The present is always a mystery,
As the future never fails to remind us.
Once we’re alone in Cognito,
We’ll remove all of our clothes very fast,
But though we be naked as jaybirds,
At no time will we take off our masks.
Cinderella went incognito,
And it’s said that she had a ball.
It’s always midnight in Cognito
By the black clock at the end of the hall.
We’re destined to be clandestine,
Incognito is our very last hope.
I’ll meet you where the sun don’t shine,
With a fake I.D. and some dope.
So do join me in Cognito,
You know that I’ll never tell.
We’ll sneak in the back door of Heaven
And stroll unnoticed through Hell.
Incognito
Incognito
There, every day’s a surprise.
Incognito
Incognito
Where truth tells all the best lies.
When socialism is pushed beyond a certain point, it becomes totalitarianism. Capitalism, on the other hand, if carried to its extreme, becomes anarchy. Anyone who doubts the accu-racy of this last observation has never walked the streets of Bangkok.
It was for that very reason—capitalism run amok and the chaotic consequences thereof—that Stubblefield refused to travel to Bangkok (or so he professed); but the constant construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction, the ceaseless commerce, matter-eating pollution, brain-numbing noise, and twenty-four-hour-a-day traffic gridlock failed to deter Dern from the occasional risky visit; while for Dickie, the city held a strange appeal, all the more odd because Bangkok, the Big Bad Busy B, was in such dramatic contrast to the life he led and loved in Laos. It may have been the clamorous city’s equanimous mixture of gentle, bright-eyed Buddhist benevolence and shameless smiley-faced sexual hucksterism that fascinated him, although he no more than sniffed around the edges of either element (as Miss Ginger Sweetie might affirm).
To call Bangkok a city of contradictions is worse than a cliché, it’s a trite superfluity, not merely because it’s so patently obvious but because there’s a sense in which virtually every city is a city of contradictions. Are we not a contradictory species occupying a dichotomous planet wobbling about in what, from all indications, is a paradoxical universe? That said, Bangkok’s contrasts are just too immense, too dramatic, to be easily dismissed as the norm.
Simultaneously a frantic, high-tech juggernaut and a timeless Asian dream, Bangkok straddles like no other metropolis the boundary between acrid and sweet, soft and hard, sacred and profane. It’s a silk buzz saw, a lacquered jackhammer, a steel-belted seduction, a digital prayer. Its numerous temples and shrines are obscured by clouds of mephitic exhaust, its countless vices and crimes by smiles of tender delight; and through it all, Bangkok manages to maintain the most graceful balance, a grace no less genuine for being well-rehearsed and no less pure for being supported by con men and whores.
Well, okay, there’s no sense going on and on about Bangkok and its incongruities, its commotional commingling of supplication and flash. For our purposes, it should suffice to report that approximately a half-hour after sunset, Dickie Goldwire, too agitated and impatient to wait a moment longer, locked his new guitar in his hotel room and ventured out into the aforementioned hubbub of dirty, mystic glamor.
Hot and heavy, the very air seemed to sprout fat red fingers, baker’s fingers that kneaded pedestrians as if they were lumps of dough. It was probably not the sort of weather that Bootsey Foley would describe as “cute”—but you never know.
As usual, the streets were teeming. There seemed to be an equal number of entrepreneurs in linen suits, girlie girls in skimpy skirts, and monks in saffron robes. In addition, there was a liberal sprinkling of Caucasian males in khaki trousers and white bush shirts: the uniform of the expatriate. Dickie wore just such an outfit, for the purpose of blending in, although when he would near the Safari or one of the other bars favored by ex-pats, he would hurriedly cross the street, guarding against the possibility, remote as it was, of being recognized.
(Those who travel in Cognito
—Their very lives can depend on a hunch.
They eat intuition for breakfast
And sip cold paranoia at lunch.)
The quickest, most efficient way to travel around perpetually congested Bangkok was via water taxi, but since the Green Spider was equally as far from the river as it was from Patpong, Dickie took a tuk-tuk to his destination. Forty minutes passed before the three-wheeled contraption deposited him on the northern perimeter of the district. Patpong’s roads had for years been closed to vehicular traffic, so Dickie was obliged to enter on foot, which was just as well because he had no clue in which of the district’s many clubs Elvisuit might be playing.
