Irregular Creatures Read online

  “They called looking for you. Where’d you go today?”

  “I don’t know.” Shit. This wasn’t good.

  “This isn’t good,” she says, echoing my brain.

  “I’ll go tomorrow.”

  7.

  I don’t go to work the next day.

  It’s weird. I do my business with the guy. I just use my hands this time and it’s not really that effective. It works, but it’s too much trouble to pull him apart like that. He just keeps wanting to move away from me, even when I’m grabbing handfuls of gut flesh and just pulling it away from him like it was moist pot roast.

  And then I stay in the alley.

  I don’t go to my car.

  I don’t go to work.

  An hour later, the guy shows up again. He looks the same. Purpled tongue jutting from gray lips. Sores all over. Same drunken stagger, same throat-buried grunts and groans.

  And I slam his head in the dumpster. It pops off and lands on a bed of rancid bok choy.

  8.

  Mary cries when I get home. The sun is coming up. She’s weeping and beating my chest, then she’s hugging me and asking me where I’ve been. I just move past her and get out the set of golf clubs from the bedroom closet.

  She says something about me being gone for days, but I know that’s not possible. Mary is maybe a little crazy sometimes.

  9.

  I sit in the driver’s side, and I think about the guy for a little while. Who is he? Why does he do this every day? He’s fallen into such an awful routine. How did he get this way? How does he keep coming back?

  For a little while, I think maybe about asking him these questions. It’s rare that I give him any chance to say anything at all. Maybe I should, I think. Maybe I need to give him the opportunity to explain himself. I look over at the passenger side and see several baggies of sandwiches sitting there. On half of them, the bread is green. Could be the guy is hungry. I itch a sore on my hand and lick it. It tastes funky, but it isn’t the worst. Mary’s right. I don’t look so good.

  This time, I decide I’m going to ask him what’s up. I’m going to talk to this guy, find out everything I need to know. And I’m going to give him a sandwich.

  As I think this, I go to my trunk and get out a nine-iron. I leave the sandwiches behind.

  MISTER MHU’S PUSSY SHOW

  Bangkok smelled like piss, shit, fish, trash. The city was a pole-dancing corpse, a fuckable zombie, a monster in a garter belt with an orchid in its hair. Garish, crass and beautiful. Nolan loved how it made him sick, like he felt after drinking one too many shots of Southern Comfort. The nausea was sickly sweet.

  Tuk-Tuks buzzed by, those three-legged mutant taxis. Most of them held white men, blonde hair. Farang, the Thais called them. Whitey, gwailo, gaijin, gringo.

  Or ghosts, Nolan thought. We’re all ghosts here.

  Most of the Tuk-Tuks ricocheted around the corner, zipping down Patpong Street. Everybody wanted a taste of something forbidden. God didn’t live here. Wouldn’t even show his face lest the sin burn out his eyes. Forget God. Lady-boys. Rimjobs. Pussy shows. Those were what mattered here in the hearts of men.

  This Red Light District here was the finest in the world. Fuck Paris. Piss on Amsterdam. This was the Mecca of the sex industry, the Temple on the Mount of all things nasty. Whatever you wanted, it could be bought. Little girls? Check. Old dudes in dresses? Sure. Hermaphrodite enema nurses? Amen. Way Nolan figured it, if you wanted to stick your dick in an elephant’s trunk, just get out your bhat and pay the man.

  Here, that was just an appetizer.

  ***

  Nolan felt lost. Unfocused. What was he looking for? He didn’t know. He never did when he came down here, leaving the Sofitel and the relatively opulent comfort of his room. The destination was nothing. The journey—the finding of desire—was everything.

  First on the menu tonight? He decided on a pussy show.

  Patpong was famous for its pussy shows. Little Thai men with big mouths stood outside every one of them, slapping their hands, trying to bring the farang inside. They announced in their best English whatever was going on inside: “Pussy Ping Pong Ball! Pussy Smoke Cigarettes! Pussy Open Bottle!”

  Nolan had found the descriptors to be spot-on. This was no scam, no ruse. Man said pussy will shoot out a ping pong ball, you can bet your bhat that’s what you’d see.

