What I Found When I Was Lost

ACHING, RAVING, RAVISHING, BURNING DESIRE

“Candor ends paranoia.” – Allen Ginsberg

Easy.

I am an extraordinarily difficult person to flirt with. I tend to agree to any inappropriate suggestion immediately. Sometimes this catches people off guard.

As I unlock my door at the Malaysia Hotel, a drunk unshaven Filipino lug peers out next door. Leans against the doorframe and leers cheerfully. “Well, well, well! I had no idea I had such a cute neighbor! I ought to come visit you.”

“That’s a good idea. Give me five minutes, okay?”

Five minutes later there’s a knock at the door. But it’s not the drunk Filipino. It’s an impish young Thai.

“I’m his roommate,” he says. “He too tired.”

And this is also perfectly okay.

This happened years ago. But I still return to the Malaysia Hotel. I take time to struggle with my door. (What I do is I lock and unlock it several times.) So far, no more friendly neighbors.

I am like a dog who saw a squirrel in a tree once and now stops to sniff that same tree each day.

Soliloquy from Dick’s Café, Soi Twilight

“Who am I in Denmark? A retired fire fighter and it is good to be a firefighter but now that is finished and so I am finished in Denmark. When I divorced my wife I thought my life was finished. Who am I in Denmark? I am old and fat and ugly. Oh I can still be charming when I want to be but still the fact remains!

“I can be silent and alone in Denmark and I suppose that is commendable, that is what I am supposed to do. . . and for that what do I earn? Forever silence and forever loneliness! Who am I to anyone? No one! And it will never ever ever be any different. What happens in Denmark? Every few years the bus driver smiles to me. That is all.

“Here I am an ATM – but even that is not nothing. I am also a part of things here. I have my role to play. Six years here I know very many people and everywhere I go people know my name. I have Thai friends who have never once asked me for money. And yes, I suppose I am a kind of insurance. If something goes wrong, if someone is in hospital, then, they will call me. But I do not mind to be their insurance. I want them to be okay. I was a firefighter in Denmark but now that is finished.

“I know they do not always mean what they say, I know this very well. Spend enough time in Copenhagen and you will be grateful to be smiled at for any reason! I believe some of them really are happy to see me. Am I a fool? Are they not human too? I know their names. I tip well but not outrageously. I am a kind person. How do you say in America? I give a damn.

“I know this is very questionable. It is problematic. But I am a part of things. Do you understand? That is all I ever wanted to be – a part of things. . .”

Voyeurism.

In the window directly above and facing the pool at the Malaysia Hotel, there is a head. A white old round head with even whiter hair. Behind glasses with thick black frames eyes stare unblinking at any young man swimming or sunning himself. That head is always in the window, as if it has been mounted there, on a post. It is there in the morning and there in the afternoon. I was here years ago; the head was there then. And it is always staring. If you stare back long enough, the head will finally turn, and a hand will appear and toy nervously with an ear.

Imagine retiring to perv permanently at the Malaysia Hotel! I can easily imagine. That puffy haired white head was once a teenage boy, sneaking looks at shirtless workmen. Desire goes on and on.

∞

How is it possible to ever do anything useful or true with a mind designed for deception? A mind that continually tells small but crucial lies and seeks out poisonous consolations. A human mind.

Obituaries.

Imagine if newspapers told the truth and you opened the obituary page to the words

Addict, 72 Addict, 46 Addict, 19 Addict, 84

Wouldn’t that be excellent? We would be warned and we would not feel so all alone. Also we would have more respect for this Mrs. Joan Tatro, 68, formerly of Columbus, Ohio, who actually succeeded in becoming a secretary. An actual secretary! When everyone else who died on that day died addicted – to heroin or cigarettes or the neighbors’ high opinion, to sex or yoga, to public office or television. .

Herbert Huncke’s obituary carried the headline charismatic street hustler. Remember him? He was basically the Beats’ tour guide for the underworld. Most of the time he wasn’t charismatic at all. Just a junkie. He’s the reason Ginsberg got busted and wound up in a mental hospital, where he met Carl Solomon. Seeds of the poem HOWL. (One of the things that interests me most about human life is that it’s entirely impossible to tell good news from bad.)

It’s extremely unlikely anyone will be able convince the obituary page to boldface the word cocksucker. Maybe I could learn to be a secretary?

∞

The frog in a pot on the stove is slowly, slowly, slowly coming to a boil. Everyone around is smoking, or admiring themselves for not smoking. Even the frog is full of resolutions.

Survey.

I used to wonder if other people felt as lonely as I did. Or as frightened. Or as depressed. And the answer turned out to be Yes. I am still trying to figure out, however, if other people are actually this horny. Please -- take a moment to respond below.

Aunt Lucy.

