October 17, 2009

1

BARBECUES are a man thing, at least to the men who gather around the burgeoning flames. We really can't help it. See flames? Must gather more wood. Find more meat. Burn more flesh. Build the bonfire as high and as hot as we can. The end result is never the point, of course - it's the getting there that counts. The hunt. The chase. The fire. The flames. The burn, the fight, the pure machismo of hunter-gathering, flames and food. And smashing things to bits in the process.

And we take these prehistoric genes ever onwards. Like any man, I like holding a hammer. Not because I have the faintest idea what to do with one; I just like the solid, heavy, damaging feel in my hands. It makes me want to break things. Axes, too. They're the same. Let's hit, damage, bruise, break, chop, crack, wither, defeat.

Man always takes this action to the things, animal or mineral, that can't, or most probably can't, win.

But unlike the average animal, man is far more fallible to his own kind, because that testy little thing called emotion comes into it, too.

What follows is how I got kicked in by someone I have admired to a ridiculous degree for a good six years, and how it has, largely, ruined everything I ever felt about a place I genuinely thought of as a balm for a troubled soul.

2

I LEFT Odd and his family to wander along the beach, Lamai Beach, to meet up with another friend, an English teacher, who was out with her friends, colleagues, from the frankly marvellous school she has created, with assistance, out there.

When I first saw this school in 2003, there were about 40 pupils. Now there are well over 100, and a new building has just been completed to accommodate the pioneering autism project she'd pushed and pushed and pushed to have. Her accomplishment makes me enormously proud for two reasons: My best friends have a son who is within the autistic spectrum, and I know what tremendous challenges that brings and continues to bring (the lad is marvellous, by the way); and that she'd battled through language, and endeavour, and sheer bloody-mindedness, to achieve the nigh-on impossible in a place where money and money-led opportunity was overthrown by her persuasion and, ultimately, genuine heart-felt care.

So, now after about 40 hours of almost no sleep, but with a desire to see the people I cared about most in Samui, I wander along the beach, admittedly quite pissed, to see my friend, who eventually returned my call after she'd returned from a trip out out to another close-lying island for a colleague's birthday.

I was probably fun for about an hour. I know I made people laugh with tales of derring-do. I know that I then slipped into outrageous "I once interviewed a man who shagged a goat" stories, which probably weren't appropriate for some of the mothers of the young teachers whose mothers were out visiting, and sitting with us, and sipping the cocktails I'd bought.

Still: This is me, eh?

But then: "Hello, Dut-Tin."

It is the ex-(Thai)-boyfriend, who I will call X, of my friend, Y, who has appeared on the edge of the beach. He's also an old friend, a friend who used to take care of me once upon a time.

"Hi," I say, a little awkwardly, because I am sat with his old girlfriend - who is merely just my mate.

I hear nothing more from him. Must have gone home.

3

THE GIRLS - and boys - from the school, were finished. They'd been on the lash for a birthday party all day and night. They had a new school term to prepare for in three days' time. I'd sunk them into the floor with cocktails. And I was leathered.

Time to go home, then.

Or maybe, just wander back down to the beach to see Odd for a nightcap. It was around 1.30am. Officially been up for 48 hours, bar the odd nap. I was smashed. But I was happy. I was back in Samui. I was back on the beach where I felt safe. I was amongst friends.

I'd been feeling so unhappy for so long after my last girlfriend, I was genuinely elated to feel the heat, smell the Samui smells, feel the breeze from the sea that was so familiar, follow the same undulating path along the sands, I really felt like I was at home again, walking up to Odd's.

He ran down to the bar towards me, and I opened my arms for the embrace that only Odd can give.

Then he punched me, really punched me, square on the chin, reeling me backwards, knocking me out.

4

I WAS out for seconds.

Odd was standing over me.

He didn't speak, at first.

Bewildered, I sat there. What the fuck?

Then he kicked me. Hard.

And I mean hard. This is no small nor agile man.

He kicked at my thigh with a flat, arched, foot, muay thai (kick boxing) style.

I cried out. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

But he carried on. Spittle flecking from his mouth. Kick, crunch, slap, smack, punch.

"X say you write shit about me on internet!" he screams, as his agonisingly powerful feet first go into my face, knocking off my glasses and bleeding my nose, my shades - in my short pocket - following suit into the sand. "You write shit!"

I'm rolling, groaning. Trying to speak. Why would he think this? I have only ever adored and admired this man? Why is he hitting-

"I kill you, Dut-Tin. I KILL YOU. Now fuck OFF.!"

Then he stamps and stomps upon my left left knee and thigh, pummelling it into what is now a very hard, concrete-like sand.

"FUCK OFF, Dut-tin," he screams, as I run away, crying, along the sand. "X say I kill you. You lucky I not kill you now,. Fuck! Fuck you! Bastard.! Pah," and then he spat, towards me, as I gathered my shoes, left my glasses, and ran away, into a past I thought I'd left well behind.

This wasn't turning out to be the first day back in Samui I expected.

Anything fucking but.

And the thing is, I have never written anything but absolute praise and admiration about Odd, as all Thai Tales readers know.

No. I was simply caught in the crossfire, a crossfire of which is someone else's story, and not mine to tell. Not at all.

* More follows.