Cleveland woke to roosters crowing at daybreak downstairs in one of the hotel garden courtyards. He and Anong had left the balcony door open by accident the night before, enjoying the cool beach breeze, drinking Chang beer and swigging sang som whiskey, fucking and falling asleep to a Steven Seagal movie marathon playing on one of the cable television channels. Now, a slight hangover, his head felt heavy. He looked at the flat, ruffled sheets next to him. Anong had already gone, but he could still smell her moist, tamarind skin and the bergamot lotion from Victoria’s Secret she kept at the bedside. The stifling, summer Thai air tasted like a spiced mango lodged in his throat. He chugged water, put on his swim trunks and running shoes, and left.
Jogging was one of his daily routines, even on a fight night. The hotel staff saw Cleveland and nodded excitedly, too spry and cheery, as usual. I am a spectacle, Cleveland thought, but he figured he’d been there long enough to not get the why you running smile and stare. Ten years in Asia, the last four of those in Phuket. He sprinted through the hotel parking lot until he reached a cobblestone path lined with palm trees by the beach. He slowed to a jog—partly because he thought he might vomit.
He watched soft waves break on the shore. The town felt tired, but in Phuket time didn’t matter. It was either day or night. The day was recovery: motorized street sweepers spewed sanitizers that swabbed the filth and then sank them into sewers and drains that eventually led to the Andaman Sea. The night was neon: blinking, flashing, pulsing, pumping, jerking the rhythms of passersby, the naughty night-crawlers.
Early sunbathers had set out on the beach already, mostly too-tanned Europeans or Russians obsessed with the sun. On the town side of the street, security grilles closed the shops and market entrances; only a Seven-Eleven and a coffee shop were open. He ran well past the main business district and ascended Thaweewong road. The morning sky was more clear and crisp than the rest of the day; a strange haze would settle by noon because of burning forests and the burning flesh of wild monkey corpses somewhere in Indonesia.
At the top of Thaweewong road, he stopped and gazed at the beach below. His chest heaved. He thought about Anong and how he loved her and how beautiful it was or would become. And then just like that, as effortless as the breeze, he had another thought and his mood changed. Why had she left that morning? She usually waited for him to return from his run or she’d wake with him so they could have breakfast together. But not today.
He realized he had sweat out his headache, but could still go on. There were more beach-goers below him now and they looked like ants, he thought, which was a cliché, but that’s all he could think of. Ants scurrying along sandy borderlines until they stepped into the water and it swallowed them and they looked like ants either floating or drowning. Ants either float or drown.
Boredom scared Cleveland. He ran faster along Thaweewong road, which continued up and down jungle hillsides and patches of lemongrass and murky-greenish ponds of water lilies and torn plastic bags strewn along sagging branches of forgotten flora and stretches of palm and coconut forests and banana trees and clouds of humid air thicker than paint and finally he arrived at a village he was sure he’d come before. Debris and garbage littered the dusty road and stray dogs wandered like boys on summer break thinking themselves invincible. Smoke curled from burning wood stoves; villagers sat and stood and drove motorbikes and three-wheeled tuk-tuks.
He stopped by a roadside vendor’s shop and asked for water. The vendor, a woman of an indeterminate age, smiled and waved her hand at him in a movement that looked like a butterfly flapping through the air.
“I know you. I know you,” she said and disappeared quickly to the back of the shack.
Cleveland knew the feminine Thai-English accent well—it carried syllables a little longer and higher at the end of each sentence, phrase, or word even. His heart beat fast. He was tired. The woman returned with a stack of poster flyers for Muay Thai fighting events. She scanned and flipped through them with the quickness and precision of a librarian.
“Yes-yes,” she said, wiping dust from one of the laminated posters and then shaking her head yes. “You, no? Ah-ha, you see, I know you.”