The borders of Patpong were patrolled by the freelance prostitutes, the rare ones not employed by bars or enslaved by pimps (and thus frequently harassed and physically threatened by those who would own or control them). Dickie kept an eye out for Miss Ginger Sweetie and was both disappointed and relieved that he did not see her.
He’d walked only a few yards, however, before he encountered the Professor.
Dickie called him “the Professor.” Nobody else did, although they easily might have: the little old man had an aura of academia so thick it could cause the most liberated dropout to suffer frightening flashbacks of dream school.
Slight of build and tufted with rumpled gray hair, the fellow wore wire-rimmed glasses, a baggy blue suit dusted here and there with tobacco ash, a boring brown tie decorated with random stains of fish sauce and chili paste, brown shoes on which a kennel of rottweiler puppies might have been cutting their teeth, and an air of dignified seriousness, undermined somewhat by wandering expressions of utter distraction. It was easy to imagine him having tenure in the department of physics at Mahidol University.
For a dozen years, Dickie had been slipping into Bangkok two or three times a year, and on each and every one of those visits, he had been approached by the Professor within minutes after entering Patpong. In his masticated oxfords, the Professor would shuffle up to Dickie, as he shuffled up to all unattached males (and Western couples should they appear to be tourists), greet him politely, and then inquire—as earnestly and hopefully as if he were asking an esteemed colleague if he might wish to attend a conference on double-charged subatomic particles:
“Please, mister, you want to see a girl fuck a monkey?”
As usual, Dickie, with a manner as formal as the Professor’s, respectfully declined. “Thank you, but I would not care to witness such an engagement, not even were it between Cheetah and Jane. King Kong and Fay Wray might make a more irresistible combination, due to the problems presented by their considerable differences in scale, although technically speaking, of course, neither King Kong nor Cheetah are monkeys.” Usually, Dickie would babble something in this vein, award the Professor a few baht for his trouble, and continue on his way, scolding himself for having just sounded so much like Stubblefield. Now, however, he stayed on to ask a question of his own.
“Can you tell me where is Elvisuit?”
“Elvisuit?”
“Yes. You know. Elvisuit. Where he play tonight?”
The way the Professor scratched his brow, he might have been contemplating the strong-force interaction during which a pair of nucleons exchange electrical roles. “Tonight,” he answered slowly, cautiously, “I think Elvisuit play Shay-ray-bom.”
“Where you speak?”
“Shay-ray-bom.”
“Sheraton?”
“Shay-ray-bom.”
“Sheraton. You’re saying the Royal Orchid Sheraton.” Dickie swore under his breath. “Goddamn!” The Royal Orchid Sheraton was located in the riverside luxury hotel district, more than a mile—a steamy, gritty mile—away.
But the Professor shook hi
s gray head impatiently, as if frustrated by a particularly dense student. “No! No Rora Orchid Sharaton. Elvisuit play at Shay-ray-bom. Patpong. Shay-ray-bom Club.”
It was Dickie’s turn to frown. Then, something clicked. “Oh. You mean Cherry Bomb. The Cherry Bomb Club?”
Smiling just long enough and wide enough to release a harsh hint of cheap Thai mouthwash, the Professor concurred. “Yes. Yes. Shay-ray-bom. No problem. Okay!” He accepted a crumple of baht bills with a dignified little bow and a Buddhist salute, then immediately began searching the street for another mister.
Skirting the Safari and King’s Corner (the latter a haunt for those ex-pats who recognized it as, with the possible exception of the Vatican, the finest transsexual club in the world), Dickie jostled his way through the gradually thickening mob of hawkers and gawkers, to the Cherry Bomb. He stood at its entrance, listening hard for strains of “Hound Dog” or “Love Me Tender.” No note of music wafted from the place, however, nor any ray of light. The Cherry Bomb was quiet and dark. Maybe the proper bribes had not been paid. Maybe some rowdy Australians had trashed it in a brawl. Whatever—the Cherry Bomb was closed.
