Days Volume Two

* This was not the time or place. You don't understand me, he said. You don't understand me, the boy replied. And so it was that one of their most intense conversations followed; precarious, these days, yet full of wonder, different things, the party that never ended, hysterical moments, frustrating moments, time out of mind and out of joint, wanted, wanted, for all to see, for the times that were and never were, for things that should never have been, for a life that is now coming to an end, closing, closing, these days of happiness and good luck, times for all to see, times when we should have been free. It was going to be alright. I am free. These things will make no difference. Love and live and learn. I don't believe you, the woman on the beach said, as he hunted desperately for a love he could not deny and destined to be nothing but a malady of the heart, a passing time. You don't understand, you don't understand, I am Thai. These things were true. The end

* Shoot to kill, the government troops have been ordered; shoot to kill in order to defend the citadels of capitalism. The government now has serious bloodf on its hands. Even here in Chiang Mai there is a curfew, with none of the bars or clubs open, most everything closing at 8pm. Black smoke rolled over the Tapai Gate after a group of red shirt protestors set alight a pile of tyres. There was shooting at the airport. A general had his house burnt down. Against the wild night. Against times he could never understand. Against a cruel indifference. Too depressing, James said, throw in some humour. I'm going to meet someone I know, he thought clearly, 24-hours before running into him in chance encounter the prospects of which were infinitesimally small. Come inside, the English rent boy said. I'm in there. That means there's a party going on. Baw falls asleep at the bar. The succession of sex workers grows ever more frenzied. Time stands out of mind. He doesn't know a

* And then, and then, the obsession broke, he came back into himself, life was glorious and he was sane and they danced till the early hours and woke up in sandwiches and thought, for everything that has happene3d, for all the hard times, for those years, isolated, walking at dawn, walking at two am, never sleeping, never sleeping, through the long hours. Was it worth it all to arrive at this point? Nothing mattered. I'll tell them I found you up a river in the tropics, James said, Colonel Kurtz, the Heart of Darkness, the first person from his old life he had seen since his work farewell. Nothing made sense and that didn't matter. Gary, Gary, don't say those things. Take control, take control, well he finally had; properly; and now; when money equalled power, everything was back in proportion. Mai pen rai. Never mind. A person is lurking in the dark. A stranger. Someone with a gift of darkness. Beware. Strangers in strange parks; easy lays, voices that were discontent,

* They had been ruined. But there was always a way back. He made some very stupid and expensive mistakes; as if letting everyhthing go, self abnegation. It was always going to be; these mistakes; these bars at 5am, these places in darkened streets, girls dancing, girls behind glass, oh how he had wanted to be a normal man. But nothing was normal inside there; except in a sense things were coming back to what had been. Except he didn't want to go back. The old him was lonely, craving company, craving sex, accustomed now to the role of one man out. Oh how significant is this? Can't anyone make any claim to decency? But what was decent about these long days spent watching TV while the rent slept beside him; what was decent about forgetting who he was, what he was, where he was? These were most unusual times. But these mistakes would not be made again. He could walk through the valley. He could take care. Love yourself, the cafe owner kept saying. He show no respect. The latest

* The storm broke, finally; and he resumed his old life. There was a bit of shame, guilt, regret, remorse, a clarified image, a run at darkness, a ridiculous old man trying to keep up with someone more than 30 years younger, the ridiculous bars at all hours, the girls who don't want to do threesomes with two men, the moment of departure, time standing still in an agony of chaos, darkness, oh lord, that got me through, the girl sitting there as if she had been asked to suck off two diseased monsters, exiting the room, a disappointed boy, quiet, sulky through the night, these things, always, drove him into new paroxysms of self abnegation; so it was good one morning when he woke up and he was himself again. He wouldn't spend the entire day in the room; just to be there. He couldn't make sure. This was no way out. Time stood still; and yet there was so much to repair. He was on the edge of danger; and even greater darkness. And yet now the sky dusted poinks and the pigeons

