None of this Ever Really Happened (8 page)

"I suppose
you
do?" says the purple-haired girl. "I mean,
who in this room fell in love with a fictional dead woman?
Raise your hand."

"I did not fall in love with Lisa Kim," I say, "but your point
is well taken, and in a way it's what I'm saying. Love is a tough
nut. You can write about lust. You can certainly write about
infatuation."

"Aren't those aspects of love?" asks Nick.

"Sure."

"Why are you patronizing us?" he continues.

"Am I? I guess I am, so I'll stop. You can write about anything
you want. Here's what I'm saying: Most successful pieces
are about things the writer understands well, and love is hard
to understand at any age, including eighteen, maybe especially
eighteen. I know I knew little about it at that age. And
I don't mean to insult you, though I probably have, but most
teenage stories about love just aren't very good, so I would
gently steer you toward topics you are expert about: parents,
families, friends, school, brothers and sisters, adult hypocrisy,
the uses and misuses of power and authority, bad teachers.
Kids often write great stories about topics like these. Kids
less often write great stories about love. That's all I mean."

"What's so hard about love?" asks the dog-faced boy.

"Oh, please!" says a girl. "As if you know the slightest
thing about it."

"Then tell me: What's so hard about it?"

"It hurts," says the girl.

"Always?"

"It can hurt," says the girl. "It has great potential to hurt.
When you don't have it, all you can think about is getting it.
When you get it, all you can think about is losing it."

"And when you lose it . . ." The girl with purple hair shakes
her head. "My parents divorced when my brother and I were
very young. I hardly remember them together. He remembers
a little better. Neither one remarried; well, my dad did,
but briefly. It didn't work. My mom never did. Now all these
years later, they can barely talk to each other. They can barely
stand to be in the same room." She goes on to tell us a quite
amazing story. Recently her father had handed her a box of
photographs he was about to throw out saying, offhandedly,
that maybe she'd like them. She sat cross-legged on her bed
and looked at every one, studied them. They were from the
early years: her parents dating, her parents dancing and on
vacation in Mexico with long hair and bell-bottoms, arms
around each other, the wedding, feeding each other cake and
of course they were photographs, so most of them are posed.
But there was one in particular that wasn't: Her dad was telling
a joke. He was standing up with a party hat on, arms
spread and everyone in the picture was laughing, and no one
harder than her mother who had tears in her eyes and one
hand to her chest; she was so proud of him and in love with
him, the purple-haired girl could see it in her face. "I couldn't
stop looking at that picture," she says. "I'd never seen them in
love. I never knew that they ever had been. But in that picture
and some of the others, they clearly were. I kept that one and
used it as a bookmark; I would take it out when I was in a
boring class—never yours, Mr. Ferry—"

"Of course not."

"—and look at it, because I don't know why. I just would.
I think it was important to me to discover that I was conceived
in love, something I never knew, something I'd never
even considered a possibility. Finally I framed that picture
and put it by my bed." Then one day the purple-haired girl
noticed that it was gone. She asked her mother what had happened
to it. Her mother said she had thrown it away. The girl
flipped out. She said what right did her mother have to touch
her personal property? "She said it wasn't mine, it was hers.
She said she didn't want me to look at it because it distorted
the truth; it was a lie. I think
she
didn't want to look at it because
it contained a truth, one it's too hard for her to face."

"Write that," I say.

"What?"

"There's your story. Write that."

"Yeah," says the dog-faced boy, "write it just like you
told it."

"If you do, it will contain a truth, too," I say.

"What truth?" asks the purple-haired girl.

"You tell me."

"That love sucks," says someone.

"That love is a lot like hate."

"That love can turn into hate."

"Easily," I say.

"How about that love is not eternal. That love is fleeting,"
says Nick. "That for all our wishing it would, love doesn't last."

"How about we say, 'Love is not necessarily eternal'?"
I say.

"Now you're equivocating," says Nick.

"Big word," says someone.

"From
Macbeth,
" says Nick.

"I don't think—" I start.

"Sure you do," says Nick. "I mean, 'love is not necessarily
eternal' is obvious, right? I mean, look at Hollywood; look at
her parents. Duh. But 'love is not eternal' is news. 'Love is not
eternal' is Truth with a capital T."