That is me, Cleveland thought. Fists raised, elbows wide, face stern, eyes staring with an empty, almost aloof gaze: picture worse than any mug-shot he’d ever had. He tried to remember that fight, but couldn’t recall…the fights. How many had there been? Oh-Ya-Yo! He hadn’t come up with that. He’d told the ring officials his name was Cleveland, and they said, “like Ohio?” Ohio was easier, and then he pummeled the local champion El Papi in three rounds. It was a knockout. Who can beat Ohio? The crowd yelled, but it sounded like Oh-ya-yo. No one can beat Oh-ya-yo, he’s too fast and too strong. Too fast, too strong. Too…You are a fighter, Cleveland. Always. You are the Miracle Baby, remember.
“For you,” the woman said, “beer free.”
“I need water,” Cleveland said. He took two slimy twenty baht bills from his sweaty shorts pocket.
“Oh,” she said. “Water sixty-five baht, not forty. Sorry. Just for you, beer free.”
He paid the woman and as he exited, he thought he spotted Anong climbing onto the back of a motorbike. But it can’t be Anong, he thought. He looked closer, examining the girl’s thin waist and firm, stout legs. Anong was the shortest girl he’d ever been with. Same perky breasts. The girl’s long, russet hair hid her face. Cleveland nearly dropped the open water bottle in his hand.
“Anong,” he said, calling to her.
She didn’t hear him, and the driver, a young Thai man, made a U-turn on the road. As they passed the vendor’s shop, Cleveland stepped out in front of the motorbike. It was an impulsive step that Cleveland wasn’t even sure why he made. He saw the driver’s eyes fill with panic and confusion. He looked again at the girl; it wasn’t Anong. The motorbike swerved past him and almost skidded off the road. Neither the driver nor the girl wore a helmet. The man stopped the motorbike, turned, and stared at Cleveland. The girl jabbed a finger and yelled. Cleveland didn’t know what to do so he pressed his palms together and bowed, something he did before and after a fight, and while he knew it was a shameful attempt at an apology, he knew he would get away with it because of his boring Aryan skin and beach-blue eyes. He didn’t have to remember that; it was innate.
He watched the girl on the motorbike turn to the man and hold him tightly from where she sat behind him on the saddle. The man kicked-started the motorbike again and revved the engine. They drove away. Cleveland guzzled the rest of his water and ran in the direction he’d come from.
At quarter to two Cleveland heard a knock on his hotel room door and thought it was a cleaner or an employee to refill the refrigerator bar. He’d moved from place to place, hotel to hotel, since he’d been in Phuket, but settled at Bhukitta Village Palace seven months ago; it was no palace, but it was on the beach, affordable, and offered free breakfast, in-room WiFi, and discounted rates for long-term stays. He had been resting in bed, falling in and out of sleep, surfing cable channels. “No,” he said. “I don’t need anything now. Thank you.”
“Oh-ya-yo,” a voice said.
It was Anong. He stirred from the bed and tied his robe.
“Knock, knock, Oh-ya-yo. This no clean lady.”
The room was cooler than she liked so he turned off the air conditioner and then opened the door. He leaned in the doorway. “Hi,” he said.
Anong smiled. She was dressed in the same clothes from the night before—short-short jean shorts inconspicuously torn and fringed on purpose, scarlet red tank top and matching heels, not too high. She’d slung the purse he bought her over her shoulder: smooth, red, snakeskin leather, gold buckle, thick brown leather strap. She’d picked it out. She reached her hand to his neck and he bent toward her. They kissed.
Cleveland felt a heavy rush of something warm and flooding cover him then. Something magical and invincible. She withdrew first. He found her eyes and remembered waking alone and then paranoia pricked him again. Something like despair tickled his throat. “Where did you go this morning?”
She sighed and reached to kiss him again. Their teeth clinked. He looked at her, and there was a pause, and he knew what could happen: he could take her right then and there however he wanted, over and over and over and over—to the point of his own, sad exhaustion, like a hamster tiring himself at his cage wheel. They were good at sex. But for Cleveland, there were rituals: no sex before a fight.
“Oh-ya-yo,” she said softly. “No worry me. I here with you now-now.”
Was that a begging whisper, he thought. A riveting Thai beauty, standing here at the door. Did rules and rituals really matter? He couldn’t help himself. Swiveling insides. He pulled her toward him.
