Later that night, we go out as fully initiated members of R.E.I.N. We work for Pong now, and will do whatever he tells us, which tonight just means going out and having a good time. It’s a celebratory night, and though no one mentions the mission by name, there is something in the air that seems to suggest this may be one of the last nights we ever see each other again. An unspoken bond exists, which seems to have been formed as soon as we jumped into the water. We move as an unbreakable force, a new hope for the future, a rainbow of cultures and creeds representing freedom and equality unlike the world has ever seen. I feel myself slipping on the rocks again.
We shine our light on the illuminated streets of Luang Prabang, passing the night market aglow with the colors of silk scarves and handmade tapestries. We quickly empty our pockets in support of the local artists who build, paint, and innovate ingenious little trinkets made from bottles, cans, and any other materials they find washed up on their shores or populating their landfills.
“Here’s our money,” we say.
This is not just a souvenir. This is a stand against corporate tyranny.
We stroll past the avenues lined with architecture from those days of make believe when dusky servants quietly lived their inner lives behind white smiles, before Marx and freedom and other dreams brought a bloody end to imperialism. We safari past older well-to-do tourists enjoying their evenings of anniversary romance inside the structures we’ve been taught to despise while begrudging to some level the purity of aesthetic value, and finally admitting that it does look rather nice inside. Perhaps we’re a little bitter that the French-style restaurants with sparkling wine glasses on the table are far beyond our range. What?! No haggling?! Damn imperialists.
Further on the edge of town, along a sleepy stretch of the Mekong, we find a strip of family-run seafood stalls with the catch of the day on big platters with big beers, all while looking out at the dark blue night upon the river.
“So, Vang Vieng? Who’s in?” Maya asks after we order and each have a Beer Lao in hand. “I need a head count. We’re going to start working on placards tonight. What do you guys think of ‘Rim the Dim?’”
Laughter and murmurs of praise bubble around the table.
“You still going?” I ask, glancing over at Jergen.
“I must meet my friends first. I’ll see you there,” he promises with solemn blue eyes.
“I don’t know what kind of operatives we might encounter,” I say quietly. “I might need backup.”
“I’ll be there,” Jergen nods.
“I’d love to join you guys, and as much as I hate Candidate Dim and would like nothing more than to see him roasted over a spit, I’ve got an important meeting in Hanoi tomorrow. A new line of Ben’s Shoes made from Vietcong army helmets. Shell-toes.”
“I hate to spoil the party, but I think I’ll have to pass as well,” Claire says, continuing to damper the mood. “It’s not quite my scene. For me, the best way to fight against Candidate Dim is to educate the children. I’m going to volunteer at the orphanage, and to be honest, I’d rather guard my rose-colored view of humanity by avoiding the pits of hell.”
“Serena?”
“Yeah, I am sorry, but I already booked a ticket for a boat,” Serena says heartily. “I promised to help my friend. She started an equal payer coffee plantation. Going to get my hands dirty.”
Aren’t we all? I resist saying.
At that moment, the waiter arrives with a multitude of dishes. It seems like we ordered one of everything. We eat family style: soup from the same bowl, meat from the same plate. It lets you try a little bit of everything. Some plates are better than others, but in keeping with the values of R.E.I.N., we try to eat more of the ignored, leaving the more sumptuous dishes shocked in their snubbing. Being together is what matters. If you want to know the world, experience the spectrum, share a meal. If you want to assassinate a world leader, pass the shrimp to your comrade.
“Here, try this lemongrass chicken with greens and chopped mint leaves. Sticky rice in woven bamboo bowls.”
“Here, try these noodles. This is better than Pad Thai!”
“Oh my god, these prawns! This sauce is amazing!”
“All right, everyone take a pepper. On three, we eat. But you have to chew; you can’t just swallow. First person to drink their beer loses, or wins, depending on how you feel. Ready? One. . . Two . . . Three!”
