That car ride over to the police station was the first chance I had to contemplate everything they were going to do to me in a Thai prison. Then I wondered about my accomplice; did he escape the police? He could very well be a free man. Or he got caught. And if he did get caught, he’s been caught, hours ago. I had been hiding in that crevasse forever.
When we arrived at the police station, another squad car was pulling in simultaneously. What I would give to be that guy right now; someone getting busted for… well, nothing quite as dumb as the shit I just pulled. On the contrary, it was someone getting busted for shit just as dumb as my shit. In fact, it was someone getting busted for the EXACT same shit as my shit. I looked into the window and who did I see? None other than Lux himself.
So he had gotten nabbed too. And they were bringing him in at the exact moment as me. To the point that our car doors slammed behind us in unison. We half-expected the cops to bust into a well choreographed lip sync routine, but quickly remembered who we were dealing with. It’s hard enough for these guys to pronounce the letter “r”, how to expect a Mary Poppins impression?
When Lux noticed me he greeted me with a casual nod. As if to say, “Just like we planned!” On the bright side, at least we were now going down together.
…
But who said we had to go down?
Perhaps we could find a way to work together. To team up, once again. To formulate a story, a cover, a plan, a breakout? I looked over at Lux to try and give the signal, but his police escort was shoving his head downwards. And now we were being shoved up the stairs and into the police building. I didn’t have time to give him a signal or anything. I just hoped that Lux was able to read my mind. He had on everything else up to this point.
Inside the station, we were herded into the first room on the left, a police conference room of some sort. There was a cop standing against the back wall, and then another guy in a Hawaiian shirt standing in the middle of the room puffing a cigarette, trying his best to be taken seriously—despite the shirt. He took a drag of his cigarette and looked at me with disgust. Then he walked slowly up to me and said in PhD-worthy English, “You… bad!”
And that’s when I first got punched in the face. Still reeling from the impact, I watched as he walked over to Lux, called him bad, and then punched him in the face. We were being held from behind by other police officers, so we were helpless against the punches. Hawaiian Shirt Guy just kept walking back and forth between the two of us, insulting us, and then hitting us. Who knew how long this would continue?
I had to get him to stop punching us. I had to tell him we were innocent. But what’s the Thai word for innocent? It’s hard to remember Thai vocabulary whilst being uppercutted in the face. I did know how to say “guilty” though. And right before he wound up for another blow, I blurted out:
“Rao mai pen phit!” (We are not guilty)
He froze. His fist was still there, lingering in the air. Ready to connect with my face. But then he asked,
“What you talking about?”
That was a great question. What I talking about? I no know what I talking about. And so I just said the first thing that came out of my mouth. I mean, it came to my mouth before it came to my brain. Just flew right the fuck out there. Once my brain caught wind of what was said, it could only sigh in remorse: “Oh Darby, that does not sound good.”
What I said, was, “You didn’t get the driver!”
“Who the driver??” the man barked back.
And out of nowhere, Lux jumped in with,
“That girl!”
“Who that girl??” Hawaiian Shirt Guy barked, fury in his eyes.
There was a long pause, and I realized it was my turn. Who that girl? I couldn’t think of any girl right then, living or dead. Except for one. The only name that came to mind.
“PPP—!”
I couldn’t say her real name. Could I? It was too late. I had already started saying her name. As her name came out of my mouth, I made a weird shape with my mouth and distorted it ever so slightly. And so the name didn’t sound like, “Panny”, it sounded like
“PENNY!”
Hawaiian Shirt Guy studied me with unabating eyes. Was he going to start hitting me again? It sure looked like it. And then after an eternity, he asked, “Penny… she Thai girl?”
“Yes!” me and Lux responded in unison.
I looked over at Lux. He was bleeding, probably from the punches. Or maybe he was that way when we came in. I had no idea. But that look he met me with was a look that said, “Yes, I understand. I understand who Penny is. The bitch. I fucked many times. The… how do you Americans say? The prostitute.”
And now that we had that inner-conversation, it was time to have that outer-conversation. With Hawaiian Shirt Guy. We both faced him defiantly. Ready for whatever he’d throw at us.
Hawaiian Shirt Guy: Why you get in police car?