“Oh,” she said.
He started to untie his robe, but she held him still then.
“Ah, ah, ah,” she said. She allowed one more kiss and then held him back. “No funny-funny before fighting.” She kidded him, mocked his Muay Thai moves, jabbed his chest and stomach. He loved it. “Unless you want it now-now,” she said.
Outside on the beach, swimmers and sunbathers rode jet skis through the bay and out into the ocean and surfers and waders and beach walkers were clad in next-to-nothing and vendors sold Chang beer right on the beach and it was mid-day, the time to soak in the sun and wait for the night.
Cleveland looked at Anong again. Soft skin. Subtle freckle on her lip. Silky hair strewn perfectly so it cuddled her face and neck, then tickled and paved her shoulders. “Why do you torture me?” he said.
“Maybe you love me too much.”
Love her, he thought. Yes. I do, don’t I? Why can’t I? You are a fighter. You are a miracle, remember. Fight, and she will love you. She has to. “Where’d you go today?” he said.
“To see my friend Kanda. She sick, so I take look her. She live near airport, too far-la, so I go early.”
He hadn’t met Kanda before, but he’d heard Anong talk about her often. They had “worked” together. Anong said she knew Kanda was a real, true friend because they always laughed at the same time.
Cleveland actually knew little about Anong—in regard to her life, where she came from. She said Udon Thani, and Cleveland knew that was in the north, where many of the hot, young things came from. But what was life like there? She said her father farmed rubber and rice. Cleveland said he didn’t know you could farm rubber. My mother Vietnamese, she’d told him. I have six sisters. He didn’t ask too many questions. That world—rubber farming in the north—seemed like another galaxy away.
Cleveland knew what “work” meant for Anong. That was before, wasn’t it? Before me, he thought. It was an umbrella title for the things she did when men hired her to do fun things and naughty-naughty stuff: tour guide, masseuse, escort. There was more. It was a livelihood. “Is Kanda very sick? Does she need money?”
“No,” she said. “I just visit her because I love her.” She pulled the purse from one shoulder and settled it on the other. “I see you later tonight. Okay-la?”
“Why did you come here now?”
“To tell you have good fight.”
“You mean to wish me luck.”
“No luck. Have good fight.” She looked at him. “Remember, I thinking you.”
He thought about breaking his no-sex-before-a-fight rule. He pulled her toward him and wanted to say, don’t leave me. They kissed again, and she told him again to have a good fight and began to back away. He blew her a kiss, and then, as he was closing the door, she said, “Wait.”
“Yes?”
“You want me next month like this month?”
He looked at her, envisioning himself saying a million other things, but settled on: “That would be nice. Same, yes, next month.” Their arrangement was 15,000 THB per month. He sponsored Anong, which meant he paid for her time so that she only “worked” for him.
“Maybe,” she said then, “you can pay me early? I need send money home, Songran is coming soon-soon.”
“Sure,” he said. “How’s tonight, after the fight?”
She smiled yes. “Message me when you want me, okay-la?”
For now, he kept the engagement ring in a tiny laced sack that wasn’t big enough to hold two nickels stuffed in his gym bag. At one-and-a-half carats, he’d bought it from a Nigerian man named Bobo who owned a jewelry shop at Jungceylon, the newest mall by the Patong beach area, and said he had the best real diamonds in all of South East Asia.
Cleveland had a few more hours before he had to leave for Patong Stadium. Flipping channels again, he found the next Seagal movie: Above the Law. It was near the end. There was a fight scene and Seagal killed all the enemies with swanky martial arts moves and clever make-shift weaponry.