We each take a pepper, these fiery little yellow-green acid grenades, which taste good at first, just that right amount of spice on your lips. . . but slowly, they start to smoke.
“Ah, Fuck!”
Glug. . . glug. . . glug. . .
“AHHHH!”
“Garçon, six more Beer Lao! Hurry!”
By the time we finish eating, we’re so stuffed from chicken, prawns, noodles, fish, sticky rice, and beer, we can hardly move. I decide to get the blood flowing and walk to the bank of the river with my comrades blurred behind me under a string of Christmas lights, drinking the third round. The river seems like a sea of bluish-black ink with a speckling of lights on the distant shore.
“I can’t wait to go back to Thailand,” Jacky says, walking up beside me. “Laos is so boring. I feel like I’m going to fall asleep any minute. If I could, I’d fly right over the Mekong past the guards, over the highway towards Bangkok, and land right in my favorite bar on Khaosan Road. If you’d been there, you’d know.”
“I have been there,” I say matter-of-factly.
“I haven’t heard you say a word.”
“Can’t remember anything.”
“You’re a wild one, aren’t you? You must’ve had quite a time. Can’t say I blame you. There’s no place like Thailand. The food, the beaches, the parties. . .”
“I knew a girl there. That’s all I remember. I was a different person back then.”
“So easy to fall in love there,” Jacky says sympathetically. “Most of the time, it’s a huge mistake. As they say, live and learn — or just keep living.”
I remain tightlipped, feeling guarded now about My True Love, not wishing to defile her with small talk.
“I didn’t want to leave,” Jacky says almost to herself, confiding in my silence. “I’d already been so many places. But once you get started, you just can’t stop. The world is so big. There are so many places out there that make you feel like it’s all so endless and beautiful. You don’t think you’ll ever get old. Everything stops and disappears. You realize it’s all bullshit, the things people worry about back home — money, and jobs, and status, and things. I’ve always wanted to be free and just be happy with whatever I have. I never wanted diamonds or a fancy car. All I wanted was to be free. And I was going to give it up, all for him. It’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me, walking in on him with that tranny. But here I am, still talking about it like a stupid girl. Meanwhile, he probably calls me ‘that bird I met in Thailand,’ if he even mentions me at all.”
“I’m sure he still thinks about you. People don’t forget that easily.”
Jacky snorts a little, but finds comfort.
“If I ever see him again, I’ll cut his dick off. Do you think he fell in love with her?”
“I don’t know. Depends if he knew she was trans. If he didn’t, there’s a good chance they broke up.”
“Some of them are very convincing,” Jacky concedes. “But I can tell. A girl can always tell. Men can’t. Or they’re so deep in the closet they don’t want to.”
“Was she hot?”
“She was okay. A bit whorish-looking. That’s how he likes them. Sick bastard.”
“There’s consolation in that.”
“Have you ever done it with a transgender?” Jacky asks teasingly, then studies me as I slowly contemplate my amnesia.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“How do you know your Thai girl wasn’t trans? You don’t seem very good at telling the difference.”
“To be honest, I’m not even sure if she’s real,” I find myself saying, invited by our mutual confessions to say the truth aloud. “She might just be a memory implant used to control me.”
Jacky cackles and slaps my arm.
“Oh god, you’re a riot! The rest of them are so serious. Let’s just have fun tonight,” she says, brightening up. “Are you going to be my friend out there?”
“What should I do?”
“Just watch my back,” she smiles and touches the tip of my nose with her wet fingertip. She sashays her way back to the table.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘True communism?’ What does that even mean?” Ben is saying at the table, now cleared for after-dinner, which means ashtrays and more beers. “You don’t honestly believe that humans are capable of sharing equally without some iron fist around their necks, do you? How many more millions have to die before we realize it doesn’t work?”
“Wow! So says the white male who has done nothing but benefit off of the backs of brown children!” Maya retorts, a bit drunk now. “What about capitalism? Are you really going to make the argument that millions haven’t died in wars waged by the military-industrial complex? Do I have to point out the American for-profit prison system? Don’t be naive!”