"I'm just not sure that it is true," I say.

"Oh, Mr. Ferry, you're a romantic," someone says.

"No—"

"Sure you are. You fell in love with the girl in the car, a
character you made up, or say you made up, at least."

"Well—"

"Is that it?" asks Nick. "Are only the romantics allowed to
write about love?"

"That's not at all what I meant," I say.

"Oh, Mr. Ferry," says the girl with purple hair, "you're a
love Nazi. Yes you are; you're the Nazi of love."

While neither Thai nor American officials like to
talk about it, prostitution is a major industry in
Thailand. It is in small part a legacy of the Vietnam
War, during which Bangkok was an important center
for American soldiers on R and R, but more a
product of ancient cultural and very modern economic
factors. Whatever its origins and explanations,
prostitution in Thailand is a phenomenon
that the visitor can neither ignore nor escape.

W
HEN I CAME TO
Thailand, I wasn't looking for a
woman," said Bobby Quinn. "I had no intention of,
ah, hiring a prostitute. And now look at me; I've got
two of them." One was sitting next to him and across from
me at the big table of Westerners, all of us eating and drinking.
Her name was Sahli. She was a slender girl with feline
features, light brown skin and long black hair. She seemed
very shy, and neither of us thought that she spoke English.
As we poured ourselves another beer, she quietly nursed a
Green Spot orange soda.

The other one was back in Bangkok. "I gave her a vacation
when I came here to Chiang Mai," said Bobby.

"How did you find the one in Bangkok?"

"Well, the first cab I got in, the driver asked if I wanted
a woman. I said no, and he said, 'Why not take a look? No
obligation. It doesn't cost anything to look.' So there I was in
this massage parlor with maybe thirty, forty girls, and, you
know, then I'm walking out with one, and I've bought her
for two weeks."

"How much?"

"Thirty bucks a day, but I know I got taken. I could have
had her for twenty. I got this one for twenty." He nodded toward
Sahli. She got up quickly, left the table, and hurried out
the door of the restaurant.

"My God, Bobby," I said. "I think she understood what
we were saying."

"I don't think so."

"Maybe you should go after her?"

"She'll be all right."

"Would you mind if I went, then?" I asked him. I found
her standing by the river with her back to me. I approached
her, but not too close. I spoke softly. I decided to speak in
English, just as if she understood. "Sahli, what we said was
very thoughtless. We have hurt your feelings and we are very
sorry. We all feel very bad." I stood beside her, but not too
close. I talked about the beauty of the river, Chiang Mai, and
northern Thailand. After a bit, I smiled at her and motioned
with my hand: "Would you like to go back in?"

She hesitated, but came, her arms still crossed on her
chest. We sat side by side at the table, and neither of us took
part in the conversation.

Bobby Quinn made his living fishing for Alaska king
crab. He shipped out of Unalaska Island in the Aleutians. His
work was very lucrative, but very dangerous. He was twenty-eight
years old and had been crabbing for seven years. The
year before he had gone to sea just twice: once for thirty days,
once for forty-two. On these two trips he had made enough
to live well and travel around the world. Still, "Ships always
go down, people always get washed over." He felt sometimes
that he was living on borrowed time. His brother, who lured
him to Alaska to begin with, wouldn't go out anymore. Bobby
said simply, "I am looking for another line of work," but one
sensed that it would be tough for him to give up the money
and the freedom.

Bobby was tall, reed thin, and almost handsome. He had
huge doe eyes and a hesitant, shy manner. When I knew him
better, he admitted that he had, indeed, come to Thailand
looking for a woman. He was not alone.

Bangkok is the brothel of Asia, and the typical tourist is
a single male between the ages of twenty and fifty from Australia,
Japan, Arab countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
and European countries such as Germany. In fact it is so
comparatively rare to see a single Western woman here that
you almost blush when you do as if you have encountered
your sister when you are leaving an adult bookstore. The
whole city has a slightly sordid quality to it. There are peep
shows, freak shows, and live sex shows. There is the famous
Bangkok massage which can even include a massage and, of
course, there is the conventional roll in the hay at every turn;
every hotel permits prostitutes to ply their trade (even the
most expensive and exclusive) and every cabdriver is a procurer.
The buyer can contract for any sexual service at a fraction
of what it would cost in Tokyo, Paris, or New York.

