A Stupid Old Man

*

They were class A arseholes and fun loving people and he was lost in a world he never intended, a place he never intended. This was not control. Take control of your own life. But every way, talking with old sex workers at the Thapie Gate, fantasising. Let's face it. That arse was worth any thousands of dollars. He could sacrifice here. As an old oblivion seeker, he said often: I understand, I understand. But in a sense he understood nothing; what had happened to him, what had happened in the world, even where he was. He had misread so many vital cues. The most handsome boy in the village. I want to go with you. Entirely acceptable in this culture. Not known, not known, these voices, this past, these desolate places inside his own head. While the sun drenched dread of a tropical island curdled every belief. You take advantage of me, he declared angrily, and of course it was true. Why did he have to like the straight ones, not the swishy boys? Was it ever going to end differently? Of course not. He couldn't believe his own destroyed psyche, how unhappy he had been his whole life, when these handsome people laughed together constantly, thought nothing of getting off with each other, celebrated everything. Oh how he dreaded his own heart.

Always, always, the constant crime. Against humanity. Against nature. Against, truly, himself. This was suicidal drinking, and there was no alternative. He couldn't even see a way out, even after he charged up his phone with credit. You couldn't be alone for long; not here. They regarded it as entirely unnatural. And so he worked and he played and sometimes he drank, and always, these poisonous dreams, this truly nasty village. He didn't like himself anymore, just a misshapen wreck on a remote highway. Very remote. So far from anything he had known; any normal culture in his own country. And yet here, nothing mattered. Everything was fine. You think you make a fool of yourself and it was just nothing, to them, to anything. Nobody cared. He was a wild stranger and a dark force. And stabs of jealousy shook his heart while he repeatedly declared that everything was alright. I don't mind, I don't mind. He minded very much. I don't believe you, Tammy said, and of course it was true. He hunted the beach. He searched everywhere for his obsession. And everyone looked the same, these slim toy men, so handsome, so astonishingly handsome, their shirts off in the hot weather. And he could die in any obsession.

There was nothing but nastiness in his own heart. He could not find the oblivion he sought, certainly not in the few legal drugs. And everything died, died, and he looked across barren rooftops which bore no relationship to the actual scene in front of him, which was picturesque, beautiful in the morning. He looked at the handsome boy in his bed, betrayed, always betrayed, and he found no heart in his predicament and cried early and long; because these were the obsessions which brought so many westerners to their knees. He couldn't see his way clear. He didn't understand. It was all like some crazy darkness, and yet he had brought it all upon himself. From tropical dread to Chiang Mai, back in Chiang Mai, at least now he was on his own turf, could take control again; was not in some tropical paradise with nothing but bars and a boy who thought nothing of knocking off a bottle of whiskey every day. Why this random pick, of all random picks. Off a soi in Bangkok, he said, joking to the boy, who had never been in a plane before and was staring excitedly out the window. He knew what he said. He knew too much. Be careful, be careful, they warned, when the said: I like him too much.

All was not well. He needed to take his own heart back. He needed to be free. He needed to have that dreaded conversation. You no want to take care of me, you can go. There are many handsome boys in Chiang Mai, Burmese boys, famous for their beauty. Cheaper than you. Muymar, easy to go, easy to collect, easy to pay. I want you, but the truth was he wanted only him; and when his rocks were turned and his obsessions realised; that became the cruelest moment of all. If all was let loose. If he travelled and planned and travelled again; he found his home here and did not want to go back to Australia, not in a million years. Not to a place where people said: you might be one of them, you might be a poofter. Tell me tell me. I tell you nothing, you dum effing red neck. Leave me alone. Let me be free. Let everything march forward. Baby baby, the old worker said, talking of the young Thai boys drinking by the canal. Not in Australia. Not anywhere. He didn't want to go back to Australia. He didn't want to die old and alone. He didn't want this daily torture. He didn't want his heart broken. He needed to take back control. Except it was already broken. And he remained astonished; if not alone; waking up with those workers in his bed.

Perhaps all was not lost. There is a Thai saying, bad things are a good thing, because after the bad comes the good. Maybe that was true. Maybe that was the only truth he could take out of this situation. Maybe he could admit that only this one had allowed him to do what he really wanted to do; and paradise had dawned for a brief time. But paradise is in the day; not in the heart; in the heat of the sky and the dawning shreds of being. You want to come with us, the handsome boy said; as if it was the most natural thing. And for them it was. Everything changed. His heart, his devastated heart, would recover more quickly than he suspected at this moment. The company was cheap. A thousand baht tip. That is all. Take it or leave it. Well at this point, without his fully optioned devency, to be blunt, without the heroin, then this was the obsession that would take him other places, bank him into another place, leave him warm and cosy and optioned, optioned for life. I am not your only life. This is not the only life. This is not the only path. There will be so many others. There have been so many others; in this travel of this ancient soul. So there it was; a stupid thing, a stupid old man, crashing his heart on the charming, astonishing flanks of Thai sex workers. And broken once, but never broken again.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/08/2893854.htm?section=justin

Thailand's Red Shirt leaders say they will consider ending their protest in central Bangkok on Monday when the government lifts the country's official state of emergency.

The state of emergency means that large groups of people can be forcibly dispersed by police.

Therefore, the Red Shirts do not want to leave their rally site en masse until that is lifted.

The anti-government protestors say it is appropriate to end their protest on May 10 as a sign of respect to those killed in protest-related violence on April 10.

A road map to reconciliation proposed by the government for November elections is still being debated by Red Shirt leaders.

They say they hope to finalise their plans for dispersal and release a detailed response to the government's road map today.

Meanwhile, four policemen have been wounded in explosions close to the Red Shirts' encampment.

Police say they suspect the blasts might have been caused by grenades.

Earlier, a policeman was killed and another wounded, along with two civilians, in a drive-by shooting in the same area, but it is not clear if this was directly related to the protest.

http://vyle-art.com/gallery/albums/homework/archi_L.jpg