Have Gun, Will Travel: Bangkok

text:  Zip Livingston

art:    Jonah Schulz

This is the second part of a two-part piece.
The first half can be found here, in last month's issue.

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“Johnny, these women are fucking disgusting. We’re out of here.” I whispered loudly.

“What?” Johnny asked.

“They look like they have scurvy, okay? Lets get the hell out of here.” I whispered again.

And although I had foolishly just said some terrible things about this low rent brothel, while still inside the low rent brothel, we were all right. No one moved towards us or batted an eye beneath their matching Ray-Bans. All of my slander had all gone in one ear and out the other.

We were so close to walking away Scot-free; I started to get my first hard-on of the night. Then, tragically, Johnny noticed those empty seats on the stairs and did some fast counting, noticing slowly what was wrong with this picture.

“Wait, hold on. There are some girls that aren’t out here with the rest. Those are the hot ones. I’ll pay more for a hot one.” He said, assuring himself that this was not the bust it clearly was.

”No, Johnny,” I replied. “Those girls are in back because they are busy getting slammed.”

”Well, maybe they’ll be done soon.” Said Johnny. He was reaching.

At that point, I somewhat lost my cool, saying something along the lines of “What, you want some sloppy end of her shift fucking? Oh God! Fuck these ugly slags John, let’s go!”

So as I can piece it together, it was most likely that “ugly slags” comment that made the pimp attack me. I had even gone through the trouble of using a less generic and not so widely used slur. He ran at me, all seven feet between us, which was intense to say the least, and pushed me right into Johnny. The move knocked Johnny down and me well back, stumbling over him, scrambling to keep my feet under me. And although this pimp was only about as tall as Harvey Kietel, he was built like Harvey Kietel. I was absolutely outclassed. A beating was imminent, and as usual, it was for running my mouth.

”You no like girl? I fucking fuck you! Asshole! You fucking pay for girl!” He screamed.

Then, hand to the lord above, he pulled out a pair of nunchucks. Never before in my life had I seen someone pull out nun-chucks. It was absolutely not like the movies. It was as if he had pulled out a police baton. He didn’t swing a thing; he didn’t hold them out and pull the cord between them tight, to intimidate me. He just held them together and pushed them in my face like he was going to kill me. And he wanted to. He wanted to kill me.

As he was robbing us for the dirty sex we didn’t have with his ugly prostitutes, I backed up and tried to keep in mind that when you are attacked by a little person with a weapon, you must be very cautious. It is of the utmost importance to not seem aggressive. You have to try and puff up and appear big, but always be putting distance between you and the tiny thing that is attacking you. So I took a few steps back, stood up on the heels of my feet and helped Johnny up.

“Pay me seventy dollars! You motherfucker!” Screamed the pimp.

Once Johnny was on his feet and standing exactly where I placed him, safely between the pimp and myself, I breathed a little easier. I stayed very aware of our placement, just in the case that the pimp felt like he might need to hit someone to aid in expressing how serious this was. (I knew exactly how serious it was and therefore did not need to be hit at all.) I told Johnny to go ahead and pay the man his seventy dollars. The pimp was livid that I wasn’t the one paying, but wide-eyed Johnny had his wallet open so fast our aggressor became distracted. When Johnny tried to apologize for only having a twenty and a hundred to choose from and began asking for change, the pimp gladly took both and pushed us outside.

Back in the cab, Johnny was getting desperate, and started to plead with the cabbie. It was four in the morning at this point and he was running out of time in Gomorrah. The cabbie became quiet for a moment, and then mentioned that he knew one last place. With that, he pulled off the main road, which led me think that his new enthusiasm was less for getting us to where I had asked him to take us initially, and more for the idea of cutting our throats and burying our bodies in a shallow ditch.

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A few minutes later, instead of hacking our bodies apart, he pulled up in front of a quaint little shack of a house and beeped a few times. Up ran a girl who seemed about fifteen years old and she casually jumped into the front seat.

We sped back on the highway and they jabbered on for a few minutes. Near the end of their talk, the girl began looking back at Johnny and myself and then would resume whining to the cabbie. Without a word, the cabbie suddenly turned off the interior lights, making it pitch black inside the car and there was an audible dull, meaty thwap. It sounded as if someone had been hit with the meaty side of someone else’s closed hand.

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As the young girl broke down and began crying, it became clear to me that some things sound like specific things for a reason. Then, at full “outside and across a parking lot” volume, the cabbie began screaming at the girl. After about ten seconds, from what must have been mostly shock and the rest abject terror, the girl quickly stopped crying and went seemingly catatonic. The night had taken a very ugly turn, the hope of finding strobe lights flashing and glitter highlighting party girls who were high on cocaine was gone, ahead was nothing but bad business. This was far too much reality to have a bill come at the end.

At that point in our tour, with our guide now revealed to be the worst whoremaster of all, I felt I had seen enough. I had a good guess to what was coming next. So at the top volume I could muster I started screaming for him to pull over and let me the out. He pulled over, looked back at us and said, ”Fine, go out, or stay and fuck. She is 20 dollars for one or 30 for both.”

I looked to Johnny as I gathered my jacked and opened the door. He was looking at the ceiling of the cab, ignoring me.

“Johnny, let’s go man. You all right? Time to go.” I said.

“Just go.” He responded. “I’ve got to do this.”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“I have to. I’m staying. Just get out if you’re going to go.” He said, and still looking up at the roof of the cab, he closed his eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was crying or not.

Quickly, out of a mixture of spite and disgust, I slipped his carton of cigarettes into my jacket and I left him there in the cab, with the underage, clearly unwilling prostitute. Later, investigating my swag on my walk back to the main roads, I discovered 45 dollars that he had apparently hidden in the box along with 3 condoms and an ATM/debit card. I wondered aloud how bad he wanted to lose his virginity, and if he’d do it bareback, if left without options. All in all, in faith or in sin, fanatics are a strange breed.

After seven or so hours in Thailand, I was 45 dollars ahead of the game and 3 condoms up. I had to pay a tax on my soul to get it, but all in all, not a bad start. After spending a few days smoking Thai grass and wandering around their temples, I found myself whole again, and before I knew it, I was back in Pat Pong, once again out till dawn, hungrily looking for some strange.

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