  After every pussy show? A sex show. Somebody fucking somebody. All passive faces and flesh-slap thrusts. Pure mechanics. It was like something on the Discovery Channel: antelopes or kangaroos humping each other. This wasn’t porn. It was a nature show.

  All the big clubs down here did the pussy shows – Cloud Royal, Safari Castle, the Koala Club. Girls on poles, girls with magical vaginas, girls with bait and tackle.

  Been there, Nolan thought, done that.

  But then someone slapped a flyer in his hand – hot pink, written in Thai and English. “Heavenly View Pussy Show,” it read. Below it: “Angel Bar.”

  Nolan had never heard of the place.

  He made his way through the crowd. Took him a while to find it—place was all the way down the end, tucked away (hidden, really) behind a wall of street food vendors (the smell of sizzling peppers and gurgling gut parts rose to his nose).

  Outside sat a small man in rags, his lips ringed with a volcanic archipelago of sores. He tried to say something, babbling in a language Nolan didn’t grok. The rag-man opened his mouth, and Nolan saw why: his tongue was a ragged stump.

  Well, Nolan thought, this just got interesting.

  He ducked inside.

  ***

  Angel Bar was lit from the edges, blue lights shining down, giving the place a swimmy, dizzy feel. The dark lights reflected off of gaudy strips of tinsel and silver ribbon hanging everywhere.

  It was a dinky downstairs – bar in the front corner, three stages crammed close in the back. The place smelled of cigarettes and coconut. Nolan found the odor peculiar, though not unpleasant.

  He ordered an Amarit beer from the bar. To him, Asian beer always tasted watery. With a whisper of cabbage. Tasted cheap, but he drank it just the same. He wasn’t a cheap man, but he liked cheap things.

  On stage: lights shining through red gels. The announcer chattered.

  Time for the pussy shows.

  Stage left and stage right? Occupied and illuminated. But the center stage remained dark. Nolan took his beer over to a center table with a wobbly leg, sat down, and watched.

  The girl dancing on the right was skinny on top with the tits of a twelve-year-old boy. But her hips were wide and smooth, made for holding. The pussy nestled between those thighs was a delicate little thing with a landing strip above. The girl held a cigarette in her hands – not like an American, with the cig crushed brutally betwixt two fingers, but like a European, with it pinched between thumb and forefinger. She screwed the cigarette between her labia. Nolan imagined he could hear the lips smooching on the end of it. A few seconds later, she pulled out the cigarette, and somehow, the vagina exhaled a little quief cough of smoke.

  The left stage showed a girl who was all ribs and knobby bones. Her pussy was a rat’s nest, a black briar tangle sure to trap Brer Rabbit. And the labia looked like beef skewers. He could’ve found her attractive, but she looked bored. She took a can of something, stuck it up inside her, did a dance, and let it slide out into her hands. In the light, Nolan could see the can covered in a snail-trail of slime.

  “She doesn’t even open the can,” Nolan muttered to himself. He took another swig of his beer and stood up. Angel Bar was a bust. Fuck it.

  A hand landed on his shoulder.

  “Don’t leave yet,” said a voice. Crisp, British.

  A man hovered above him with a razor grin, a vulpine nose. He hadn’t shaved in a while, his face a garden of pale stubble.

  “And why not?” Nolan asked.

  The man ignored the question. “Can I sit?”

  Nolan frowned, but sat back down. He nodded.
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  “I’m Nils,” the man said. He seemed like he was on something. Prick wasn’t blinking, just staring off at that empty stage.

  “Nolan.”

  “You’re a Yank.”

  “True.”

  “On holiday here?”

  “I work here. For part of the year. Down on Silom Road.”

  Nils was still staring at the center stage. “Yeah? You a banker?”

  “A buyer.”

  “What is it you buy?”

  Nolan shrugged. “Anything my employers want.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Pays the bills. You going to tell me why I’m still sitting here?”

  This wrenched the Brit’s gaze away. He turned toward Nolan, and Nolan saw that the man’s eyes were wide as moons. “Because the best hasn’t bloody started yet. These girls now are nothing. Wait till Tasanee takes the stage.”

