BANGING AROUND BANGKOK

A young girl, who looked to be 18 or 19 years old, came and squatted beside us and told us to get down on the floor. She placed a rattan basket of opium and paraphernalia beside her. Noi took out more 500 Baht notes and handed them to her. She explained that we all wanted to smoke and that it was the birthday girl’s turn to go first. The girl lit the alcohol lamp and began to temper the small ball of opium gum in the heat of the flame. We watched, mesmerized by her meticulous movements, and I began to fixate on her quite and austere beauty. She was so young and innocent looking, but she seemed to be at ease and comfortable in this squalid environment. Mature well beyond her years, and yet, she didn’t posses that million-mile stare that has infected so many of Bangkok’s abandoned street kids.

I asked Noi how she ever found out about this place and she told us that a well-to-do European customer had paid the bar fine for her a few weeks ago and had brought her here. She said that she had enjoyed herself so much that she thought it would be the perfect place for Sai’s birthday surprise, so she had kept it a secret.

As the young attendant pressed the gooey opium into the opening in the bamboo pipe she instructed Sai to lie down on the tattered mat. Sai complied, and placing her head on the mildew-soiled pillow she turned to position herself, facing the women-child with the pipe. We watched as she inhaled, and held the the first narcotic tokes from the pipe deep in her lungs. Her breast swelled from the expansive effects of the smoke. We could see the look in her eyes change as the drug began to insinuate its way into her blood and next her brain. Soon after we were all lying next to each other on the mat, dreaming of faraway places and fantasies.

A large, dark skinned and muscular man came to sit beside us, and he confirmed with Noi that everything was ready now. What more could there be? Wasn’t the opium the surprise Noi had spoken of? Noi nodded back in confirmation that we, too, were ready, and that he should begin.