* Now was seeking behaviour, now was the time to stop, now was the time when he was caught in kareokie bars at 4am, always the man with the wallet; and everything came to pass. It was not fair. It was not simple. He showed up at meetings in distraught states. He was often wanted, wanting, time out of mind, Christmas in the morning, profound moments lost in a sea of alcohol and obsession; as if his whole life began and ended on one handsome flank as if every obsession he had ever known had come back to haunt him. And there was no oblivion in this. There was no way out. There were times, sometimes simple times, astonishing in their freshness; and there were two men who made love during the day and went prowling the brothels at night, as men do, brothers in arms, the ultimate bonding, all out of mind, all sacrificed, because often we were free, often we were tempted to do things we knew were bad for us; often we found it impossible to stop. Whatever stop meant. Whatever we were stoppin

* 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 int

* In time for flight, for another bout of naysayers, to sit silently in the corner and listen to the crap float over him. It all began what already seemed like centuries ago; but was in fact only weeks. He walked out of an AA meeting - the so-called seven by seven by seven at the Park Hotel in Soi Seven in Bangkok and fished his friend Ian out of the Biergarten opposite, an enormous bar filled with a hundred girls or more. His friend, as per normal, was having a whale of a time, surrounded by girls, drinking, laughing, perving. He had decided he particularly liked a mother daughter combination sitting nearby; something he had never experienced. But it was clear it was time to extricate themselves from this situation, as per so many other situations. So he paid the bill with Ian's money and they left; heading off to the notorious Soi Cowboy; newer than Patpong, perhaps less seedy but that was open to debate. Where girls without underwear danced above mirrors and he was enormousl

* 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 different

* Hunting, a sad and desperate old man made a fool of yet again by another young man, worshiping at the knees of an insane beauty, walking the beach in despair. I hate this place, he said of what most considered a tropical paradise. Bars lined the beach and he hated every last one of them, the backdrops to such an insane and dangerous bust. He couldn't be free. He couldn't see his way to dissolve anything. But arrangements were not kept. I am angry now. I don't understand your thinking, the boy said, when he refused to pay for yet another girl. This is Thailand. This is public humiliation. This is neglect. Easy to find a nice boy to take care of me, he thought, pay some money. Easy. They were everywhere, these slim, amazing looking men; dark, handsome, fun loving. The original gender benders. You can have me, the boyish girl said, but he didn't want anything, or at least not her. You do for you, not for me. I don't care anymore. The dream fell apart like an ocean

* He didn't know where he was. He certainly didn't know who he was. There were whole periods of lost time. He didn't care if he died tomorrow; finally all obsessions realised, all those sad days and wasted lust, it was something to be free, it was something to be different. The island was meant to be a honeymoon and turned into a debauched escapade of major preportions. At least he knew it now. At least he knew what was happening. Easy to understand how so many hearts were broken; here in the infinite, with the warm sea splashing against the white sand and the bars lined from one end to the other; the tropical green cliffs behind reaching up into what used to be a sky, before we disowned it, before everything was destroyed. He went for a walk because he did not want to be alone; not for some paid for boy who kept spending his money on girls and bottles of Jack Daniels. You don't mind? Tammy asked; and he shook his head. Boys will be boys. He was papa now. They saw h

* If there was anything to be said for the infinite, for time across mind and a million spaces, for tropical beaches and strange situations, for dancing in the last bar in the last resort in town, there at 8am, for being lost, infinitely lost in the time zones between the places. He wasn't there. That was the point. There was no tomorrow. The declamatory voice held firm. He wanted to be high and he wanted not to think, he wanted to be in love and he wanted to negotiate a price, an understanding. Everything came back to haunt. They looked across desolated landscapes; but that was only the beginning. Every old queen he had ever known hung in the walls, laughing. He was very strange, stranger than strange, and if these haunted symphonies ever had any meaning; if these wild times on the cusp of the edge, in a place where no man could survive and no woman was welcome, he came to them, crawling, pitiful, I love you, I pay for you, infinite, that's what it was, these cries of pain