At the Cafe Lovely
Every so often I dream of my brothers
face on fire, his brown eyes—eyes very much like my own—staring at me
through a terrible mask of flames. I wake to the scent of burning flesh, his
fiery face looming before me as an afterimage, and in that darkness I am eleven
again. I have not yet learned to trespass. I have not yet learned to grieve.
Nor have I learned to pity us—my brother, my mother, and me—and Anek
and I are in Bangkok sitting on the roof
of our mothers house smoking cigarettes, watching people drift by on their
bicycles while the neighbors release their mangy dogs for the night to roam the
citys streets.
It was a Saturday.
Saturdays meant the city didnt burn the dump behind our house. We could
breathe freely again. We wouldnt have to shut all the windows to keep out the
stench, sleep in suffocating heat. Downstairs, we could hear Ma cooking in the
outdoor kitchen, the clang of pots and pans, the warm smell of rice curling up
toward us.
Hey kid, Anek said,
stubbing his cigarette on the corrugated tin roof. Whats for dinner? I
sniffed the air. I had a keen sense of smell in those days. Like a dog,
Anek told his friends once. My little brother can smell your ma taking a
crap on the other side of town.
Rice.
Sure.
Green beans. Fried
egg.
No meat?
No. I dont smell any
meat.
Oi. Anek threw a
leaf over the edge of the roof. It hovered for a second before dropping swiftly
to the street. Im tired of this. Im tired of green beans.
Our father had been
dead for four months. The insurance money from the factory was running out.
There had been a malfunctioning crane and a crate the size of our house full of
little wooden toys waiting to be sent to the children of America. Not a very large crate when I think
about the size of the house, but big enough to kill a man when the crate fell
on him from a height of ten meters. At the funeral, I was surprised by how
little sadness I felt, as if it wasnt our father laid out before the mourners
at all—wasnt him lying there in that rubberwood box, wasnt his body
popping and crackling in the temple furnace like kindling—but a striking
replica of our father in a state of rest. Pa had taken us to the wax museum
once, and I remember thinking that he had somehow commissioned the museum to
make a beautiful replica of himself and would be appearing any minute now at
his own funeral.
After the cremation,
we went with Ma to scatter the ashes at Pak Nam.
We rode a small six-seater boat out to where the brown river emptied into the
green sea. We leaned over the side—all three of us tipping the tiny tin
urn together—while Ma tried to mutter a prayer through her tears.
Anek lit another
cigarette.
Are you going out
tonight? I asked.
Yeah.
Can I come with?
I dont think so.
But you said last
time—
Stop whining. I know
what I said last time. I said I might. I said maybe. I made no promises, kid. I
told you no lies. Last I checked, maybe didnt mean yes.
A month before for my birthday, Anek had taken me to the new American fast-food
place at Sogo Mall. I was happy that day. I had dreamed all week of hamburgers
and french fries and a nice cold soda and the air-conditioning of the place.
During the ride to the mall, my arms wrapped around my brothers waist, the
motorcycle sputtering under us, I imagined sitting at one of those shiny
plastic tables across from my brother. We would look like those university
students I had seen through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the ones who laughed
and sipped at their sodas. Afterward, we would walk into the summer sun with
soft-serve sundaes, my brothers arm around my shoulder.
The place was packed,
full of students and families clamoring for a taste of American fast food. All
around us, people hungrily devoured their meals. I could smell beef cooking on
the grill, hear peanut oil bubbling in the deep fryers. I stared at the
illuminated menu above the counter.
What should I get,
Anek?
Dont worry, kid. I
know just what youd like.
We waited in line,
ordered at the counter, took our tray to an empty booth. Anek said he wasnt
hungry, but I knew he had only enough money to order for me: a small burger and
some fries. I decided not to ask him about it. I wasnt going to piss him off,
what with it being my birthday and what with people being so touchy about money
ever since Pa died. As we walked to the booth, I told Anek we could share the
meal, I probably wouldnt be able to finish it all myself anyway.
Even though he had
been telling me all month about how delicious and great the place was, my
brother looked a little uncomfortable. He kept glancing around nervously. It
occurred to me then that it was probably his first time there as well. We had
on our best clothes that day—Anek in his blue jeans and white polo shirt,
me in my khakis and red button-down—but even then I knew our clothes
couldnt compare to the other kids clothes. Their clothes had been bought in
the mall; ours had been bought at the weekend bazaar and were cheap imitations
of what they wore.
