Today I come into the office and Binnie throws me a curveball by saying that I have a lesson tomorrow (Friday). It’s only a curveball cos I’m actually quite nervous about this teaching malarkey and, while part of me knows I’ll be all right, there’s another part worrying about failing miserably at it. But I calm quickly at Binnie’s news – it’s a private lesson, which means a one on one, so that’s a start – no having to stand up in front of a class on my first go. And it’s a new student, a lad who’s coming in to practice his English before he goes to Australia to study. So I can start from scratch with him rather than pick up another teacher’s lessons and run with them. So it’s all good. It’s not ’til three tomorrow afternoon, but really I shouldn’t go out with James tonight. I should really get an early night so I’m fully operational and clear-headed and can spend the day preparing to teach this young Thai man some English. Right?
Don’t be silly.
I call James early in the evening and arrange to meet him at Khao San at about eight. I get there before him so grab a beer from the 7 Eleven and wander up and down the road, fending off tuk-tuk drivers and gawping at the wide-eyed Westerners. Already I’m feeling a little bit different to the other travellers. James calls, he’s here. I walk down the road to meet him. He’s with two Australian lads. One’s called Ed, who’s a normal-looking fella with browny-blonde hair and an infectious grin. The other’s also called James (from here on in called James II) has a ponytail and as such looks like he might work in a record shop, or a comic book store. He is fantastically friendly and we’re chatting away immediately, with him telling me they’ve just arrived and they’re a bit spaced.
We find a bar and sit down, James I ordering us a round of cheap strong beer in large bottles that goes by the name of Cheers. “Why has no one else thought about naming a beer Cheers,” is the not unreasonable point he makes after it arrives.
Ed and James II, it turns out, are the sons of an old schoolfriend of James I’s dad. The two men met up recently after years of no contact, and got on so well they thought it appropriate they put their sons in touch with each other. Ed and James II are here on a longish holiday and their dad thought it would be good if they met up with James I. This evening is the first time James I has met these guys. What a completely random and cool evening this is turning out to be already.
James II asks what I do back in the UK and I tell him I used to work as a journalist covering entertainment. His eye light up as I explain about it and he asks me what celebrities I’ve met. I decide to list some Aussie ones, and proudly tell him I’ve met the lovely ladies who play Kath & Kim. This leads on to a conversation about accent, with James telling me that he and Ed apparently have quite posh Australian accents. It just sounds like normal Aussie to me, but their dad’s British background has apparently made them better-spoken than their mates.
I ask if Ed or James II have been here before. Ed hasn`t but James II has. He came with his now ex-girlfriend and said it was absolutely the wrong place to be on holiday with your girlfriend. The availability of sex (or at least titillation) here is so distracting, the smell of it so strong, that, even if you don`t have any desire to cheat on your girlfriend, it`s a frustrating place to be. I can see his point. This country`s reputation precedes it and I can understand that just the knowledge of the naughty, naughty things you could be getting up to - watching, doing - would be enough to drive a man to distraction.
In-between our chat a Thai guy comes up every few minutes to show us the ice cream menu. James I says he does this every time he comes to this bar. The guy will continue to show tables of people the menu no matter what reaction he gets, and will never lose his enthusiasm. Unlike most Thai sellers it’s not over-bearing, and is actually quite entertaining. We get photos with him, of course.
James tells us about growing up in Malawi. He says he saw a lot of racism there, a sickening amount. But then, he says, it’s a very fucked up continent and a lot of the time black people there live up to those expectations of them – sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. He tells a story of a white family who lived near him that was burgled – while they were in the house. The family was tied up, and the father had his face mutilated with a knife. Well, if that happened to you, you’d move out right? Not in Africa. The family actually STAYED THERE, living in the same house, because these things just happen in Africa. There’s no point in moving cos it’s just as likely to happen anywhere else. Unbelievable.
