29 April 2004
War Next Door
They are opening the World War Two Memorial down on the Mall today. They have rushed the job because the veteran population is dwindling, and they want to let them see the tribute. That was the best news, since the rest of the batch contained more reports of the conflict in Iraq.
The Marines and the Army are quarreling in the international media about who allowed the situation in Falluja to go so desperately wrong. The BBC signal was weak, which I know is impossible in this age of satellite communications, but it made me think of long ago, listening to the short wave radio far away.
The violence of this mess is global. There are reports of violence in Thailand along the border with Muslim Malaysia. A correspondent was riding in a car, talking to Dan Damon, fading in and out, Conveying a sense of the conflict from the back seat of a car.
I remember. When I first saw Bangkok it was still the big brown city on the river.
It was not long after the conclusion of the Vietnam War, and the American money was long gone. I had a list of places I was had been told to go see by sailors who still wistfully talked about the War, and watching the air strikes in Vietnam from the safety of a hooch in Thailand.
The Thais had their arrangement with both sides, as they did traditionally. When the Japanese arrived, the Thais complied without a shot. They kept the King and they kept their independence. The Japanese insisted that they declare war on the United States as proof of their commitment to the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.
The Thais dutifully complied, signed the document, and filed it away, never delivering it to the Americans.
In my jeans I had a list of several bars and massage parlors, which were thinly-veiled houses of ill-fame. I had made the first liberty boat, a quaint little pastel barge, and watched the sliver of the new moon rising above the sunset.
The Thai boatman's apprentice sold us icy cold Amarit beers at exorbitant prices. Halfway to shore, the smell, of jet fuel changed to the smell of spice and wet dirt, of the interface between the land and the sea.
We rammed the beach, I leaped into the surf, and waded up to the beach. Past the Tshirt vendors and the Thai-stick hustlers, the beggars and the Wive's Club, across the beach road with the gaudy jeepneys, and onto a stool at an open-air cocktail lounge.
One beer later I had arranged further connection and was in the back ot an air-conditioned VW micro-bus on the high-road to Bangkok.
The traffic was amazing. The motor car was still a recent innovation for the Thais, and presumably because of the notion of reincarnation, traffic fatalities are cheerfully accepted. I saw my first corpse on the road within the first in twenty minutes. Travelers on the road the next day saw nineteen. Part of the process, you know.
We arrived at the junction with Sukumvit Road presently and and headed into Bangkok proper. At Soi 4 I was dropped at the Nana Hotel, a low building which had been a popular destination for soldiers on leave from the War.
The hotel had a slogan. "Sleep With Me!" it said on the T-shirts. I dumped my stuff in the airy room and made preparations to go out. I flagged a cab down on the street and said: "Patpong road, driver, and step on me."
I was down on Patpong Road, the legendary bar district, by ten-thirty. The Flying Machine
Bar was the most interesting, and had many signed photos of Western celebrities who had relaxed there. Peter Graves was there, and so was Greg Morris from "Mission Impossible."
I wondered if they had a good time. The bustle was amazing as hustlers worked the crowd. There were Yanks and Aussies, Germans and perhaps a few Icelanders. The hustlers were a blend of Thais, and Kmers, Lao and Malay. They were very attractive, and I wound up in a pedicab with three of them. We talked about The Life in broken liberty English. The ride was cheapa and the ladies very accomodating.
I dined the next night at a restaurant on my list. The Famous Nick's Number One was located in a huge musty old palace that would have been at home in New Orleans. The bar was festooned with the business cards of thousands of patrons on the walls. There was a 1978 University of Michigan football schedule tacked next to the cash register.
I chanced to meet Nick himself as I pondered the bill of fare. He was a thick-set suave Hungarian of a certain age, and he seemed eager to meet Americans. he had a story, of course, in fact dozens of them. He had been a prisoner of the Japanese, an entrepreneur extraordinaire, and currently a Thai national.
"Try the Kobe Steak al la Nick" he said. "It is the least objectionable thing on the menu." The smoke of this Dunhill curled over his fingers. He was the master of the innuendo.
We dined with him several nights as my friends cycled through the city from Pattaya Beach. We haggled for gold in Chinatown, bought tribal silver fashioned in bhat chains and realized by the pool that was as tepid as a bath. Late at night, after the real bars closed down, I discovered a place that I still find one of the most extraordinary in the world.
The Coffe Shop of the Grace Hotel was billed as a restaurant, and it was the only place that was open at 4 AM. Every hooker that did not have something to do went there to relax or find the last gasp in the night.
There were women from everywhere, and I mean everywhere. regal Chinese, White and Red Russian, dark Khmer, pale Vietnamese, petite Filipinas, blonde Californians, even some tiny Hmong trabeswomen with thick hair and flashing eyes. With the European men, the place was exactly like the bar scene in the first Star Wars movie.
When it was finally time to leave Bangkok, I invited him to tour the aircraft carrier where I lived. He graciously accepted, and offered to give me a ride. I took a cab from the Nana down to the major road junction, noting that the cheap cabs had been transformed by the brief American presence into major expenses. My supply of red-hued bhat currency was running low, though a few of the bills that were in my pocket that day are in an envelope in my bureau.
Thus, on the morning of my last day in Thailand, I found my self ensconced on the red leather bench seat of the largest lime-green Cadillac in Southeast Asia, riding down to Pattaya in luxury, looking out and accepting the stares of the peasantry. Nick had his wife in the front right seat and drove with the same nonchalance he displayed as a restaurateur.
She fumbled in her purse for more Dunhills when Nick called for them, lighting them from a silver Dunhill lighter. She was a lovely woman, thick black hair below her shoulders, and thickening just slightly with maturity. She seemed to care for him deeply, with the hint of irony that a long marriage brings.
He spun tales of what it had been like to be there when the Japanese came, and how his status as an "Ally" of the Empire of the Rising Sun had been useful. He said he had been able to help some British and American prisoners, and some commercial internees. That is what got him in trouble, and why the Japanese detained him, too, "Ally" or not.
He complained about the taxes and corruption that doubled the cost of this fine automobile. He talked about the real cowboys that came in 1946 when the city was made of mud the color of the river, flying in war-surplus C-47 transports.
Those were the days, he said wistfully. That was when he started reporting to the Hungarian Service through their Embassy. He was a useful asset to them. The war began to heat up next door and Bangkok became the Rest and Recreation destination of choice for thousands of Americans taking a mid-tour break from the horror.
They drank and they talked loudly at Nick's bar, and after he finished pouring the drinks and the soldiers tool cabs to the Grace Hotel he would write up his notes and pass them to his handler at the Embassy.
It was a pleasant and painless way to supplement his income, and doubtless the intelligence on the American disposition in the War next door helped to pay the taxes on the car in which I was riding.
He parked the car near the Fleet Landing and he and his wife enjoyed a tour of the ship. I suspected that he was listening for intelligence on our capabilities and next port of call. I figured it was the least we could do for him. Intelligence after the war was pretty thin for him, and he was getting on in years.
I figured it was about the least I could do in exchange for the ride home.
Copyright 2004 Vic Socotra