Lux: I didn’t know it was a police car.
H.S.G: You “didn’t know” it was police car.
Darby: I thought it was Penny’s car. She offered us a ride home.
Lux: I think we knew it wasn’t her car when she started running.
Darby: Yeah once she started running… then we started running.
H.S.G: You run why?
Darby: When I see someone running, I don’t ask questions. I just start running too.
Our interrogator was quiet as he slowly paced around the room. And then something caught his eye: my backpack. Oh fuck.
He unzipped the bag, reached inside, and pulled out the police hat I had stolen.
“WHAT THE FUCK,” he yelled the equivalent of in Thai.
Lux: Hey, isn’t that Penny’s hat?
Darby: It’s the one she was wearing when she picked us up.
H.S.G: Why hat in you bag?
Darby: It flew off Penny’s head when she started running. I put it in my bag so I could give it back to her… wait a minute, are you saying this isn’t her hat, either?
H.S.G: Girl in police car, in police hat, tell you she drive you home… you no think something wrong?
Lux + Darby: No.
H.S.G: Thai girl Penny… she fucking crazy? She like to steal thing?
Lux: Oh yeah. This isn’t out of character for her.
H.S.G: Out of what?
Lux: Out of… yes. She fucking crazy.
We painted the picture of us being just two guys who were victims of circumstance. Two guys in the wrong place, at the wrong time. It was a magnificently convincing performance. Hawaiian Shirt Guy motions for the police at the back of the room to take us away. He is all out of questions. And we are done getting punched. For now.
We are shoved up more stairs and onto the second floor of the police station, a floor reserved for the least fun room in the building, the JAIL. Or, the “monkey bars”, as the Thai cops affectionately refer to it as.
The cell itself is surprisingly spacious, but there is no furniture so all that extra space doesn’t really matter. The only furniture in the room is our cellmate, a Thai guy who… shortly after we enter, lays down in the middle of the cell, closes his eyes, and begins tugging at his own dick. Our only option, like our semen-seeking cellmate, is to lay down on the cold, concrete floor, which I’m sure has been painted by every bodily fluid imaginable. Yeah don’t worry about it everyone. I’ll just walk all over it with my bare feet.
At the top of our cell, about 10 feet in the air, we had our only window to the outside world. Girthy steel bars, about a foot apart from each other, gave us a view of the front of the police station. You could even see the very spot where we stole the cop car from. But to see anything, you’d have to exert a ton of strength to grasp the bars and keep yourself up there for longer than a few seconds.
There were two other jail cells aside from ours, all separated by a narrow passageway reserved for police visitors. The cell across from us housed both a girl who refused to speak, and a girl who couldn’t speak to anyone, because she was Vietnamese. The Vietnamese prisoner had taken a “steal-cation” and flown over here to slash people’s pockets with razor blades and catch their wallets right before they hit the ground. She got caught, like us, before Songkran even began. This is all hearsay from the police.
In the third cell, which was perpendicular to ours, there was… nothing. Just total darkness. Yet I felt something was there. I could sense it.
It was now daytime on the first official day of Songkran. Right outside of our window, as if to taunt us, the world’s biggest and most titillating water war commenced. That had once been my whole purpose for living! To be right down there. And now I’m stuck in here. This must be exactly how a caged dog feels when the doggie treats are laying right outside the cage.
It was a monumental task, but somehow I was able to ignore the excitement, the masturbating cellmate, and my trepidation for what came next, and I caught some zzz’s on the floor of the cell. Lux and I were both too mentally fried to even speak to each other.
We awoke to McDonald’s. And cigarettes.
This “breakfast of champions” was delivered to us by some European guy, who I still have difficulty grasping exactly who he was, or why he was there. I can tell you that he claimed to be the man who represented foreigners when “matters like this” happened. Somehow I doubt he had ever seen any matters like THIS.
He spoke first to Lux and informed him that he had called the Luxembourg embassy, and they were working on bailing him out. He could even be out tomorrow. There was a lot of encouragement in his voice and tone when talking to Lux. And then he turned to me, in a worryingly slow manner.
“And you. Things are… a bit more complicated in your situation.”
“What do you mean, ‘complicated’??”