“Look, all I’m saying is we need to find a system that works for everyone. But it’s impossible for it to work perfectly across the board,” Ben says soothingly, trying to keep his cool, his cheeks flushed and red.
“What did I miss?” I ask Jergen as he looks on with a mixture of curiosity and disdain.
“Same thing people have been fighting about for the last century,” he comments. “Cheers.”
I take a long drink and try to catch up.
“Communism breeds corruption. Competition breeds creativity and innovation. What was the last great invention to come out of a red state? Hmm? I’ll wait.”
Ben sits back, smug and self-satisfied. He might be right, but no one at the table likes him.
“Go to Cambodia, where I first thought of the concept of Ben’s Shoes. You know what I saw there? Besides opportunity? I saw the greatest resource a country has being sold out to the highest bidder. And sadly, it doesn’t take much. You can’t understand how life can be so cheap. So don’t talk to me about a social system that looks out for its own. That’s bullshit.”
“He’s a complete twat, but he’s right,” Claire murmurs in agreement. “I spent a year there, teaching in Siem Reap. All those orphans. You see tons of them. In Cambodia, if you have white skin, prepare to be ambushed. It breaks your heart to push past these children. But that’s all they know, and it doesn’t help to have a heart. Then all you’re doing is teaching them that begging is good for their lives. They should be reading and writing and learning arithmetic, but instead, their parents have them digging through garbage, because that’s the only way they can survive. How does a civilization that rich and powerful fall apart? Civilizations are such fragile things.”
“So it’s just a dog-eat-dog world, right?” Maya says sarcastically, not one to be beat. “I guess we’re all supposed to just kill each other and let the strongest survive.”
“I didn’t invent the laws of nature,” Ben retorts. “But I know the futility of trying to reinvent them.”
I glance at Jacky, who rolls her eyes and pretends to shoot herself.
“Great! The white male wants to talk about nature! Have you ever considered the possibility that you don’t really know? Maybe it’s not our nature, but the system that’s the problem! What if we try a matriarchal system for a change?”
“Please don’t start that ‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus’ crap. You can’t really believe a female president is going to make us all hold hands and sing Kumbaya.”
“Ohhh, I get it. You have woman problems, don’t you?” Maya says, narrowing her eyes, ready to make it personal.
“He does,” Claire confirms, and ignores Ben shooting her with lightning bolts. “Mommy problems as well.”
“They used to date,” Serena says, filling us in.
“Ohhh.”
“If it isn’t Marx, it’s Freud,” Ben sighs in exasperation. “Who do you want to pull out next? Mr. Rogers? Big Bird?”
“You disgust me!” Maya hisses, ignoring Paprika’s attempts to simmer her down. “I bet you cream in your pants whenever you hear Candidate Dim say that all a lesbian needs is a good fuck!”
“He said that?” I ask, appalled.
“He inferred it!” Maya cries on the trembling edge of hysterics.
“Puto malo!” Paprika growls and grips her dinner knife in a way that makes us all edgy.
“Okay, that’s enough!” Serena bellows her way in. “My goodness, who’s the enemy here? We’re here to stop Candidate Dim! We have to stay united!”
“She’s right. I’m sorry. I think I’m a little drunk,” Ben says sheepishly. “I should probably just head back to Cool Shade.”
“That’s all right, man. No worries,” we murmur, but no one tries to change his mind.
“Ayyyy, let’s go find some music and dancing,” Paprika says with a laugh.
“Thank god!” Jacky says. “Let’s make a toast!”
“What should we toast to?”
“How about to Laos?” I suggest.
“To Laos!”
