Rattawant Lapcharoensap - Sightseeing - Stories

“Wait,” he says.

Surachai climbs out to one of the branches. He reaches for a mango and with a quick sweeping motion throws the fruit out to the beach. It hits one of the boys squarely on the shoulder.

“What the fuck!” I hear the boy yell, looking in the direction of the tree, though he continues to pursue Clint Eastwood.

They have him surrounded now, encircled. There’s no way out for my pig.

I follow Surachai’s lead, grab as many mangoes as I can. Our mangoes sail through the night air. Some of them miss, but some meet their targets squarely in the face, on the head, in the abdomen. Some of the mangoes hit Lizzie by accident, but I don’t really care anymore, I’m not really aiming. I’m climbing through that tree like a gibbon, swinging gracefully between the branches, grabbing any piece of fruit — ripe or unripe — that I can get my hands on. Surachai starts to whoop like a monkey and I join him in the chorus. They all turn in our direction then, the four farangs, trying to dodge the mangoes as they come.

It’s then that I see Clint Eastwood scurry away unnoticed. I see my pig running into the ocean, his pink snout inching across the sea’s dark surface, phosphorescence glittering around his head like a crown of blue stars, and as I’m throwing each mango with all the strength I have, I’m thinking: Swim, Clint, Swim.

Every so often I dream of my brother’s face on fire, his brown eyes — eyes very much like my own — staring at me through a terrible mask of flames. I wake to the scent of burning flesh, his fiery face looming before me as an afterimage, and in that darkness I am eleven again. I have not yet learned to trespass. I have not yet learned to grieve. Nor have I learned to pity us — my brother, my mother, and me — and Anek and I are in Bangkok sitting on the roof of our mother’s house smoking cigarettes, watching people drifting by on their bicycles while the neighbors release their mangy dogs for the night to roam the city’s streets.

It was a Saturday. Saturdays meant the city didn’t burn the dump behind our house. We could breathe freely again. We wouldn’t have to shut all the windows to keep out the stench, sleep in suffocating heat. Downstairs, we could hear Ma cooking in the outdoor kitchen, the clang of pots and pans, the warm smell of rice curling up toward us.

“Hey, kid,” Anek said, stubbing his cigarette on the corrugated tin roof. “What’s for dinner?” I sniffed the air. I had a keen sense of smell in those days. Like a dog, Anek told his friends once. My little brother can smell your ma taking a crap on the other side of town.

“Rice.”

“Sure.”

“Green beans. Fried egg.”

“No meat?”

“No. I don’t smell any meat.”

“Oi.” Anek threw a leaf over the edge of the roof. It hovered for a second before dropping swiftly to the street. “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of green beans.”

Our father had been dead for four months. The insurance money from the factory was running out. There had been a malfunctioning crane and a crate the size of our house full of little wooden toys waiting to be sent to the children of America. Not a very large crate when I think about the size of the house, but big enough to kill a man when it fell on him from a height of ten meters. At the funeral, I was surprised by how little sadness I’d felt, as if it wasn’t our father laid out before the mourners at all — wasn’t him lying there in that rubberwood box, wasn’t his body popping and crackling in the temple furnace like kindling — but a striking replica of our father in a state of rest. Pa had taken us to the wax museum once, and I remember thinking that he had somehow commissioned the museum to make a beautiful replica of himself and would be appearing any minute now at his own funeral.

After the cremation, we went with Ma to scatter the ashes at Pak Nam. We rode a small six-seater boat out to where the brown river emptied into the green sea. We leaned over the side — all three of us tipping the tiny tin urn together — while Ma tried to mutter a prayer through her tears.

Anek lit another cigarette.

“Are you going out tonight?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Can I come with?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you said last time—”

“Stop whining. I know what I said last time. I said I might. I said maybe. I made no promises, kid. I told you no lies. Last I checked, ‘maybe’ didn’t mean ‘yes.’”

A month before, for my birthday, Anek had taken me to the new American fast-food place at Sogo Mall. I was happy that day. I had dreamed all week of hamburgers and french fries and a nice cold soda and the air-conditioning of the place. During the ride to the mall, my arms wrapped around my brother’s waist, the motorcycle sputtering under us, I imagined sitting at one of those shiny plastic tables across from my brother. We’d be pals. After all, it was my birthday — he had to grant me that. We would look like those university students I had seen through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the ones who laughed and sipped at their sodas. Afterward, we would walk into the summer sun with soft-serve sundaes, my brother’s arm around my shoulder.

The place was packed, full of students and families clamoring for a taste of American fast food. All around us, people hungrily devoured their meals. I could smell beef cooking on the grill, hear peanut oil bubbling in the deep-fryers. I stared at the illuminated menu above the counter.

“What should I get, Anek?”

“Don’t worry, kid. I know just what you’d like.”

We waited in line, ordered at the counter, took our tray to an empty booth. Anek said he wasn’t hungry, but I knew he had only enough money to order for me: a small burger and some fries. I decided not to ask him about it. I wasn’t going to piss him off, what with it being my birthday and what with people being so touchy about money ever since Pa died. As we walked to the booth, I told Anek we could share the meal, I probably wouldn’t be able to finish it all myself anyway.

Even though he had been telling me all month about how delicious and great the place was, my brother looked a little uncomfortable. He kept glancing around nervously. It occurred to me then that it was probably his first time there as well. We had on our best clothes that day — Anek in his blue jeans and white polo shirt, me in my khakis and red button-down — but even then I knew our clothes couldn’t compare with the other kids’ clothes. Their clothes had been bought in the mall; ours had been bought at the weekend bazaar and were cheap imitations of what they wore.

Anek stared across the table at me. He smiled. He tousled my hair. “Happy birthday, kid. Eat up.”

“Thanks, Anek.”

I unwrapped the burger. I peeked under the bun at the gray meat, the limp green pickles, the swirl of yellow mustard and red ketchup drenching the bun. Anek stared out the window at the road in front of the mall. For some reason, I suddenly felt like I should eat as quickly as possible so we could get the hell out of there. I didn’t feel so excited anymore. And I noticed that the place smelled strange — a scent I’d never encountered before — a bit rancid, like palaa fish left too long in the sun. Later, I would find out it was cheese.

I took a few apprehensive bites at the bun. I bit into the brittle meat. I chewed and I chewed and I chewed and I finally swallowed, the thick mass inching slowly down my throat. I took another bite. Then I felt my stomach shoot up to my throat like one of those bottle rockets Anek and I used to set off in front of Apae’s convenience store just to piss him off. I remember thinking, Oh fuck, oh fuck, please no, but before I could take a deep breath to settle things, it all came rushing out of me. I threw up all over that shiny American linoleum floor.