See You Soon Nice Tomorrow

I am a man and Nui is a woman and so of course I drove the motorcycle home, in spite of the fact that she knew the way, I didn’t, it was dark, and she didn’t speak much English.  Later she told the group about how “sloowwwly sloooowwly” I drove and that I flinched when the dog jumped out of a blind corner, barking furiously.   She pantomimed the whole trip in an exaggerated fashion, and everyone laughed and then they poured me another shot of Thai whiskey.

I was up with the sun and had finished my first cup of coffee, made, as always, with a packet of heavily-sugared Nescafe, so with breakfast still a distant prospect and plenty of packets available, I had another.  Toon walked into the dining area, looked from me to my cup, raised his eyebrows and held up two fingers.  I said, “Yep.  This is two.”  He said my name, laughed and used his thumb and forefingers to make “open wide” motions around his eyes.  The next morning, when we ran out of coffee, Nui was all over it.  “Stanleee!  Twooo!”  I told her that was yesterday, but she insisted, with gestures, that it was both days.  I told her, half with gestures, that I believed it was she who had taken two and she laughed.  This became a running joke which we repeated every morning. 

Nui asked if she could come with me to America.  I showed her my wallet and told her I had no money.  She tried to give me 60 baht (2USD) and then she stuck out her lower lip and pouted when I told her it wasn’t enough.   She was joking, of course, but then again not completely. 

Toon asked, with some difficulty, if I would transfer some music onto a flash-drive.  The drive in question was only 1GB so I gave him about 20 songs that DJ Nik had sent me.  He plugged it into the DVD player and soon Ida Maria was belting out “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked”, loud and clear from the formidable speaker system.  Toon and a few of his Thai companions busted out a few dance steps.  A moment of embarrassment passed before I glanced over at the 13 year-old girl in her Sex Pistols T-shirt nodding along with the rhythm while she studied English and I realized no one present could understand one word of the lyrics.