Not A Normal Man

*

You don't understand me one little bit, he could only think, lost in another expensive brothel. These were dark times, crazy times. I'm not the first westerner to come unstuck on the flanks of a Thai sex worker, he said. I swear to Almighty God, I have come unstuck now. He was lost in infinite sorrow and a terrible calm, as if he knew what was happening to him. As if it was a mistake that was always going to be made. As if time stood still. As if that last whiskey was not an oblivion seeking enterprise. He would normally be deep in the midst of a heroin addiction and didn't like the alcohol. Nothing, nothing. They made a whizzing gesture around their heads. Nothing, nothing. But his head was always full of chaos and his heart broken. Nothing could save him now. There was no one left to turn to. He turned to strangers and he hated them. He was oft riven and twice cast, from medieval times, from way before that, and these ancient slime, these dangers, these parasitic intelligences, took their delight and wasted him, wasted him, because nothing could come firm now, nothing would be right.

It wasn't easy being me, he sometimes thought, as he forked out yet more thousand baaht and some floozie was lost in the here and now; like him, entirely lost, yet now, other oblivion seeking behaviour failed and he was left with a chaos of emotions; nothing he wanted to hear. The sex workers lay in his bed. He wished he could adopt a better attitude to it all, have more fun. After all, we'll all be dead soon. He'lll be dead soon. Chaos wracked. I want you, I want you, and I am exhausted, come too often, and they do their bit and he couldn't care, as the baht flew out the window. I want you, you know you want me, the pop song of the moment here goes; and lost in that tunnel, lost at the bottom of a well, he was always here, he was always now, nothing would switch it off, nothing, and believe me he had tried everything. Everything but a trip to Cambodia, a lawless country. Where one can do anything. You no take care of me, he pointed angrily at the rent boy he was forking out thousands to, land yes it was true; nestled in oblivion and truly desperate, truly sad, they took my heart and cast it to the four winds; because nothing was free, nothing was easy. I am not a normal man, I am not a normal man, it was all he could think of to repeat. Chaos reigned. He had become truly desperate, truly sad. They looked at him in meetings and talked endlessly, these ex American military types; and told their stories. Give us a break.

It wasn't easy land he was now truly sad. It made him what he was. Deformed. Discurrent. The times were not his. These broken appendages on the outskirts of time, these wasted days and lost loves; and all for everything. Nothing. You could not be friends with me. I am forsaken, I am lost, default position. He could see things through broken eyes and even that meant nothing. He could waste away the days and even that meant nothing. Sure? Not sure. These were times broken and times that would never make amends. He sat in the park and listened to their stories. He couldn't bear it anymore. I make mistake, make mistake, he sobbed into the arms of a virtual stranger. But this world was full of strangers, willing strangers, they could take what they want, they could make amends, they could see their way through, they could mark this disaster walk, they could all be free, they could walk the walk with me but this will never happen; again, again, walking, walking, they are everywhere, these eyes, you can have any of them, money buys everything, and this is lost, I not take care of you, everything, they are wasted now, lost opportunities, opportunities, in a way, to be a normal man, nothing was coming, nothing was going, leave me alone.

He walked out of another brothel. He yelled at his friend. I am not paying for this. But of course he already had. Time and again. After, after, another time, these times, these days, the heat rising over the top of households. He remebered the time when the moon was full in Chiang Mai, when a giant orange moon hung over the city and he could see it wherever he went, over the rooftops, past those bodies, past flesh, past abandon, I am not awakened, I am dead inside, cruel, too cruel, true, too cruel, you may make my life and you can destroy it. But in the end I and my wallet will surive. Past darkness, past flesh, past everything he had ever believed in, past all his friends and the old times, the times when he thought he knew what it was all about. Time and again. Darkness. Past glory. I am not a normal man, he repeated, as the sun darkened and the lights darkened, sure, sure, he wasn't sure at all. His heart wasn't in any of it. I am not a normal man, he repeated, psychological, he repeated, again, wasing something against the side of his head, as if any of it mattered, as if anybody cared. fI am your arsewipe. I am your floozie for the night. I will do whatever you want. He wanted nothing. He didn't care. And not care for them.