He fell asleep and found himself in a rowboat paddling through a thick, cream colored sea. It parted like gravy, and he didn’t want to touch the surface or think what might be beneath it. Restless, he looked behind him: nothing. Above him: an endless pastel blue sky soared. Finally, in front of him: another boat. He paddled faster. He thought it was Anong. Her face wasn’t clear, but it was her body. Her legs. Shoulders. Petite, perky tits. Sweet, dimpled navel. Faster now, he paddled, thrusting, thrusting, thrusting. He was so close he could touch her. She shrieked. He realized she had been paddling too, but away from him, and he woke coughing. It was hot and his throat was dry. He’d forgotten to switch on the air conditioner. Sweating, he untied his robe at the waist and thought about how the day felt long and tedious and how the plain room smelled like last night’s sex. He got up and went to the mirror…
Remember, Cleveland, you’re the Miracle Baby. The miracle baby boy. You don’t remember every detail and how could you? At eighteen weeks, you were born. You weighed less than a can of beans. You were a fighter then, but you didn’t know it. No one expected you to live. You had tubes in every orifice and mucus and blood too. You didn’t have a chance, and then you did. You weren’t a Preemie, you were a Miracle. You are a miracle. You’re a survivor. A fighter. You can’t lose. Remember…
There weren’t many fans in the Patong Stadium when he arrived at seven o’clock; the youth fights drew only a few locals. Cleveland had at least an hour until the amateur fights, and then another couple of hours until the money fights. He was always scheduled for ten, but it was usually more like eleven or eleven thirty when he entered the ring, and by then the stadium was full.
He ordered the same pre-fight meal as usual: Pad Thai, two spring rolls, and roasted chicken. He ate in the back of the stadium, by the entrance to the locker rooms. He liked that back area of the stadium. Black and white photographs of fighters and the crowd and the scenes of a fight night lined the wall. Maybe that was his real wish: to be seen in a black and white still shot. Everyone wants to be seen and remembered like that.
***
The night he’d asked Anong out on a second date it was past midnight and he met her outside Suzy Wong’s off Bangla road where she’d just finished dancing. Bangla road was neon and excitement and yelling and stumbling and slurring and touching and, since their first date, he had made it a point to meet her at the end of her shift.
Why you come here, to me, every night? she said.
I want to make sure you get to your ride safely, with all of these crazies out here.
She looked around her and paused, then looked at Cleveland and said, You know what you want?
They walked together hand-in-hand. Anong was short, much shorter and smaller than Cleveland, but he had difficulty keeping up with her pace. He wanted to ask her if she knew what she wanted, but he said, I just want to take you out for dinner.
Yes-yes, dinner okay, but I know the man.
Anong’s smile was warm and honest and pleading, too. How could she do all of that with just her lips, Cleveland wondered? She had shy, lean eyes. She had a birthmark the shape of a tiny head of broccoli on the inside of her right elbow. He figured she was in her early twenties, and did that mean she was too young to fall for him? Why couldn’t the now thirty-something Miracle Baby find love in a young Thai girl? Anything was possible. Men, with varying intentions, hovered over her, Cleveland knew. He felt beads of sweat on his chest and back wetting his shirt even though the heat wasn’t stifling that night. I’d like to see you again.
You break law?she said.
No.
What you run from then?
Not running, just sort of starting over.
It doesn’t start over.
What doesn’t?
Nothing.
Cleveland didn’t understand what she meant, but understood the resolution in her response. They were cutting through backstreets and alleyways.
Your family, she said. They know you here? For start over.
America’s a little different.
I know. I know the American man, he different. She stopped walking. They were at a street corner and a man in a taxi was waiting for her. I go now.
I can see you again?
For you, okay. Dinner okay. You know my price-la, yeah? For the night?
He nodded yes. Her price was 1,000 baht for two hours; 3,000 baht for the night. That was easy for the Miracle Baby.
Why I like you, Anong said to Cleveland on their third date when they watched an Adam Sandler blockbuster flick at the Jungceylon mall cinema, is because you honest. I see you can’t lie. Most foreign man they lie. You never lie me.
She was direct and simple. Life should be simple. He simply told her after the movie that he wanted to be with her and only her. She said, okay-la, just don’t be jealous me. If you jealous too much, you can’t love.
