Chapter Eight

Eight

He spent the afternoon hunting down a body-sized freezer. Pearl’s friend sent him to the nearest international big box store where he wandered around the appliance section opening and examining refrigerators knowing that none would do. He needed a horizontal floor model at least five feet long and two feet wide. Common enough on Long Island where people bought meat by the hundred weight but seemingly a rare thing in Bangkok.

After a long staring pause one of the salesmen approached and through a pantomime of sounds and hand gestures directed him to an industrial cooling warehouse, written out in Thai for the Taxi. There he found refrigerators for all types of restaurants and shops, but nothing that would deep freeze a 24 year old transvestite. After innumerable phone calls he was sent by the daughter of the Chinese owner to a meat wholesaler who also dealt in used freezers.

He stepped in through the open side door of the loading dock, around stagnate puddles of pinkish water spotted with stringy chunks of offal. He wandered through empty concrete rooms fitted with stainless steel runners, calling out into the dark corridors. After wandering ten minutes without seeing anyone he re-emerged into the sun blasted parking lot through a different door. Here he spotted a line of men crouched in the shade of a single parched looking tree smoking cigarettes.

He approached the end of the line and asked as plainly as he knew how about buying a freezer. The workers eyed him and spoke among themselves, about Lonny but not to him. He stood listening to the alien sounds becoming irritated as they blew smoke and mumbled to each other. Lonny turned to leave mumbling an insult of his own phrased as an apology when he was called back. The squatting man nearest him pointed towards the voice calling from across the parking lot and grunted ‘You- you.’

‘ Hello, hello. May I help you?’ A grinning man in a white shirt and tie stood in the customized doorway of a forty foot shipping container waving with one hand, shading his eyes from the harsh light with the other.

‘Yeah, I’m looking for a freezer?’ Lonny called out as he approached

‘Freezer? Ah fridge -freezer, please come to sit down,’ the man stood aside and Lonny walked past him into the refurbished container. Inside, a full functioning office hummed with activity. He sat on a plastic chair in front of the desk the manager vacated. The air was icy and he felt the blood pulse in his temples.

‘May I help you?’ The man asked again.

‘Yeah, like I said, I need a freezer, big sucker-body sized,’

‘One minute please. Have a seat.’

‘I am.’ Lonny looked at him cock eyed.

The man went to another desk and consulted with his colleague for a moment, returning with her.

‘May I help you?’ She asked.

Lonny looked from one to the other puzzled, was no one hearing him?

‘Well, it’s like I said, I need a freezer, I heard you might have a big freezer for sale?’

‘Meat freezer?‘She asked.

‘That’s right, about this big.’ Lonny stood up and held his hand just above the woman’s head.

She led him through the blood strewn killing floors again, making half literate small talk to which Lonny simply answered in monosyllabic affirmations.

‘Have here too many.’ There was an assortment of white, coffin sized boxes; rusted and blood stained, jammed in a bunker like room. Some leaned and others rested on their lids. A few sat gaping showing broken drawers and bent racks like the damaged smiles of old fighters. Lonny walked around, figuring any one would do when he saw off to the side a blue one with a faded illustration of pink balloons under a puff of confetti with a slogan in the native script on the front and an angled glass top split into two sliding panels. It was perfect; Pearl could sit in it without being shut up in the dark.

'How about that one?' Lonny asked the woman.

‘Ice cream freezer, that what you want, you need for you restaurant?’

‘No, it’s for a friend.’

‘Ok, we can make to clean.’

‘Can you deliver?’

‘Delivery to you home? Can.’

At the apartment Lonny watched as two of the slaughterhouse workers struggled up the stairs with the outdated box dripping a rusty tinted fluid from its corners with the panels slid open and the smell of death leaking from inside.

The sinewy men struggled with the weight, bashing the walls and banister in syncopated time as they ascended. Lonny helped them wedge it through the doorway, tearing off a section of plastic molding and cracking the press-board door as they did. Inside the tiny apartment, sweating and panting, the three leaned against the freezer laughing and smiling at each other. Lonny plugged it in and the motor stuttered to life and the interior lit weekly blue on one side, pink on the other. With the glass panel slid back a soft lullaby filled the freezer with its tinkling melody. Smiling at the thing he noticed the two staring at the lump on the bed and he quickly handed each one a bill from the roll in his pocket and sent them happily on their way.

He lifted the towels from Pearl. The ice had melted, and water was pooled on the floor beneath the bed. In the soft filtered light, her face devoid of blood glowed with the blemish free pallor that she had sought so hard to achieve in life.

‘I got it, but it wasn’t easy.’ He felt her arm and though already gone stiff the flesh was hot. ‘God it’s cooking in here, but don’t worry honey you’ll keep fresh in there.’ He looked over his shoulder at the coffin sized box, exhaling its cool breath into the dense heat of the room.

‘I know it’s nothing to look at, but they don’t make these things in much variety.’