The night gains momentum as rounds of tequila find their way into our hands. We find a strip of Tiki bars brightly lit along the river. The torches dance to the music, and our eyes glitter in the dark. A bonfire grows on the shore, and fire-jugglers take turns whirling the wheel of fire to the delight of childlike faces. People drift in from out of nowhere, travelers and Lao guys riding in on motorbikes. Now it’s a party. Bare feet on grass. Serena brings over a Lao guy holding my Nikes, worried I’ll lose them. “They’re yours, mate,” I tell him, adopting a Strayan accent in this climate, certain I’ll never return to civilization again. The Lao guy takes his sandals off, gives them to me, and we hug at the bonfire.
Midnight comes, and it’s curfew. The whole city shuts down. Stores are closed, radios silenced, loiterers and pedestrians subject to harassment by authorities with black guns. There’s no traffic of any kind. The only thing moving is us, flying now in a tuk-tuk, gripping the metal bars like a roller coaster, whooping and taunting the laws of the land, barely missing stray dogs, which rule the night.
Where the hell are we going? Did someone give this guy directions, or did we all just hop in and let him spirit us through the night? The windowless vehicle leaving you naked in the arms of the jungle, which is evidently loud, filled with laughter, and moves in a cloud of booze.
We pull up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the threat of too many trees. There is the sense of the jungle still surrounding us, the exit onto the highway without lanes going back to town, now standing in front of this abandoned warehouse in the middle of the woods. Without lights of any kind, we follow the techno pounding through the nightclub, or whatever this place is, some industrial smell still lingering, a mixture of paint-thinner and ethanol, beer, and jungle juice splashed all over the concrete floor.
In the dark, the Lao guys lean about all relaxed, even in the nightclub, with curious stares and hair that looks on the verge of being styled with a dab of wax that never comes. At the core of a Lao guy’s sexual prowess is a shiny, freshly washed motorbike. These pull up in abundance, some with exterior neon making them fly futuristic into the sleepy jungle night. Girls pull up as well with their own motorbikes, their long hair appearing to have never felt the touch of scissors, trailing behind them like silken waterfalls, a thousand times combed and spiced with coconut oils and adorned with tropical flowers. If a girl wants a fling, she comes to the nightclub at the edge of the highway and moves the white blossom in her hair from right to left.
Inside the frenzy of digital light, we’re just ions dancing around in space. Whoops! I knock over a bottle. The boys don’t seem to mind and invite Jergen and I to a drink. It’s a mix of whisky, tequila, and rum, plus some Red Bull. I don’t know what the fuck this is. One of these guys is now yelling in my ear. I think it’s English, but he might just be shouting noises. My mind is only able to hold focus on one thought at a time, this rhythmic sea of girls around us. Somewhere in there are our friends. I forget we even have friends. These girls just dance, smiling with black lustrous hair, moving in a way that is fun, almost innocent, beautiful, exotic, pure. I’m getting dizzy.
“Holy shit, it’s him!” Maya cries grabbing us with wide startled eyes. I glance up at Jergen, who uses his long neck to periscope above the crowd.
“Who?”
“Candidate Dim,” Jergen confirms with a solemn nod. “He’s in the V.I.P. having a very private party. It looks like one bodyguard, three girls, and a bucket of fried chicken.”
“He’s on a pussy run!” I gasp, and stare wide-eyed at Maya, who mirrors back at me with a mix of shock and displeasure at my phrasing.
“We have to stop him!” Maya cries, more frantic than resolute, and takes another shot at the little bar. She starts heading off to search out Serena, Claire, Jacky, and Paprika, who were last spotted somewhere on the dancefloor. We would be able to spot them easily if the club weren’t packed to the point of mocking a fire code. The building is small enough empty that if Candidate Dim was on the V.I.P. couch, I could reasonably attempt to fling a record at him from the DJ booth at the other end and expect to hit his head maybe three times out of 10.
“Wait!” I shout at Maya, paused at the edge of a mass of gyrating bodies. “I’m going to do it.”
“Do what?” she yells back.
Jergen lowers his neck, both of them looking me in the eyes.
“I’m going to throw a drink in his face.”
“Are you crazy?!” Maya shouts, her face a jumble of fear and confusion as I make my way towards the V.I.P. lounge.