“Well, I called over to your embassy, and I explained the whole situation to the lady on the phone, the operator or whatever. I don’t know who she was, but she was being just the biggest cunt…”
Where was this going?
“And…?”
“And I let her know that. That she was being a cunt.”
“What? No. Wait—WHAT?! Are you serious?”
“Yeah. We had a bit of an argument after that, and then she hung up on me.”
“So call her back!” I demanded.
“Can’t. Embassy is closed now. We’ll just have to try again tomorrow.”
I pulled my face forward until it was mushed between the bars of the cell. “You gotta get me outta here, man. Now! I’m dying in here! Our cellmate is over there jerking off all day… we’re innocent! Haven’t you heard?”
“Actually, I have heard. And your story doesn’t sound good, boys. You better work on that, right now. Because before either of you go anywhere, you’ll be meeting with the chief of police. His translator is on his way over right now. And once he gets here, you are going to have to go over every single detail of your story with the two of them.”
His eyes narrowed, ominously warning, “Nobody fools The Chief.”
He started walking away.
“Hey wait!” Lux called out.
The guy stopped midway down the steps and turned around.
“Can we get some more cheeseburgers?”
And so, Lux and I went over our entire story, top to bottom. We rushed through the details, speaking in fast, syncopated tones, not knowing when the vault door would open and they would come for us. We did manage to make it to the end of the story, and almost immediately after we did, the cell door swung open. Had we covered everything? Was our story solid enough? Could we fool…gulp…The Chief??
The police led us out, and as we reached the bottom of the stairwell, I looked to my right and saw a flash go off. And then another one. Cameras. There were about a dozen photographers, all looking to make us (in)famous. Apparently the word had gotten out? Suddenly a jacket swung around my head, effectively shielding my identity from the cameras.
Who had put the jacket there? I couldn’t tell until we were in the next room, and I heard the door close behind us and the camera clicks became completely inaudible.
My savior had been an older Thai man, who looked to be somewhere in his upper 50’s. The years had not been good to him, and his proclivity for smoking meant that he had not been good to himself. He was less casually dressed than a police officer, but more formally than Hawaiian Shirt Guy. The man introduced himself as The Chief’s translator. Now, his English wasn’t the best, but I guess it was the best they could muster. He was here to translate everything we said into Thai for the other man in the room, the big burly man sitting at the desk in front of us: The Chief (of police [and of my quickly shrinking testicles]).
The Chief did not greet us; instead, he stared at us each in turn, for an uncomfortably long time, as if intending to make us crack before we even began. Finally, he nodded to the translator, and the translator spoke:
“You tell to Captain everything that happen last night. Start from beginning.”
And so the interrogation began. Lux and I took turns telling our story. The story flowed smoothly, and we found a good cadence between us. At certain parts, we were even finishing each other’s sentences. The Chief eyed, unamused, as we went on deeper into our story. Hearing it come out of my mouth, it sounded like such a ridiculous, far-fetched tale—but it was the story that we picked, and we had no choice but to tell it with the utmost conviction.
Occasionally The Chief would interrupt and ask us something again, or maybe again. And then he would frame that with something we mentioned earlier, or try and say that we had said something we didn’t. He was looking for inconsistencies. But our story was tight. No holes to be found here. Just the asshole interviewing us. After a soul-sapping two hours of corroborating out story, we were led back into the jail cell and let be. We felt like our story was extremely convincing. Hopefully The Chief shared our sentiments…
There was no activity for a couple of hours. Nothing except more screaming and excitement happening on the street below. Lux and I loosened up a bit. I found out that he came from a troubled past (completely unsurprising), but because of it, he had to move around Europe frequently. I, on the other hand, came from a pretty normal background. I had no excuses to be doing shit like this.
We found common ground in both of us having previous run-ins with the law. This was not unfamiliar territory for either of us. And then we revealed our deepest secrets, knowing full well that this could be the last chance to share those secrets with anyone. The next time those cops walked in, it could be because Lux’s embassy plucked him out… or they couldn’t, and they were taking him (and me) both to prison.
And then sure enough, the police came in to…
…walk right past our cell, go into the dark cell in the corner, and beat the living shit out of a SOMETHING ALIVE in there.