But it is more than economics and availability that give
Thai prostitution its unique character. That comes from services
Thai prostitutes are willing to provide that are not sexual.
"They call them temporary wives," said Bobby. "They do
your wash, bathe you, polish your shoes while you sleep, go
out and get your food, take care of you if you are sick, laugh
at your jokes, rub your back. It's wonderful." Thai prostitutes
sell companionship and more. They sell the illusion of love—
temporary love—and perhaps even love itself sometimes. It is
always dangerous to put a good face on anything as insidious
and evil as prostitution, but I could not deny my feeling that
there was something human happening there. We all need
so desperately to be loved.

I thought while in Thailand about an old friend who
visited Bangkok some years ago. Now he is a prominent
Chicago attorney, but then he was just a kid on a once-in-a-lifetime
around-the-world jaunt. He told me later in hushed
tones about a Thai girl who had fallen for him. Yes, she was a
prostitute. Still—he would awaken to find her watching him.
She loved to hear him talk, so he talked and talked. She cried
when he left, so he gave her half his money. "She asked me to
take her with me and I'll tell you"—he smiled a little sheepishly—"
I actually thought about it for a minute."

When I first arrived in Bangkok after twenty-one hours
on planes and in airports, I headed right for the hotel bar. It
was 10:00 p.m. I ordered a Singha beer and made a few notes.
A young Thai woman was sitting beside me smoking, talking
quietly with the female bartender. She seemed bored, perhaps
sad. Suddenly two big Australians burst in. They were
all backslaps, wet kisses, and beer. Before I went to bed, one
of them was folded around the Thai woman. He was saying
hoarsely and not very discreetly, "Okay, okay, okay. I don't
care what you was last night. Last night is gone forever. All
I care about is tonight, and all I know is that tonight you are
my lady."

At 7:00 the next morning, the coffee shop was full of
young Arabs and their Thai girlfriends, who were working
the early shift because their boyfriends don't drink. (The girlfriends
of Australians didn't come on duty until somewhat
later in the day.) They were all having Cokes and Marlboros
for breakfast and beating time on the tabletops to loud rock-and-roll
tunes. One couple drank from two separate straws
but one glass; the atmosphere was sort of Third World malt
shop. Then a Thai girlfriend huffed through the room, and
her large African boyfriend hurried anxiously after her.
They both looked as if he had just insulted her meat loaf.

I read a guidebook, ate toast, drank canned orange juice.
People who came into the room glanced at me a bit curiously.
I felt conspicuously alone. It is a feeling I had throughout
my visit to Thailand. "Is he a priest? A cop? A queer?" Occasionally
I felt the need to explain, even somehow apologize.
"I'm committed, you see . . . made a promise . . . professional
objectivity . . ." I didn't mention my obsessive fear of
AIDS because no one else seemed at all concerned. "Oh, a
doctor checks the girls every week. They all carry condoms,"
an American I met said blithely. "They really got it under
control here. Asian success story . . . you can read about it."
Besides, it seemed a bit like talking about plane crashes at
30,000 feet.

On the bus going toward the center of Bangkok, I studied
the hotel brochure because it had a map of the city. I noticed
two pictures—one taken in the lobby, one in the coffee
shop—of very happy-looking Western men and very young
Thai girls. This is the ugliest face of Thai prostitution. It often
involves children. The photographs were no accident. They
were advertisements.

In brothels girls are segregated by age. Those younger
than eighteen are on one side of the room; those older than
eighteen are on the other. Men, especially Western men, it
seems, like little girls and the younger a girl, the more popular
and successful she tends to be. Bobby told me that when
it was mentioned in passing that the girl he bought in Bangkok
was twenty-one, she objected vehemently, even tearfully.
She was only eighteen, she swore to Bobby. He didn't care;
the pimp shrugged. But to the girl it was more than a matter
of vanity. Thai prostitutes, like international gymnasts, have
brief, early careers.