Anek stared across the
table at me. He smiled. He tousled my hair. Happy birthday, kid. Eat up.
Thanks, Anek.
I unwrapped the
burger. I peeked under the bun at the gray meat, the limp green pickles, the
swirl of yellow mustard and red ketchup. Anek stared out the window at the road
in front of the mall. For some reason, I suddenly felt like I should eat as
quickly as possible so we could get the hell out of there. I didnt feel so
excited any more. And I noticed that the place smelled strange—a scent Id
never encountered before—a bit rancid, like palaa fish left too long in
the sun. Later, I would find out it was cheese.
I took a few
apprehensive bites at the bun. I bit into the brittle meat. I chewed and I
chewed and I chewed and finally swallowed, the thick mass inching slowly down
my throat. I took another bite. Then I felt my stomach shoot up to my throat
like one of those bottle rockets Anek and I used to set off in front of Apaes
convenience store just to piss him off. I remember thinking, Oh fuck, oh
fuck, please no, but before I could take a deep breath to settle things, it
all came rushing out of me. I threw up all over that shiny American linoleum
floor.
A hush fell over the
place, followed by a smattering of giggles.
Oh, you fucking
pussy, Anek hissed.
Im sorry, Anek.
You goddamn,
motherfucking, monkey-cock-sucking piece of low class pussy.
I wiped my lips with
my forearm. Anek pulled me to my feet, led me out through the glass double
doors, his hand on my collar. I tried to say sorry again, but before I could
mouth the words my heart felt like it might explode and—just as we cleared
the doors—I sent a stream of gray-green vomit splashing against the hot
concrete.
Oh. My. Fucking.
Lord. Why? Anek moaned, lifting his face to the sky. Oh why Lord? Why hast
thou forsaken me? Anek and I had been watching a lot of Christian movies on TV
lately.
When we came to a
traffic stop an hour later, I was leaning against my brothers back, still
feeling ill, thick traffic smoke whipping around us. Anek turned to me and
said: Thats the first and last time, kid. I cant believe you. All that money
for a bunch of puke. No more fucking hamburgers for you.
We finished watching the sun set over the neighborhood, a panoply of red and orange and purple and blue.
Anek told me that Bangkok sunsets were
the most beautiful sunsets in the world. Its the pollution, he said. Brings
out the colors in the sky. Then after Anek and I smoked the last of the
cigarettes, we climbed down from the roof.
At dinner, as usual,
we barely said a word to each other. Ma had been saying less and less ever
since that crate of toys killed our father. She was all headshakes and nods,
headshakes and nods. We picked at our green beans, slathered fish sauce on our
rice.
Thanks for the meal,
Ma.
Ma nodded.
Yeah, Ma, this is
delicious.
She nodded again.
Besides the silence,
Mas cooking was also getting worse, but we couldnt bring ourselves to say
anything about it. Whats more, she had perfected the art of moving silently
through the house. She seemed an apparition in those days. Shed retreated into
herself. She no longer watched over us. She simply watched. Id be doodling in
my book at the kitchen table and all of a sudden Ma would just be sitting
there, watching me with her chin in one hand. Or Anek and I would be horsing
around in the outdoor kitchen after dinner, throwing buckets of dirty dishwater
on each other, and wed look over our shoulders to find Ma standing against the
crumbling concrete siding of the house. Anek told me she caught him
masturbating in the bathroom once. He didnt even realize she had opened the
door until he heard it shut, a loud slam so he could know that shed seen him.
Anek didnt masturbate for weeks after that and neither did I.
One night I caught Ma
staring at her own image in the bedroom mirror with an astonished look on her
face, as if she no longer recognized her own sallow reflection. It seemed Pas
death had made our mother a curious spectator of her own life, though when I
think of her now I wonder if she was simply waiting for us to notice her grief.
But we were just children, Anek and I, and when children learn to acknowledge
the gravity of their loved ones sorrows theyre no longer children.
That woman needs
help, Anek said, after we washed the dishes that evening.
Shes just sad,
Anek.
Listen, kid, Im sad
too, okay? Do you see me walking around like a mute though? Do you see me
sneaking around the house like Im some fucking ninja?
I dropped it. I didnt
feel like talking about the state of things that night, not with Anek. I knew
he would get angry if we talked about Pa, if we talked about his death, if we
talked about what it was doing to Ma. I never knew what to do with my brothers
anger in those days. I simply and desperately needed his love.
