"Santé!" he says and lifts the bottle toward me, then sucks it down like a baby.
I sigh and say, mangling it, "Me no understand!"
"I said cheers!" he snaps in English.
"Me no understand you!" I say, impassive. "No English! No English at all! Zero."
"Oh, seriously?" he laughs. "You swear to God? Because to me it looked like you spoke it pretty damn fluently when you were asking that gook for cherry-flavored cigars."
"Cigarillos, not cigars!" I say, pissed off, and light a shitty Marlboro. I blow the smoke in his direction, but he can't tell because I'm an intelligent guy and I do it very subtly.
He looks at me with cold eyes. I start to tense up. What if he jumps me?
"All women are whores!" he suddenly roars.
That's it. My heart drops dead. It's not beating.
"Me understand zero of what you're saying there," I mumble softly. "Zero, zero. Me know speak a little Russian, a little French, and very, very little English."
"Then why didn't you say so, friend?" he snaps. "I'm French. We can talk in Voltaire's language, if you want. But no matter what language you say it in, the truth is all women are goddamn whores. You can believe that. Jean-Louis said it!"
"I don't know if I've read anything by Jean-Louis! I've heard of Voltaire, I think, but not the other one."
"Jean-Louis is me!"
"Oh! Nice to meet you," I say, sour, sucking on my ice cube.
And to think that until now my little trick had worked like a charm... I'd say "Me no understand English" and that was that. Now this guy shows up like an asshole and fucks up my whole system.
"All women are whores!" he roars again.
As far as I can tell, the Frenchman is part of that tribe of moronic meatheads who think nothing bad can happen to them just because their shoulders are a bit wider.
Wrong! Even a guy as big as a barn door drops like he's been struck by lightning if you kick him in the balls. Or in the knees.
But it looks like Jean-Louis hasn't lived through that kind of mind-blowing experience yet, so he keeps charging ahead with his women-are-whores shit.
I know that if I don't ask the question, he'll keep it up until tomorrow morning, like the idiot he is. He's too drunk to realize he's stuck on one idea. I have to unstick him.
"Why do you say that, Jean-Louis?" I ask, honey-sweet.
"Because every woman I've ever met was," he answers, seething.
"Maybe you haven't met enough. Don't get discouraged so easily. I've seen plenty of non-whores on the left side of the beach. Look, that way. If you go slow, you'll definitely find two or three."
"Don't play smart with me, bigmouth!" he says with an icy face.
God, You know how much I hate drunks! Why did You put this one in my path? Everything was fine until now. Why? Why?
"You're making jokes with me, huh?" he suddenly snarls.
The guy is begging for a kick in the balls. But I can't give it to him like this, sitting on the lounge chair. I'd have to stand up.
I eyeball the distance. I start working my right ankle loose. You never know when, but you know what's coming.
"No need to get upset, bear," I say in a bored tone. "How about we stand up a bit? Loosen up. Movement's good."
"No thanks. I just sat down."
"I insist."
"Drop it!" he suddenly roars. "And stop making shitty jokes with me."
Fuck! I'm a sinner, God, I know that, but... why do You keep testing me? What did I do to You? Take this meathead off my back and I promise that... I promise that...
"I assure you, monsieur, that I've met a whole lot of women in my life," Jean-Louis says in that slow drunk voice. "I'm a pilot and for about three years I've been flying only around here, in Southeast Asia. Believe me, I get pussy in every color."
"Aviator?" I blurt, turning my head toward him. "Interesting! And I've flown a lot in my life. I'm very used to flying. You know something? I've always wanted to see what those magnificent guys look like, the ones who fly planes so well and in such safe conditions."
"I'm glad your dream came true," he says, burping. "I'm glad I'm your hero. You can look at me as much as you want."
"You fly tomorrow too?"
He starts counting on his fingers, then looks at me, surprised.
"I could've sworn I'm not flying tomorrow, but now I'm not so sure. What day is it today? I hope it's not Thursday."
"No idea."
"I'm serious. Is it Thursday or is it not Thursday?"
"How the hell would I know if it's Thursday?" I snap. "Who do you take me for, some government clerk? Give me a break! It might be Thursday, but it could just as well be Sunday. My schedule is identical every day and it'll stay that way for the next 379 days."
"Go ask that gook!"
I turn my head back over the lounge chair. Anurat is somewhere around there. Doing his math.
"Anurat! Hello! What day is it today, buddy?"
"Mun sukon... Thursday, sir!"
I finish my whiskey fast. I would've liked to drink it slower, but God wanted otherwise.
Maybe now, if I manage to stand up, I'll go take a swim in the sea. I feel the need to bathe and get all this salty sweat off me.
Jean-Louis finishes counting on his fingers and you can tell he's not too happy.
He gets up calmly, walks to the shore, and thoughtfully pisses in the waves. He's probably got a huge drunk bladder because he keeps swaying and pissing for a good half minute.
I look coldly at the Frenchman's broad back.
"Bravo, don't be shy!" I yell. "Relieve yourself in peace. I wasn't planning to swim tonight anyway."
Okay. It's clear I'm not swimming tonight. Tomorrow, yes.
By tomorrow at ten, when I wake up, the Frenchman's piss will already be far away, somewhere around Japan. I mean, no! Japan is in the Pacific. Here it's the Indian Ocean. So then? India?
"Hey, aviator! What country is in that direction?"
"Bangladesh is there," Jean-Louis says, shaking it off.
Good. So tomorrow morning the Bangladeshis will have a surprise.
"Merde!" Jean-Louis says, annoyed. "It's exactly what I was afraid of. Tomorrow at eleven-thirty I've got a flight to Kelantan."
"Where the hell is that?"