My schizophrenic Aunt Lucy, lifetime resident of the state hospital in Laconia, has a diagnosis which includes the word hypersexuality. Yessir, there’s a word for it! Like halitosis! Like asthma!

So maybe I have a condition and other people are actually reasonable. Not the people I’m meeting of course, but other people.

God speaks to Aunt Lucy. God speaks to me, too. Not often. Perhaps semi-annually. I am also sometimes afflicted with the sense that everything is meaningful and people are basically good. Pathology!

Then there’s the tendency to endlessly compose long story/poem/essays consisting almost wholly of inappropriate information. (There’s a word for this too: hypergraphia.)

Isn’t this writing, which adheres to no genre and contains no structure, akin to the mythological kingdoms unemployed plumbers build secretly for 38 years in their garages using only aluminum foil, bottle caps and chewing gum?

Creativity is for other people. What I do is probably a symptom of something.

Bodhicitta.

When I sit down to meditate, I set my motivation. And at the end I dedicate the merit. I aspire to wake up and to be of benefit to every living thing. I know, it seems ridiculous for someone who can’t pay his student loans or keep his zipper zipped to pray in such a way but, nonetheless, I aspire.

And each time I make a small addendum that, if possible, I would like to be of benefit to the most miserable and sleazy of the addicts, those who have failed again and again and again. To the very most despised, the real lowlifes, the deadbeat dads and vicious mothers, to those who’ve burned up all of their chances and gutted everyone’s patience, to the losers, to the assholes, to the pedophiles.

The innocent

can

get

donations.

Or

fend

for

themselves.

I don’t want them.

Holy Mother, bless me one day to be the Deep Shit Bodhisattva.

Bulge.

Night after night, a man calls me at 3am. I do not think he is not a moneyboy outright. He does not work for a bar or stand on a street corner. Not anymore. I’m guessing that he now occupies the vast gray area between love and whoring, where many very respectable people live. He has foreign friends who take him on vacations. They sometimes give him something for his mother.

He is not young; he has spent far too much time in the sun. His body is still sleek however and, most importantly, the bulge in his turquoise-striped Speedo is impressive. I’ve noted this, repeatedly, and double-checked to make absolutely sure. He caught me at it, got my room number from the pool sign-in sheet, and now calls drunk at 3am, when his glowering German companion has presumably passed out. “I want kiss you!” “I want kiss you!” he says. It must be the German will soon be leaving town.

Cold Shower

What I have in mind is a portable shower, ice cold and dousing. The kind they use in science labs for emergencies, with a broad steel sunflower head and a chain to pull.

This is what I need above my head at all times. (Perhaps they could somehow attach it to my spine?) When overcome with flaming lust I could just pull the chain and at once douse myself. The water would have to be very, very cold.

Also it would be convenient for other people. Sturdy tourists commando in flimsy shorts with thick tanned calves adorned with golden hairs -- and sick to death of me staring -- they could just pull the chain! The whole world could help me to be virtuous, instead of aiding and abetting my unending perversities.

When I am supposed to be concerned with Real Adult Things – the future of the farm, the bills, elections, schedules – and I instead I am lost in a masturbatory haze because some cocky Israeli buck has sauntered past brandishing his delectable armpits – pull the chain! pull the chain! Instantly I am soaked, shivering, and able to return my attention to the details of the lease agreement.

I’d need to wear some light fabric which would quickly dry (and nothing see thru, Porno Boy!) since I would presumably be dousing myself, or being doused, 18 to 36 times a day.

Or course it would hideously embarrassing, to walk around all day beneath a broad metal shower head. Constantly wetting myself! I’d be shivering, cold and wet. I might catch pneumonia. Yes -- but I would be good.

If this is for any reason impracticable, my next idea is a special ice pack I could wear in my shorts. Very very cold. But I fear this would not be sufficient. I think some small electric shock is also very much in order.

(This is the twelth and final essay in the series "What I Found When I Was Lost".)

What I Found When I Was Lost

Rivalry

They arrived on Soi 4 grinning, dressed as twins in white dress shirts with sleeves rolled and ties knotted halfway down their chests. (“Like Japanese schoolgirls!” they said.) They looked very much alike, except that one was gorgeous and the other just good enough, as if they were two versions of a single person -- one perfect and one botched.

I grinned back, and when the table beside mine was free, they came and talked to me. “It is our first time to Asia! We are having the most wonderful time! We are busy from 6am until midnight every day. We go sightseeing and shopping and then always to have a massage! We cannot believe how fast the time is going – in only two days we must return to Berlin!”

They approved heartily of everything in Bangkok – the food, the shopping, the massage – they liked everything but Chinatown. “It is very dirty! There are garbages in the street. Men spit! Men piss! We decided we never go to China.”