I pause and turn around, meeting her dead in the eye.
“Bitch, I might be.”
I push through the innocent 1950s-era style of dancing where fellas grab your ladies and ladies grab your fellas and head on down to the middle of the floor on roller skates. I feel the music change to slow jazz, and suddenly there comes this other world where singles don’t grope each other in the corner or grind their genitals to the beat. People remain mostly clothed, despite the lack of air conditioning in the tropical heat. The lights are on and everyone has a drink. The guys smile their best smiles and old friends have a few laughs. Girls dance with their girlfriends and guys sit on the side and watch the girl of their fancy. After a few shots of liquid courage, the guy sidles up beside her, smiling to himself as his friends laugh from the sidelines and cheer him on. He looks over and sees her smile, and she meets him from the corners of her eyes, shyly glancing back at her girlfriends, who all watch giddily, clutching each other’s hands, telling her to go on and do it, do it, do it! His smile grows and he dances a little closer, and by the end of the night their hips graze against the mystery of each other’s fabric, they have seven children, all of them seated on a motorbike cruising through a free-for-all of traffic.
The nostalgia of better times fades as I see Candidate Dim sitting in the back of the club, yukking it up with a trio of young ladies, each of them in desperate need of chicken and dough. They betray none of these feelings as they smile and clink glasses from a bottle of pink champagne, a vintage he must’ve brought himself for such an occasion. The muscle beside him stands erect in the black suit, seeming to never move his shaved head, an oddity in this atmosphere of strobe and disco beat.
Just as I reach the edge of the dancefloor, the music cuts off. The spotlight turns on. Bodies freeze and pause with anticipation, disappointment, confusion. A microphone crackles and squeaks, and the voice of an emcee attempts to do a big Vegas-style introduction, and then, when the microphone fails, resorts to hoarsely shouting to get everyone’s attention. The crowd begins to form under his direction into something of a circle with an empty space carved out in the middle.
Jacky whirls me around from out of nowhere, and I see her eyes glittering with a craziness I hadn’t seen before. “It’s a dance contest!” she cries and grabs me by the wrist so hard that it hurts and pulls me towards the circle where the emcee is announcing the prizes. The spotlight moves onto each prize as the rankings are announced. Prize #1 is a shiny, new, electric blue motorbike! (No one ever wins that prize.) Prize #2 is a brand-new electric fan, complete with oscillating head! There is a real surge of excitement over the second, more attainable, prize. Who couldn’t use a new fan?
“I want that bloody fan!” Jacky screams and jumps up and down, whooping her heart out. I feel a little afraid of what will happen next.
The DJ plays the beat, and one girl is shoved into the slaughter by her girlfriends. She puts her hand over her mouth and trembles with classic girl-next-door modesty and makes a timid attempt to dance. The whole club cheers her on good-naturedly and watches as she tries another little move, something happening with her feet, a terrific disaster. She covers her face and edges back into the crowd.
Next, a ladyboy marches into the fray like “let me show these bitches how to work it!” and out of nowhere, and without invite, begins showing off the goods, strutting back and forth around the circle, not so much dancing as taking advantage of this moment to display herself on parade, snapping her fingers and moving her neck, spinning, and wiggling pixie fingers at the shy girl still recovering from her moment of public humiliation.
Finally, Jacky decides she’s had enough. “I’ll show these girls how to win a bloody dance contest!” she roars, and in she comes with a look of fire, body movements of a snake. She finds contact with the camera, wherever it is, staged in this cinematic moment of white girl magic, when time freezes and the bartender overfills the drink, the DJ nods with approval and puts on the perfect beat, and the whole club comes alive with the rapture of this heat, this moment like an out-of-body experience, everyone in attendance touched by the transcendence that comes with forgetting oneself completely, in the spotlight and in front of the crowd, in love with yourself not out of vanity, but something purer, more powerful. In this moment, you are alone with an entire room and feel every eye upon you. They can’t breathe and neither can you, but you float on a levitating stage, and soon all you see is hair flying and kip raining from the air, her body now above us, crawling on a glass ceiling. The monsoon clouds burst and the rivers overflood. The levees break and Maya, goddess of wind, hurricanes in with that bi-curious smile and Latin rhythm programmed into her hips, grabbing Paprika and the two of them take over, salsaing in a way these people have never seen before, or anyone for that matter, on this side of the hemisphere. Claire joins in grabbing hands with the shy girl, and Serena swings in with the ladyboy, and pretty soon the dance contest develops into the nocturnal spectacle of a lesbian conga line.
