time while I minded our son. We’d become friendly with my sister Nit’s husband, and Nuan asked him for a job. They’d established a successful grilled chicken/fresh fruit vendor in Prathunam. Although Nuan didn’t get along well with my sister, she was willing to keep the peace in order to make some much-needed money.
Nuan and I had been together for four years and I reasoned that since I had been taking care of her so well, it was my turn to be ‘kept’ for a change. I considered myself open-minded enough to allow Nuan become the rice-winner. I whiled away the days by minding Chuan, and by drinking and gambling. But with Nuan holding the financial reins, I wasn’t allocated much money for spending on the two latter activities. I’d stopped visiting gambling houses and instead threw my bets down with friends on games of chess and other frivolities, such as guessing the colour of panties a woman wore—don’t ask me how we found out though.
Nuan hissed at me if I asked her for as little as 50 baht to spend on leisure pursuits. She rebuked me for drinking even a single can of beer, arguing that her hard-earned wages should be spent wisely on important necessities and not on profligate activities. She growled, ‘You don’t want to help row our family boat then at least keep your feet out of the water, and stop slowing us down!’
As our arguments became more heated, she became aloof. She resented me and our sex life petered to nothing. I tried to make things up to her by helping out in little ways. I accompanied her to the market to buy produce early every morning with a sleepy Chuan in tow. One day she asked me to hold Chuan, and then, as if to spite me, sat down beside a strange man as far away from me as possible. We’d had rough patches before, but she’d never acted this distant with me. It was as if the moment I’d ceased to be the wage earner, Nuan’s love simply dried up.
Her attitude towards me slowly eroded my self-confidence. I’d been unceremoniously demoted as family head and felt I had to do something to reinstate myself. So I pulled a childish coup by venting my anger with senseless violence. I became irrational, and regularly attacked Nuan without provocation. Nuan fought back at first, but her resistance only inspired more violence.
She was eventually forced to develop and deploy survival skills. If she sensed danger brewing she’d quickly grab Chuan and flee the house until my anger abated. She later confessed that during the worst times she would mix sleeping pills into my rice to sedate me. After each brutal bout, I’d have no recollection of what had transpired the previous night. Nuan would then sadly recount the events, describing my viciousness in excruciating detail.
My destructive behaviour got us kicked out of one rented room after another. In each new abode, it took no time for other tenants to begin complaining about the noise which invariably sent the landlord knocking. When sobriety and remorse eventually kicked in, I sincerely swore that I’d change. However, I was neither willing nor capable of parting with alcohol; for me, life without it was inconceivable.
The inevitable finally happened. Nuan came home one evening, exhausted from work, only to find me in yet another drunken stupor. She began lecturing me in the usual fashion, berating me as if I was a good-for-nothing burden. I responded with equal passion. Our raised voices caused Chuan to stir from his sleep, so Nuan opened the door and headed down the stairs. I was hot on her heels, my anger reaching boiling point.
‘Bitch,’ I shouted, ‘if you want to leave me, go ahead. I’m clearly useless to you, but leave the boy with me.’
Nuan chucked softly.
‘How on earth could a washed-up prostitute like you ever earn a living and support a child?’
I was stunned. Her words cut me to the heart. I felt I could kill her; but instead I spun on my heels and marched off in the direction of Soi Twilight. I needed a drink to calm myself and it didn’t take long to find one.
While I was drowning my sorrows, Nuan packed her bags. Our relationship was sinking fast and she’d decided to jump ship before it was too late. I staggered home later that evening only to find an empty room. Chuan’s milk bottles and tiny clothes had vanished into the night along with his mother. The reality of the situation sobered me instantly. Nuan hadn’t even left a goodbye note. I broke down in tears and, not knowing how else to deal with grief, I trashed the room, destroying everything in sight. Hearing the racket, my neighbours rang the landlord. A short while later, two stout men came and ‘kindly’ escorted me off the premises.
