Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See (16 page)

Mah-jongg guy stops winking and smiling and trying to make me happy. He hands me a tiny piece of paper covered in Thai scrawl and says I owe him $150. Entry fee plus drinks plus government tax. I could argue with him but I don’t. I just want to go.

I wander aimlessly around Patpong for a while, passing bar after bar.

“You want fuck show?”

“You want see pussy smoke cigarette?”

I look from one side of the street to the other and then over my shoulder. I’m nowhere near Charlie’s. The man yelling at me has perfect straight white teeth. Apparently, in Bangkok, pussy smoking is not an uncommon skill. For some reason this makes me sad. I keep walking, trying to ignore the fact that suddenly it all makes me sad—the women, the pussy show barkers, the tourists, the smell of the food carts, the old men who sell greasy noodles and unidentifiable meat on a stick, the flashing neon lights, the sound of the Vespas, the thick black exhaust from the cars, visible even at night.

The drop is sudden, extreme and frightening. Like going over a waterfall you didn’t know was there. One minute you’re floating on calm water in a canoe. The next you’re tumbling, plunging … Now it is just you and the churning water and the rocks just beneath the surface. No one and nothing can help you. Your only consolation is that you’ve been here before. But try telling that to a drowning man.

I am startled when I feel a hand on my arm. She is young and at first glance pretty.

“Mister look sad.”

Then I notice the acne scars. And that she is missing her right thumb.

“Mister want date? I make Mister happy,” she says, stroking me with her thumbless paw. “I know how suck goooood.”

It’s still early. Not even midnight. I could hire a prostitute if I wanted. But I don’t. Mister not want. So I put fifty dollars in her good hand. Then I hail a cab and tell the driver to take me back to the hotel. I want to sit at a normal bar and get picked up by a relatively normal woman. I’m rich, I’m American, and I am in possession of all my digits. Is that too fucking much to ask?

I walk into the giant lobby of the giant Pan Pacific and feel the panic pull up and park in the empty space next to the sadness. The hustle and bustle, coming and going, to-ing and fro-ing—even at midnight—is overwhelming. And everyone here seems to have a destination.

Normally, I like big, anonymous hotels like the Pan Pacific. Sixteen hundred rooms, Jacuzzi bathtubs, monogrammed slippers, and room-service cards that get collected by some nameless, faceless housekeeping staffer at three
A.M
. and magically produce eggs, bacon, and hash browns at your bedside anytime you fucking please.

Ellen loved—loves—bed-and-breakfasts. The kind of place where each room has a name. And a theme. And more often than not, a stuffed bear. Once a year—usually on her birthday—I would indulge this perversion. She would pick some overpriced gingerbread Victorian in the wine country and we would spend the weekend sitting at some elderly couple’s dining room table making small talk with strangers over egg soufflé and cranberry quick bread served only between eight and nine fucking thirty.

At ten thirty we’d be nodding politely while some chick with a nose ring explained why her soil was so much better than that of any of the other vineyards in Napa. Then we’d swirl, sniff, sample, and spit.

By eleven I stopped spitting so I wouldn’t have to pay attention to their shit or notice that their wine all tasted the same, and by noon Ellen would wrestle the keys to our rental car away from me and insist on driving. I miss those trips.

I am feeling very sorry for myself, and thinking about Ellen has made it worse. I am not tired and I don’t feel like watching porn. The giant circular lobby bar, open twenty-four hours a day, is centrally located so as to make it nearly impossible to avoid. Exactly halfway between the hotel’s front entrance and the dimly lit Club A-Nan Roi-Yim (Club of Endless Smiles) where hotel guests or whoever is willing to pay can see elaborate floor shows featuring traditional Thai entertainment of the non-pussy-smoking-cigarette variety. “Smiles,” as it is known on the premises, offers only PG-rated, family-friendly fare. Which is to say that penetration of any human orifice—whether by another human, animal, or inanimate object—is not part of the lineup.

The first night I was here—too jet-lagged to leave the hotel—I took advantage of my Pan Pacific guest discount coupon and went to the Smiles dinner-theater show. I sat alone at my table in the dark, smoke-filled room, surrounded by mostly Western tourists and a few Thai businessmen, eating my traditional Thai six-course meal. On stage, lovely young women wearing traditional Thai period costumes narrated an abbreviated history of their country while stripping down to their G-strings and then pole dancing to traditional Thai folk music. It was like going to see a titty show at the Smithsonian.

