Unknown Soldiers and Fires Lit
A Retrospective
I am stoned, lounged on my seventies couch with my shirt off, in Bangkok, listening to “The End” by the Doors. The lights are dimmed a bit. It’s late afternoon. The sun is on its downward descent, the chariot or barque of the Sun God moving ever onward toward dusk.
When twilight envelopes me, I’ll be quite calm. I’ve written plenty about today, but I’m still digesting it.
Still digesting.
There’ll be more to say later. Soft afternoon shadows keep me company. They dance upon walls and windows like some sort of a gathering.
I close my eyes. Their red eyes watch me.
I open them and it is afternoon. I’m speaking to colleagues.
Someone had the gall to call me ‘somewhat defective’ today. Defective! Well he’s not wrong, but every Farang in Thailand is some sort of an oddity. We are an island of misfit toys, if anything else.
I open and close my eyes again. I’m dancing at a bar, drunk and largely preoccupied, because a woman is in front of me.
Behind me, I turn to look. There’s the past, soft, white, and grey. People walk down the corridor, but I am so far ahead of them, they will never reach me.
Here’s a little question: where do we go when we live? Normally, people ask about the opposite.
I went here. And I’m living now. And I’m living good.
With that in mind, I move unto another day. It’s my birthday and I got a tub of Cherry Garcia Ice Cream.
Always loved Ben and Jerry’s. An ice cream vendor you can respect. Some of the best product, sensible business practices, a mild tinge of good old Americanisms in politics—Heck, they are the best! And who doesn’t love Cherry Garcia?
I thought about putting on Grateful Dead, but honestly I’m in bed now. Peter Gabriel is drifting through the air, along with the smell of a lavender scented candle. If a girl was here, then maybe there would be some action. But as it stands, I’m just going to have to make some action by myself. O-oh why?
Well, it’s been a good day. I don’t have much to report on. I’ve been digesting. I got a Royale with Cheese. Some real gourmet shit.
I was just thinking about that time in Israel, all those years ago. When we got to the Wailing Wall, a group of orthodox Jews were there handing out Tefilim (actually, I have no idea the denomination—they could have been from a myriad of movements) These guys wouldn’t give them to me because my Mother isn’t Jewish. The whole thing annoyed me, as it did several Israeli soldiers I later spoke to.
A few days later, I was at a market, I can’t remember where, and a Sephardic Haredi Jew asked if I wanted to say the Veahaftah with him, and gave me the Tefilim. So for me, that was a good experience too.
In analyzing these two episodes, one can equate meaning to them. As they happened in the Holy Land, in the city of Jerusalem, perhaps I might attach more meaning to them than some other memories.
Religion, as it were, is complicated. I taught a class of Thai students once who were like teaching a room full of loony tunes characters. There was a Jesus on the wall, and the arms had been broken off of him. That was all anyone teaching them needed to know about that class. Need I say more?
There are a lot of Muslim owned shops and businesses in my area, and they are some of the kindest shop owners I’ve ever met—and the best products to boot! Name a thing, in the context of the shop’s parameters, they’ve got it. Calls to prayer, sometimes, can be heard.
What was I talking about? I can’t remember, I got on a tangent. Oh, well—I was thinking about war, and how stupid it all is, and yet we all know it is stupid and yet we go on fighting. War is like an ex-girlfriend that men keep going back to throughout all the ages because the sex is too good.
When will the last unknown soldier be known? Who the Hell knows. I light a spliff, and pass out on the bed. I’m burned by the end of it, I wake up.
Ah, what day is it? Right, it’s my birthday. Shit I’m tired. This is probably hands down the weirdest effin birthday I have ever had. But can I complain? Hardly.
What is all this I’m talking about anyway? I don’t really know. I ought to get some rest.