You know when sometimes you go out and you’re really in the mood to get absolutely steaming drunk and have the best night you’ve ever had in your life? This is the mood I’m in, for no discernible reason. After just two beers (one, in my defence, a ridiculously large bottle) I can feel the booze warming my blood and starting to work its magic. Of course most of you know I’m a lightweight and this will come as no surprise. But for a change I can feel it happening and I’m willing (no, eager) to go with it. I’m not gonna just fall off the wagon, I’m going to somersault off (double spin) and hit the ground running.
As such, my memory of the evening becomes a little blurry after this point so instead of a running commentary, here are the ‘edited highlights’, possibly in the wrong order, and also possibly completely wrong.
• A Thai girl who I have no recollection of the name of joins us at the bar later. She is a friend of James’s Thai girlfriend. James tells me about said girlfriend but, again, no idea.
• I tell James I I’m gay when we’re talking about girlfriends and love and sex and all that stuff. He’s very thrown by it and tells me that’s quite a big thing to put on him. I’m drunkenly dismissive and tell him it’s not, it’s no big deal at all. We say things I can’t remember much of, except the following. He tells me I’m the straightest-acting gay man he’s ever met (one of a number of reasons I realize he’s not met many gay men). He says he doesn’t know if that’s a compliment or not. I tell him plenty of gay men would see it as a compliment and I’ll take it as one. He asks if I’m into Thai/Asian men. I say no. “You’re not here looking for love then?” he asks. I laugh: “No, I’m definitely in the wrong place for that.” He asks me what my type is. I explain. “So I’m out then?” he says. “Yep,” I laugh. “I ain’t gonna be chasing after you.”
• We get a cab to another bar. We leave for reasons I can’t remember. Possibly it being a bit shit.
We go to a go-go bar that has the standard girls in pants and nowt else dancing on a stage behind the bar. This, as far as I remember, is of a far better standard than the scummy dump of a hellhole we went to last night. But, to be honest, all I care about at this point is that fact this bar has a BUCKING BRONCO in the middle of it. Amazing. Once we get on it, not a single person in the bar is looking at the girls. It’s like being at a disco and that first person on the dancefloor gets everyone else up. From the moment we start messing around on it, everyone wants a go. Even the go-go girls stop their wedding shuffle to have a look. James I shows his pervy side when a Thai bar girl starts wacking the bronco with a belt. He loves it. I show him the pics I take. “I’m getting turned on just looking at them,” he laughs.
• James asks me at one point if I find girls attractive at all. I tell him I have an aesthetic appreciation of them. “So you like looking at them?” he says. I laugh and nod, and try and explain that my sexual make-up is exactly the same as his – I think about sex as much and in the same way as he does, it’s just that my focus is men rather than women. I’m not sure if this helps him get his head round it or not.• The friend of James I’s girlfriend tries to get all deep and meaningful with me when she discovers I’m gay. Thing is, I’m getting pissed with straight boys so am in complete ‘getting fucked with the boys’ mode. This, added to the fact that I’m completely hammered and have lost the ability to decipher her Thai accent, or even pretend that I’m listening to her, means I soon offend her. Somehow I manage to salvage the situation.
• I remember being asked FILTHY questions in the cab about gay sex and straight sex and what I would do and what I wouldn’t. One of them is so offensive that it even stops me in my tracks. I’ll answer any question a straight boy throws at me about gay sex, in great detail. It doesn’t faze me. I find it quite entertaining educating/disgusting (delete as applicable) them. But this one… If you want to know what it is you’ll have to ask me personally because I’m not repeating it here.
• We get food at some point towards the end of the evening. I know this cos I took a great photo of James I while we were sat there.
And also because the Thai girl disappears for a bit, coming back a bit later crying. She says she’s had a fight with some ladyboys. I’m all sympathetic now, trying to make up for my boo-boo earlier. But later when she’s gone James dismisses it as attention-seeking. “If she’d got into a fight with some ladyboys she be more than just crying,” is another not unreasonable point. I’m not sure, but he knows her better than me.
That’s it. That’s all I remember. But it’s a fairly good summary of the evening. It was fucking ace!
No comments:
Post a Comment