My suspicions were confirmed. I knew something was in that cell. But holy fuck, were they torturing that guy? He took his beating with loud, animalistic grunting. It was a horrifying thing to even hear, let alone witness. It was our last special memory together, for Lux and I. The following morning, the Luxembourg embassy DID come to bail him out. There were no goodbyes, hugs, or even plans to become pen-pals. He was there one second, and then he was gone. Hopefully I was next to leave.
Later that day, I received another visit from the European guy, as he came bearing both hamburgers and news (but sadly, no news about hamburgers). The news was this: the American embassy would not be bailing me out. Before I could lose my shit, he told me about the other option. As with Lux, his government got him out by paying to get him out. My government simply didn’t want to pick up the tab. But I could pay the “fine”—i.e., make a bribe—myself.
During my next meeting with the Chief and his translator, they confirmed this option to me. “Okay. How much?” I asked, expecting an exorbitant amount. And it was, an exorbitant amount.
I mean, not for a filthy rich First World’er like me, where money bleeds out of our asses, in addition to growing on all of the trees. But there were no dollar trees here. There were no dollars, period. There was only baht, the Thai currency. And when they informed me that my freedom would cost 70,000 baht, that didn’t really… “sit right” with me.
In Thailand, 70,000 baht will get you a whopping 2,111 plates of pad thai. And you could do a lot of things with that many plates of pad thai in this country. I didn’t like those numbers. But still—it was my only way out. All I had to do was pay that little fine. Seems like a no-brainer, right?
Come on. Have you learned anything about the decisions I make?
“I can’t pay that,” I said.
The police did not expect this response. They looked at each other and then back at me, quizzingly.
“Why you can’t pay? You had job here. You were teacher!”
“Yeah, but I don’t like ‘save money’ or anything. I spend all my money on… Sangsom.”
Sangsom. The national whiskey of Thailand (I give it a shoutout whenever I can). What I told the police was a lie, though. In truth, I had about 800 dollars saved from my last semester of teaching. And that was to all be used for my Vietnam vacation which was supposed to start in… two days from now.
“What about your school? Call them. They can borrow you money.”
“No, they can’t, because—“
It was too late. They were already dialing the number to my school. Once someone answered, they handed me the phone. I had no idea who I would be speaking to.
“Hello? Sa-wat-dee-khap?“
“Oh, this khun DA-BEE?”
YES. It was the secretary at the front office. A short Thai girl who absolutely plastered her face in whitening make-up each morning, then came to school looking like a tropical snowman. She also had a blatantly obvious crush on me. I could hear the excitement in her voice already. I started to address her before realizing I didn’t even know her name. “Hey, uh… whatever your name is, I need to speak to… the boss. You know: Wan P.” Maybe you’ve already guessed, but Wan P was not the boss. She was a teacher.
“Oh, Wan P not in now.”
I knew that. She was never in. And she didn’t speak a lick of English.
“Can you connect me to her number? I have an emergency.”
“Oh, you need help? I help you, DA-BEE!”
“No, I’m good. Just connect me please. Khawp-khun-khap!“
Sure enough, it went to the teacher’s voicemail. The message I left very selectively told the story of what I had been through, and it ended with, “So yeah, if you wanna save me then you could save me, I guess, if you want, if you’re not busy or anything.” I hung up and looked at the translator, standing close enough to hear the whole phone call.
“Well, I tried my best.”
But he didn’t finish there.
“Your family. Call your family.”
“I don’t talk with my family anymore. In fact, I moved to Thailand to escape them.”
“Your friends.”
“I don’t have friends. Except for this one cat that lives on my street. He’s the only one that understands me.”
I was ready to shoot down the next idea, but it never came. They exhausted all of their ideas.
The police had gotten so used to farang coming to their country, breaking the law, and then having their family, friends, or co-workers pay unequivocally lopsided fees to get them out, that they were completely caught off guard by an American who seemingly couldn’t do the same.
The Chief and his translator were defeated.
Look at me. Look at me. I’m the Captain now.
And with the power beginning to shift in my favor, I was thrown back in the cell. On that second night in the jail, a new type of pain began to eat away at me: boredom. With Lux gone, there was absolutely nothing to do. Even watching the Thai guy beat off was no longer an option. He got hauled off later that night.
