WRITTEN Sep 19, 2016 at 12:00
The political situation in Bangkok had gotten out of control in 2010. The red shirts controlled the city. The police did nothing. People called them daeng moh or watermelon. They were red on the inside. Thaksin was a fellow cop. The Army was in the hands of the old elite or phuu laak maak dee. Bloodshed was a daily occurrence. The government planned a nationwide curfew.
Shut down everything.
Even in Pattaya.
Sam Royalle called me from his house on the other side of Sukhumvit.
“You want to go out tonight. After tonight all the bars and go-gos will be shut.” Sam was recovering from a nasty lung infection. His doctor had advised rest. There was only so much staying at home for Sam. “We haven’t gone out in ages.”
“I know.” I spent my holiday with Mam and our son Fenway. “Let me ask Mam.”
Mam trusted me as far as she could see, however Sam had helped me on many occasions.
“It’s holiday. Go out with friend. Don’t come back until you mao kah.”
Basically meaning get legless.
Mam knows that I like drinking. We made love before I left the house. My libido belonged to her. I was late to meet Sam.
By an hour.
Mam had made sure that I had no desire.
Sam and his friends were waiting at What’s Up a Go-Go. The go-go was packed with farangs looking for a girl to barfine for the duration of the upcoming curfew. Sam ordered a round of tequilas. I winced after my shot.
“What wrong?” the manager asked tossing back her tequila.
“Tequila very good.”
“Strong.” Oi was a tomboy and she only hired girls who liked girls..
Few of the male customers noticed the dancers’ sexual preference, because near-naked girls dancing to techno appeared straight to a drunken farang, however several girls glared at a bald-headed German with jealousy, as he barfined a pretty girl in her late teens.
At first I thought it was envy, but realized the vicious looks directed at the male was that of a lover and I recalled the Jefferson Airplane once singing, “Saddest thing in the whole wide world, see your baby with another girl.”Same goes for a girl going with a man.
I asked Oi, the manager, if her girlfriend got it-sah or jealous.
“My girlfriend thinks I have sex with every girl here.” She rolled her eyes mentioning the real Thai word for jealous. “But not true. I only love her.”
“So you don’t look at any other girls?”
“Looking not same as making love.”
“So when you look, you don’t think about making love with the girl.”
“I not say that.” Oi ordered a round of kamikazes to shut me up.
My eyes roamed the club. Sam’s girlfriend was cuddling with tall dancer from Isaan and when dancer went to the ladies room, I asked Sam’s girlfriend, “I know you like girls. Why you go with my friend?”?
“He has good heart.” Cher looked across the bar to where Sam was buying a dancer a drink. She raised a thumb to approve of his choice. They would share the performer for a menage-a-trois later. “But if I not have him, then I stay with lady. Better than man. Lady love you. Man only want to_____you know. You not think girl love girl bad?”
Bad?
North Hollywood sells several billion dollars worth of DVDs dedicated to lesbianism. I had written a novel about it. NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD. Men fantasize about a love triangle incessantly, only this egoish equation doesn’t run true to the dream. Girls who like girls like boys only because they really like girls. At best you’re a man-slave. At worst you’re a spectator.
And we’re never supposed to look.
