Well Then

*

Five minutes to midnight. In fact five minutes to one as he sat in the hotel opposite the Foreign Correspondents Club. Many things, many things, many times, many times. He was having difficulty processing the whole experience. Days passed. Depressing, throw in some humour, James says; and the German man sidles up to him at 5am in the nightclub, I can see, you are very funny man, I want to talk to you. Offers him yabba in the toilets. Make way make way. But at five minutes to midnight there was no solution. I want to come with you to the airport, I ask my boss, says the handsomest boy in the cafe. Maybe my boss not happy. I don't care. The boss approves, with big brown puzzled eyes. There was nothing to be puzzled about. Perhaps nowhere else in the world but Pnom Penh could the incantation: "You want take care I tip you $20" produce such magical results. Happy, happy, astonished by the beauty of the flesh, the young man defiantly held his hand in the tuk tuk, in a society where no such thing is approved; where the sight of a foreigner with a handsome man produces that instant assumption. And in such good humour. I give the boy, a different boy, not his boy, one dollar tip, take me to the markets, help me buy a bag. They make the joke: maybe you too will come back with new jeans, new shirt. They all laugh. Even him.

In these days, post the debacle, in the days after he had given a Bangkok street boy a thousand dollars to go away, he felt, well he had no idea. Sad, perhaps, but this was Asia. There was no need to sleep alone. I don't know why I was so vulnerable to the situation, he said; and evolving saga, but he knew, really knew. Sleepless, he would watch them sleeping. Moi, moi, many days, they would say, and he was conscious of the deft hand and the flickering fingers; the easy embrace. I take care of you long time. Yeh, sure. But every now and then; when they would meet every day at four and go to some other hotel, cheap hotel, under three hours five dollars, and these embraces would fill the holes he never expected to meet, and fly from one country to another, as if he had been doing it all his life, which in some ways he had, and these terrible things, these terrible times, he sat in the soi long enough to work out where the Thais, not the foreigners, were going, and followed the Thais. Because they always knew best. Anything foreign made them uncomfortable. He'd been in enough cheap brothels to know.

Well what a sight they set. Tbhe two street boys permanently camped in his room. The hotel staff disapproving. Until wide spread tips brought back the smiles and the salutes. You are falang. We don't care what you do. You pay. You are mature. I like girl, I like lady boy, now I want pappa, and everywhere, he spread the load, and they laughed and laughed, until they ran completely off the rails and there was a grim faced emptiness at the end of the season, when they had run so far off the rails, so far from any normal life, that there could be no going back. He was struggling to come back. Every day now, on his own now, well, occasionally on his own now, he did the laundry and kept to secret places, watched the path, watched everything pass, listened to crap, felt the days pass, felt, "you very handsome", I give him a thousand dollars and send him south to see his family, you meet nice girl, you get normal job, not come Bangkok he advised. Bangkok not good for you. He had seen now. Through all that strange distress and obsession and yes, absolutely hysterical fun, through the long nights and the long days and the wonderful companionship, there in the hours, where you from? Australia. He could hear them talking and the hours pass away. The boys laughed. Boom boom boom, pop, gesturing, and even in his sleep Baw would be humping the bed, dreaming of sex, dreaming of ladies.

Everybody know he is too crazy to have a relationship with; but he didn't know. He only see at the end. He go back to the same soi where the two month saga began; criss crossing Thailand, costing far too much money. What a party that lad had at his expense; but then, what a party he had been taken on. If only, if only, young again. I wouldn't sleep with me, not for sixty dollars a day, he joked, and so the strange kindness, the strange intimacies that pass between men, those intense, fragmented friendships, those crazy things; could this boy really be so gorgeous. Did he really utter those words: You can do anything you like to me. You are happy, I am happy. Well, as everyone knew, there was only one cure to get over a sex worker; buy another. And so of course he did. And for some days he would wake up sandwiched between the Baws; the street boy who had led him on such a merry dance and his languidly, limpidly handsome friend, also called Baw. So when Peter rang, out of the blue, he was standing in the street waiting for the limpidly handsome one to finish his haircut, at his expense, of course, everything was at his expense, and he could only think: if you spent a million years trying to design the most handsome boy on the planet, you could not come up with this. The girlfriend would ring, and be fobbed off. He was with his friend Baw. He was working. That was it.

