To be male: to have this perennial s.e.xual appet.i.te and its feasting for pleasure, dominance, and self-preservation; and the release of such the surfeit of tension through the explosion of liquid shrapnel; a discharge all the stronger and more accurate for the apparatus not having been used for some time; potent and inimical fertilizing springs like long suppressed geysers shot out potential life through nature"s hand and bidding but as such a.r.s.enal all the same; live weaponry shot from a missile launcher that could not be said to be possessed or manipulated by any other force than that of the given man himself, a being who with enough experimentation was eventually cognizant of s.e.xual relations as an illusion of intimacy and yet was pressured beyond restraint nonetheless by urges and promptings of appet.i.te and t.i.tillation and for personal sensation that might awaken a sense that he could be more than the tedium of whatever redundant tasks he was a.s.signed as work that provided him with sustenance, or free of monetary bondage altogether, to break from the vacuity of his sh.e.l.l (earlier, both of them had stepped into the room only to sit down on edges of the bed in an awkward state where words were nascent, catatonic wisps of air, stillborn fetuses of pneumatic thought, decomposing on lips; and at this time, before a removal of articles of clothing in which all was removed except the fear of the unknown euphemized as moral conscience, he would have been disingenuous had he told him to leave... now, however even with not having had any s.e.xual satisfaction of his own from this encounter he could tell him to go and mean it as with him gone he would be free to go himself and how difficult could it be just to state what was really in the foremost part of one"s mind, to unfold and spread out one"s will upon the second of its mental conception as one would in deliberately casting his reflection onto waters and with the sincerity and tackless artlessness of a child?... and if this potential utterance of candor were done, articulate albeit lacking an adult"s sophistication for subtle and separate, ant.i.thetical layers of that which was said, logically meant, and yearned for, this triple entendre of politeness and deceit, he would find it liberating to be such a simpleton but he was unable to say that which he meant so all that he could do was to lie and prevaricate...he could attest that as it was Father"s Day he needed to leave and see his own family (who would believe that someone of forty would not have one), that shortly there would be a reunion in which he and his wife would surprise his father, (dead as he was) by showing him their infant grandson...
but then for such words to be plausible, he would have to be here in Nongkhai with a wife instead of as a single, solitary traveler; he would have to be in a more domestic setting than a guest house for foreigners and their wh.o.r.es; and in a coupling other than wet, fetid nakedness with another male...to be hypocritical enough to even say such a thing, how could he be thought of as anything but a middle aged man who did not know whether to fire or be fired upon, or if an experience was to be enjoyed or feared, a child ignorant and uncomfortable in self and the world at large, which, questioning everything as he did, he supposed that in actuality he was); attractions made all the more so by the magnetic pull of some vague feeling that was a composite of odors, sights, voices, attention, and interaction which seemed to emit and reek of the diminished, mostly forgotten blur of early family; to be so possessed by that which was long ago that it should be the conduit and thrust of succulent s.e.xual truculence, and yet not know the specific memories that were behind it all.
In this present circ.u.mstance of not only failing to satisfy himself but existing as an obsequious and pa.s.sive body there to be manipulated by another what he had done, this effeminate role that he had engaged in, was of this male instinct and yet a clear aberration of it. Only months earlier he had been a sequacious adherent of it as an incorrigible womanizer, and yet now his actions were more impotent than a misfiring and his manhood was debunked by being sodomized.
Still, by becoming something less than a man did it not allow him to reemerge as a human being? Such was to be hoped for when witnessing that the limited self in art and in life could not change the world for the better and that, in the race to make a success of himself before his short time on the planet expired (money and fame sought and pursued relentlessly after a youth debased in poverty and abuse), his sensitivities hardened so that now he could bypa.s.s a beggar on an overpa.s.s without giving a baht or feeling much more than an instant of empathy or compunction.
It was his hope with this sojourn to the sister cities of Nongkai and Vientiane to resurrect himself. He thought about how different he was from the boy who would extricate trapped insects from a window sill. He was losing bits of his humanity all the time with every a.s.sertive darting walk through the crowded sidewalks of Bangkok.
In certain ways it seemed that in the deviation from normal instinctual male drives he was becoming free of pretensions of being anything more masculine than a mere man, a vulnerable, needy creature who often articulated a wish for an extension of manhood and an introvert"s desperate need for at least a minimal physical connection to fellow man, although in his case now it was an encounter with a male who looked like his brother, Kazem at 18 when he was 14. Just as that which was past was ineluctable memory and stored in him still, and this storage of the replicas to the incidents of his life could never be made right as it was all distant and unalterable and as feral as brothers running along the banks and sand bars of the Chao Phraya River, he would always be under impulses to avoid the painful past by clogging his mind in amus.e.m.e.nts or urgencies of interaction with other beings. And for whatever activities he might devise as distractions from his thoughts, fears of the vacuous nature of existence would always be man"s ineluctable truth, and without agenda vacuous truth was his in excess.
If his thoughts were a quagmire what else would they be especially in this room and in this uncomfortable company whom he would not part with so easily?.. could not part, or part a.s.sertively, as doing so would be rude not only to the stranger but to himself as well since, like it or not, this surrogate brother, this lover, was a distraction from being without family on Father"s Day and to some degree he needed him or he would not have had him here.
He existed in memories as all of his experiences in the days of his life were nothing other than past incidents; and so for those who reproached a man for living in the past (as that beautiful nurse at Siriaj Hospital had done after overhearing him talk in his sleep--a woman who despite this scolding might heal his brokenness yet were her number saved on a sheet of paper instead of into a telephone that did not have the possibility of being retrieved from the trash receptacle at the train station) they at least meant well by their errant intrusions on such bitter sweet memories. If only mandates to turn off memory like tap water were so simple then he would not be seeking to rehabilitate recalcitrant corpses that refused to decompose.