In the stacked plastic bins where Pearl kept her clothes Lonny found a fresh pair of panties and a transparent frilled white top. He picked her up off the couch and sat her awkwardly in the chair and wiped her down with the towel she had been using earlier. He slid the soiled blue panties off and slipped the clean ones on, smiling awkwardly at her face, ignoring the inch or so of offending flesh that had created the problem. He got her arms through the open shirt but left it unbuttoned. With two clean towels he lined the still slightly rancid interior and laid her out, her head resting on a silky pink throw pillow.

He cleaned the mess on the bed dumping the sodden linen and plastic curtain in the shower. When he had wrung out the towels, he re-hung the curtain and flopped the towels over the rod to dry and then had a shower himself, standing under the cool water until his own body temperature dropped by a degree or two.

When he had dressed and was satisfied that the room was in order he slid back the glass top and kissed pearl on the forehead.

‘I’ll be back later, gotta go and check in with the fat man and see what’s going on. You’re fine for now. We’ll figure everything out tomorrow.’

Lonny hit the clogged streets in the near dark rush of commuters returning from work, the heat and humidity was somehow worse in the dying light. A lingering, still pulsing force of discomfort that had him soaked in sweat again in the minutes it took to walk to the sky train and take the long two flights of stairs to the platform. A slight breeze provided some relative coolness on the arch looming above the melee.

He looked down over the intersections and across the vast skyline of the city coming to life in the dark. All still a mystery to him but a place in which he had now chanced upon more action in three days than he had in the last thirty years at home.

They hadn’t all been good experiences, but they had opened his eyes. He felt the lump on his jaw and the swollen nose that felt like a sausage hung in the middle of his face, reflecting his every expression with little shots of pain. There were forces working against him. But he had Pearl, changed now, to support him.

The train pulled in and emptied its load of passengers struggling against the boarding throng who packed the clean cars to the doors. Lonny made no move to join them and watched it rush off again. Looking out at the sky line and planning an escape that seemed vital.

Within the dark maze that was the entrance to the Mansion he found the fenced in hole of reception where the ever-present girl sat sleeping. Her head resting on crossed arms over the table, immune to the caterwauling noise of the television above her head.

‘Excuse me.’ 

She lifted her head slowly, her eyes barely open. ‘You need room?’

‘I have a room, I’ve been here for three days. I was wondering if my bags arrived from the airport.’

‘Luggage?’

‘My bags, from the airport.’

‘Your bags?’

‘They were lost on the flight; I’ve been waiting for them. They were supposed to be sent here.’

‘You lost you bag?’

‘No, I’m waiting for them, they were supposed to come from the airport.’

‘Your luggage has not arrived sir.’ She said in a tone of full understanding.

The frustration of circular, half understood conversation was becoming normal already and Lonny thought again about the old men who choose to come here and spend the ends of their lives churning in this loop of poor communication.

‘Okay listen, I need to talk to Ed, you know Ed?’

‘Who?’

‘Ed, Eddy. He made my reservation here, he must come here a lot, you gave him a key to my room.’

‘No, your room key is here. She slid the key through the slot in the cage.’

‘Yeah, no, before, he came to see me. I was asleep and you let him into my room. You must know him. Fat man, about this tall.’ He held his hand beneath his chin and looked the girl in the eye.

‘I don’t know.’

Exhausted by her responses Lonny peeled one of the pink bills from his roll and passed it through the gap.

‘You want room clean?’

‘No, well yes I do, but I want you to tell Eddy I need to talk to him.’

‘I don’t know Eddy.’

‘Sure, I hear you, just tell him.’

Lonny took his key and shifted the bag holding a spitted chicken, still wearing its head and feet and the two bottles of beer he bought from a street vendor on the walk to the hotel and headed for the stairs.

On the dark landing of his floor he was met by the little man who had guided him to reception his first night. The man locked step with Lonny and took him lightly by the elbow.

‘You want lady? Want massage, you need to go disco open all night?’

‘Jesus no.’ Lonny shook him off but then turned to face him.

‘Hey, you know Ed?’

‘Yes I know.’ The man nodded.

‘You do?’

‘I know.’

‘Can you get a hold of him, tell him I need to see him, alright tell him to come tonight it’s an emergency.’ He peeled another bill and handed it to the man.

‘Okay?’ Lonny asked.

‘Ok.’ The man nodded.

‘Good, great, I’ll be in my room.’

‘Where you want to go?’ The little man asked. Lonny dropped his chin to his chest initiating a fresh flow of sweat beneath his shirt. Whatever remained of his understanding and patience was snapped. He turned and walked away leaving the man holding the damp pink bill clamped in his right hand.

*

The room had lost none of its depressing ambiance. The musty smell of rotting carpet, the air thick with mites and germs. The bed clothes were the same soiled and bloodied wad he had spent two exhausted, beaten nights in. The bathroom floor was soaked from dripping taps and mold was growing from the floor up across the ancient tiles.

He sat down on the bed and automatically flipped on the television, already set to Hot Asian Movie Channel. A different but immediately recognizable thirty-year-old comedy was playing out with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, one of those things that would never die because they appealed so directly to the hearts of middle aged women who thrived on them like pap.

