My Thai friend Sith starts a lot of sentences with "Maybe America have, maybe America no have."
Usually, the subject was strange food. This time the subject was a drug.
"Fin? I don't know what you're talking about. America might have it. I just don't know what you mean," I say. "How do you get high with it? Do you eat it, snort it or smoke it?"
"Same, same as pot. You smoke it."
"Tell me what it looks like, Sith."
"It's black, very soft. You smoke little, you get too much dinky-dow."
"Does it make you pass out and dream?"
"Yes. It number one high. Only Papa San smoke fin; young people no can do."
***
"Downtown, I'll tell you where to go."
"Opium? No shit, Jose," I say. "What's it like?"
"It's out of sight. Try it. It cost two baht."
Fifty cents to experience a new high - something I'll never get to try in the States. No one from the old neighborhood ever smoked opium. Among my G.I. friends, only Jose seems to know anything about it. Fifty cents is a bargain. Why the hell not?
It's the "swinging 1960s" in the States, and only the young and hip smoke dope.
Thailand's just the opposite.
Because Papa San's too old to contribute to the family structure, he squats in a hooch and sells pot or opium. Besides easing whatever ailments he might have accumulated over his long life, it brings in a few bucks. It's a cheap, productive retirement system.
Nakhon Phanom looks like a town out of a Hollywood Western. Wooden, elevated sidewalks divide the unpaved clay streets from the dilapidated structures. The town reserves concrete-block construction for jewelry stores, tailors and teak shops.
The trail that leads me to Papa San's doorway is even dustier and ruttier than the two-lane dirt road that leads to town.
"You can't miss the hooch," Jose says. "It's the only one on stilts, about 100 yards from the corner."
***
I enter the hooch to find a toothless old man sitting, legs crossed, alone on the floor.
"Pom ow soop fin," I tell him in Thai.
He smiles, gives a knowing nod, and then holds out his hand. I decorate his palm with the two baht tariff.
A young girl enters the room, takes the 50 cents and returns with a bamboo bong. The old man breaks out a box of kitchen matches, then removes a small ball of aluminum foil. Once unfolded, it exposes a black orb the size of a wine cork.
Papa San's machete hacks off a small piece. He returns the remains to its womb. He chops the black tar and places a small portion into the bong's bowl. His lips envelop the pipe. He inhales deeply. His neck strains from holding down the smoke.
He passes the bong to me. I hold the kitchen match over the bowl and inhale. Four or five passes later a numbness engulfs my mind and body. I need to lie down. The sensation doesn't overwhelm me, so I start to relax. I'm actually relieved it's not as pleasurable as sex or my first time on a roller coaster, just another high, nothing dramatic. Eventually, I'm able to sit up. Papa San offers me another hit. I figure one or two more for the road.
I sit facing him as he relights the bong. He takes a hit, but only a hint of smoke exits his mouth. He tries again. The opium really hits me now. I just want to lie back down.
Then an epiphany: I'm two blocks from town. I'll head for a massage parlor. Lying naked while a pretty girl kneads my muscles seems like a pleasant way to experience the effects of opium. If I fall asleep, so what? I'll give her $5 instead of the $2.50 it usually costs for the hour. When the massage is over, she'll wake me, then give me my "happy ending." Then she'll powder me and open me an ice-cold beer.
To me, everything he does seems contrived, foggy, almost as if he's in slow motion.
The old man lights the bowl again and exhales a whisper of smoke. His patience exhausted, he raises the bamboo pipe shoulder high and slams it loudly on the floor of the hut. The blow acts like a plunger that has unclogged a toilet as thousands of giant red ants cascade out of the pipe and stampede across the floor.
They swarm my legs and ankles. I leap up howling. My ankles are on fire.
The old man is in the same predicament, but he acts like I'm nuts. The army of ants runs unrestrained over his feet, legs and onto his bare chest. The more I scream the harder he laughs. I flee to the street, but I can't run.
Instead, I walk and think. Was he laughing because he was high? Was he laughing at me? Or did he find it absurd that white men are afraid of ants? America sent a half a million soldiers to occupy a land that's full of them.
While walking the two blocks to the massage parlor, I obsess about Asia's bugs. I've never seen anything like them. They are as big as Buicks.
Rice bugs are the Thai version of great American cockroaches, but Christ are they enormous! Centipedes look like cigars, and the ants that just ran over me should have worn license plates.
Yet through it all, the old man never moved.
Sweat pours down my face as I slug along this unending path. Two short blocks to town, but my legs feel like I'm crossing the Himalayas.
An old woman parades past me shuffling alongside her yak. The few teeth she has are yellow from beetle nut. My eyes rivet to the yak.
I feel like I'm part of a bizarre painting.
I must focus on the massage parlor's location. If I miss the turn for town, I could be lost on this endless road for the rest of my life.
I should see buildings when I turn left at the end of this road. What if I don't? Who'll find me in the jungle? I could die on this road.
My head is killing me. This was a big mistake. The sun is brutal. Maybe I should hail it and ride to town.
"Relax, stupid," I tell myself, "the town's nearby."
The sun's heat makes my legs leaden. Where the f**k is this town? What if I don't see another one?
I hope I didn't walk the wrong way. If I did, I'll never find it. I'll just walk and walk. Just a few more steps, focus, concentrate, don't miss the turn, be there, be there.
There it is. Thank Christ. Calm down, asshole, you've been high before. Relax.
Up this flight of stairs and all will be well. Get a cold beer and spend some time indoors. I'll be fine. Calm down, just up these stairs and open the door.
A wave of cool air revives me.
Fans push stale air around the five or six couches that the girls lounge on. I need a beer, quick.
Sitting on the leather sofa, slugging a cold Sing-Hai, I start to settle down. Wow, I was out of control. Was it the opium, the heat or a combination of both? Those f*****g ants bummed me out. Never again combine sun and opium. Jose should have warned me. Next time, I go at night.
I pick a girl and leave for her cubicle. As she leads me down the corridor, I hug my beer like a security blanket. She opens the door. The 8-foot-by-6-foot room contains a massage table, a bathtub and a hook. I use the hook for my clothes, while she fills the tub.
All is better. She rubs the soapy sponge across my body. I reflect on the last three hours. I'm mystified. I examine my feet, hands and thighs, no welts, no bites, no marks of any kind. Smooth as a marble statue.
One of us, either the old man or me, is not quite as cool as I thought.
Bill O'Connor is a Vietnam veteran, former Bronx firefighter and pub and restaurant owner. O'Connor is currently a journalism major at UF and a standup comic. The irreverent and acerbic O'Connor performs free standup around Gainesville.
