The Sixth Floor

Now that my girlfriends apartment is free from ghosts (see previous entry "Voodoo Dollhouse"), we settle in for a night's sleep.  The air conditioner is humming, and the toilet is belching every time a neighbor flushes theirs. This building is a monastery for the study of the arcane.  It's inhabitants move along like apparitions in the hallways and elevators, not speaking to each other.  This is a lower class workers hovel.  The only place my girl could afford when I met her.

As my girl and I lay together in bed she makes a face as though she hears something foreboding.


"Never open door past ten o' cok" My girl says. Her face is full of fear.  "I hear lady come home in next apartment.  She always fighting with husband.  He get mao mak (very drunk) and he hit her every night."
"He hits her?"
"Yes,  Nothing can do.  Just don't open door past ten o' cok"

We are watching a Thai variety show.  Say what you want about lazy American's glued to the television.  TV watching in Thailand is a national sport.  My girl's apartment is a fairly shitty one room affair.  She cooks on a hot plate on the floor and has a small fridge.  Cockroaches pop up now and then, but I have lived in worse places in the States when I was younger.  The walls are paper thin and we can hear her neighbor crying.  Sure enough, the hits and epithets start flying within the hour.

"Hia! (cunt)"  The man yells.  His voice is hoarse, and he coughs deeply between bouts of psychosis.

"We have to do something.  Call the police."  I tell my girl.

I know this is disturbing to my girl, but I think she is afraid to get involved with the violence next door.  She is under 100 pounds and can't defend herself.  Up until now, she has been alone through these episodes.  The yelling, and slaps, and ensuing crying gets louder.  I try several times to go out into the hall to knock on the neighbors door, and straighten out the asshole who is beating his wife but my girl holds me back.  Part of me is thinking of hitting the guy myself, but then the other part, the one that says "Don't get involved." is starting to win.

"Let me just look into the hallway."  I tell my girl

I look at her face.  She is genuinely afraid.  It's a bullshit, no win situation for both of us, but I can't sleep,  knowing that some asshole is kicking the shit out of his wife in the next room. 

I open the door and look down the hall.  Almost every door is open, and all of the neighbors are doing the same thing I am.  Just peeking out of their doorway and listening to the violent lullaby.  I make eye contact with another male neighbor, who's wife is also holding him back from acting in some heroic way.  We nod to each other and then shake our heads every time the man yells out Hia! in Thai.  My girl is holding my wrist like an anchor, to prevent me getting involved, but I shake her loose and step out into the hall.  Like a meek herd of buffalo who slowly gain courage to chase off the lions eating their young, some of the men in the building, even ones from upstairs and down, are coming to the wife beating party.  The faces say it all.  What to do?  My girl tells me that she thinks the wife beater is a policeman, so calling the police to help will be of no avail.  I tell her to call them anyway, thinking that this piece of shit next door would be an embarrassment to the Thai police if he actually kills her.

In my own country this would be solved quickly, but I am a farang, in Thailand, and they play by different rules here.  I knock on the neighbors door anyway.

The crying stops, and the room is silent.  The herd of buffalo in the hallway waits for several minutes and no further sounds come from the room.  It's as if your neighbor had his TV on too loud and you knocked on the wall, and he just took it as a sign to keep the volume down, and did so accordingly.

I hesitate to knock again.  If he is a cop, then I don't want a gun to my face when he opens the door.  We wait some more and there is nothing happening inside the room.  I look at the rest of the neighbors who have gathered and we all go back to our apartments.

Back in our room we begin watching TV again.  Now the wall to our room is getting knocked by the tell tale signs of a beds head board and the creaking of its springs.  Maybe the beating was just his form of foreplay prior to spousal rape...I don't know.  A few minutes later, the ghetto fights and orgasms die down, and the night envelopes us in it's peace.

My girl turns to me in bed and looks me in the eyes.

"You never do the same to me?"  She asks.
"What?  Hit you?  Never.  Why would I ever hit you?"
"I don't know.  Just asking.  My boyfriend before hit me sometime."  She says to me so nonchalantly, as though it was an expected part of the relationship.
"I promise i will never be like that guy next door. OK?"
"OK.  Thank you honey."  She says.  She kisses me goodnight and puts and arm over my chest.  Soon after, she is sound asleep. 

Nice dating a girl with such low standards....

I stare at the ceiling, and watch the lizards run across the walls.  The TV show has turned into a Thai soap opera, in which, during the opening credits, there is a montage of women crying, and getting slapped by their men.  The age old question of Anti-mimesis crosses my mind.  Now this room has lost it's comfort for me.  It no longer feels like a home.  I can now understand why my girl wanted the ghost doctor to come and cast away it's bad vibes.  I see this room as something sinister now, and decide to relocate to a new place for the both of us.  Maybe something with a few less roaches, a place where you don't have to cook on the floor, and a place where ghosts aren't born by the actions of madmen in the next room over.

At 3am, I am awakened by the sound of someone messing with our door.  I try to wake up my girl but as I know from previous experience, once she is asleep, it is next to impossible to wake her up.  I grab one of her large butcher knives and wait by the door.  The door knob is turning slowly back and forth.
"Arai Na?"  I say loudly.  It means what? In Thai, but with the right intonation it sounds more like "What the fuck do you want?".  The door knob stops turning, and after a log pause,  I hear footsteps slowly dragging down the hall.  Then it is quiet.

