Bangkok Hard Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

little better. Shortly before my crew left that evening, a large truck rumbled by on the street outside and the floor seemed to indeed vibrate. That night in our smoky little room, an even more intense rainstorm passed outside. The thunder vibrated that small part of the world like I had never known it to do before.
    Returning the next day, we carried our small remaining stash of ganja across the Mekong River from Laos into Thailand and with that simple act, we had for the first time smuggled drugs internationally. At that time, the ramifications of this act did not cross our minds, since nobody on either side of the border seemed to care. Three dollars a head slipped to a Thai border policeman made up adequately for the fact that we had no passports. To us, that whole experience was chalked up as a tediously lame outing only worth the silly bragging rights of having accomplished it.

A Frequent Pee Lek Trek
    Over the next year, I visited Bahn Pee Lek more often. From ISB, it was only a three-minute tuk tuk ride and a short walk down Soi 18 to Lek’s shack. I had learned to speak some basic Thai and soon was able to have actual conversations with Lek, who never showed interest in speaking English.
    Sometimes when he would greet me saying “Django, I dink whiskey, sir?”, instead of straight Mehkong rum, he would offer a small shot glass of his prized opium-soaked whiskey that he kept on top of his cabinet in the large glass apothecary jar.
    It was usually on those occasions that he would regale me with stories of when he was in the army and of his drunken motorcycle accident which had left him crippled. I understood much less than a tenth of what he said, but upon each retelling of the same story I picked up more and more until I caught the basic gist of the entire saga. Before long, I began to butt in and tell the next part of his story, which always delighted him. One night, after I had returned my girlfriend Bobbie to her apartment, I stopped by Lek’s on the way back home.
    Two Chinese business types were just leaving and all the opium paraphernalia was still laid out. I implored him to let me sample some since I had enjoyed the opium whiskey on previous occasions. A man of some morals and specks of scruples, Lek had tried to draw the line at letting the few farang kids that came to his tiny abode smoke opium. He restricted them to reefer and, for some, the occasional small cup of opium whiskey.
    Nevertheless, on this particular late evening he prepared a bowl for me, warning “Today OK. Tomorrow no OK, understand?” Though actually I did not understand what he meant, I agreed, and the pipe was lit. Sometime later down the years, it would become agonizingly apparent exactly what he had meant by that admonition.
    As he lit the pipe, he began telling me a new story. The story was of being arrested for the motorcycle accident, which was his fault because he was drunk. The accident had not only crippled him, but had killed his long-time friend, who was his passenger that evening. He had been sent to prison with a three-year sentence for negligent homicide. He spoke at length how sad he had been, not just that he had killed his friend and crippled himself, but also because he was apart from his wife and daughter for that three-year stretch. He talked of missing his tiny hovel of a home. He told how the prison cell he shared with three others was nicer and larger than his little room in the shack on Soi 18. Even the food was better than that which his wife prepared for him, adding that his wife was a certified lousy cook. Nonetheless, he had missed her meals.
    Whenever she brought something to eat, Lek would sit up straight and say, “I eat this food just to survive.” Then they would both start laughing. I did not understand the meaning of this inside joke until many years later.
    “I was a guest of The King,” he said in the same grandiose manner as my father had once used. When I laughed at that, he realized I did