I think Anek felt bad about the hamburger incident because he started giving me lessons on the
motorcycle, an old 350cc Honda our father had ridden to the factory every
morning. After Pa died, Ma wanted to sell the bike, but Anek convinced her not
to. He told her the bike wasnt worth much. He claimed it needed too many
repairs. But I knew that aside from some superficial damage—chipped paint,
an ugly crack in the rear mudguard, rusted-through places in the exhaust pipe—the
bike was in fine working condition. Anek wanted the bike for himself. Hed been
complaining all year about being the only one among his friends without a bike.
Wed spent countless hours at the mall showroom, my brother wandering among the
gleaming new bikes while I trailed behind him absentmindedly. And though I
thought then that my brother had lied to my mother about the bike out of
selfishness, I know now that Pa did not leave us much. That Honda was Aneks
inheritance.
Hed kick-start it for
me—I didnt have the strength to do it myself—and Id hop on in front
and ride slowly through the neighborhood with Anek behind me.
Ill kill you, you
little shit. Ill kill you if you break my bike, hed yell when I approached a
turn too fast or when I had trouble steadying the handlebars after coming out
of one. Im gonna nail you to a fucking cross like Jesus-fucking-Christ
himself.
My feet barely reached
the gear pedal, but Id learned, within a week, to shift into second by sliding
off the seat. Id accelerate out of first, snap the clutch, slide off the seat
just so, then pop the gear into place. Wed putter by the city dump at twenty,
twenty-five kilos an hour, and some of the dek khaya, the garbage
children whose families lived in shanties on the dump, would race alongside us,
urging me to go faster, asking Anek if they could ride too.
I began to understand
the way Anek had eyed those showroom bikes. I began to get a taste for speed.
Thats as fast as Im
letting you go, Anek once said when we got home. Second gears good enough
for now.
But I can do it,
Anek. I can do it.
Get taller, kid. Get
stronger.
Cmon, Anek. Please.
Second is so slow. Its stupid.
Ill
tell you whats stupid, little brother. Whats stupid is youre eleven years
old. Whats stupid is you go into turns like a drunkard. Whats stupid is you
cant even reach the gear pedal. Grow, kid. Give me twenty more centimeters.
Then maybe well talk about letting you do third. Maybe.
Why cant I come?
Because you cant,
thats why.
But you said last
week—
I already told you,
vomit-boy. I know what I said last week. I said maybe. Which part of that
didnt you understand? I didnt say, Oh yes! Of course, buddy! I love you so
much! Youre my super pal! Id love to take you out next Saturday! now did I?
Just this once, Anek.
I promise I wont bother you.
I dont think so.
Please?
Please nothing,
little brother. Sit at home and watch a soap with Ma or something.
But why, Anek? Why
cant I go with you?
Because Im going
where grown men go, thats why. Because last I checked, last time I saw you
naked, you were far from being grown.
I promise I wont
bother you, Anek. Ill just sit in a corner or something. Really. I promise.
Ill stay out of your way. Just dont leave me here with Ma tonight.
When we were young, our mother would put on her perfume
every evening before Pa came home. She would smell like jasmine, fresh picked
off a tree. Pa, he would smell of the cologne he dabbed on after he got out of
the shower. Although I would never smell the ocean until we went out to Pak Nam to scatter his ashes, I knew that my
father smelled like the sea. I just knew it. Anek and I would sit between them,
watching some soap opera on TV, and I would inhale their scents, the scents of
my parents, and imagine millions of tiny white flowers floating on the surface
of a wide and green and bottomless ocean.
But those scents are
lost to me now, and Ive often wondered if, in my belated sorrow, with all my
tardy regrets, Ive imagined them all these years.
Anek finally gave in
and took me. We rode out to Minburi District along the new speedway, the engine
squealing beneath us. We were going so fast that my face felt stretched
impossibly tight. I wanted to tell Anek to slow down but I remembered that I
had promised to stay out of his way.
We were wearing our
best clothes again that night, the same old outfits: Anek in his blue jeans and
white polo shirt, me in my khakis and red button-down. When we walked out of
the house Ma glanced up from the TV with a look that said, What are you all
dressed up for?, and Anek told her he was taking me out to the new
ice-skating rink, he heard it was all the rage. I even said, Imagine that, Ma.
Ice-skating in Bangkok, but she just
nodded, her lips a straight thin line, and went back to watching television.
"Imagine that, Ma . . ." Anek teased when
we walked out.
