Once upon a time, I used to date a girl in the Thai mafia. Her name was Vinnie. This was kinda awkward for me because whenever we would bang genitals, I would call out her name and inadvertently get this image in my head of a hairy Lebanese guy I’ve known since I was four, also named Vinny. Me and Vinnie first met at a club called Narz, where she hit me with this sweet pickup line: “I want whatever drugs you’re on!” I wasn’t on drugs at the time, but I can see how she was confused. Vinnie… was the queen of drugs. She used to take the date rape drug recreationally. That’s right; she would rape herself.
So me and my psychotic/dangerous girlfriend, plus my friend visiting from Vietnam–let’s call her Jan–all decided to go out one night. Jan was in town for a few days, and me and her had a long history of completely batshit insane stories between us. We dated back in our college days at UCSB, and prior to me moving to Bangkok, we had lived together in Vietnam. We really had no idea what to expect during this weekend encounter, except… drugs.
We ended up going to the same club me and Vinnie met at: Narz. Jan forgot her passport and the place was probably the only nightclub in all of BKK that required an ID to get in. Vinnie, in turn, started acting like a big slut towards the bouncer, to which he caved in and granted us access. It was already pretty late in the evening, and we were finally getting in, except everyone was stone-cold sober.
That changed as soon as we got inside. Everyone rushed into the bathrooms and ingested pills. A few minutes later, everyone was shaking their fat ass on the sprawling, strobe-light illuminated dance floor, while the 30 foot tall speakers blared intergalactic trance music. We were finally at our destination. Although we wouldn’t remain there long…
The lights go on. All of them. A spotlight glares down at me, and I feel like I’m a prisoner escaping Auschwitz. When I look over at the entrance, there’s cops fucking swarming the place. And if that wasn’t enough of a buzzkill, the they are frisking and questioning everyone. Vinnie sputtered into the bathroom to try and flush/consume the rest of the drugs. Knowing her, she’d either try and inject it into her eye, snort it through her nose, or stash it in her butt.
The three of us narrowly made it through the police interrogation and reconfigured outside. I still felt the urge to dance, but as I would soon find out, a police siren is a bad substitute for crazy techno music. And then suddenly, I was in the back of a car. A really, really nice car. If I was a car buff, this is the part where I’d describe the sleek, pristine curves of the car, the way it smoothly cut through the air, the god-like audio system… but i don’t know, nor do I give a shit about cars. So I’ll skip that part.
I realized that I had no idea who was driving the car. After a little investigative work (“Hey, who are you guys,”) I found out the drivers were friends with Vinnie. I didn’t realize what kind of friends they were until we arrived at our destination.
We get to this tall ass building and take the elevator straight up to the penthouse. Right away, it becomes apparent that there is some shady business going on here. We crossed through a series of large rooms, including one with computers everywhere where a guy sat there hacking bank accounts, completely wired on coffee. Or drugs. Probably drugs.
We find a few couches and sprawl out. I’m looking around at the crowd when it hits me: everyone here is a part of the Thai mafia. And they all looked intimidating as fuck. Including the women. Hell, more so the women. They all had these giant tattoos of dragons, or tigers, or Buddha with a samurai sword cutting Big Bird in half. Wait. I may have imagined the Big Bird tattoo. And the Buddha.
Me and Jan sat there awkwardly, trying to fit in amongst a sea of (likely) killers, when suddenly, a giant silver platter lands right in front of Jan’s face. Atop it, some unknown whitish powder and an elegant metallic straw. I ask Vinnie what we are being presented with, and with drool excitedly shooting out of her mouth, she says, “it’s ketamine.”
Ketamine. Also known as Special K. Or horse tranquilizer. I had heard of this stuff, many years ago. I used to work at an animal shelter, and apparently we kept this in stock, and one of my co-workers would steal it and go bananas off of it.
Me and Jan looked at each other, the same thought in our minds. I had never tried Special K, and neither had she, and I mean come on. When would we ever again have the chance to be ripping lines of Special K with the Thai mafia??
Less than 5 seconds later, Jan has the metallic straw lodged in her right nostril and is vacuuming the powder up with her nose. I was right behind her.
By the time the tray of h’orderves Special K had come around for the third time, I realized I was floating. I was on the fuckin’ ceiling bro. Have you ever seen the movie “The Fly”? Ya know when Jeff Goldblum is stuck in the corner of the ceiling because he’s started sprouting fly-like properties, and Geena Davis is like, “Bitch come off that ceiling”?? That… was a great moment in movie history. But yeah, I was floating.
I looked over at Vinnie, and suddenly she’s got the tray again. Now my memory could be fuzzy–I was on a lot of drugs–but I’m pretty sure the rotation of the tray went person A–>Vinnie–>person B–>Vinnie–>person C–>Vinnie again, and so forth. She had the tray longer than everyone else at the house combined. She took a massive rip of the ketamine, casually passed the tray to someone else, and then she fucking died.
Her body just went limp, and she was a split second from busting her shit harder on the marble floor than I’ve seen anyone ever bust their shit. Amazingly, two mafiosos caught her from each side before this could happen. It didn’t matter. She was dead. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and everything went limp and lifeless. Me and Jan could only sit there and stare in horror. It was exactly like the moments in movies when somebody overdoses and everything is super-dramatic. For once, the movies were right.
But then, outta nowhere, Vinnie lifts her head up (body still limp) and SQUEALS with excitement. And then starts chirping like a fucking seagull. Me and Jan were absolutely mortified, but nobody shared to seem our concern. Like, they had all seen this song and dance before. One of her mafia boys casually picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her off to be put to bed.
For me and Jan, two hedonists with a general apathy towards sleep, bed was not an option. We perused around the party, interviewing the mafia about their exploits, and about their lives as drug dealers/thieves/killers, all the while getting even more blasted out of our skulls.
Apparently the sun had chosen to rise at some inopportune moment, and this prompted me to check the clock for the first time all night. It was 11 AM. Holy shit! Good thing I didn’t have much to do that day, except, you know… teach at a university in two hours. One of the mafia members pulled me aside and told me, “Good thing you’re with Jan. We all thought you were dating our girl Vinnie and were planning on hurting you.” I took that as our cue to leave.
We grabbed Vinnie’s lifeless/soulless body, threw it in a cab, and all went home together. And yes, I did teach a lesson completely cracked-out that day. It was the kind of night I’d learned to expect when Jan was in town.
Me and Vinnie didn’t last much longer after that. Clearly, the girl had issues. I tried to break up with her once and she sent me a text saying: “Thanks for the rape.” Given her permanent delusional status, it’s possible she was confusing me with herself.
And that was it. The end of the relationship with my mafia maiden. I didn’t see her again until three days before I was leaving Thailand. I spotted her wandering around the street during the Songkran festival, and we made peace and shared a really pleasant night together. I probably would’ve spent those entire last few days with her. But I spent them in jail instead. But that… that’s a whole ‘nother story.
One Comment
Buena historia.