“Please feel my leg,” said the plain-looking man. He was not really so plain. He was actually quite good-looking. He looked plain because he was beside the gorgeous man -- who now invited me to feel his arm.

I approved heartily of both and believed that my night was, at last, headed in the right direction.

“So smooth!” said the plain-looking man. “Today we had tried the body polish. They polish you all over! Then they use powder. It smells so nice! Afterwards you feel so smooth. You do not sweat.” Then he teased the gorgeous one. “He often uses powder. And he is shaved everywhere. I mean, everywhere you can think of! He also wears a little makeup. And never once in his life is there a hair between his eyebrows. It is not allowed. Even in Asia he travels with mascara!”

This is the trouble I always have with threesomes. It’s hard to keep both guys happy – somebody always gets jealous. “Both of you are excellent,” I said. “How long have you been together?”

They laughed and waved their hands, as if to scatter my words in the air.

“No! No!” said the plain one. “We’ve always been together. We’re brothers.”

“I’m straight,” said the gorgeous brother. I checked to see if he was serious. His big brown eyes certainly looked earnest. But maybe it was just the mascara.

“He is so girly,” said the plain brother.

“I am a personal trainer in Berlin,” said the gorgeous brother. “My body is my asset.”

“He is the ultimate number one metrosexual. He is so girly!”

Over the next dozen or so beers they continued in much the same fashion. The gorgeous one gave me workout tips. (Three times a week is perfect. Twenty minutes cardio, then weights, then twenty minutes cardio again. And drink enough water!)

”He is so girly. So totally girly! I do not understand why he does not just give up and be gay already. His girlfriend is sometimes so bitchy. Sometimes no sex for one month. Always he must talk sweetly to her and give her massage any time she asks for it. I told him, you go gay, you can have sex every night!”

I ran my eyes over the beautiful brother. “You could have sex every hour. That’s the good part of being a gay guy. Also the bad part.”

“I love her,” said the gorgeous brother. “We have been together five years now.”

“So girly!” protested the plain brother, who had just broken up with his lover after seventeen years. They’d met when he was twenty. “All that time I could have had anyone I wanted! Now I am free and nobody wants me. Nobody! Everybody, all the time, they only want him.”

There was a short pause then, as sometimes happens when one has arrived at the heart of the matter.

I laughed and rubbed his back a little. “On this subject, sir, I am an authority.” I explained that my unfortunate parents had suffered diminishing returns when having children. Each son was two inches shorter, and less handsome, and duller than the one before. I was the youngest and had inherited nothing but the runt’s sharp-toothed determination. Every beautiful person in the world paraded right up to me to beg. “Please. Introduce me to your brother.”

It bothered me for a long time. Then it didn’t bother me anymore. I have an awkward stumbling soul – this Quasimodo shape of mine is its natural physical extension.

All right. Maybe it still bothers me a little.

“You’re fine,” I said. “You’re cute. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you.” The gorgeous brother enthusiastically agreed. We were both insulting him. We knew it and couldn’t help ourselves. The plain brother sat there, drinking his beer, getting smaller and more homely by the minute.

The gorgeous brother continued to counsel me. He reminded me that there was no point to using supplements, except perhaps Creatine and salmon oil, but it was very important to always remain balanced. The plain brother had his hands all over me now, which the gorgeous brother politely ignored. He assured me there was nothing at all wrong with beer, except that it dehydrates one. Dehydrate was a very serious word in his vocabulary. For each pint of beer I must drink half a pint of water. Then I’d be all right.

The plain brother interrupted. “How much for you?”

“What?”

At last the gorgeous brother winced. “Stefan!”

“Come on. We are in Bangkok. Everything has its price.”

I smiled and pretended I’d understood nothing. Anyway it was absurd. The plain-looking brother was still better-looking than me. Nothing was wrong with him at all, in fact, except for the baby shit stink of self-loathing and need that rose off of him. How well I knew that smell, which became stronger the more one tried to eradicate it. It had never occurred to me to try to cover it with powder.

The gorgeous brother announced it was time for them to return to their hotel. The lights of the bar had already turned off. It was almost 2am and he still had to do his evening routine: remove his makeup, rinse off the powder, moisturize, care for his feet, calculate the number of beers he’d drunk and drink a half a pint of water for each. Maybe he’d do some stretches too, or even a few sit-ups. Alcohol is only empty calories.

It had never occurred to me before that it must be tiresome, too, to be the beautiful brother. To keep to routines and maintain your advantage. To be trailed always by a hungry brother who praised you and blamed you. Who begged you. Who loved you and desired you. Who hated you.