Eat shit, Anek.
Whoa there. Be
careful, little one. Dont make me change my mind.
When we arrived at the
place, it was not what I had imagined at all. I expected mirror balls and
multicolored lights and loud American music and hundreds of people dancing
inside—like places Id seen in the district west of our neighborhood,
places all the farangs frequented at night. It didnt look like that. It
was only a shophouse, like the thousands of tiny two-story shophouses all over
the city—short and common, square and concrete, in need of a new paint
job. A pink neon sign blinked in the tinted window.
Café Lovely, it said in English. I could hear the soft,
muffled sounds of upcountry music reaching across the street.
This is it?
I can take you home,
Anek said. Thats not a problem.
The
place smelled of mothballs. There was an old jukebox in the corner. A couple of
girls in miniskirts and tank tops and heavy makeup danced and swayed with two
balding, middle-aged local men. The men looked awkward with those girls in
their arms, feet moving out of time, their large hands gripping slender waists.
In a dark corner, more girls were seated at a table, laughing. They sounded
like a flock of excited birds. Id never seen so many girls in my life.
Three of Aneks
friends were already at a table.
Whats with the
babysitting? one of them asked, grinning.
Sorry, Anek said
sheepishly as we sat down. Couldnt bear to leave him home with my crazy ma.
You hungry, kid?
said another. Want a hamburger?
No, thanks.
Hey, Anek said.
Leave him alone. Lets just pretend hes not here.
The song ended. I saw
one of the girls go up a set of stairs at the back, leading one of the men by
the hand. I didnt even have to ask. I wondered if Anek, too, would be going up
those stairs at the end of the night. And although I had been disappointed at
first by the cafés shoddy facade, I found myself excited now by its
possibilities.
Anek mustve seen me
staring because he slapped me hard across the back of the head. Ow, I cried,
rubbing my head with a palm. That fucking hurt.
Keep your eyes to
yourself, little man.
Thats right, one of
his friends intoned, the one whod asked me if I wanted a hamburger. Be
careful what you wish for, boy. The AIDS might eat your dick.
Not before it eats
your moms, though, I replied, and they all laughed, even my brother, Anek,
who said, Awesome, and smiled at me for the first time all evening.
Anek had come home one night when I was nine and told me that Pa had taken him out for his
fifteenth birthday. The city dump was burning; there was a light red glow in
the sky from the pyre. Even though our windows were shut, I could still smell
the putrid scent of tires and plastic and garbage burning, the sour odor seeping
through our windows. I was sleeping in my underwear, two fans turned on high,
both fixed in my direction. Anek walked into the room, stripped down to his
underwear, and thrust out his hand.
Bet you cant tell me
what this smell is.
I sniffed his fingers.
It smelled like awsuan: oysters simmered in egg yolk. But somehow I knew
it wasnt food.
What is it?
Anek chuckled.
What is it, Anek?
That, my dear
brother, is the smell of—he put his hand up to his face, sniffed it
hungrily—heaven.
I blinked at him.
A woman, kid. You
know what that is? Pa took me to a sophaeni tonight. And let me tell
you, little one, when he takes you for your fifteenth birthday, youll
never be the same again. This scent—he raised his hand to his face again—itll
change your fucking life.
Anek and his friends
had already poured themselves a few drinks while I sat there sipping my cola—half
listening to their banter, half watching the girls across the room—when
one of Aneks friends stood up and said: Its getting to that time of night,
guys.
I didnt know what the
hell was going on, I just thought he was a funny drunk, but then Anek got up
and told the bartender we were going outside for a breath of fresh air. One of
the girls came up to us, put a hand on Aneks shoulder, and said, Leaving so
soon? but Anek told her not to worry, to be patient, hed be back to give her
what she wanted. The girl winked at me and said, Whos the handsome little
boy? and I smiled back, but Anek had to be an asshole, so he said, Oh, thats
my virgin brother, which annoyed me because no girl had ever winked at me
before and I thought she was beautiful.
I followed Anek and
his friends out of the Café Lovely and into a small alley off the shophouse
row. Anek didnt want to leave me by myself. He said it didnt look good—leaving
a little boy alone in a place like that—but I could tell that he didnt
want me to come either. As we cut into the dark alley, I had a feeling that a
breath of fresh air was the last thing we were going to get.