CHAPTER 13
In the blink of an eye, I found myself homeless, wifeless, and childless. I only had the clothes on my back and a small amount of cash. Distraught, I questioned how Nuan could do such a thing? Who was she to cast judgement? She’d been a willing accomplice in every deception that had put food on the table for us. I’d taken care of her for years and couldn’t understand her sudden change of attitude. I’d stupidly believed she’d put up with any treatment and would never have left me. But now she was suddenly make a living on her own. She didn’t have to put up with my foolishness any longer.
She finally realised I wouldn’t change and that I would eventually become an even greater burden to her. So she decided to put Chuan’s needs first and bring him up in a safe and stable environment; an environment unpolluted by my presence.
As time went on I realised the clincher in our relationship had come a long time before that fateful night when she left. We’d been brawling as usual, when suddenly a look of horror washed over Nuan’s face. Her mortified gaze was fixed somewhere behind me. Nuan pushed me aside with all her might.
I was furious that she’d dare use force on me and I was ready to exact punishment on her. I spun around and what greeted me caused me to freeze in my tracks. Chuan was holding a stick, waving it back and forth protectively with a fierce look of determination on his face. Realising I was about to hurt his mother, he’d sprung to her defence. He was only four years old. The sight of my boy brandishing a stick against me drained all the anger from me. Nuan, with tears in her eyes, carefully pried the weapon from his hands and held him tightly.
‘Don’t ever try to hurt your pa. Hurting your parents is one of the most serious sins a child can commit,’ she told him. We quietly retreated to our respective corners, too shocked to say a word.
The following day Nuan shared her deep concerns that I might eventually hit Chuan while drunk. I saw red, ‘I’m not the type of scum who would harm his own flesh and blood!’ Ironically, I started pummelling her with my fists as I shouted this at her. I knew that she was right; there was no telling what I was capable of. I was powerless, and too proud to admit it.
After they left, my money soon ran out. I reluctantly decided to head to Soi Twilight, but not to work; rather, I did so to seek handouts from my buddies. The next few months passed in a drunken blur. I awoke many mornings in a crumpled, shirtless heap either on the floor of a bar in Soi Twilight or on the side of a road. I reeked of alcohol, sweat, urine, and vomit. I looked awful as my hair was dirty, long, and dishevelled, and my face red and swollen.
On occasion, if I was both lucky and sober, I found a deserted bar bathroom in which I could wash up. Though when I say wash up, I mean give my underarms and face a quick scrub. If I was extremely fortunate, a bar manager would take pity and allow me to use the shower in his premises. For someone who’d once taken such pride in his appearance, what a contrast to be now spending my days as a dirty itinerant.
Even though I was living hand to mouth, I always found empty drink bottles next to me each morning. I couldn’t remember where I’d gotten the money to buy them though. I imagine my acquaintances took pity on me and handed me a few baht which I promptly, of course, poured down my throat. I was desperate for alcohol and was prepared to do anything to procure it. A friend even dared me to run the gauntlet of the soi in my underwear for his entertainment. When he waved 100 baht in front of me I drunkenly obliged. Apparently, passers-by looked on in disgust as I careened up and down the street like a mad man dodging the vendors and tourists.
My bedraggled appearance caused strangers to whisper while staring at me. If I approached them for small change, they usually shooed me away as they would a diseased dog. They probably assumed I was a deranged lunatic who’d escaped an asylum or something. Even my own acquaintances questioned my sanity, suggesting the trauma of Nuan’s departure caused me to lose my mind.
Once a tourist reported me to the police and I was arrested and detained in a holding cell for several days. The police were surprisingly reasonable with me and viewed me as a harmless drunk who was to be pitied rather than scorned. I
wai
’d them upon release, apologising for the commotion I’d caused.
On numerous occasions I found myself crouching on the curb trying to summon the courage to throw myself into oncoming traffic. I wanted to escape this horrible life as fast as possible, but was too cowardly even for this. Go-go dancing was no longer an option and I wasn’t suitable for much else. The only motivation to get up in the morning was to scrape enough money together to purchase my cure-all medicine.