I haven’t been back to Club of Endless Smiles. I much prefer the impromptu little entertainments inadvertently staged by the guests at the lobby bar. Chrome, black leather, and mirrors all the way around, it emits a comforting corporate blandness. The lobby bar is always the path of least resistance—which is always my favorite kind of path.

I sink onto a squishy barstool and order a vodka. I feel the panic recede a millimeter or two. The first icy-cold sip slides down my throat, past my esophagus, and into my stomach, where I feel a painful but pleasant burning sensation. Physical pain is not only preferable to the other kind but often welcome. Distracting, soothing—pain I can sink my teeth into.

The couple is already arguing when they sit down on the barstools to my left. She is very tall and icily blonde and everything about her is long—her legs, her fingers, her hair, which she gathers up into a self-knotting bun.

“I’m happy to lie to you if that’s what you want, Donald, but eventually you’re going to have to—”

“Catherine?” His voice is soft and sad and his suit is black. He is blandly handsome in a forgettable Brooks Brothers sort of way. “Please try not to be a bitch?”

She shrugs and takes a long sip of her drink. She puts her hand on top of his.

“I’m not trying to be mean. He was my friend too.”

Donald yanks his hand away. “No, you sat at the same desk. You exchanged information about commodities and currencies.” Donald is yelling, or at least raising his voice enough to give me sufficient excuse to look over and make eye contact with the woman.

“Donald, come on. Stop yelling,” she says, gripping his sleeve.

“You were colleagues. You were not friends,” Donald says quietly. “Ben was my friend. And I know him. I knew him. He was having a genuinely good time. It was the right move. He was happy. He wouldn’t have …”

I can’t tell yet whether they are married or just good work friends in mourning. They say nothing for a while. She orders another drink. And one for him.

“He was crazy, impulsive,” she says, turning to look at him. “That’s not the same thing.”

Donald bangs his glass on the bar. “He hated working at Lehman. You’re saying quitting makes him crazy?”

Catherine bangs back. “No, I’m saying … because he left in the middle of the night … without telling any of us. And why did it take him almost six months to get in touch?”

I know I am staring but I can’t look away. I am riveted by Ben’s story and by their differing versions of it.

“And fine. Yes,” Catherine says in a tight, angry whisper I have to strain to hear, “because
my
friend Ben—who I shared a desk with for
four years
—was not the kind of guy who would just jettison his MBA and a VP job to live in a shack on the beach and teach econ to a bunch of stupid rich kids who couldn’t get into a decent college back home.”

And it is at this moment that I realize that is
exactly
what I want to do. I am tired of wandering. I want a home base. Or at least a shack base. To be part of a community for a while. Of bikini-clad coeds. Suddenly I realize that everything happens for a reason. Everything is connected. Everythingisconnected. Everything. Is. Connected.

Donald stares down at the bar, shaking his head.

“Ben wouldn’t kill himself. He wouldn’t do it.”

I decide to become part of Ben’s story.

“It’s really none of my business.” I am on a mission to make their business my business. “But what’s the point of torturing yourself over questions you’ll never have the answers to?”

Donald thinks and nods. “You’re right, not that you know fuck all about it.” Catherine leans around Donald to look at me.

“Uh … excuse me, but who the hell are you?”

Here, I think, is my opportunity. But it is fragile. These two are grieving, which makes them vulnerable. But they are not stupid. This will not be easy. But I do not like Bangkok. I would much rather be on a secluded Thai beach. With … a job? A job. Yes. Ensconced in faculty housing. Students. Colleagues. Purpose. I will serendipitously show up at just the right time to fill the position left by the tragic and untimely death of … shit, what was his name?

“You’re right, I’m nobody,” I tell Donald apologetically. “And I’m sorry, your friend, his … the way he … passed. None of my business. Guess I’ve had one too many. Probably a little starved for conversation. But that’s no excuse.”

“No worries,” Donald says. “Don’t sweat it.”

“Thanks,” I say. “And really, I’m sorry about your friend. Sounds like he was a good guy.”

“He was. He really was.”

“Yeah,” Catherine says wistfully, “Ben was like—no bullshit. He always told the truth. How many people can you say that about?”