When we stopped, one
of Aneks friends pulled out a small container of paint thinner from a plastic
bag. All right, he said, prying at the lid with a small pocketknife. The lid
flew open with a loud pop and rolled down the dark alley, swirling to a stop by
a dumpster. I saw the quick shadows of roaches scattering in its wake. Thats
what the alley smelled like—roaches: dank and humid like the back room
where Ma put away our fathers belongings. Aneks friend poured half the can
into the plastic bag, the liquid thick and translucent, the bag sagging from
the weight, while the others flicked their cigarettes into the sewer ditch
along the side of the alley. The thinner gave off a sharp, strong odor, punched
little pinpricks in my nostrils, and reminded me of days when Pa and Anek used
to fumigate the house. Aneks friend pulled out another plastic bag from his
back pocket and put the first bag with the thinner inside it.
Okay.
He held out the double bag with one hand, offering it to his friends, the way
Id seen butchers at the market holding dead chickens by the necks. I could
hear the jukebox starting up again in the café, another old upcountry tune
echoing softly down the alley. Whos first?
For a second, they all
stood with their hands in their pockets. Then Anek reached out and took the bag
with a quick, impatient gesture.
Lets just get this
over with, he said. I tell you guys, though, one hit and Im done. I dont
like having my little brother around this shit.
I realized then what
they were doing. I knew what huffers were, but Id always imagined little kids
and strung-out homeless guys in the Klong Toey slum with their heads buried in
pots of rubber cement. I suddenly became very afraid—I wanted to grab the
bag out of my brothers hands—even as I longed to watch Anek do it,
wanted, in fact, to do it myself, to show Anek and his friends my indifference.
Anek brought the mouth
of the bag to his chin. He took a big, deep breath, pulled his entire body back
like it was a slingshot, then blew into the bag, inflating it like a balloon,
the loose ends covering half his face, and it made a sound like a quick wind
blowing through a sail. The bag grew larger and larger and I was afraid that it
might burst, that the thinner would go flying everywhere. Anek looked at me the
whole time he blew, his eyes growing wider and wider. He kept blowing and
blowing and blowing, and I knew that my brother was blowing for a long time
because one of the guys said, Fucking inhale already, Anek, but he kept on
blowing and blowing and all that time he kept looking at me with those eyes
about to pop out of his head. I dont know what he was trying to tell me then,
looking at me like that, but I remember noticing for the first time that he had
our mothers eyes. He finally inhaled, sucked his breath back into his chest,
the plastic balloon collapsing in on itself, and then my brother was blinking
hard, teetering, like a boxer stunned by a swift and surprising blow, and I
knew that whatever it was he had smelled, whatever scent he had just inhaled,
it was knocking him off his feet. He handed the bag to one of the other guys
and said, Cmon kid, lets get out of here, and I followed my brother out of
the dark alley, back into the dimly lit street.
Years later,
Id be in a different alley with friends of my own, and one of the guys, high
off a can of spray paint, would absentmindedly light a cigarette after taking a
hit and his face would burst into a sheet of blue flames. He ran around the
alley wild with panic, running into the sides of the buildings, stumbling and
falling and getting back to his feet again, hands flying violently around his
burning face as if trying to beat back a swarm of attacking insects. He never
made a sound, just ran around that alley with his face on fire, the flames
catching in his hair and his clothes, looking like some giant ignited match in
the shape of a man. For a second, we couldnt quite comprehend what was
happening—some of us laughed, most of us were just stunned—before I
managed to chase the boy down, tackle him to the ground, and beat out the
flames from his face with my T-shirt. His eyes were wild with terror and we
just stared at each other for a moment before he started to weep hysterically,
his body shaking under mine, the terrible scent of burnt flesh and singed hair
filling the alley. His lashes and eyebrows had been burned cleanly off his
face. His eyelids were raw, pink. His face began to swell immediately, large
white welts blooming here and there. And he just kept on crying beneath me, calling
for his mother and father, blubbering incoherently in the high, desperate voice
of a child.
Back at the café,
I could tell that the thinner was setting in. Anek kept tilting
back in his seat, dilating his eyes. He took a long swig of his rye, poured himself
another. I knew we wouldnt be going home for a while. The same girl who had
winked at me earlier walked across the room and sat down at our table. She put
her arm around my shoulder. I felt my body tense. She smelled like menthol,
like the prickly-heat powder Anek and I sprinkled on ourselves to keep cool at
night.
Hi, handsome.
Hi.
I sipped at the last
of my cola. Across the room, I noticed the girls looking our way, giggling.