***
After finishing his meal, Cleveland wandered through the stadium. He watched the women sparring and shadowboxing and preparing for their fights. The crowd began to stream in, and then he saw Anong enter with a line of other Thai women, all clad in hot pink bikini tops and loosely flowing sarong dresses wrapped at the waist. His body reeled. The women were escorted to the second level seating. A bell sounded and the first two women fighters took their positions in the ring. Cleveland continued ambling around the stadium floor, casually alternating his attention to the ring and then toward Anong.
The music began: the sarama, the traditional Muay Thai music.Men’s hands patted and slapped hand drums and tickled the bamboo hand-made flutes and strummedsomewild version of a guitar. The women bowed and offered thanks and praise to the gods. It looked more like a dance or a yoga routine. All controlled, there was kneeling and bowing and lunging.
“Oh-ya-yo,” a voice behind Cleveland said. “You win tonight?”
He turned. It was Cecilia The Ladyboy whom Cleveland had known since he began competing in the money fights, some three years ago. The son of a famous and aging Thai Senator, Cecilia had studied in America, spoke like an American, and had lots of money. He was a regular at the Patong Stadium and a degenerate gambler. A he-she, a transsexual. Make-up and eyeliner thick and moist like silt, C-cup breasts, high heels, deep voice, and a penis taped somewhere against his groin.
“Yeah,” Cleveland said, “I’ll win.”
“You should have another name. Tiger or Lion.”
“Por Pramuk is good.”
“Baby, he’s no match for you.”
Cleveland nodded and then Cecilia leaned into him. “You can do much better than that,” Cecilia said, nodding toward the second level where Anong sat.
There had been many girls since Cleveland had been in Asia. He had paid for some of them, but none, he was convinced, was like Anong. Sure, she was beautiful and sexy, but there were a million girls like that, especially in Thailand. He paid for Anong. She grabbed his balls, but yanked his heart. Cleveland felt alive. Finally, obsessed with something other than himself, the Miracle Boy. Wasn’t that love?
Cleveland wanted to say fuck off, already, ladyboy, but the start bell sounded. They turned to the ring to watch. There was commotion and chatter in the stands, fan banter and side-betting. Cleveland looked again at Anong. She offered a soft, distant smile, and then turned to play with her phone. The rest of the girls around her were the same: bored and unamused with the scene, simply waiting for the rest of the night. Inside, Cleveland was a storm.
Cleveland and Cecilia watched the fight until a group of foreign men entered through the lobby. Cleveland didn’t know them, but he knew them: western businessmen. They’d probably just come from work where they made some multi-national exchange that loaded their pockets. The men were escorted to the second level and found seats next to and around Anong and her group of girls. The men and women shuffled seats. There were handshakes, hugs, kisses, and touches. Cleveland watched Anong greet and hug each man and then settle with one who looked like all the rest. Swirling storm of envy and bitterness, winds of want and hatred and lust and greed. And rage.
Cleveland paid Anong for her…loyalty. Standing there by the ring, watching, he felt every second. Inside the ring, one girl flung the other to the floor and they squirmed until their bodies intertwined and then one recoiled and they stood again and circled each other until one found room to kick or punch or grab. Cecilia growled and snickered at it all, while Cleveland turned into himself.
After the women fought, he returned to the locker room. He took a cold shower and washed and dried himself meticulously. He applied lotion and oil and Tiger Balm and Vaseline. He soaked his mouthpiece. He wore his maroon fighting trunks and his red, white, and blue robe. His mitts were tighter than normal and his hands began to feel numb when he didn’t move, jab, swing, or bob them.
A Thai man entered and said, “Oh-ya-yo, go-time soon-soon.”