I have never seen the man or woman next door to this day.  I try to picture their faces, if they have faces at all.  For now, they too, are simply ghosts in my memory,

My girls words repeat over again in my head..."Never open door past ten o' cok...never open door past ten o' cok..."

Hell has no bottom

The old lady with no teeth smiles at me, and waves for me to come closer.  I am only a short distance away but I can smell her already.  Her odor  is a melange of moth balls, fish sauce, and urine.  I imagine that she doesn't keep her private area very clean while living on the streets of Bangkok, and probably pees herself either deliberately because she is insane, or maybe she just has a urinary tract infection.  For some odd reason, I try to picture her naked (as I do with most women I first meet), then I shudder with the mental image I conjure up.  She is asking me for money.  My girlfriend tells me to ignore her, as we make our way into Hua lamphong temple to make offerings to the Buddha.

The Temple is simply beautiful.  Actually, it is not simple at all.  If anything it is grandiose, and massive.  As we pass the urine lady, we enter the ground level chamber where I am apparently supposed to burn incense, ring bells, and then give money (200 Baht).  I don't exactly know what I am, or my girlfriend is praying for, but I play along because this seems to make her happy.

Then we do something else that is for the poor people who don't have money for a proper burial (500 Baht) buying them boxes for their ashes or something like that. Then we go outside and my girl asks me if I want to pray for my family.  Sure, why not?  She hands me 5 pieces of paper and tells me to write the names of my loved ones on each one.  I do, and then I am instructed to place them on some sort of tile that is used to make a roof for a miniature temple (100 baht).
- You want to have lucky day everyday?  My girl asks me.
-Yeah, I guess so.
- Ok you see those jars?  There is one for each day of the week.  You have to count out baht for each day and put in jar.

I don't fucking remember the order but it was like 15 Baht for Monday, 17 Baht for Tuesday, 22 Baht for Wednesday, etc.  I takes at least ten minutes to count out the single Baht coins and put them in the jars.  You have to put them in one at a time.  I'm wondering if it was this fucking expensive to be a Buddhist back when Buddha was alive.

Then it's time to take gold leaf and stick them on the various Buddha statues (maybe 300 Baht).

I ask my girl why we are putting gold leaf on the Buddha statues but I didn't give any money to the piss-soaked homeless lady outside.  She tells me the temples are what makes Thailand so beautiful.  You have to honor the Buddha first, then think of others, and then yourself.

Ahh...I see.

We spend 2 hours at the temple.  I don't feel any more enlightened or at peace.  I am simply 1,000 Baht poorer.  My girl is in a state of religious ecstasy though.  Hey, If she's happy, then I'm happy.  I have read much of the Buddhist literature out there and I dig it's take on simplicity, and the middle path.  I follow Buddhist philosophy, but  I am not religious by any means, and my moral compass is often times broken.  I am ethical however, and something is just not sitting with me right about any of this.  It reminds me too much of the Catholic bullshit I grew up with.  Beautiful churches that require endless amounts of cash.  I have deep admiration for the artistic value of these temples, and just consider my donation today as part of it's upkeep.

As we leave the temple we pass the homeless lady again.  My girl tells me to give her 10 Baht.  I open my wallet and pull out a thousand Baht note.

-What are you doing?  My girl asks.
-Giving the lady some money.
-No honey!  You give too much.  Only give her ten Baht.
-Why?  I just gave over a thousand so I could ring some bells and put gold on a statue.
-Yes, but she here every day.  She going to get big money from everybody. 

As I go to hand the money to the homeless lady, my girl dives in front of me like a Secret Service agent protecting the president.  You can almost here the Noooooooooo!!!!!

It's too late.  The feeble old woman's hands come to life and she snatches the note from my hand with ninja like reflexes.  She briefly touches me during our exchange, leaving an oily residue on my fingers.

Whatever radar the homless beggars have built into them sounds off, and soon we are surrounded.  I look at the many faces around me.  Some look like disheveled drunks, others are missing limbs, one guy in particular seems to be missing most of his nose.  They all meekly put out their hands to me -- Mr. Moneybags.

I point them towards the urine lady I just gave the thousand baht to. 
-Ter mii nyun. (she has the money) I tell the horde.

The homeless horde looks at urine lady, urine lady looks at me, and then I look at my girlfriend.

-How do you say share the money in Thai?  I ask her

My girl spits out a machine gun riff in the Isaan dialect that I can't understand.

-Ok, I tell them.  Now we go.

The horde approaches the urine lady.  The whole street is watching her karma unfold.  Will the beggar share her windfall with the others?  Her face says it all.  Simply -- what the fuck?  The horde and urine lady stare at the bill in her hand like a group of cave men scratching their heads about what to do.

We leave this great karmic question unanswered, and start walking towards the train station.  My girl won't talk to me.  She is quiet when she is angry.  I open my wallet, take out all of my money and hand it to her.

-From now on, you're the boss.  I tell her.

My girl looks at the wad of cash, and puts it into her purse.  She smiles her little devil smile, and finally holds my hand.

-I love you.  She tells me.

Interesting what money can buy these days....