These times weren't as normal. He became everything he wanted to be. Some dry old queen. Oh, they're so naughty. They take my money and they spend it on girls. To a normal man in a normal brothel; except he was not normal and nothing waited, nothing came, these were dry arenas dry valleys. You have a cool heart, they told him; and it was true. Off out there. The boy slept in his bed. Nothing worked. I can come to you. I can do. Not easy, he muttered; and for once in his life he didn't care. You are being well paid. You can care for me. You can do for me. But nothing worked. Always the lost time. Intimate and lost. Our future. Always together; and that was what he wanted; because he was sick of being alone. Heart sick. Nothing made sense. Sleeping alone. Nobody has slept with me all the time I have been here, gesturing at his bed. It was true. At the core of it is loneliness, the loneliness of the West, he said, gesturing, because for everything he asked for, everything that was given, not known, not known, that cute voice, I don't know, I don't know, I am not a normal man, he repeated, tears, there were always tears now, because he could not see, could not do, could not care.

These were not important times; times only to be remembered; times forgotten, times passing inbetween everything else, and always away, lost in time and space, lost and fractured and desperate for reassurance; they came, they conquered, they were never there. These voices. These pasts. These times when he was nothing but a fragment on a curved wing, a move in a discoquete, a glance at a too easy girl, it was not for me, not for me, and he was quiet, eventually, because these pasts would never haunt him and would always be there. He looked at the young face. He looked at a face that only he could desire. And even then, here and now, lost in you, you, Mr John, he was taken away by a darker force, by the sickness, by these times that had cruelled him so totally and left him so: well, high and dry. Beached. But it wasn't any normal beaching, he was not any normal man. They talked Thai around him. They made their peace. They looked askance. They were in darkness and they were in hell, they came away crying and they came away for peace. But there had not been any oblivion, not at all. This wasn't all.

This was the time to be nice and the time to cry. The time to show some consideration and the time to say, eff off, I not pay for this. Again. And again. Thousands of baaht, hundreds of dollars, they disappeared in whhast could never be the same, not other he discovered the real truth. That there was glory beyond glory. Pain beyond pain. A different place. Exctasy; the only place where he felt normal. Peak experience anonymous. Heightened experiences. He listened to these dark forces. He made as if to go. He was always there and never there. And nothing worked. Nothing worked. He came somewhere else. His heart was brokien. But his was no normal heart. These were always short time gigs. Always. You number one. I love you. Yes, for today, for the wallet, for money which opened up so many doors, and for times awry, for times out of joint, for nastiness that he could never understand, for a gift that was perverted, for a pleasure that was only pain, for a darkness that lit large in the sky, and devestated him. Because nothing had been more beautiful. If only I could tell the story.

t
He has withdrawn an offer of fresh elections on November 14th and the army has started to cut electricity, water and phone signals to the occupied zone, and blocking off roads and canals. Anyone seeking access to the area faces two years in jail, according to a televised announcement.

he bigger story:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0514/1224270378042.html

LONG-SIMMERING UNREST in Bangkok flared up yet again yesterday when a 25-year-old anti-government protester was killed during clashes with soldiers, the latest bloody incident in Thailand’s ongoing political crisis.

Fighting began after Maj Gen Khattiya Sawasdipol, an active-duty soldier who has sided with the Red Shirt supporters of ousted former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, and who helped build barricades of tyres and bamboo around the downtown business district, was shot in the head. The soldier, also known as Seh Daeng (Commander Red), was unconscious in intensive care at a Bangkok hospital. He was shot during an interview with foreign media.

Gen Khattiya is a best-selling author who once threatened to hurl poisonous snakes and grenades at rival Yellow Shirt demonstrators. The government has branded him a “terrorist”, and his strident calls for a “people’s army” to take on government forces have led some Red Shirt leaders to keep their distance from him.

Gunshots and five grenades thrown on Silom Road, a major business area downtown next to the protest site, injured three people, according to police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri.

There had been signs that the situation might be improving, but now there are worries the violence may spark more clashes after efforts to find a peaceful solution to the standoff broke down.

Various skirmishes between troops and protesters have killed 29 people over the past two months, fuelling Thailand’s worst political violence in 18 years.

Embattled prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva stepped up his pressure on the protesters after they failed to quit the occupied area after a midnight deadline.