"About 500 kilometers back that way," he says, thumbing over his shoulder. "Toward the Pacific. In Malaysia."
"I've always dreamed of seeing the Pacific," I say, lost in thought.
"It's simple. You give me a thousand dollars and you'll see the Pacific tomorrow. And the day after, we come back."
My visa expires in three days. Maybe it's not a bad idea. I wonder if Malaysia lets you in without a visa.
"Jean-Louis... and if I want to stay there? How much for one-way?"
"Nine hundred."
"What the fuck!" I scream. "So it's a thousand round-trip and nine hundred one-way? Has anyone ever told you that you can't do math?"
"Has anyone ever told you that you've got the face of a man dug up the day before yesterday?"
Oh, God! Why did You bring this one to me?
The Frenchman scratches his head and keeps going, "Okay, okay... If you give me a whiskey, maybe I knock it down from nine hundred to... eight hundred," he grumbles. "Come on, don't sulk. When you make that face, you look even worse."
"I'm not sulking. That's just how I look when I'm thinking. I was thinking eight hundred still sounds like a lot."
"Then stay here and admire this piss-pond," he says, pointing at the Indian Ocean. "By the way, the water in front of us isn't exactly harmless. In December 2004, a lot of people died on this shore."
"In 2004?"
"Yeah. And it was December too, exactly like now. Don't tell me you haven't heard of the big tsunami wave in 2004?"
"Yeah," I mutter, shaken, and suddenly I feel cold. "The wave was here? Right here? On this beach?"
"On this one and all the others, yeah. Bodies everywhere. After the water pulled back, it started to stink. Five thousand dead."
"Were you around here too, pilot?"
"Thank God, no, I wasn't!" he says. "The agency sent me to Indonesia that day. But I saw what the beaches looked like after the tsunami. Believe me, mon ami, the Andaman Sea isn't always so cute. I saw piles of dead people all along Thailand's coast. Here, in Phuket, it was hell. I don't even know if they managed to pick up all the dead. Some of them stayed buried under the sand. Maybe right now you're sitting with your lounge chair on top of a corpse."
"You trying to scare me?"
A cold shiver runs down my spine.
"My God!" the Frenchman yells and jumps, scared. "What's that? A little child's hand?"
"Where?" I yell. "Where?"
"Ah, nothing. I thought it was a little child's hand!" he says, laughing, and sits back down.
"Ha, ha... Real funny, I'll tell you!"
What an idiot! He pisses me off.
"Say you didn't believe me!" he howls.
"Not at all!" I snap, one eye on him and the other on the fine sand under the lounge chair. Then I add, thinking, "What you're talking about was a long time ago. Back in 2004. No chance it happens again."
"You say?" he goes, looking at me mockingly. "Let me tell you, buddy, it can happen again in 2044 or... it can happen tomorrow. Or in an hour. It's December now too, isn't it?"
Fucking French bastard! I don't know why, but he scares me. He finally managed it.
The Andaman Sea doesn't seem so wonderful anymore. Just the idea that I'm sleeping in a shitty bamboo hut only twenty steps from the waves doesn't sit right with me at all. Who dropped this ox on my head?
"In 2004 there was a stink you can't even imagine here," he starts again.
"Enough, that's enough! I got the idea."
"I swear! They were scooping corpses out of the mud by the thousands. They buried them in piles because it was very hot and they rotted insanely fast. I repeat, it was December too, like now."
"I believe you," I murmur. "Fuck it! Did you really set your mind on ruining my evening?"
Jean-Louis waves his hand, fed up.
"Don't be stupid, man! Let's go to the Pacific. Why are you clinging to this piss-pond?" he grins. "The Andaman Sea is just a stinking puddle. You've got no idea what godlike landscapes are all over the Pacific. You're not very well-traveled, are you?"
"Yeah, right!" I get indignant. "I've seen just about everything there is to see in this world. Except the Pacific."
"Then what's your problem? You scared to fly?"
"Not even a little. I'm a flight veteran," I confess modestly. "Actually, not long ago I was thinking I'm pilot material too."
"Come with me and you'll pilot. With me, you're safe."
"I wouldn't go with you even to the corner store, Jean-Louis. But damn, if I piloted too... that'd be something."
I decide. I don't want to stay in this cursed area another second. It's probably full of ghosts at every step. What does a tsunami wave look like up close?
That's it! I'm packing right now. I'm crazy if I stay here!
Goodbye, Phuket! Goodbye, Andaman, you sneaky sea! It was nice while it lasted... I'm heading for the Pacific!
The Frenchman sees I've gone quiet, but he can guess what's in my head. He looks at me, laughing.
"You take forever to make up your mind, buddy."
"Do we negotiate?" I ask suddenly.
"We negotiate, if you want!" he answers, grinning.
I take a deep breath and fire the "first bullet".
"I'll pay you only 700 dollars. Nothing more! And you let me pilot your damn plane a little."
"No way!" he says, yawning. "You give me 800 dollars plus a bottle of booze and I let you in the cockpit for five minutes to fly."
"No! You'll let me fly it for half an hour."
"Ah, fuck it! You're a good negotiator! Done, man! Bring the bottle and the money, fast."
"You'll see the money tomorrow, when I get on the plane. Actually, I don't even have it all right now. I have to go to the ATM in the morning and get some cash."
"Merde! Fine, your way. But you give me the bottle now."
"Done!" I shout. "Anurat, where the hell are you? Can't you see you've got customers? Bring a bottle of..."
"Whiskey!" the Frenchman shouts. "Give me anything else and tomorrow my head will hurt so bad I'll go insane."
"Anurat, you hear that? A bottle of whiskey for my friend and a clean glass."
"Two glasses," Jean-Louis corrects generously.