There was no cause to fret. Was there? Wasn’t Xing coming to Patpong specifically to see Elvisuit? Didn’t that indicate that Elvisuit was performing that night in Patpong and not in one of the Silom Road riverside hotels, in Nana Plaza, Soi Cowboy, or any other district of Bangkok? One would assume so, yet what if Xing had been planning on catching Elvisuit at the Cherry Bomb, unaware that the club had closed? Xing had contacts in Bangkok, all right, but he resided in a distant village near the Lao border. What did he know?
Dickie began scouring the street in earnest, staring into each and every bar that looked as if it featured live music. Because the sex clubs offered only canned music, he passed them by without investigation, although as usual, he did pause briefly, uncontrollably, at that most infamous of Patpong signboards, the one that read:
PUSSY PLAY PING-PONG
PUSSY SMOKE CIGARETTE
PUSSY EAT WITH CHOPSTICKS
PUSSY OPEN BEER BOTTLE
PUSSY WRITE LETTER
If the purpose of advertising copy was to attract maximum interest, this was the most successful ad copy in the history of the medium. Even those passersby who’d rather fall down a flight of stairs than actually attend a genital stunt show were galvanized by the sign. Women were shocked by it, amused, intrigued, perhaps secretly inspired. Men were titillated, wonderstruck, maybe even piqued with a subliminal pang of vagina envy. Whether awed or disgusted, no one could ignore it—and, moreover, unlike 95 percent of Madison Avenue’s handiwork, this ad was truthful: if you ventured inside (and Dickie had done so once or twice, back before he fell in love), you witnessed everything that was promised and more.
Still, Dickie was a bit disappointed to note that the wording on the sign hadn’t changed in at least a decade. Not that he expected or wanted this sex show to start including live frogs on its program, as was currently the rage in Nana Plaza, yet considering how technophilic Thailand had recently become, he easily could envision an addition on the order of:
PUSSY ACCESS INTERNET
Imagine a city in which there are three streets running side by side, more or less parallel to one another, each with the same identical name. Such a city exists, and while one would think those repetitive avenues ought to be located in Pago Pago or Walla Walla (or more appropriately, Pago Pago Pago or Walla Walla Walla), that was not the case. The logic in whose face this peculiar redundancy flies cannot here be explained, but any municipality that flaunts so brazenly the conventions of city planning has got to be admired. The world’s old pre-industrial towns, with their organically twisting and circuitous lanes, nurture the free spirit even as they confound the pragmatic mind, but few if any have ever wandered quite this far in the direction of happy abandon.
When told of the trio of parallel Patpong Roads, Stubblefield had remarked, “How refreshing! I’ve always been wary of the urban grid, Goldwire. It’s a repudiation of nature, a barrier to spontaneity, and a cage for the soul. Maybe Bangkok’s worth visiting after all.”
But Mars Stubblefield had not visited Bangkok. Dickie Goldwire was there now—searching both sides of an artery that some city maps labeled “Patpong I”: the most wildly active of the three Patpong Roads. But to no avail. Dickie was starting to feel that trying to find Elvisuit in Patpong was like trying to find Jonah’s contact lens in the belly of the whale. Dickie also was feeling weak and dizzy—and he remembered that he’d had nothing to eat all day but a custard apple and a small bag of shrimp chips.
There was a little restaurant on Patpong III with a reputation for exceptionally delicious yang kung, and while he was no Tanuki when it came to food (nor any Stubblefield, either), the sudden thought of that dish (seafood was unavailable in the mountains of Laos) set Dickie to salivating.
Patpong III was a quieter street, not much more than an alley, really, although several lively gay clubs had sprung up there. Dickie’s restaurant, he noted with some apprehension, had expanded to add a karaoke stage, but the stage was empty at the moment and the prawns were as good as he remembered. He washed them down with a couple of pints of beer and after dinner ordered a double whiskey. He thought (foolishly, of course) that the alcohol might calm his mind.
The immediate situation was not that complicated. He needed to track down Elvisuit so that he might hook up with Xing. He needed to connect with Xing so that he might be safely smuggled back into Laos. He needed to return to Laos in order to rush to Villa Incognito and warn Stubblefield of Dern Foley’s arrest—and gather his own wits and possessions in preparation for his next move.