Ben. Right.

“Too few,” I say. “Too damn few.” I call out to the bartender for another round. When he brings it, I raise my glass.

“To Ben,” I say. “No bullshit.”

Catherine and Donald raise their glasses. “Ben,” they say, and, misty-eyed, we down our drinks. It is the beginning of a beautiful, if brief, friendship.

I entice them into playing hooky from work so that we can take a day trip to Kanchanaburi, where we tour the wildlife sanctuary, ride the train along the Death Railway, and have lunch with the monks. At night we get drunk at upscale clubs filled with Westerners and expats. By day five of our lovefest, I know the names of their bosses and their bosses’ bosses, the brownnosers, the wimps, the backstabbers, and the decent guys in the Lehman Brothers Bangkok office. I don’t care but I act like I do. They need to think that I do. Because we tell each other everything. Our friendship has the intensity of bonds made at summer camp and in freshman dorms. We reveal our most intimate secrets. Mine are lies tailored to suit Donald and Catherine’s particular needs. I research and fabricate a résumé just imperfect enough to make me the perfect candidate for Ben’s job. When I leave, Catherine gets teary. We all promise to stay in touch. Really.

Two weeks and a five-hour train ride later, I am sitting in a chair opposite Tim, the dean of McCarthy College, who is younger than I, American, ginger-haired, and freckled. There is a surfboard leaning in a corner behind his desk. I stare out past his balcony on to Cha-am, the most beautiful beach I have ever seen, as he peruses my fabricated résumé and letters of recommendation from two senior vice presidents at Lehman Brothers Bangkok.

When he finishes, he looks up at me and shakes his head. “Professor Conrad—”

“Oh, please, call me Joe.”

“Alright then, Joe—you are a godsend. Seriously.”

“Well, I certainly didn’t know Ben the way Cathy and Don did, but I do know he loved it here. I’ve wanted out of the city for a long time, so—I didn’t want to take advantage, but as you can see, Don and Cathy seemed to feel Ben would approve.”

“I know he’d be thrilled,” the dean says. “He was that kind of guy. Generous.”

“And no bullshit,” I add.

Tim nods. “Exactly.”

I am surprised at how quickly, how seamlessly I slide into this life. And how much I enjoy it. The nondescript but tidy modern campus has all the amenities its 3,500, largely American students and faculty could want. And I have classes, faculty functions, office hours. Suddenly, I have a life. Not my own, but a life that I am living. Every day. And I feel normal. Every day.

I awake expecting not to, but I do. I wait for the other shoe to drop, but it doesn’t. The sun shines on the ocean and I realize I am happy to be just where I am. I begin dating a colleague—Karen, from the poli-sci department. When, after some months together, she suggests we move our things into one bungalow and cohabit, I am stunned at how quickly and happily I agree.

Whatever was wrong with me (which seems to have happened an eternity ago), I think, must be gone. Because I am happy. Again and again. Every day.

And then, without warning, a tsunami hits our little island, taking with it everything I hold dear. Except I am the only person whose life is lost. Karen tells me, as she is packing her things, that there were plenty of warnings. That she herself issued them, as did Tim, my best friend. But I refused to listen to anyone. She tells me she loves me but cannot live with me anymore; cannot be with me anymore.

She tells me I need help. And Tim—my friend, my boss—says he cannot cover for me any longer. That he has to let me go. I don’t remember doing anything terribly untoward, but when he goes over the laundry list, it is long: coming to class drunk, not coming at all, hitting on students, starting fights with deans, more drinking, conducting drug deals on campus, punching a student. It begins to sound familiar. To wash over me in sickening waves.

I am my own personal tsunami. I have wiped out my life again. The debris floats around me, reminding me that this was no cure, just a happy hiatus.

Now it’s back. I am back. So I leave. Filled with more dread for what lies ahead than I have ever felt before. Because this was good. For a long time. And I don’t know what I did to fuck it up or how the hell to get it back. And that is a new kind of terror.

New York, 1994
. In general, I dislike coming to the dayroom. Two weeks in, I got bored with the circus animals that lie around here throwing their crap at each other. Now it is just irritating. And depressing. I can’t decide which is worse. But when a guttural scream comes from the dining area, I know there’s at least a chance that something entertaining might happen.