  “Tasanee.”

  “That’s her name. You like the pussy shows?”

  “I suppose.”

  “You’ll love her, trust me. Some girls’d slit their Mum’s throat for muscle control like that. This fanny’s a precision instrument. She writes letters, paints pictures, blows up balloons. It’s fucking amazing.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Serious as spotted dick, my boy.”

  As if on cue, the lights directed at the two peripheral stages winked out. Those other girls still slinked around in the half-darkness, but nobody was paying attention. Their time was up, so they were cast into darkness.

  The lights—bright blue, the light of heaven—shone on the center stage.

  ***

  The girl called Tasanee slinked out onto stage.

  Even in the harsh spotlight, her skin looked sweet, as if dusted with cocoa. Her eyes were dark. Her body lithe and liquid. Her breasts were champagne glasses--what was it that Nolan’s father used to say? Anything more than a mouthful was a waste? The nipples atop those tits defied gravity, turning upward like snobbish noses. Those sweet lips, pillowy stomach, smooth thighs… Nolan wanted to live there, eat there, sleep, fuck and dance there.

  But nothing compared to that pussy.

  “Her name means heavenly view,” Nils whispered, leering, grinning.

  Nolan numbly nodded.

  It defied description. His heart thudded hard in his chest. His dick stiffened. His toes curled.

  With light steps, she snaked around the stage – was it a dance, or just the way she moved? Her body seemed to turn upon itself with each step. Her movements reminded him of Hindi goddesses – like Kali, trapped in her gilded circle, many arms and many legs bent in ways that mortal man could not mimic. Tasanee turned and in her hands she held a feathered quill and a crimson ink well – she set the inkwell down, and from somewhere, she pulled a scroll of yellowed paper, which she unrolled at her feet.

  “She’s writing a letter,” Nils mumbled in awe.

  The quill, she eased into the cleft between her legs.

  It held there firm.

  Then, she did a plié thrust downward, dipping the tip of the quill into the bottle of ink. When she rose from her dancer’s crouch, she even waggled the quill to free it of excess ink. Muscle control, indeed.

  Then, a few steps forward, and another hip thrust downward.

  Even from where he was sitting, Nolan could see the tip of the quill waltzing this way and that way. Her hands never touched it. All fell silent. No music played. He could hear the scratch of metal pen tip on textured paper.

  As the pen worked, her hands cupped her breasts, pinched her nipples.

  Then? That was it.

  She plucked the feather from between her legs, and then held up the sheet of parchment. It was written in the Thai alphabet, all curves and hooks and circles. The penmanship was beautiful. Nils started to say:

  “It says –“

  “Angel,” Nolan mumbled. “It says angel.”

  The lights on stage went dark.

  “I want time with her,” Nolan said. His dick was hard as a plank, and the pulse at his neck boomed like a drum.

  “You won’t get it,” Nils said, sounding despondent. “I’ve tried. Bloody hell, I’ve tried.”

  “I’ll get it. I’ve got the bhat.” His employer’s money, but this was worth the transgression.

  “So does everybody else. You’ll need more than that.”

  “I have more,” Nolan said, though he didn’t know what that meant. He stood up, leaving his beer and new friend behind, and went to find the girl’s patron.

  ***

  Mister Mhu – the proprietor and patron of Angel Bar – sat over in a dark corner toward the back of the bar, sucking down woon-sen noodles that looked enough like earthworms. The whole corner stank with the dirty feet odor of fermented fish. Worse, his little table was already surrounded by hungry men, throwing down their bhat for a little time with Tasanee.

  “No, no, she not available,” Mhu mumbled around a mouthful of worms. “You want other ladies, we have other ladies. You want lady-boys, have those too.”

  Nolan pushed his way past the men. One tried to elbow him backward, but he slammed a heel down on the prick’s open-toed sandal and slipped forward. “Out of my way.”

  He stepped up to the table, men jostling, each yelling louder than the next.

  Nolan threw open his wallet and emptied it of money. He dropped over 10,000 bhat – close to $500, American.

  “Tasanee,” he said over the din.

