Rattawant Lapcharoensap - Sightseeing - Stories

One day, the three of us went to the fresh market by the Island’s southern pier. I saw a litter of pigs there, six of them squeezed into a small cardboard box amidst the loud thudding of butchers’ knives. I remember thinking of the little piglets I’d seen skewered and roasting over an open fire outside many of the Island’s fancier restaurants.

I began to cry.

“What’s wrong, Private?”

“I don’t know.”

“A soldier,” the Sergeant grunted, “never cries.”

“They just piggies,” Ma laughed, bending to pat me on the back. Because of our plans to move to California, Ma was learning English at the time. She hasn’t spoken a word of English to me since. “What piggies say, luk? What they say? Piggies say oink-oink. No cry, luk. No cry. Oink-oink is yummy-yummy.”

A few days later, the Sergeant walked into my bedroom with something wriggling beneath his T-shirt. He sat down on the bed beside me. I remember the mattress sinking with his weight, the chirping of some desperate bird struggling in his belly.

“Congratulations, Private,” the Sergeant whispered through the dark, holding out a young and frightened Clint Eastwood in one of his large, chapped hands. “You’re a CO now. A commanding officer. From now on, you’ll be responsible for the welfare of this recruit.”

I stared at him dumbfounded, took the pig into my arms.

“Happy birthday, kiddo.”

And shortly before the Sergeant left us, before Ma took over the motel from her parents, before she ever forbade me from speaking the Sergeant’s language except to assist the motel’s guests, before I knew what “bastard” or “mongrel” or “slut” or “whore” meant in any language, there was an evening when I walked into the ocean with Clint Eastwood — I was teaching him how to swim — and when I looked back to shore I saw my mother sitting between the Sergeant’s legs in the sand, the sun a bright red orb on the crest of the mountains behind them. They spoke without looking at each other, my mother reaching back to hook an arm around his neck, while my piglet thrashed in the sea foam.

“Ma,” I asked a few years later, “you think the Sergeant will ever send for us?”

“It’s best, luk,” Ma said in Thai, “if you never mention his name again. It gives me a headache.”

After I finished combing the beach for trash, put Clint Eastwood back in his pen, Lizzie and I went up the mountain on my motorcycle to Surachai’s house, where his uncle Mongkhon ran an elephant-trekking business. MR. MONGKHON’S JUNGLE SAFARI, a painted sign declared in their driveway. COME EXPERIENCE THE NATURAL BEAUTY OF FOREST WITH THE AMAZING VIEW OF OCEAN AND SPLENDID HORIZON FROM ELEPHANT’S BACK! I’d informed Uncle Mongkhon once that his sign was grammatically incorrect and that I’d lend him my expertise for a small fee, but he just laughed and said farangs preferred it just the way it was, thank you very much, they thought it was charming, and did I really think I was the only huakhuai who knew English on this godforsaken Island? During the war in Vietnam, before he started the business, Uncle Mongkhon had worked at an airbase on the mainland dishing lunch to American soldiers.

From where Lizzie and I stood, we could see the gray backs of two bulls peeking over the roof of their one-story house. Uncle Mongkhon used to have a corral full of elephants before the people at Monopolated Elephant Tours came to the Island and started underpricing the competition, monopolizing mountain-pass tariffs, and staking their claim upon farangs at hotels three stars and up — doing, in short, what they had done on so many other islands like ours. MET was putting Uncle Mongkhon out of business, and in the end he was forced to sell several elephants to logging companies on the mainland. Where there had once been eight elephants roaming the wide corral, now there were only two — Yai and Noi — aging bulls with ulcered bellies and flaccid trunks that hung limply between their crusty forelegs.

“Oh, wow,” Lizzie said. “Are those actual elephants?”

I nodded.

“They’re so huge.”

She clapped a few times, laughing.

“Huge!” she said again, jumping up and down. She turned to me and smiled.

Surachai was lifting weights in the yard, a barbell in each hand. Uncle Mongkhon sat on the porch bare-chested, smoking a cigarette. When Surachai saw Lizzie standing there in her bikini, his arms went limp. For a second I was afraid he might drop the weights on his feet.

“Where’d you find this one?” he said in Thai, smirking, walking toward us.

“Boy,” Uncle Mongkhon yelled from the porch, also in Thai. “You irritate me. Tell that girl to put on some clothes. You know damn well I don’t let bikinis ride. This is a respectable establishment. We have rules.”

“What are they saying?” Lizzie asked. Farangs get nervous when you carry on a conversation they can’t understand.

“They just want to know if we need one elephant or two.”

“Let’s just get one.” Lizzie smiled, reaching out to take my hand. “Let’s ride one together.” I held my breath. Her hand shot bright, surprising comets of heat up my arm. I wanted to yank my hand away even as I longed to stand there forever with our sweaty palms folded together. I heard the voice of Surachai’s mother coming from inside the house, the light sizzle of a frying pan.

“It’s nothing, Maew,” Uncle Mongkhon yelled back to his sister inside. “Though I wouldn’t come out here unless you like nudie shows. The mongrel’s here with another member of his international harem.”

“These are my friends,” I said to Lizzie. “This is Surachai.”

“How do you do,” Surachai said in English, shaking her hand, looking at me all the while.

“I’m fine, thank you.” Lizzie chuckled. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yes yes yes,” Surachai said, grinning like a fool. “Honor to meet you, madam. It will make me very gratified to let you ride my elephants. Very gratified. Because he”—Surachai patted me on the back now—“he my handsome soulmate. My best man.”

Surachai beamed proudly at me. I’d taught him that word: “soulmate.”

“You’re married?” Lizzie asked. Surachai laughed hysterically, uncomprehendingly, widening his eyes at me for help.

“He’s not,” I said. “He meant to say ‘best friend.’”

“Yes yes,” Surachai said, nodding. “Best friend.”

“You listening to me, boy?” Uncle Mongkhon got up from the porch and walked toward us. “Bikinis don’t ride. It scares the animals.”

“Sawatdee, Uncle,” I said, greeting him with a wai, bending my head extra low for effect; but he slapped me on the head with a forehand when I came up.

“Tell the girl to put on some clothes,” Uncle Mongkhon growled. “It’s unholy.”

“Aw, Uncle,” I pleaded. “We didn’t bring any with us.”

“Need I remind you, boy, that the elephant is our national symbol? Sometimes I think your stubborn farang half keeps you from understanding this. You should be ashamed of yourself. I would tell your ma if it wouldn’t break her heart.

“What if I went to her country and rode a bald eagle in my underwear, huh?” he continued, pointing at Lizzie. “How would she like it? Ask her, will you?”

“What’s he saying?” Lizzie whispered in my ear.

“Ha ha ha,” Surachai interjected, gesticulating wildly. “Everything okay, madam. Don’t worry, be happy. My uncle, he just say elephants very terrified of your breasts.”

“You should’ve told me to put on some clothes.” Lizzie turned to me, frowning, letting go of my hand.

“It’s really not a problem,” I said, laughing.

“No,” Uncle Mongkhon said to Lizzie in English. “Not a big problem, madam. Just a small one.”