At the front entrance of the locker room where Cleveland had eaten earlier, the music still sang in the background. In the stands, he saw Anong and the girls and the western businessmen were seated as couples now: interwoven hands, hips, thighs, and sides moving as one, even though they sat in stiff stadium seats. It was all part of the sleaze. Rich Thai business and governmental men invited western entrepreneurs and corporations to showcase potential imported goods and discuss deals that would make both sides richer. The local hosts would arrange for after-work activities, which in Phuket meant girls and booze and at least one night of the popular boxing. Cleveland didn’t see them every night he fought, but he saw them often enough. He imagined their conversations were stale and abrasive. Anong played along. How far would the night go? Cleveland didn’t want to think about that. It was just sex. Wasn’t it? Only sex? Sex, sex, sex. She was a ring girl. She was a model. A dancer. Anything she was paid to be. A girl friend? A wife? She sat next to one of the men. Her right leg straddled his left. If Cleveland looked real close, he could see her crotch slightly open through the sarong. It was night and everything was open. He felt sick so he bounce-stepped and shuffled his feet as if to warm-up. He swung his arms back and forth and punched his face with each hand until he felt nothing except the tightness of his mitts.
A crowd had gathered and continued to stream in. Cleveland noticed a few of the men where Anong sat, pointing to him. Who’s that? Cleveland imagined them saying. Oh, that’s Oh-ya-yo. He foreigner who fight good-good, a girl would respond. He was a spectacle to them all, and then he was in the ring.
The musicians played and the crowd cheered and yelled, but he couldn’t hear them. Sound waved through his mind like it was a placid, calm lake. Time slowed, space widened: he imagined the western man in some stale hotel room mounting Anong like a beast and the other girls are there too, and Cecilia The Ladyboy, all watching and the Miracle Baby breaks down the door, throws the man against the wall, and stomps on his crotch and head until Anong, sweet Anong, tells him no more and rushes to his arms.
Por Pramuk was in front of him. Cleveland moved, circling him, waiting, watching until the time was just right. The Tiger Balm he lathered on his face numbed his nose and lips and stung his nostrils. He could see the sweat on Por Pramuk’s brow and watched him spit and then grind his teeth on his mouthpiece. Cleveland breathed and drew deeper into himself. I am, he thought, a ravage…a ravaging ring rebel…
Por Pramuk struck Cleveland first—it was a shin-kick—and the crowd cooed. Ants, Cleveland thought, and he didn’t care if they cooed, cried, or called out. They’d all drown. All of them, Cleveland thought, except for Anong. Por Pramuk jabbed a punch at Cleveland’s torso, but Cleveland blocked Por Pramuk’s fist, leaned in quick and fast, threw his right elbow to Por Pramuk’s chin and then wailed a left jab to his temple. Oh-ya-yo…
***
By the end of round one, Cleveland was straddling Por Pramuk drilling his mitts into the man’s skull. For Cleveland, it felt syrupy. The bell had already rung. The musicians stopped playing. The crowd yelled in horror. The referees pried Cleveland off Por Pramuk and called the fight. Por Pramuk lay, bloodied and still, on middle of the ring. It’d happened so fast. Cleveland looked to the crowd and saw Cecilia The Ladyboy’s makeup sliding off her sweating face. The stadium smelled like metallic blood and rancid cooking oil and spilled Chang Beer. He looked to the second level seats, but didn’t see Anong. He was grabbed and handled. He felt swollen and heavy. It was a deep, oceanic sensation, like he was being dragged. He let go. There was rabid yelling. Shoving. Shouting. Pointing hands. You! You! You! Afflicted and soured. He watched. You! You! You! No longer Oh-ya-yo! He didn’t understand how, but the referees helped him move through the mob to the back of the stadium and into the locker room. “Stay-stay here, yes,” one of them said. It wasn’t a question. The referee slammed the door shut.
Cleveland scanned the room. His gym bag was in the corner and the white walls began to shrink. Lockers rusty red. The room smelled of damp towels and rubbing alcohol. He heard frantic voices on the other side of the door in the hallway. Fast-talking Thai voices trying to push in. There was a knock.
“Oh-ya-yo,” a voice said, and then Anong entered, unrelenting, a gust of potency and might. “You-you,” she said, “you, murderer.” She slammed the door shut again.
“Why are you here, with those men?” Cleveland said. He felt the sweaty hair follicles on his torso and around his navel and genitals burning, burning, burning.
“No. You no talk now. You murderer now. You must go.”
“Murderer?”
“Por Pramuk. You hit him too much-much in the face. He die.”