  Mhu looked at the money, then looked at Nolan. The man had a round face – almost like a Charlie Brown head with the face crammed unceremoniously toward the center of the circle. He narrowed his eyes even further, until they almost disappeared, and then shook his head.

  “She’s no available.”

  “I can get more of this.” Nolan tapped hard on the bhat.

  “It no matter, she no available.” Mhu shrugged. “You want something else? I give discount. Pretty farm girl? Two girls? Maybe you want ladyboy, yeah?” Mhu winked half-heartedly, then went back to his noodles.

  “I don’t want a ladyboy,” Nolan hissed. “I want her. Everything has a price. Name the price.”

  Mhu waggled a come-closer finger.

  Nolan brought his face close to Mhu’s. The stink was fierce.

  Suddenly, Mhu’s chopstick pressed hard against Nolan’s Adam’s apple – and Mhu bared his teeth.

  “You listen, farang. She not for you. You not want her, see? You take what I give. No more words. She not for you.”

  Nolan swallowed hard.

  He looked around. Women were dancing at tables now, grinding themselves against knees and hands for free drinks. Nils was nowhere to be found. Nolan chewed on the inside of his cheek. He felt anxious, edgy. His stomach was sour and his head hurt.

  “I’ll take a ladyboy,” he said, leaving some bhat on the table and taking the rest. “That’ll cover it, just tell me where to go.”

  ***

  The ladyboy wore a pink sarong with yellow flowers. It was stained with grease spots. His hair was long, like a girl’s, and pulled up and bound with two sharp little chopsticks, each one painted red. He bounced up a narrow set of steps poorly covered by moldering carpet, sashaying boyish hips with each step. As he waved Nolan on, Nolan could see the pockmark tracks up his arms—like sparrow footprints. Heroin, probably. Was that why he did this? To pay for it? Probably. Or maybe he was saving up for an operation. Was likely just the drugs. The stuff that came out of Burma was prime.

  They turned into a first room – barely more than a closet – with a ratty cot on the floor. Rickety bamboo shelves hung on the wall, decorated with gaudy golden elephants and plastic orchids caked with dust. The ladyboy tugged at Nolan’s hand, and gave his best come-hither look – a look that was sad, stupid, ineffective. Nolan shook his head.

  “Come on, Daddy.” The boy’s voice was high-pitched and uneven; a wavering mid-puberty warble. He patted the dirty cot with a dirty hand. “Sit down. Love.”

  “
No. Not today. Tasanee. Where is she?”

  The ladyboy rolled his eyes and hissed a sigh. “You no see her. That’s a rule. That’s a golden rule.”

  “You, I can buy,” Nolan said, and spread a peacock’s tail of bhat in his left hand. “You tell me, I give you this.”

  “But Mister Mhu –“

  “Forget him. I don’t give a rat’s ass about Mhu.”

  “You should.”

  “I should do a lot of things.”

  “We could stil…” the boy reached a finger toward Nolan’s thigh, but Nolan slapped it away. The ladyboy pouted. “Awww. Shit.”

  “Yeah, shit. Just tell me.”

  Another hissing sigh. “Down the hall, go left, she at end of hall. But you won’t get past Chedma. He protects her. Besides. Uou don’t want what she has. You make mistake.”

  “I need her.”

  “That’s what they all say,” the ladyboy said, but Nolan was already gone.

  ***

  Flies, fat and green, bounced against water-stained wallpaper.

  Nolan peeked around the hall corner, saw the man called Chedma. Tall, thin, but under his purple silk shirt, Nolan could tell he was ropy. Tough. Kickboxer, maybe. Behind Nolan, the ladyboy left the room, clucking his tongue and counting his money.

  Nolan reached out and stole the chopsticks out of the boy’s hair.

  “Hey!”

  “Shut up. Walk away.”

  The ladyboy sneered in disgust, and shuffled off.

  Nolan gripped the chopsticks, and slid them up his sleeve.

  Then he went to see Chedma.

  Before he even got halfway down the hall, the guard held up a hand. In Thai, he said, “Turn around, foreigner. Get out, go on.”

  But Nolan kept coming. “Mhu sent me.”

  “Not a chance.”