Silom Road is full of businessmen rushing about in their expensive suits. It’s also home to the mentally ill, the homeless, amputee beggars, blind buskers, and hungry mothers and children looking for a few baht to put food in their bellies. These poor, unfortunate people contrast sharply with the yuppies and tourists jostling each other in the thoroughfare. Significantly, it was the former group who provided me with an important life lesson.
After finally reaching a bottom of sorts, I wallowed in the gutters, stewing over my problems, and realised that in comparison to these poor folk, I had nothing to complain about. I could see, and still had use of all my limbs. I could work, if I could only pull myself together emotionally that is. I decided it was time to get my life back; besides, my friends’ charity had dried up, so I had to take charge. I began wandering the streets in search of dropped change. A 20-baht note had become a small fortune to me and I found myself doing something I’d never done in the past—I began saving money. I spent money only on what I needed rather than on things I simply wanted. Between gambling houses, brothels, and nightclubs, I’d blown a fortune. Now it was time for me to possess money, and not let it possess me. As my mindset slowly evolved, so did my behaviour, and acquaintances recognised that I was making a genuine effort to change. They offered me dishwashing or waiting jobs and I gratefully accepted them. I was winning them over slowly, and a friend even rented a small room for me. I’d begun to reassemble the pieces of my shattered life.
I discovered that Nuan was living with her friend in a small room behind Wat Hualamphong, a fifteen minute walk from Soi Twilight. Rumour had it that she’d found herself a new man. I hung around the area on a daily basis, hoping to ‘accidentally’ meet her. I thought I could beg her to return to me. Days turned into weeks and there was still no sign of her and I began to lose hope. I eventually summoned the courage to knock on Nuan’s door only to be greeted by her girlfriend. She emphatically insisted Nuan had moved out of the soi the moment she heard I was looking for her and hadn’t left an address. I’d fought hard to get as far as I had, so I decided to let go of Nuan and move on. I wasn’t going to let regrets pull me down as they had in the past.
Often, when one door closes, another one opens. That’s exactly what happened in my case. The very same evening I gave up on Nuan, I met two beautiful ladies at a bar in Soi Patpong 2. I could tell from their dresses and seductive manner that they were prostitutes. Aside from the obvious sexiness and sultry good looks, something else drew me to them. They happened to be chatting away in my childhood language, Khmer. Their accents revealed that they were from one of the Isan provinces bordering Cambodia. In a bold move, I marched up to them and greeted them warmly in our mother tongue. The two ladies were impressed and urged me to join them for a drink. Sao, the prettier of the two, motioned me to sit next to her. A spark ignited between us as we chatted about our lives and common backgrounds.
From the start, Sao was upfront about being an experienced lover. I was hoping things would move fast between us, but even I was surprised by the lightening speed at which she boldly groped and kissed me. I’d longed for a woman’s touch for months and was overjoyed she’d made a move on me. We managed to control our desires long enough to make our way to my decrepit room.
Sao was indeed a great lover. I was in heaven. We were marooned sex workers who’d found an island of refuge in each other. After my experience with Ple in Pattaya, I never again entertained the thought of going out seriously with a working girl. I considered them ‘indecent’ because they slept with ‘thousands’ of men. Of all people though, I should’ve been able to empathise with their situation.
It was our common backgrounds that helped us to bond quickly, along with a shared love for drink and partying. Being as lonely as I was, she moved in with me without hesitation. With her arrival came the habits I’d diligently avoided in the past months—I traded an empty bed for another round of problems which were to surface later on.
Despite her beauty, as a prostitute, Sao was also in her twilight years. Our bodies were no longer attractive enough to work as go-go dancers, so we were forced to find alternative forms of employment. We therefore agreed to perform together in a nightclub sex show.
Every evening, tour groups of Asians and Europeans —both male and female—arrived at the club. They filed noisily out of coaches, not knowing what to expect from the evening’s activities.
I would start off the entertainment by mingling with the crowd in my G-string and ladies giggled at the sight of my exposed behind. I wasn’t as confident as I’d once been, but tried not to let my insecurities prevent me from doing my job. There were a total of three male performers, me included. We knew each other well since we were all ex-go-go boys whose paths had crossed many times over the years. Before we took to the stage, it was the girls who would warm up the audience by walking amongst them in either bikinis or their birthday suits.
