Last year this time I was hiking up a river to the Langtang Glacier. The year before I was selling diamonds for the Winicks on 47th Street and in 1989 I was in New York working at Eric Beamon, planning on spending the summer in Perpignan. My passport has three entries to Paris. Why I can’t remember why. 1986 I was standing at the Milk bar’s front door, watching Seventh Avenue with Joel Bernard, my Haitian bouncer. My years were wasted as a doorman. Standing outside while all the action was inside. How long has it been since I threw a punch. A long time.

Now I’m in Bangkok.

This morning I went to the Bangkok GPO.

My only letters were from Irina K. Pamphlets about the Haute Savoie in German, a short note from my father, and two letter from Aunt Jane and the Pampolones.

My friends are either illiterate nor else I disappeared into the ether of the world. Far from thought. I send postcards, always listing the next destination’s poste restante as my address. I do get letters, but what more can I expect. I’m on the other side of the world.

The silence from Paris is deafening.

I don’t exist.

I had stopped my novel ALMOST A DEAD MAN.

No progress for two months. The longest break since I left the USA.

Too much pot and lack of privacy on Koh Tao, so I fled to the Malaysia Hotel and Patpong and the Soi Duplei bar, Kenny’s.

Tomorrow I’m heading south to Pattaya to stay with Michel and his daughter. I’ll make a collect call to Andrew and Richie. I stole a Paul Theroux books from Asia Books. THE LOOP. He published his first book at 26. At that age I was a bouncer at Hurrah and going out with Ann or Lisa Johnson. I he always wondered if I would see Lisa again. The lat time was in Paris at the Nouvelle Eve. She was still with Vadim or was it in the Metropolitan Museum buying a Christmas card. How old is she now?

32?

30?

28?

Dustin Pittman said she was younger than she said, but she was a nutter.

Vinnie Gallo had said he saw her walking barefooted around the East Village when I was going out with her.

He was also from Buffalo.

Better I should never see her again.

The past is the past.

Long gone.

Why does the past haunt the future?

Better to go to Kenny’s and have a beer with the girls.

Zee is my favorite.

And Kenny is always a good time.