Thats my brother,
Anek drawled.
I know, Anek.
Hes a little high,
I laughed.
Looks like it.
Yeah. Anek smiled,
slow and lazy. Just a little.
Where are the rest?
she asked me.
Outside.
What about you,
handsome? Are you high?
No.
Ever been?
Yeah. Of course. Plenty
of times.
She laughed, threw her
head far back. Menthol. I felt my heart pounding in my chest. I wanted to smear
her carmine lips with my hands. I reached across the table for Aneks Krong
Thips and lit one.
Youre adorable, she
said, pinching one of my cheeks. I felt myself blush. But you shouldnt be
smoking those things at your age.
I know, I said,
smiling at her, taking a drag. Cigarettes are bad.
Cmon,
Anek said, getting up abruptly, swaying a little bit. He reached out and
grabbed her hand from my shoulder. Cmon. He nodded toward the staircase.
Lets go.
She stood up, her hand
dangling in my brothers, while I sat between them.
What
about the kid? she asked, looking down at me.
Oh, hell be fine.
Maybe not tonight,
Anek. We shouldnt leave the kid by himself.
Hey barfboy, Anek
said. You gonna be okay?
I looked up at my
brother. He still had the girls hand in his own. I took a long drag of my
cigarette.
Yeah. Ill be fine,
Anek. Im not a kid anymore.
Anek smiled as if he
found me amusing. I wanted to wipe the smile off his face. I felt angry. I
didnt want to be abandoned. Anek mustve sensed this because there suddenly
seemed something sad about my brothers smile. He dropped the girls hand. He
reached out and tapped me lightly on the head.
Okay, kid. You dont
have to be so tough all the time, he said finally. He took a deep breath, his
voice a little steadier, his eyes a little wider. Tell you what. Im just
gonna go put some music in the jukebox. Then Nong and I are gonna dance. Then
were gonna go upstairs for a while. Just a short while. We wont be long. I
promise. Then, if you want, well go home, okay? But I just took another drag
of my cigarette, watched the girls in the corner, tried not to meet my
brothers eyes.
She led him out to the
dance floor. They stood by the jukebox and he slipped a few coins into the
machine, steadying himself with one hand. A record came on, the sound of high
Isan flutes and xylophones and a hand drum striking up the first few bars. Anek
clumsily took one of the girls hands, hooked an arm around her waist, and they
started moving to the music. They stood close, their chins on each others
shoulders, though perhaps a little too close for the girl, because she leaned
away from my brother a few times. But then again, maybe it was because my
brother was high, drunk, and they kept losing their balance. They didnt look
like dancers at all after a while; they looked like they were just holding each
other up, falling into and out of each others body.
I hadnt recognized
the tune at first—I thought it was just another generic upcountry ballad—but
then a womans falsetto came soaring over the instruments and I remembered that
it was an old record of Mas, something she and Pa used to listen to in the
early afternoon hours before the endlessly growing mass of garbage burned
behind our house. Those days curry and fish in tamarind sauce would be cooking
on the stove, the aroma wafting into the house, and I swear that right then,
listening to that music, I could smell it on the tip of my nose.
Oh beloved, so sad was
my departure . . .
I looked at Anek and
the girl. She couldnt have been more than sixteen years old—younger than
my brother—but it seemed clear to me now that she was the one holding him
up, directing his course, leading him. I wondered how many men she had already
held up tonight, how many more she would hold in the thousands of nights before
her. I wondered whether she was already finding the force of their weight
unbearable. I wondered whether I would be adding my weight to that mass one
day. She held him close now and he pulled away, fell out of sync, though they
continued to move across the floor as slowly and languorously as the music in
the café.
. . . I am tired,
I am broken, I am lost . . .
When the song ended,
they pulled away from each other, and Anek took the girl by the hand and led
her toward the staircase. As they began to mount the stairs, the girl said
something to my brother and they both stopped to look back at me. My brother
smiled weakly then, raised a hand in my direction. I looked away, pretended not
to see the gesture, stirring the ash in the tray with my cigarette. When I
looked back they were gone.
The place fell silent.
A balding, middle-aged man walked down the stairs. He made for the door, his
steps quick and certain, as if he couldnt wait to leave. When he passed by my
table, I caught a whiff of him, and his scent lingered on my nostrils for
awhile. He smelled like okra.