(Bangkok, 09.15.09)

What I Found When I Was Lost

Two Hustlers

I only ever saw him on the edge of places. I met him on the way to Dharamkot; I saw him on the far side of Bhagsu. I’d seen him at least twice before on the path around the temple. Each time he asked me to ‘help him out’ and when I refused – he was young and strong – he walked off muttering Jesus Christ. A young Indian guy, though his accent sounded like Newark. Yesterday I saw him at the monastery guesthouse where I’m staying – he was asleep behind the shower block, just barely out of the rain.

Today he was sitting on a bench beside the temple path. I sat down beside him. “All right,” I said. “Tell me.”

“Listen to me, okay? Are you going to listen to me, man? Maybe you will not believe me, but I’m going to tell you anyway. My father’s name was Patrick Kevin O’Brien. Do you know him? He was a great man. I lost my parents very young; he took me in. He paid for me to go to a school. Very expensive school, man. The best. He was like a father to me.

“We came to this place for a holiday. I did not think I would stay here forever. One night he fell. He was a heavy drinker, see. Nobody would help me. I paid two coolies a thousand rupees to take him to the hospital. I went to the Embassy. Nobody would help him and he died. I went to my school to get my certificate but they wouldn’t give it. He didn’t pay the last six months you see. Give us fifteen thousand rupees, they said. But where could I get that kind of money? Are you listening to me man? Are you believing me?”

I was listening. Even if I didn’t want to, I listened. I made a promise years ago. I guess it is a kind of vow. I must listen, and buy him lunch, and never lay a finger on him. I could shake his hand, if he offered it. That’s all. I couldn’t ruffle his hair or touch his shoulder. I made a vow. Because I have been this kind of boy.

He was still good-looking in a sly, rakish way. He had early lines from his face from cheap cigarettes and whiskey. Looked at everything out the corners of his eyes.. He said he was 19. He was lying. I reckon he was 26 and figured 19 was the maximum age he could be and still win sympathy. I could imagine how beautiful he must have been a dozen years before, when he’d attracted the attention of globe-trotting do-gooder pedophiles. Men who paid for everything during the day, and thought highly of themselves -- and at night drank, and figured then that they were within their rights.

I am certain this was the case, though I can show no proof, except to say that I have been this kind of boy.

If you really want to fuck someone over, if you want to pulverize their integrity and reduce their dignity to a fine powder, if is enough to give them money unpredictably. You can destroy a person very efficiently this way. And you can assure yourself that all you ever did was help them.

“Another guy came. He was a German. He sent money for awhile and then I never heard from him anymore. One French man came. He got me a job with a non-profit. I had a staff of six people working under me. But he stopped sending money too and then they said I had to leave. Bad luck, man! Just bad luck!

“I started to work a job then. Because I speak English well. I worked in Bhagsu at a very fine hotel. I worked at the Himalayan Queen. And at the Simla Plaza Hotel. Finally I had to work at the Green Hotel. I did a good job, a very fine job, man, but every place let me go. Because they said I was a thief. I am not a thief. But everyone they say I am a thief. They are fucking liars, man. Do you believe me?”

Obviously, this guy was seriously twisted up. His morality was shot. Boundaries and integrity gone. How could he ever be good for anything now?

Of course, as the son of privilege, I can never truly understand this young man’s situation. After all, my rich father paid for college. Or said he would. Sometimes he did. Other times he changed his mind. If he felt I didn’t respect him enough. Mostly he forgot I existed. He was a very important man, see, and I was not among his priorities.

I was not a poor boy, but I reckon I understand something about benefactors. My father was a benefactor in the grand old style. He liked to be thanked -- he could not be thanked enough, and he enjoyed it very much – but most of all he liked to be begged. Of course we’d agreed to everything in advance, but he never once remembered that. Nothing ever came until I called, never less than three times, often six or eight, each time more desperate, until I’d say “this is the last day I’ll be eating” and then he’d send a check. I’d hurry to pay my bills. And then the check would bounce.

“Everybody knows me, man. And I know everybody. I saw you yesterday, man. You’re staying up at the monastery. I said hello to you, man. You didn’t hear me. You were sleeping in the room with the broken window.”

I reminded myself that I must always keep my valuables out of sight.

“Did I tell you, man? I’m a Christian. I had a dream last night. I dreamt of Jesus. I dreamed of Jesus and he told me I had to get out of here. If I could get to Bombay, I could just start over. All I need is a bus ticket, man. Can you help me out? Nobody helps me, man.”

“I totally agree with Jesus,” I said. “But all you’re getting from me is lunch.”

I gave him thirty rupees. He beamed, took off to buy a bottle of the vicious local liquor. I didn’t blame him. I’d want the same thing in his situation. I did want the same thing. Each day I practiced not drinking it.

Prayer beads in hand, I resumed my pious circumambulation of the temple. I reminded myself that I must warn the guest house. There is a thief in the area.