I would occasionally pull myself up to the window to see all of the Songkran festivities happening obnoxiously close by. I couldn’t watch for long. Just look at those fucks; taunting me. Beckoning me. Reminding me that THEY could have all the fun, and I couldn’t. I was beginning to think that the chronic masturbator was onto something. At some point late in the night, I was summoned back down into the Chief’s office. But this time, there was a new character involved: a fat Thai woman. “From the court,” was all I was told about her. She had a bunch of official looking documents and everything, and wrote things furiously on a notepad. She spoke to me and the translator did his job.
“She come now to collect money. You pay her, you go free.”
Had she not gotten the memo? I looked to her and attempted to speak, but the translator cut me off with, “This your chance! You have only one chance! You take it if you smart.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have the money. I told you people! I can’t just make money appear!”
The translator gave me a repulsed look, then looked over at the court lady and began speaking to her in Thai. She spoke back to him while looking at me from under a resting bitch face. I heard her accuse me of lying. She didn’t know I spoke Thai. And then she said something along the lines of, “Then I am just wasting my time,” and started to pack up. It was time for my secret weapon.
To the translator, I said, “Tell her I can’t pay 70,000 baht. I don’t have the money. But I might be able to pay… say, 40,000?”
Everything in Thailand is about haggling. Haggling was a skill I had long ago mastered in Thailand. I needed it for the Sunday mornings when I would go to Chakjuchak market to buy clothes and carpets and other unnecessary trinkets. I even started talking to the court lady directly and skipping the translator, that’s how confident I was in my haggling skills.
The woman played it hard. She remained outwardly opposed to accepting any less than the number she gave me. But I was a master negotiator. My charm and haggling skills were too much for an uptight, dead-inside woman like herself.
“55,000 baht,” I stoically offered.
She caved in and accepted. I would be paying 55,000 baht in exchange for my freedom. Oh fuck wait a sec… did I even have that much money? We would see soon enough. The following morning, after the first time of being allowed to sleep more than a few hours, I was awoken to two visitors. Marking the first time I had seen them on the second floor, it was The Chief and translator. They had come for me. We were going somewhere, but it wasn’t clear where. They walked me out of jail, and at the bottom of the stairs, instead of turning left into The Chief’s office, we turned right, towards the exit.
The translator turned to me and gave me a stern warning: “Don’t think about running. If you run, we catch you.” And then the doors to the police station were open, and I was submerged into a world that I didn’t think I’d ever be back to: the outside world. On a public street. The party of Songkran being celebrated everywhere. And the translator, hand on my arm, led me right behind The Chief, who we were following toward a police car parked on the street.
The air smelt beautiful. I mean, objectively, it smelt like shit. It smelt like a wet dog, resulting from a combination of beer-drenched super soaker-wielders, and of course, actual wet dogs. But being outside again after two days in a cage, I reveled in that stinky air going through my nostrils and painting my skin.
I wasn’t handcuffed, and if I ran, I could easily lose the cops through the crowd. However, even my desperate ass realized the futility of running. And so I obediently sauntered toward the police car, and was allowed to sit up front in the passenger’s seat. Back here again. Deja-fucking-vu.
“Where you live?”
I gave them my address and then guided them along the streets as we made the 15 minute drive to the northern city limits of Bangkok, to a neighborhood called Bang Sue. And yes, I really lived in a place called Bang Sue.
As we pulled up out front, I was worried. I was worried that we would run into my landlord. She had heard me having sex, partying, DJing at 5 AM, and even witnessed me having a seizure once, with blood pouring out of my mouth, and my eyes rolled back into my head, exorcist-style. So yeah, we were tight like that. There would be no more good relationship if she saw this though, me strolling in, captive to the police.
Walking inside my building, I breathed a sigh of relief to see her office door closed. Nor did we run into any of my neighbors walking up the stairwell to my room on the second floor. At my door, I put the key that the police were so generous to return to me inside the keyhole and twisted until I felt the lock release. I pushed the door open, and as it folded back, I grimaced in pain at a horrible sight.
Drugs.
Sitting on my dresser, plain as day.
TO BE CONCLUDED…
Next week! Don’t miss it!
