resign and go to a monastery.” I stare at him. “I know what you think of me, I know you laugh at me, just like all the others, especially your
katoey
assistant. I didn’t choose the smallness of this lifetime. Don’t you think I also would like to live a bigger life? Why do you think I want promotion so much? But it’s my karma, what can I do?” He adds, “I often wish I hadn’t married and had a child.”
“Your home life is not entirely what you hoped for, Khun Sukum?” I ask, rather disingenuously; the detective’s fights with his wife are legendary.
“You know very well it’s not. Let’s face it, this is the age of the booby-trapped pussy. If I tread on her toe, I’m violent. If I smack the kid, I’m a sadist. If I look at another woman, I’m a sex addict and she starts talking about HIV. If I don’t want to go to the filthy beach at Pattaya fifty times a year, I’m stifling her and the kids. At the same time I get it in the neck for not standing up for her when she gets into an argument with the neighbors, and if I don’t dominate her ruthlessly in sex she can’t reach orgasm. Then there’s always the threat of bankruptcy if she files for divorce.”
He gives me a glance. “Go ahead, laugh.” He shakes his head and glances around the coffee shop. Out of the corner of his mouth: “If I could have held out against the sex instinct for a little longer, I might have gotten mature enough to be a monk. But I couldn’t, and what can I do now? My whole mind is cramped; there’s nothing I don’t worry about, and I have no idea where the worry comes from. I don’t like my social identity. I don’t like identity. I hate having to be somebody, it’s so burdensome.”
My jaw has dropped, and for a moment all I can manage is a high
wai
to honor his wisdom. On the way, now, to the Rose Garden, with Sukumholding his illegal DVDs in a green plastic bag, I’m thinking,
Hold out against the sex instinct, hmm
.
I was too rushed to describe the bar properly to you before,
farang
. It’s a great barnlike structure of the type used to house small modern industries and supermarkets—basically a tin roof on an iron frame with walls added and a great oblong bar in the middle of the enclosed space. What I have always admired is the way the strict Buddhist owners have preserved a sacred ficus tree, which somehow rises through the roof and is the primary source of luck for the girls, who rarely fail to bring lotus buds and
wai
the tree before they sit at the bar and work on being irresistible. I’m a little embarrassed that at least half of them know me and say hi and
wai
me as we walk in, but the good Sukum again shows his generous side. “I know you have shares in one of Colonel Vikorn’s brothels. I know your mother runs it and also has shares in it. You must know lots of working girls.”
“Let’s be frank, Detective—my mother was on the Game. That’s the only reason I got enough education to be a cop. It’s the only reason I’m still alive.”
At the words
on the Game
, Sukum snaps his face away from me, leaving me the back of his head with its crop of spiky ink-black hair. I’m thinking,
I’ve really done it now and maybe he wont be able to work with me anymore, I’m just too weird
, when he says, still looking away at the tree shrine, “How can you say that? How can you just come out with it like that, as if it doesn’t matter?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shock you. I was just being frank, that’s all.”
“No, no, no.” He raises both palms to press his cheeks. Then in a whispered hiss:
“My mother was too
. That’s what has made me so petty. It was because I let rip with the sex instinct in a previous lifetime that my mother was a whore in this one. I feel I can never express who I really am in this lifetime. Even
I
think it’s weird the way I obsess about my car, when it’s just an ordinary Toyota. How can you rise above your karma so easily?”
Buddha knows where
katoey
assistant. I didn’t choose the smallness of this lifetime. Don’t you think I also would like to live a bigger life? Why do you think I want promotion so much? But it’s my karma, what can I do?” He adds, “I often wish I hadn’t married and had a child.”
“Your home life is not entirely what you hoped for, Khun Sukum?” I ask, rather disingenuously; the detective’s fights with his wife are legendary.
“You know very well it’s not. Let’s face it, this is the age of the booby-trapped pussy. If I tread on her toe, I’m violent. If I smack the kid, I’m a sadist. If I look at another woman, I’m a sex addict and she starts talking about HIV. If I don’t want to go to the filthy beach at Pattaya fifty times a year, I’m stifling her and the kids. At the same time I get it in the neck for not standing up for her when she gets into an argument with the neighbors, and if I don’t dominate her ruthlessly in sex she can’t reach orgasm. Then there’s always the threat of bankruptcy if she files for divorce.”
He gives me a glance. “Go ahead, laugh.” He shakes his head and glances around the coffee shop. Out of the corner of his mouth: “If I could have held out against the sex instinct for a little longer, I might have gotten mature enough to be a monk. But I couldn’t, and what can I do now? My whole mind is cramped; there’s nothing I don’t worry about, and I have no idea where the worry comes from. I don’t like my social identity. I don’t like identity. I hate having to be somebody, it’s so burdensome.”
My jaw has dropped, and for a moment all I can manage is a high
wai
to honor his wisdom. On the way, now, to the Rose Garden, with Sukumholding his illegal DVDs in a green plastic bag, I’m thinking,
Hold out against the sex instinct, hmm
.
I was too rushed to describe the bar properly to you before,
farang
. It’s a great barnlike structure of the type used to house small modern industries and supermarkets—basically a tin roof on an iron frame with walls added and a great oblong bar in the middle of the enclosed space. What I have always admired is the way the strict Buddhist owners have preserved a sacred ficus tree, which somehow rises through the roof and is the primary source of luck for the girls, who rarely fail to bring lotus buds and
wai
the tree before they sit at the bar and work on being irresistible. I’m a little embarrassed that at least half of them know me and say hi and
wai
me as we walk in, but the good Sukum again shows his generous side. “I know you have shares in one of Colonel Vikorn’s brothels. I know your mother runs it and also has shares in it. You must know lots of working girls.”
“Let’s be frank, Detective—my mother was on the Game. That’s the only reason I got enough education to be a cop. It’s the only reason I’m still alive.”
At the words
on the Game
, Sukum snaps his face away from me, leaving me the back of his head with its crop of spiky ink-black hair. I’m thinking,
I’ve really done it now and maybe he wont be able to work with me anymore, I’m just too weird
, when he says, still looking away at the tree shrine, “How can you say that? How can you just come out with it like that, as if it doesn’t matter?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shock you. I was just being frank, that’s all.”
“No, no, no.” He raises both palms to press his cheeks. Then in a whispered hiss:
“My mother was too
. That’s what has made me so petty. It was because I let rip with the sex instinct in a previous lifetime that my mother was a whore in this one. I feel I can never express who I really am in this lifetime. Even
I
think it’s weird the way I obsess about my car, when it’s just an ordinary Toyota. How can you rise above your karma so easily?”
Buddha knows where
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