The Quiet American (Bar)

I found this bar, maybe the best bar in all of Bangkok. It opens at 5 AM, a real novelty here as any other bar in the city open at that hour is strictly for Thais. But Texas Lone Star is all-American, from the décor to the clientele (old American dudes) to the menu which is pretty legitimate tex-mex (for Southeast Asia) even if the burritos are actually a tortilla with chicken pot pie in the middle and cheese on top. Finding cheese here is such glorious discovery sometimes you look past things, like the lack of beans say, or the fact that the burrito you’re eating is actually chicken pot pie.

A square bar ringed with booths -- soft light, no mirrors and heavy dark brown wood. It’s also silent. It’s like a cave. The perfect place to go have coffee and breakfast when you don’t want to go home. See, going home between 5AM and 7AM is tricky because there are all these monks walking around accepting gifts of food from businesses and people who live in whatever neighborhood you happen to be in. Who knows why but I am terrified of monks. So Lone Star is a sort of sanctuary and also an excellent excuse to stay out. Unfortunately this is how you wake up confused in a short-time hotel on Christmas Eve day sometimes but that’s okay for today. Plus they like me in there, I know it.

More about the bar: every time I’ve been there, the owner, who is 83 years old and has to -- has to -- weigh 400lbs, is either starting or ending his day in the first booth, gasping for breath and getting a vigorous back massage from one of the three girls working. The patrons start to trickle in around 7:00. These are old men. In fact I'm pretty sure a big reason the girls working there like having me around is that I don’t talk to them about stool samples.

The last time I was there (my third time in 4 months or so) I finally spoke to the owner guy. I had to, basically because it’s just me, the girls serving drinks and him sitting around, and if the girls all remember my name he must at least remember that I have been in before. It’s not like I’ve seen anyone else in there before 6. So to be polite I said, “How ya doin’? I love your bar. It may be my favorite bar in the whole city.” And he says, “Ahhh….I’m a sick bastard.” This is while this girl Yun is giving him the back rub, she’s actually standing in the booth as he sits on the edge of the seat because he can’t fit into it. He’s enormous. I say, “Yeah, well … that‘s okay. It’s Bangkok. So how long have you owned this place?”
“Forty three years”
“Wow. And what part of the states are you from?”
“Cleveland but it’s been years since I been there.” He lets out a long sigh, “I’m a sick, sick bastard.”
Now really awful images are crowding my mind, I mean he keeps saying what a sick bastard he is. And he obviously feels some need to confess to me. I say, “Hey we’re all sick man, don’t be so hard on yourself.” But in my mind, really, the worst images.

We fall silent again. I order some chili. As I’m eating it, a customer comes in, a guy with white hair and a newspaper in his hand. He says hello to George (the owner as I learn his name) – “How are ya today, George?” and George hisses for a minute and finally says, “My stomach … pain … I’m a sick bastard.” The customer goes, “Oh Jesus, are you all right? Do you need to go to the hospital?” and George says, “Yeah, get me a driver.”

The last thing that happened, after George went off to the hospital, was this brawny old Russian guy came in. He looked normal but after saying about three things to me he decided he wanted me to fight him over the lack of napkins at the bar or something. I was like, “Huh? Um …it’s like 7AM, isn’t it? You’re 70 and I haven’t been in a fight since the first grade.” Then the driver-getter came out of the bathroom, saw the Russian guy and screamed, “Jesus Christ! Derek! You know you’re not allowed in here! If George saw you he’d kill us all now get the hell out!” and the guy practically vanished into thin air he was gone so fast. Then somebody asked me a question about politics so I got the hell out of there myself.

Christmas

I am in a black period. My glasses broke, I left my atm card in a machine (this makes for a 5 week ordeal) and I let my computer get stolen by a girl I've known for a year and allowed to sleep in while I went to show some visitors around. Very probably gonna get fired. Plus I lost almost everything I wrote since leaving the US (that didn't get printed somewhere). yeesh.

Christmas Eve day I woke up in a short-time hotel and after a good 20 minutes of pure post-blackout terror, listening to female voices through the wall, I stumbled down the stairs, past a giggling cleaning lady and into the bar my room had been two floors above. I opened the door onto a glinting and bustling party, the room decked out in Christmas decorations, with "Marshmallow World" blaring and seemingly a hundred girls wearing mini-skirt sex-elf outfits sitting on old men's laps and leaning against the bar and eyeing me like "where the hell did he come from?" as I'd just come in through the employee entrance. Very disorienting. I went up to the bar and put down the room keys and asked for my bill. They told me I'd paid already and asked me if I wanted a drink. I was about to order a code-red-gimme-a-coffee coffee but suddenly remembered something that hadn't registered before. Minutes earlier, when I had left the room I had first found a bathroom in the hall and gone straight for it. On the way in I noticed out of the corner of my eye a sort of dorm room with bunkbeds. When I left the toilet, the door had been closed. Later downstairs in the bar I realized this is where all the girls live, in bunkbeds above the bar. I found this unspeakably sad and felt like I had intruded on their world by having seen it. So I split, in a hurry.

I continued this four day bender on Soi Cowboy and later doing cocaine on the 33rd floor of a building called State Tower in Bangrak with this hot Canadian girl who is living out a cross between Leaving Las Vegas and Bad Lieutenant because she's losing her job in January. We were on her patio, 33 floors above Bangkok, with the river in front of us babbling at each other about God and His guidance through tough times when there was this really loud "pppppffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft" sound and a fireworks display went off directly in front of us, over the river. I swear to God it was at eye level and close enough so you could smell the gunpowder. I almost fucking cried.

Pretty sure this whole thing is coming to a major wipeout/moving in with my father end