“He can’t be dead.” Hetore the tape that held his boxing mitts and used his mouth to pull off each glove. He felt Anong’s stare settling on him. “It was just a fight.”
“You just like other foreigner man. I know. I see now.”
“What—”
“I see now.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes-yes. You too strong. You push too hard. You not even care. That worst part. You no love me. Life. Nothing.”
“Anong, I didn’t mean to hurt him.” Slowly Cleveland recounted the fight…maybe it was true. Could he have killed a man?
“Now, you lie me. I see you look me upstairs.”
“Yeah, I saw you with that man.”
“I tell you don’t jealous me. You can’t love when you jealous too much.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Now you lie me again.”
“You know what’s in my bag? I have a ring for you. For you to marry me. You see, I’m not like the others.”
“Marry? You think I marry you now? You lie me twice and you kill Por Pramuk. He family outside waiting you and you think about marry me. You jealous too much.”
Distance settled between them in the shrinking room. He undressed. She watched him, arms crossed and stern. He covered himself with a towel and the robe he’d brought from the hotel.
“Nothing, see?” she said.
“Nothing what?”
“Nothing can start over. I tell you.”
The door was kicked open then. Cleveland saw four Thai men, each carrying something that could whip or beat or strike. The men pushed Anong to the side.
“Hey,” Cleveland said. He thought to stand to strike, but he was struck first in the jaw by one of the men who threw a beer bottle at him. His mind floated then, like he was drunk. It was another type of numbness. He let go.
The men grabbed and punched Cleveland. He fell. One of the men poured a liquid on Cleveland’s face, maybe turpentine or some sort of vanish solution, that slid down his throat and he gagged. Three men kicked his sides. Another held him down harder and meaner like Cleveland was a wild hog. The man yelled, “Oh-ya-yo, I kill you now,” and then he dug his knuckles into Cleveland’s sternum.
Cleveland felt like the man was trying to rip his heart out. He squirmed enough that he loosened himself from the man’s hold and turning on his side then, with breath heaving and reeking of turpentine, he saw the loose, silky sarong that draped Anong’s lower half and wondered if she would leave him now. Let it all go. For good. Wet leather whipped him in the kidney, and he rolled on his back to shield that pain. It was almost done, he thought, and then a woman jumped atop his body. She was bony, not plump. Frail almost. He watched her squeeze his neck. The color of her skin was darker than Anong’s, which was like a milky latte. Adorned by gold on her fingers and wrists, the woman was not a killer, Cleveland thought. She must be an angry wife and mother, a sister even.
It stopped as it had started. Another fast-speaking Thai voice emerged through the door, a man’s voice, and said something and then the room sighed and breathed again. Cleveland heard the thud of the men’s weapons drop to the floor. The woman tip-toed around Cleveland as if it hadn’t happened. He watched feet leave the room.
“What,” Cleveland said. “What is it?” It was silent then. “Is he dead,” he said, “Oh, God…Is he really dead?”
He didn’t hear Anong approach, but he saw her above him; he felt like she floated there.
“It miracle he not dead,” she said. “You lucky.”
He exhaled. “See, I told you.” He wanted to reach for her, but didn’t. He couldn’t. “Everything’s fine. Let’s go get your money. Just help me to an ATM. We can sleep in and go tomorrow—”
“No, no.” She waved her finger at him. “Nothing same now. Your money is no good. You no good. I know man like you, I tell you. I only there with the men to helping Kanda. I wasn’t going to have naughty with them. I liked you, but…” She walked away from him.
“Wait, where are you going?”
She retrieved his gym bag and sat it by his side. “You take your ring and leave now. Okay-la?” She lowered her face to his and kissed him, this time on the forehead, as if it was a final, last action. A final goodbye, perhaps. Cleveland wasn’t sure about anything. Maybe he never had been. She closed the door shut and left the stadium.
