Done Eddy

"How shall I explain the dying that was done?
Shall I say that each one did his math, and wrote
The value of his days
Against the bloody margins, in an understated hand?
They will all want to know
How was the audit done?
And I shall say that it was done,
For once,
By those who knew the worth
Of what was spent that day."

Richard Morgan
Altered Carbon.

This is Done Eddy, who I met on the first day I was in Pai. He was wearing his police t-shirt, as above. That's a way to win friends, I said, and we talked every day after that. He was often up early, at the general store where beer was 22 baht a bottle and the ramshackle chairs and tables outside gave him somewhere un-demanding to sit and hold court.

I've never laughed like I've laughed here, he said, echoing others. They came from everywhere; sitting briefly or for hours outside the store. Inside they took it all with an exasperated calm. At least we weren't Israelis.

Everyone walked past those tables at one time or another, and he was constantly saying hello to denizens of the night before. Although he hadn't read Under The Volcano, Eddy was doing his bit for the cause, wiping himself out on a daily basis, launching into streams of poetry. He came from one of the roughest housing estates in England and had spent half his life in prison. Being outside in the tropics pissed and partying was his idea of paradise. Kind of like a runaway trainspotter. Young women stopped to say hello, blokes from all over Europe, the Balkans, America, Canada, they all stopped and sat and exchanged notes on the day, where they were going, where they had been, how rough the visa run to the Burmese border had been this last time round.

Besides, if he went home he would be arrested at the airport, and because of his past, delivered straight into maximum security. Over some stupid driving charge, he said.

Many of his tales involved being pursued by coppers. They featured, from what I could tell, in the relevant escapade.

But of course there had been a lot of escapades. Whatever had been going on before he left, it all sounded wild. As had been his time in Thailand, which was meant to explain why his ex he'd argued with who had gone storming off back to England with the kids who weren't really his kids anyway had taken his credit card and he had to rely on Western Union; going up and down the strip once a week to pay his bills.

Stuck in isolation. No tobacco. He'd smashed everything. What can we do with you? asked the chief warden. We've already taken everything off you. Some tobacco, and a chance to watch the game, that's all, he said. He got what he wanted. When the prison drug counsellor said the most dangerous thing you could do was shoot up in your neck he couldn't wait to try it.

He got what he wanted; on that occasion, but he didn't want to go back. He was well happy to stay where he was; getting his dole money or whatever courtesy of Western Union. I love Western Union were the yellow t-shirts, one give-away week. He wore it with gusto. Just another scumbag, you may say, and yes, well, you might be right, but in all the chaos and drunken selfish generosity and full-on conduct, the party man that never did say die, the man who once had hair down to his knees, wore white suits and was a plaything for the rich, to skulking across housing estates and fleeing through backlanes, Crazy Eddy, as he was also commonly known, had all the charm of the doomed; the eddies of joyful hysteria folding into chaos. These things never end well.

My most vivid memory of him was one night when I was pottering around on perfectly good $3.00 a day motor scooter just at the end dusk near the river; always just beautiful at that time of day, whatever angle you looked at it; and there was a commotion on the bridge up ahead; always a spot for falling off your bike.

People rushed past me, there's been an accident they said. Then out of the almost-night, with people's headlights already on, the heightened sounds of everyone on the way home from work, emerged Eddy, blood streaming from all over him, concerned people bending towards him, clothes awry, someone wheeling the smashed bike, the traffic starting up again.

We stood in the forecourt of the Banana Bar, some name like that, and later he would say how helpful they had all been. But in fact they were standing back, alarmed at the sight of him, dishevelled, drunk, bleeding badly. We got the water going and I splashed water all over him, helping him to wash the blood off him. The fawcet was broken, and we couldn't turn it off. He'd broken his plates, had scrapes all over his face, his hands, his legs.

We washed the blood off him in what seemed like a prolonged bizarre embarrassment. Eventually he got himself together and insisted on getting back on the bike and driving back home. The Thais watched in a kind of pained disbelief, I feel sorry for you for that, they would say over the smallest misfortune. I watched him go, and then decided to follow him up to make sure he got home.

At his hut he was shaken and beyond; embarrassed by his broken plates, unable to talk properly. Kind of glad to see someone, or maybe not, on the verge of passing out. Looking at his broken plates. The last time that happened, someone stuck a gun in my mouth, he said. Yeh, and I bet you deserved it, I thought. We had a cigarette on the balcony, the moon out over the rice fields and the mountains behind, houses and lights far-off. I'm going to die here, I'm going to die here, he said.

I said something positive and inane, the night will claim us all, you could stop drinking and fulfil your dream of running a bar, there isn't any real reason it has to be a disaster. I'm going to die here, he repeated.