The freshly cut coriander roots smelt wonderful infusing the whole house with their virgin freshness as they awaited becoming some addition to a preplanned dish, and by doing so losing the extent of their odour, losing their power to totally overwhelm and becalm, losing their power to demand to be noticed but adding a more subtle hint of flavour, more of an afterthought, or reminder of something not fully known, but stirring in the back of the mind. A distant memory perhaps, or distant event, or maybe not distant, or something, just something that can’t be quite placed.
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It is almost two years now, and I suppose it is time to record the actual true events before they fade or my memory decides to exclude such things that don’t fit with preconceived and taught ideas typical of someone raised in the rational and heartless late 60’s and 70’s. It also seems fitting as I sit once more, where I did that day, on the raised dot mypai with a pencil and cheap paper notebook feeling the breeze from the small green fan as the heat of the summer rises once more past body temperature.
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… there she was again. Maybe thirty meters in front and about to round the corner.
Sudden surge forward. I couldn’t miss her this time. And yet there she was at the next corner about to take a right still thirty meters ahead. I was determined this time I would get level. A sprint and quick right, and where was she? Hold on, maybe to the left just the bottom of her long flowing coat. Another sprint and a left, and yes there thirty meters in front she was. I must be catching her as now; I could again see her. And another sprint but still after the next left, well twenty-five meters maybe. I was going to make it after all. Then she took a right. OK another sprint and this time only twenty meters away. I wanted to call out to her but…
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Gerry had issues; Gerry was haunted. Neither were going to ever go away. What actually caused the issues or haunting would never ever be known by anyone except Gerry. It is the natural way of some things.
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So, there was I crawling on all fours around a damp dark smelly room, dressed in rubber boots and rubber gauntlets, looking for cock.
*****
It was a warm sunny day with clear skies except for the occasional tiny white cloud bouncing in the sea of blue. The warmth hit me and a first drip of perspiration rolled down my neck. It was a lovely day to go out and do something worthwhile on – May in England could sometimes but not often be like this. Oh there I go again. Right British. Already going on about the weather. Apologies for that. Let’s get back to the story. So where was I? Oh yes, a lovely day. What could I spend it doing? But I already knew. The local non-league football team had a game at home, and I would take the long 2 mile walk from my parent’s home, where I was visiting, to the ground and enjoy the game. The team were doing well and it should be an easy win.
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Ah, release! I glided slowly at first but then warming up nicely behind, and picking up speed. High, high, high above the low clouds, and viewed from above they were as cotton wooled carpet onto which you could step. A temptation. I wanted to take that now and walk and roll and play in that pure white shining mass washed in the intense glow of the sun so warm above me. I wanted to, but I could not stop for my destiny had been decided long ago by others greater than me.
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Manchester Andy, now there is someone to remember from the Cowboy days. He had an art degree, two in fact. He was also a real practicing artist producing paintings and sculptures at a prodigious rate. The styles of these were quite conservative and maybe not to everyone’s taste. Not being an artist, I am far too ignorant to know what label or labels to use to name his art, but all in all it wasn’t bad in my opinion.
Andy came to Thailand after finishing his Master’s degree and if I remember correctly a well paying job not connected with art in the United Kingdom. He arrived in Bangkok. with a fresh tourist visa in hand, an expensive backpack and a nice set of clothes. Andy had plans to do the usual “break from life” tour of Asia – Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, India and Nepal. He actually had no plans after that but intended to head back to the UK and do something with his art. He had made a lot of money from his well paying job, which had been added to buy sale of his artworks and a small inheritance from a distant relative. Andy was set.
Sometimes, though, fate has this way of interfering in the best laid plans and creating a new and different destiny for us.
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It was around seven or eight years ago that I first noticed him, this aging man. Quite exactly how old he was, was hard to tell as he had the start of a curved back and looked constantly at the floor with his bewhiskered jowls hanging from each side of his mouth. His hair was white or silver, but not in a distinguished looking way, but more in a mop of short but unkempt hair hanging over his head and flopping down onto his forehead as he shuffled forward with his brown scuffed sandals around his brown feet and his blue fisherman pants swaying with movement and breeze. His arched back inside his plaid long-sleeved shirt was letting out a little perspiration as he lugged the wide basket containing his collection of about thirty boiled eggs. He manoeuvred from table to table along the stretch of seawall at Laem Than where the young people sat and drank and chatted trying to sell an egg or two or three at each table for the drinkers to snack on. Occasionally he was even successful in getting someone to buy three eggs in a little plastic bag with a small sachet of sauce as he manoeuvred surprisingly rapidly between the jovial groups.
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The sky was darkening by the minute as the clouds turned from white to light grey to a darker shade, to charcoal and now indeed black with a rapidity rarely seen. A wind had suddenly sprung up. Starting as a light breeze with a vague hint of coolness. Then gradually becoming a more noticeable breath of cool on face and exposed skin. A stronger blast. And now strengthening as its power is rediscovered, moving the branches on the trees surrounding the village and sending out a siren of rustles and creaking wood as it further strengthens and trees start to sway and bend. The sound of a branch falling through the foliage to the fine red dry dirt on the ground breaks the whistles of wind now flowing through not only every open space but finding every gap between massed trees, the smattering of houses on the dirt red packed mud road, that they were built along. The red dirt from under the trees, the road and even the rice farmland down the end of the pike now becoming airborne and coating the floors of the rude wooden houses on stilts, passing into the communal areas and under the houses where the farm tools were now coated in red. Visibility falling as the black darkness seemed to descend around all. With the rise of the wind, now a crescendo of whistles, crashing boughs, falling tools and pieces of slamming houses. The air now filled not only with dust in the air but pieces of tree, house, tile and detritus. Doors not fastened blown closed and open, crashing in rhyme to the beat of the wind.
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When I was a child my sister had this picture bible for kids, which had been given to her by her god mother. It was a large hardback book with many pictures and some chosen stories extracted from the bible such as Moses and the parting of the waves, some parables, Jesus and the feeding of the many, and ones like that. But what I mostly remembered it for was the picture on the front. The hardback book had one of those glossy front and back covers that tucked into the front and back book covers. On the front of this was the name and a picture of a young man in sandals and flowing white robes with a hand held out with long blonde or golden locks, a light beard and blue eyes. Behind him was a blazing sun that left a halo round his head.
I was sitting at one of the stone tables at Mr. Bow’s just off of Tanao Road looking down the soi past the dogs, motorcycles and the occasional worker who were drifting in and out of the shophouses. It was hot, but the sun was falling and the temperature would soon drop. For now, though the sun was blazing lower into my eyes causing me to squint and think of moving bench. But the benches round the table were taken by the others sitting with me, but they were chatting to each other. I was both alone and surrounded at the same time, but in one of those late afternoon thoughtful, quiet periods that hit you in the tropics just letting my mind run over whatever came into it as I looked away from the table and around where I was but not really taking in the run down shophouses, wooden buildings and greenery or the little alley off the side that led back to where I had come from.
At some point my wandering gaze caused me to look back down the soi towards the road that ran past the distant post office and barbers and on towards the cheaper guest houses where some of the growing African community stayed. There was someone coming towards me. At first, they were a silhouette or shadow with the sinking sun right behind them. The intense light caused my eyes to struggle at first. I squinted as little drops of water ran from my eyes. But this quickly passed and I saw the figure near with a vast light around their head. The closer they came, the more I saw. The approaching figure was a young man in sandals and flowing white robes with long blonde or golden locks, a light beard and blue eyes. Behind him the blazing sun still left a glowing golden halo around his head.
This was my first ever encounter with Jesus.
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