Cleveland took his time getting up. He hobbled and stumbled. There was an eerie silence that was still and staged, as if someone were taking his picture. He ran the shower, but could hardly stand still under the frigid water. He put on swim trunks and a white tank-top. He laced and tied his running shoes. It was well past midnight. Leaving the gym bag with the ring there in the tiny-laced sack, he walked out of the locker room and passed the boxing ring and exited through the lobby and out of the Patong stadium. He continued walking with the same steady pace through the parking lot and headed west, toward Bangla road. He didn’t stop. Through the side streets he marched like he knew where he was. He followed his senses: satays flaming on the make-shift street grills, vendors squeezing colorful tropical fruits until they were suffocated rinds and peels, passing tuk-tuks thumping and bouncing base and blasting hip-hop music from speakers the drivers could hardly afford.
When he finally reached Bangla road, the neon lights reminded him of cotton candy. Bangla road was live and bare and gyrating and wiggling. He stopped at one of the long, open-air main street bars with the high ceilings, stripper poles on every table, and strippers pranced on every surface, sometimes hugging, kissing each other. Men groveled and begged for the women like they were starving. All the flesh didn’t faze Cleveland. Music pounding so hard. He sat at a bar and ordered sang som.
“You funny man,” the waitress said.
“Yes,” Cleveland said. “Very funny.”
“What happen you? You fight?”
“I got beat up.”
“Oh,” she said, and poured him another whiskey. “This one free. You okay?”
“I deserved it.”
To his right, five or six barstools down, a dancer—likely on her break, Cleveland thought—ate fried grasshoppers from a small, plastic baggy. He motioned for her, and she came immediately.
“Yes?” she said.
“Can I have one?”
She looked back toward her seat at the bar. “You want grasshopper?”
“Yes,” Cleveland said. “I want grasshopper.”
“Oh, yes-yes,” she said and smiled. She retrieved the bag and stood even closer to Cleveland, pushing her crotch to his side.
“You want this?”
Cleveland nodded yes.
She took one grasshopper and sucked on it so half of it protruded from her mouth.
“I can take it?” Cleveland said.
She nodded yes and moved her face toward his.
Their lips touched, hers wetter than his, and Cleveland steadied himself there, sucking either the head or the abdomen of the insect, he wasn’t sure which. She let go first, and while still chewing her half of the bug, she kissed Cleveland again on his lips.
“You can have everything you want,” she said.
“I can have those,” he said, gesturing toward the bag.
“Yes. Okay-la, no problem. You take me too?”
He thought about Anong. “No, doll,” he said. He’d never said doll in that way before. “Not tonight.”
He stood. Sweat beads cooled his skin. The sang som diluted the turpentine that still lingered in his throat. He realized he had no money on him, so he promised the waitress he’d return the next day to pay for the whiskey.
“Okay,” she said. “No problem. You go rest-rest, yes?”
He thanked the dancer, the one he called doll, for sharing her grasshoppers. She tried to reach for him, but he retreated.
“Oh,” she said. “What problem? You no want me? Let’s make naughty funny-funny.”
“I’m already too funny.” He smiled at her. She looks like Anong, he thought. Maybe she was Anong. “Next time,” he said, reaching out to touch her glimmering skin. Then he turned and walked to the middle of Bangla road with the plastic baggy of fried grasshoppers in his hand.
The rest of that night he ran through the streets and side-streets and along the beach pathways and back alleyways of Phuket. He stopped and walked when he needed. He sat too, when his body ached. The beach breeze of the night air felt good. That’s what he loved most about Thailand: the breeze in the night time. It reminded him that a new day was near. He came to the end of one street and looked out at the sea before him. Far out, high-beamed lights stretched across the horizon. He walked to the beach and collapsed on the cool sand. He looked again out to the lights. They were the safety and night lights of tankers and rigs that drilled the bottom of the sea floor to suck out black oil. Am I the rig or the oil, Cleveland thought. He wasn’t sure he cared, really, or if it mattered. Either way, it was a miracle, wasn’t it, how he always survived? You can’t lose. Remember, he thought.
He surrendered like that until daybreak when the morning sky looked like God had vomited all of the most vibrant colors in the world right there for him and then he swam in the tepid ocean water that felt like velvet on his flesh and the smell of the water reminded him of pickle juice.