I stood up. I dont
know why I walked toward that staircase. Perhaps it was childish curiosity. Or
perhaps I wanted to see, once and for all, what secrets, what sins, what
comforts those stairs led one to. Or perhaps I wanted to retrieve Anek before
he did whatever it was I thought he might do.
I had imagined darkness
and was surprised, when I arrived at the top of the stairs, to find a brightly
lit hallway flanked on both sides by closed doors. The corridor smelled sweet,
sickly, as if it had been perfumed to cover up some stench. The bare walls
gleamed under the buzzing fluorescent fixtures. I heard another song start up
downstairs, laughter again from the table of girls. I walked slowly down the
hallway; the noises downstairs faded to a murmur. I felt like I had surfaced
into another world and left those distant, muffled sounds beneath me,
underwater. As I crept along, careful to be silent, I began to hear a chorus of
ghostly, guttural groans coming from behind the doors. I heard a man whimper; I
heard another cry out incoherently. After a while, those rooms seemed—with
their grunting and moaning—like torture chambers in which faceless men
suffered untold cruelties. I wondered if my brother was making any of these
noises. I thought of the video Anek had borrowed from one of his friends, the
women in them cooing and squealing perversely, and how strange it was now that
none of the women could be heard. Instead, I could hear only the men growling
away as if in some terrible, solitary animal pain. I imagined the men writhing
against the women, and I wondered how these women—those girls sitting
downstairs—could possibly endure in such silence.
Just as I turned the
corner, a hand grabbed me by the collar, choking me. I was certain, for a moment,
that I would now be dragged into one of the rooms and made to join that chorus
of howling men.
Little boy, a voice
hissed in my ear. Where do you think youre going?
It was the bartender
from downstairs. He looked down at me, brow furrowed, beads of spittle
glistening at the corners of his lips. I smelled whiskey on his breath, felt
his large, chapped hands on my neck as he pulled me toward him and lifted me
off the concrete floor.
Youre in the wrong
place, he whispered into my ear, while I struggled against his grips. I
should kill you for being up here. I should snap your head right off your
fucking neck.
I screamed for Anek
then. I sent my brothers name echoing down that empty hallway. I screamed his
name over and over again as the bartender lifted me up into his thick, ropey
arms. The more I struggled against the bartender, the more dire my predicament
seemed, and I cried out for my brother as I had never cried out before. The men
seemed to stop their moaning then and, for a moment, I felt as if my cries were
the only sound in the world. I saw a few doors open, a couple of women sticking
out their heads to look at the commotion. The bartender walked backward with
me, toward the staircase, as I kicked and struggled against his suffocating
embrace.
Then, I saw my brother
hobbling in his underwear, his blue jeans shackling his feet.
Hey!
Anek yelled, staggering, bending down to gather up his jeans. Hey! The man
stopped, loosened his grip on my body. Hey! Anek yelled again, getting closer
now. Thats my little brother, you cocksucker. Put him down.
The bartender still
had me, his breath hot on my neck. As Anek struggled to pull up his jeans I
glimpsed the purple, bulbous head of his penis peeking over the waistband of
his underwear. The bartender mustve seen this too; he began to chuckle
obscenely.
Get him out of here,
Anek, he said. Anek nodded grimly. The bartender put me down, shoved me
lightly toward my brother. You know I cant have him up here, he said.
You okay, kid? Anek
asked, breathless, ignoring the bartender, bending down to look me in the eyes.
I saw the girl standing in the hallway behind Anek, a towel wrapped loosely
around her small body. She waved at me, smiling, and then walked back into the
room. The other women disappeared as well. I heard the bartender going
downstairs, the steps creaking under his weight. Soon, Anek and I were the only
people left in that hallway, and for some reason—despite my attempts to
steel myself—I began to cry. I tried to apologize to my brother through
the tears.
Oh shit, my brother
muttered, pulling me to his chest. Cmon, kid, he said. Lets just go home.
We went to the bathroom.
I stood sniveling by a urinal while Anek leaned over a sink and dashed water on
his face. When we came back out, his steps were no longer unsteady, though his
voice still quavered slightly. Beads of water glistened on his face. He lit a
cigarette at the door and waved to the bartender and the girls in the corner. I
couldnt look at them now.
We
stepped into the street. His friends were still in the alley, laughing and
stumbling, flinging pieces of garbage from the dumpster at each other. We stood
at the mouth of the alley and Anek said, See you later, boys, and one of them
yelled back saying, Wait, Anek! Wait! I have an idea! Lets put your kid
brother in the dump! But Anek just put an arm around my shoulder and said,
Maybe next time.