There was no conclusion. There was only another day. And this day, sure as mud, he would follow the Thais again, watch the show at X Boys, find his way home in the heart of Bangkok, pay again, often for mixed results, often for perfect results, and think: where did that old life go, where he walked the streets at 2am and was always different, always alone, through the long sleepless nights. Now he could sleep. That made all the difference. His arm encircled a paid for body and he didn't care. There wasn't any point in being alone. Not now. He had left Pnom Penh but wished he hadn't; wished they were back in the five dollars for under three hours hotel; wished they were still pretending inthe hotel that nothing was happening; wished for once they could do again. And everything was laughter. Everything a joke. It would be over soon. Let's face it, we're not going to live forever. What are you going to do on your birthday? Ben asked and he smiled. I cannot think of any excess that I haven't already done; oh, perhaps the four hand boy massage for 900 baht, haven't tried that. So be clean and clear; make way; a heroin habit would have been cheaper, that was all he could think of to say, in a topsy turvy world. Soccer played on every screen. Thailand is obsessed with soccer; and he, by now, was obsessed with nothing, having worked through everything. Good night, the lady at the hotel said as he checked out; paying the grand bill with the two boys standing behind him, watching; and as she tried to correct her mistake he said: it feels like that. And she just started laughing; and then the whole counter was laughing; and they were all laughing. All debauchery has an ending.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/penrith-polls-close-libs-tipped-to-win-20100619-ynk2.html

Polls have closed in the electorate of Penrith with a bruising defeat expected for the government.

Counting is currently underway after polling stations closed at 6pm (AEST) as Labor is predicted to get a hammering in the western Sydney seat, with swings of up to 30 per cent to Liberal candidate Stuart Ayres being tipped.

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally herself has flagged such a large shift away from her government.

Labor currently holds the seat by a margin of 9.2 per cent.

Penrith voters are expected to take a bat to the government over the spate of recent political scandals, including former member Karyn Paluzzano, who resigned amid corruption allegations.

Ms Keneally, who helped Labor candidate John Thain hand out how-to-vote flyers at Penrith South public school, said she always knew the Penrith by-election was going to be a tough battle.

She denied not doing enough to help Mr Thain campaign in the electorate - a criticism levelled at the premier by the opposition and Greens.

Ms Keneally was unapologetic for leaving her polling day appearance in Penrith to the afternoon - when it would have the least impact on voters - saying she was attending her son's soccer games on Saturday morning.

"I make no apology for spending Saturday morning doing what I always do - going to my children's soccer games," she told reporters.

Ms Keneally said the Paluzzano scandal would hurt Labor in Penrith.

The former MP has been accused of rorting public funds and then lying to the corruption watchdog about it.

"We do expect that people will respond to that," she said.

Meanwhile, NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell toured Penrith polling booths with Liberal candidate Mr Ayres on Saturday morning.

Mr Ayres was doubtful the Liberals would give Labor a drubbing - despite widespread predictions the ALP will suffer a strong swing against it.

http://news.scotsman.com/12007/Red-Shirt-leaders-may-face.6363995.jp

ELEVEN leaders of Thailand's "Red Shirt" anti-government protests could face the death penalty after being charged with terrorism.
They were denied bail by a Bangkok court and taken to prison after being charged with committing, threatening to commit and supporting terrorist acts. While the charges carry a maximum penalty of death, executions are rare in Thailand.

The leaders, including Veera Musikapong and Weng Tojirakarn, had been detained since surrendering on 19 May after weeks of clashes between the Red Shirts and security forces – nearly 90 people were killed and some 1,400 injured.

The Red Shirts were demanding a dissolution of parliament and new elections, claiming the government had come to power illegally.