Clearly things have been turned up a notch, perhaps to a level of no return. They’ve seen too much; it’s too much to unsee. These Westerners with their lack of shame and ample cleavage just changed the game forever. An epidemic of girls stripping for oscillating heads takes over the country, shattering that old image still hanging from the wall of the bar, the Beer Lao calendar featuring a beautiful Lao girl who looks on from an idyllic field dressed in something form-fitting, but traditional, ready to bring her man a cold one. The revolution starts suddenly before anyone can even ascertain where, how and when the change began. The contest turns the disco into a strip club, girls taking their clothes off for electric fans, and pretty soon, political freedom. Finally, they’ll call it art. Soldiers raid the place and confiscate every electric fan from here to Vientiane. The captain rides out on the shiny electric-blue motorbike.
The emcee concedes the victory to Jacky, looking like he just came in his pants. She takes her spoils with satisfaction, holding the box in her arms, and in the spirit of sisterhood, hands the fan over to the shy girl, who covers her face, bows, and comes in for the hug.
“Damn it! He gave us the slip!” I cry, coming back to my senses. “Candidate Dim’s gone!”
We look back at the V.I.P. area. There’s nothing there except an empty champagne bottle and a greasy bucket surrounded by napkins.
“It’s all right,” Maya says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll get him in Vang Vieng.”
“Damn right, we will. Let’s party!”
For the rest of the night, we’re treated like legends. Every table wants to drink with us. I seem to be running on the power of my subconscious awareness and Red Bull, a sugar-rum autopilot. But my heart tells me through the noise and the fog that it’s her. I see her. My True Love, here at the club! Isn’t that her in the white capris? Or is that her in the pink? That long black hair, those sensual lips, the curves of her body. Those eyes darker than the darkest darkness. We dance together for a song and a half before I place my hands on her hips, and barely notice when she gently removes them and places a little more space between our bodies.
“I’m not who you think I am,” I say to her with a level of creepiness that even in my drunken state I admonish myself for.
Suddenly I feel two hands whirl me around and My True Love escapes me like a squid. It’s Jacky, completely wasted, going on wildly about some spanking contest.
“None of these boys can spank me hard enough!” she cries out. “Spank me, baby! Give me all you’ve got!”
I turn and see My True Love making for the exit with her chubby girlfriend on the other side of the dancefloor. Jacky is still bent over waiting for me to give her a big old smack on the ass. The next thing I see is My True Love’s white capris and long black hair flowing out the door. I chase her down and confess everything to her in the parking lot, her sitting on a motorbike with a pink helmet on, her chubby friend looking on from the back.
“Baby, it’s me! I didn’t know I’d find you here. I mean, here in Laos. It’s me, Sam! Remember? Blonde hair, blue eyes. You used to say my eyes looked like the sky? I know it sounds crazy, but they took my body. Jack has my real body! So does this mean you’re not with Jack?”
“I go home,” she says with fearful eyes.
“Home? Why go home? No, stay, stay,” I plead, touching her hand gently as she white-knuckles her handlebars.
“I must go,” she softly insists.
“I don’t even know that girl! She’s just a friend! Please stay with me. I love you.”
A look of pity that says, “Let’s talk about this when you’re sober or less insane.”
“Thank you,” she says and rides off with flashing lights and a small puff of exhaust into the night.
I kneel in the gravel to weep. Vomit spews out of my nostrils instead.