Suddenly, with great fanfare, the music dramatically sounded and the lights dimmed. Sao and I took to the stage and began our ritualistic lovemaking. I slathered her with oil, paying special attention to her breasts and buttocks. As we ground our bodies against each other demonstratively, our hands continued on a frantic search for each other’s ‘pleasure’. We culminated our act with loud screams as I banged my penis into her from behind—each thrust making a loud smacking sound on her oil sodden bottom. I was loyal to Sao, and never penetrated anyone else during these shows, even though I performed simulated sex upon the other women.
Some of the shows involved women using their vaginas to shoot ping-pong balls into the air while customers lobbed them back with bats provided by the club. These women even used their sex organs to open bottles of soft drink and expertly shoot darts at targets. The most elaborate trick I ever witnessed involved a woman turning water into coke. She began by inserting a bottle of water into her vagina and proceeded to empty it of its contents. She displayed the empty bottle to the audience, then reinserted the bottle and filled it with brown fluid, which she proudly showed to the audience as Coke. No matter how much I coaxed them, the girls wouldn’t reveal their secret. The only explanation I could come up with was that they’d placed some kind of coloured powder inside of them which mixed with the water to make it look like ‘Coke’.
On Soi Patpong, many bars are on the ground floor and passers-by can sneak a free glimpse of bikini-clad women dancing around poles. Sex shows and other risqué attractions are generally confined to the upper floors. Before the so-called social moral reformation, there were fewer restrictions on nudity in these bars. Girls were allowed to dance topless or use pasties or tassels to cover their nipples.
The nightclub Sao and I worked in was near Rama IV intersection. I suspected the bar owner had a special deal with several tour guides because there was never any shortage of customers. Sao and I agreed that we were okay with each other soliciting for sex. It was only work so there was no need to be jealous. Our chief concern was making money, especially now that we were older.
The nightclub we worked in made a fortune charging each patron 1,000 baht per drink. The tour guide, on the other hand, earned a whopping 10,000 baht for every group of tourists they brought with them. It seemed there was never a shortage of money in the club, so it was a good place for us to work.
My relationship with Sao was fine and I believed my life held a degree of security. Just when things were looking up though, Sao got into a fight with the manager which heralded the end of our employment. She’d been taken by a client several days in a row, earning the nightclub 6,000 baht in bar fines, of which she received only 600 baht. She felt she deserved a larger percentage but the management disagreed. She quit, and I was left with little alternative but to follow—without her I didn’t have an act.
The struggle to make a living after that never ceased. We both tried to sell our bodies whenever and wherever we could. We even tried to entice customers into bars and then request a commission from the management. The bar world had changed dramatically over the years and Sao and I were floundering and out of touch in many ways.
Nowadays, male sex workers in the Silom area punch their cards before 8pm if they want to collect a 100-baht bonus. The other staff, such as doormen, waiters, cashiers, DJs and bartenders, must show up before 6pm in order to clean the bar and make sure everything’s in order for the night ahead. The dancers change into work underwear, and the gay and
kathoey
boys apply make-up to pretty themselves up. Each boy is assigned a number tag which is clipped on the front of their underwear so that clients can easily identify who they’d like to buy. A rotation system ensures fresh faces are constantly taking to the stage: with each change of song a new boy steps up to replace a fellow exiting. The go-go boys dance, strut, and prance, trying to catch the eye of a client. It’s a merry-go-round of boys for sale. The boys’ crotch area happens to be located exactly at the audience’s eye level —a shrewd feature worked into the design of the stage and seating area.
The foreign female clients are the ultimate trophies—they guarantee pleasure, money, and face amongst our crew of dancers who are often jealous when anyone else bags a whitey. The one perk I’ve had from sex work is the opportunity to sleep with women from many backgrounds: Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, white, and black—you name it, I’ve done it! Having so many multicultural notches on my bedpost is a macho reward indeed.