Here confined to this room as long as the intimate stranger remained on the bed, there was at least thick textured darkness and silence that for him provided an inscrutable sense of comfort, a vast open sky and sea where a solitary man could find some liberty in his ruminations like a child enamored by the flexible manipulations of his body while at the same time obscuring how constricted he was within both the room and the company. Thus it was the only blanket that he had. Still he knew that he could not stay despondent forever and judged that it was time to once again speak. He asked, "What is your name again?"
"Boi."
"Boi?"
"It"s a nickname."
"Yes, of course it"s a nickname. It"s just that when I was coming here I met someone on the train who was also calling himself that. I guess it is often used around here."
"Maybe."
"You"re from here?"
"Where else would I be from?"
"Couldn"t you be from somewhere else?" Nawin chuckled more warmly than a snicker but what came out was still a fusion of both.
"Poor people don"t change to better locations. They remain trapped where they are. What is Bangkok like?"
"You"ve never seen it?"
"No except clips from television news."
"Polluted, congested, opulent and slummy; a mess [thinking but not saying, "all making it rife for nights not unlike this one"]
but mess with promise."
"You don"t like it there?"
"It has its moments. You surely know someone besides me who lives there."
"Why would I?"
"Okay, why would you?"
"What do you do there?"
"Nothing really...live, be."
"You dress fancy, live in a city and you don"t do anything."
"Hard to explain, but essentially that"s right."
"You a rich businessman?"
"Artist."
"Artist?"
Nawin laughed and gesticulated an artist drawing something.
"From a background of rich businessmen. Noodle workers. Dirt poverty. But if you work hard, have talents, use them commercially and invest wisely Bangok or any other large city can liberate a man." He resented even having to divulge this and kept asking himself why the man did not leave and why when the communication of bodies, the illusion of intimacy, had pa.s.sed, he and this man or any two people were compelled to forage for sc.r.a.ps of words to a.s.semble a bridge of ideas that would link them, two distant and alien islands. Words merely verified the fact that their intimacy was a mirage.
The activity had ceased, the pleasure had been brought to him and had been his alone. All that there now was, was anti- climactic small talk. He told himself that a good guest would show his grat.i.tude by getting dressed quickly and making a swift departure so as to not inconvenience Him. He told himself that all he needed to release from his lips were two basic words: please go.
He thought of the pejorative word, "elderly," that the intimate stranger had used against him and resented his presence even more. As bantering as the intent of this word might have been it seemed particularly offensive on a day after his own birthday and a Father"s Day at that. True, he was much older than the teenager (he glanced at the face; it was a perfect fusion of boy and man; smoking its cigarette and creating a synthetic fog of smoke onto his life). Only by contrast to the other one"s youth would he think of himself as old and then he was not merely old but old as the hills and with so many memories to be excavated therein. It was merely feeling and perception and it meant nothing. It was a mere feeling like all feelings, mirages really. Even family could seem for a time like "solid ground"
until one witnessed it become a series of vapors. It was he who had chosen to be with someone so young so if he felt old to be near him. It was a problem of his own making and he told himself that he could not blame anyone other than himself for the boy had not materialized in this dark room on his own.
And of this being used for his sperm and disposed of, he had unwittingly b.a.s.t.a.r.dized his own offspring unto the world, one more illusionary human form, a piece of himself, which he might never see again. But as Buddhists say the world is an impermanent place.
After Kimberly"s suicide, and the loss of "stable" human presences he judged that being reminded of his age was particularly impudent and ruthless. At worst, he was middle aged and even that should never have occurred nor should it ever occur to anyone of such a youthful profession. A person like him, a womanizer and painter of uniformed school girl prost.i.tutes and pathetic tramps, an artist with conscience about the exploitation of those he was exploiting, should stay young forever. How flawed nature was in this and every other respect.
"Still you can"t exactly be rich, I guess, to stay in places like this."
"I suppose not," he said while thinking a contrary idea altogether. One could, for behind fenced areas of expensive Malaysian beach resorts, on lounge chairs of gra.s.sy acreage, in the shade of palm trees, there with waiters beckoning him with c.o.c.ktails, parachute rides at various intervals in the day from fast moving boats as exhilarating as being born, luxurious rooms and ensuing business cla.s.s flights back home with champagne on his tray, he, the retired artist, had tried affluent ways before and they were all stale to him. A guest house or even a night under the stars with the base of a stupa as his pillow would be preferable.
"Maybe you just like guest houses in foreign areas or something." Nawin did not say anything so the youth continued.
"If you are trying to hook up with a foreigner why did you choose me?"
"Why you? I don"t know--to see what it would be like not that I care to...what did you say?.. hook up with someone?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don"t. Besides, it is really best to give oneself to a discipline of study, the sciences or the arts, which will always be there--smart men give themselves to knowledge at least in some small way--building stability around ideas instead of changing people. People can just twirl around their feet like empty bags blowing in the breeze, amusing for some minutes, gone, and forgotten."
"So, for you I am an empty bag blowing in the breeze?" the boy asked and laughed. Nawin did not say anything and then they fell into silence as thick as the lifeless darkness which governed them.
"Someday I"ll go there."
"Huh?"
"To Bangkok."
"Then go," said Nawin indifferently. He was meaning more the boy exiting to his home than a departure from Nongkhai that could link the youth to him as inextricably as blood sucking ticks or bacteria and the ensuing infection gained from a water monitor"s mouth (these crocodilian reptiles, frequent inhabitants at the Nakhon Pathom campus at Silpakorn University).