We crossed the street.
Anek kick-started the motor-cycle. It sputtered and wheezed and coughed before
settling into a soft, persistent purr. I started to climb onto the back, but
Anek said, What the hell are you doing? Cant you see Im in no shape to take
us home?
You cant be serious,
Anek.
Serious as our pa is
dead, kid.
I stood there for a
moment, dumbfounded. I climbed onto the front seat.
I swear to God,
though, you make so much as a dent on my bike and Ill—
But I had already
cocked the accelerator and we were on our way. Slowly, of course. I slipped off
the seat a little so I could reach the pedal, snapped the clutch with my left
hand, and popped the bike into second gear. We sputtered for a while like that
along the streets of Minburi, crawling at fifteen kilos, and I made a sharp
right onto the bridge that would take us out to the new speedway.
Years later I would ask Anek if he remembered this
night. He would say that I made it up. He never wouldve taken me to the Café
Lovely at such a young age, hed say, never wouldve let me drive that bike
home. He denies it now because he doesnt want to feel responsible for the way
things turned out, for the way we abandoned our mother to that hot and empty house,
for the thoughtless, desperate things I would learn to do. Later that same
year, my mother would wake me up in the middle of the night. She would be
crying. She would ask me to sleep again in her bed. And, for the first time, I
would refuse her. I would deny Ma the comfort of my body.
After
Anek moved to an apartment across the river in Thonburi, I gathered my fathers
belongings from the back room and pawned them while Ma was at work. I used the
money to buy myself a motorcycle. When I got home, my mother was waiting for
me. She came at me with a thousand impotent fists, and when she was finished,
spent and exhausted, her small body quivering in my arms, she asked me to leave
her house. I did. And I did not return to that house again until it was too late,
until Anek called to say our mother was ill, that she wanted us by her side to
accompany her through her final hours.
That night
as we rode back from the Café Lovely, I felt my brothers arms around my waist,
his head slumped on my shoulder. I remember thinking then about how Id never
felt the weight of my brothers head before. His hot, measured breaths warmed
my neck. I could still smell the thinners faint, sour scent wafting from his
face. I suddenly became afraid that Anek had fallen asleep and would tumble off
the bike at any moment.
Are you awake, Anek?
Yeah, Im awake.
Good.
Do me a favor. Eyes
on the road.
Im glad youre
awake, Anek.
Third.
Whats that?
I said third.
You sure?
Its a one-time
offer, little man.
I slipped off the
seat, accelerated a little, squeezed the clutch, and tapped the gear pedal just
as we hit the speedway. I was so excited we might as well have broken the sound
barrier, but the engine jolted us forward just enough that my grip weakened and
we went swerving along the empty speedway, weaving wildly back and forth at
thirty kilometers an hour.
Easy now. Easy.
There, there, you have it. Just take a deep breath now. Holy shit, I almost had
to break your ass back there. You almost had us kissing the pavement.
I could feel the palms
of my hands slick against the handle grips. Even at thirty kilos, the wind blew
hot against our faces.
Accelerate, Anek
said.
No fucking way.
I said accelerate.
This is a speedway, you know. Not a slow-way. Id like to get home before
dawn.
Youre out of youre
mind, Anek. Thats the thinner talking.
Listen, if you wont
do it, Ill do it myself, he said, reaching over me for the throttle.
Fine, I said,
brushing his hand away. Ill do it. Just give me a second.
We slowly gathered
speed along the empty highway—thirty-five, forty, forty-five—and
after a while, the concrete moving swiftly and steadily below our feet, I was
beginning to feel a little more comfortable. Anek put his arms around my waist
again, his chin still on my shoulder.
Good, he whispered
into my ear. Good, good. Youve got it. Youre fucking doing it. Youre really
coasting now, boy. Welcome to the third gear, my little man.
Now, he said. Try
fourth.
I didnt argue this
time. I just twisted the accelerator some more, popped the bike into fourth,
sliding smoothly off the seat then quickly back on. This time, to my surprise,
our course didnt even waver. It was an easy transition. We were cruising
comfortably now at sixty, sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five, faster and faster
and faster still, the engine singing a high note beneath us as we flew along
that straight and empty speedway. We didnt say a word to each other the rest
of the way. And nothing seemed lovelier to me than that hot wind howling in my
ears, the night blurring around us, the smell of the engine furiously burning
gasoline.
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