Dickie must have been brooding into his glass because he was startled when the restaurant owner spoke to him. Normally, his radar would have warned him of her approach, but the combination of worry and booze had obscured the blip.
“Whatsa matta? Whiskey no good?”
“Uh? What? Oh. No, no, whiskey good. Whiskey sabai dee. Whiskey sanuk. Kaw roo nah.”
The owner giggled. “You speak Thai very good,” she lied. “Number one. But have Lao accent.”
Dickie blanched. His spine tingled. He assumed an innocent expression (easy for an upperclass Carolina boy) and shrugged. “Thank you,” he said. No more Thai.
“You no happy,” the woman accused. Although heavyset and every inch middle-aged, she wore a tight blue dress, and her lips and nails were painted rocketship red. “Why you no happy? You want girl?”
“Girl? No. Me happy. No want girl. Me have girl.”
“Where?” She made a show of glancing around the room. “Where you girl? You girl work now? Catch other man?”
Again, Dickie blanched. He sat upright, wishing he didn’t feel so woozy. “My girl far away,” he said weakly. She had gone away to work, though not as a bargirl. Yet for all he knew, she very well could be in bed with some other man.
“Ah. Girl far way. You need girl now. I have pretty girl. Number one. Make sanuk. Make happy.”
“I no look for girl,” he insisted. “I look for Elvisuit.”
“Elvisuit?”
Dickie nodded pathetically. “I no can find where Elvisuit play. I want see him tonight.”
The woman grinned. “No problem. Elvisuit my friend. I call Elvisuit, he come here. No problem.”
“Yeah, right,” muttered Dickie as his hostess bustled away. No problem. It’s always “no problem” with these Thai. Same with the Lao. Whether they’re conning you, feting you, or saving your life, it’s always no problem. Mai pen rai. No problem. Is it Buddhism, or what, that makes these people so much happier and more relaxed about life than Westerners? In the midst of Bangkok’s relentless turmoil, they just smile on and say “no problem.” If Jean-Paul Sartre had been Thai, existentialism would have been a sit-com. Jeeze!
The diners at the adjacent table—two couples—were celebrating a birthday. They were drunker than Dickie and infinitely more festive, and just as he fini
shed off his drink and went to signal for the check, they sent a second whiskey to his table. It was a single, and they were beaming at him. Oh, well. Hypocritically, he flashed them his sweet southern smile, lifted the new glass in their direction, and sipped.
He wasn’t used to booze. In Laos, he rarely drank. As wasted as he was feeling, however, he remained aware of his limited options. He could stick to the original schedule, wait three more days, and then bus to Xing’s village, as had been previously arranged. Or he could bus to the border in the morning and hope that Xing would show up there earlier than expected. Or he could. . . . No, sorry, that was the extent of the menu. Sure, he had a fake French passport just like Dern (though he’d never used it), but he lacked the money to fly to Vientiane. He’d been counting on the cash that Dern was to bring him from Manila, and now he was running dangerously low. After the dinner tonight, he’d be lucky to pay his hotel bill let alone return to Laos via jet.
There was nothing to do at that point but down his whiskey. After that, head spinning, there was nothing to do but weave up to the karaoke stage, seize the microphone, and without waiting for musical accompaniment, launch into a rendition of “Blue Christmas.”
He sounded nothing like Elvis Presley. In fact, he sounded nothing like Dickie Goldwire. He crooned the way a can of cheap dog food might croon if a can of cheap dog food had a voice. Generic Puppy Chow Sings Holiday Favorites. On the Skippy label. His delivery was so flat, so off-key and toneless and awful that his own ears felt violated. Ordinarily a pretty good amateur vocalist, he was astonished at how bad he sounded. The other diners listened politely, the birthday party smiled its encouragement, but it was all Dickie could do to keep a straight face. Giggles built up in him to the point where he felt like a bottle of champagne that had been vigorously shaken for about five minutes. If something had popped Dickie’s glottal cork, the resulting laugh-blast would have blown out all the windows.