Late the afternoon of my first day in Thailand, I wandered
through the shops and fashionable hotels along Rama
IV Road. Perhaps it was just that I was now attuned, but
everywhere I saw Bangkok odd couples. Sometimes they
walked hand in hand, sometimes arm in arm; sometimes
they seemed afraid to touch, like seventh graders on their
first date. And neither that day nor any day did I ever see
anyone smirk, raise an eyebrow, or look askance even when
the difference in ages was obscene. If this was not considered
normal, it was at least routine.

That evening I ate an early dinner in the lovely garden of
the stylish J'it Pochana Restaurant, and they were all around
me. There was a very elegant and well-dressed Thai woman
of about thirty-five with a drunken German man who nodded
over his food and sneered at her. I could not figure out
their relationship. She did not fit the stereotype, but neither
did she seem a wife or secretary. There was a good-looking
young Australian fellow trying earnestly to talk to his Thai
girlfriend. He was not getting very far. There was a fat, handsome
American with several gold rings, a brandy snifter in
one hand and a huge cigar in the other. The little girl across
the table from him played with the straw in her Coke. When
they left, she nearly fell off her spike heels.

Back at the hotel, an international soccer match was on
the lobby television. They were all sitting there together: the
Arabs, the Aussies, the Europeans, the one African, even the
Japanese. Pass the bean dip, please. Across the way all of their
girlfriends were gathered around one big table in the coffee
shop. I watched them. I looked at them. I wonder if they were
good spellers, because that is what Asian women had always
been to me: pretty, passive little women who followed the
rules and won spelling bees. I thought sitting there in that
coffee shop watching this strange, interesting little community
of prostitutes how seldom I had looked at Asian women's
faces. That had all changed very recently—not only because
of my trip, but because at home I had found myself suddenly
and dramatically thrust into the life of a young Korean
woman who seemed hell-bent on not being typical, and was
making me reexamine the prejudices I didn't know I had.

I changed into my bathing suit and robe and went down
for a swim. The Aussie from the night before was doing slow,
tortured laps, while his girlfriend sat at the edge of the pool.
He stopped every few minutes and bobbed beside her talking
confidentially. I dried off, ordered a Singha, put my feet
up, reminded myself several times that I was on vacation and
told myself that I was having fun. But when I opened the
Bangkok Post,
the first story I saw was about a police raid
that had freed girls held in white slavery. Those under sixteen
years of age were in government custody.

Bangkok was getting me down. I decided to leave the next
day on the overnight train through the mountains to Chiang
Mai, the capital of the north. It was on the train that I met
Suzanne Schmidt, a German filmmaker who had been interviewing
bar girls for a documentary on prostitution. She had
been impressed by their candor and refusal to justify, excuse,
or rationalize. I asked her if they are all great actresses. "Oh,
no, not at all."

"But they can't be sincere—"

"Oh, yes, I think so. They are polite to us; they are polite
to each other. They wish to please. They are gracious hostesses
who want their guests to be at ease and happy."

"As hostesses, yes, but as lovers—"

"They understand affection differently. Perhaps it is
Buddhism. They see all relationships, not just this one, as
transitory. They have fewer expectations than we do."

On the same train I met a social-services agency worker
who strongly disagreed. (She asked not to be identified.) She
had lived in Southeast Asia for nearly twenty years and had
two adopted Laotian children, both now teenage girls. "They
(Thai girlfriends) are very sad girls. They do not want this. It
is forced upon them. Many are too poor and ignorant to have
any choice. If you knew some of the things I have seen. There
have been fires, and afterward they find the girls chained to
their beds."

"Still, many seem to function quite freely."

"For many it's their only chance."

"Chance for what?"

"Chance to make money, to stay in fancy hotels, eat in
fancy restaurants, buy clothes, buy cheap jewelry—these can
be very young girls—even have a Westerner fall in love with
them and take them away."

"Does that happen?"

"Sure, and someone wins the lottery every day."

All of this was on my mind a week later when I had dinner
with Bobby Quinn and Sahli. Before Sahli crossed her
arms and left, I had asked Bobby what was wrong with the
girl in Bangkok. "Nothing, really. She is a wonderful girl. Do
anything for me, but it was dark in there, and I was nervous.
I don't know. She's a little chunky. Sometimes I kid her and
say I'll trade her in at 'Happy Days'—that's the name of the
massage parlor—but—"