He knocked the top off one of the 40 oz bottles of beer on the headboard of the bed and tore off a large hunk of the roasted chicken torso and gnawed at the meat and slugged the beer down. He sat in his underwear, sweating in the dirty heat of the room, loath to switch on the thunderous, sickness spewing air conditioner.

After thirty minutes watching the inane film and drinking warm beer Lonny saw himself in the mirror across the room. Hunched over, his beer gut all but blocked out his briefs. He shone with a running sweat that started at his hair line and soaked all the way down to the bed, watching a bad movie on a twenty year old set with a terrible picture. His face distorted from an almost constant string of beatings since his arrival.

‘No’, he told himself. 'What am I doing here?' He got up and dumped the corpse of the chicken, head and feet untouched, into the garbage and stripped off his underwear and got into the shower. He rinsed himself beneath the cold water and felt momentarily clean and cool but by the time he toweled dry and dressed himself he was damp with sweat again.

He left his rotten room wanting to see Pearl again. May as well stay there, talk to Pearl and get some sleep. He had slept peacefully in her little bed the night before. Plus there was the threat of Toy out there, and she probably knew where he was staying and could come down on him anytime she chose.

He hit the dark side street, ignoring the two taxi drivers who shouted to him from the opposite side. ‘You, where you go? You want disco- open all night, you want lady massage- Taxi, Yes. Where you go?’ and walked until he came out onto the corner of Soi 4. The main street of bars and hotels where The Grill sat at the intersection now packed with night time revelers. Men filled the open air bars that lined the street along both sides. They sat with drinks before them like buyers at a livestock auction vetting the women for sale who strolled the strip in all manner of costume.

Faces emerged from shadowed entrance ways into the gaudy colored neon lights of the street like masks, some gruesome, some lovely. They were bunched together, leering and wooing for business. Seeming to float along the crowded sidewalk each set of eyes followed him briefly as he walked checking for any sign of interest.

He was reminded of a painting he saw once while making a pickup from an art gallery in New York. A kind of bright carnival scene with all kinds of faces crowded together that could have been cheerful, but because of the violent way it was painted had menaced him as he stared at it. He didn’t know from art but was drawn into the thick brush strokes of color that described the looming expressions without the defense of an education and lost time for a moment before being shooed away by one of the tapered women who worked there. He walked on to the intersection, ignoring the invitations and grasping hands of the girls and transvestites who crowded the corner.

A block away the road was dark and deserted, and he crossed over the old terrestrial bound rail tracks as he headed for the stairs to the sky train again. Now, nearly nine o’clock, the hovering station was near empty. He bought his ticket, and rode the escalator to the train platform alone. A train rushed in and Lonny boarded the car where people sat with two and three seats between them, plenty of room but he stood for the four stops. The car was amazingly clean after having been packed to the doors with commuters all day and he wondered if because the country was poor modern conveniences were respected solely because of their cost. There was no doubt that for all the chaos in the streets, the commuters who rode the sky train acted more civilized than their brethren in New York.

At the Chang Nongsi stop he de-trained and took the stairs into the now quiet streets, so changed from a few hours earlier. The food carts and street vendors were still lined up along the sidewalk but the crowds were gone and Lonny could walk along without shoving and elbowing his way through.

He let himself into the building with Pearl’s cluster of keys and ornaments. Two residents were coming out at the time and stared at him as if he were some alien life form materialized before their eyes and talked about him blatantly, pointing as he passed and took the stairs two at a time.

In Pearl’s apartment he took off his shoes, out of respect for her habits, crossed the few steps to the desk and snapped on the overhead light. All was just as he had left it. He slid the freezer corner by corner across the floor as close to the bed as he could. He stripped and lay down beside it and reached over to crack the sliding panel a bit.

He studied Pearls face, it was paper white against the deep black of her hair but without the make up she had always worn when Lonny saw her she wasn't herself. Lonny got off the bed and went to her vanity where he found lipstick and her eyeliner. He stood over her and applied the bright red to her lips and dabbed some color over her eyes and tried to blend it with his finger tips in the subtly faded arcs that she had artfully created.

He sat on the bed and looked over his job. Chortled to himself and shook his head. 'I ain't lettin you have a mirror until we get that down a little better.'

The cold rose out of the freezer around Pearl like winter breath.

‘Can you imagine, in winter, even in the fall it’s so cold in Great Beach that happens to everyone when they take a breath. You’d feel so cold if you were there.’ He laughed at how she might have reacted, by scrunching her mouth until her wrinkled. ‘Maybe you’d like to see it, I mean visit Great Beach, or even you know, come to stay, to live. We can if you want.’

With the floor fan blowing across him he lay back and talked on about Great Beach, the ocean, the people, his Ma, the grid of streets that separated the Irish and Italians from the Jews from the Puerto Ricans from the blacks. And in this conversation he fell into a calm, restful sleep.