Next Life in the Afternoon

More editing. I am on the final round of editing, currently working on chapter two and came across this passage, which I think is a bit of a gem, at least to me. The cool mornings were warmed with the taste of sweet, strong, rich coffee. This time six years ago I was in Thailand. It’s still a bit hard to believe that I was there and that I am so close to being done with my manuscript.

Each morning Gak and I went to have coffee together at an open-air market near the temple. People wandered by from stall to stall, buying produce, meat and dry goods as we sat on stools at a folding table – one of many that looked like it could collapse at a moment’s notice. I tried not to put more weight on it than was absolutely necessary. Gak would order for us, although I am sure I could have mustered the Thai word for coffee. “Song cafe,” he would say to the vendor. Two coffees. We would take a seat in the busy open-air market and warm our hands on the outside of teacups while the coffee was being made.

When it arrived and we took our sips, he would ask, “Dee mai?” Is it good?

“Dee mak,” I would respond. Very good. Gak would slap the table with amusement and laugh. I worried about being covered in scalding liquids, figuring that eventually the table would fall.

This interchange went on every day for almost a week and Gak never tired of the amusement I seemed to bring merely from my attempt to speak his language. Between sips of coffee and the occasional verbal interchange, we sat and read the newspaper. Actually, Gak read the paper while I looked at it, its pages covered in a beautiful yet mystifying script whose meanings and tones I had yet to master. The pictures were interesting and always told stories in their own way. Despite the repetition and rut we must have been in, Gak and I felt comfortable with each other – brothers in faith and coffee, twin Buddhists who sat among the busy market workers, drinking coffee, only yards away from a butcher’s shop, where pig heads, organs and cuts of meat were on prominent, unrefrigerated display.

A big myth about Thailand is that the food is all spicy. In fact, most dishes are served rather bland and spices are provided at the table so each diner can adjust the flavor according to his or her tastes. Sometimes, though, social pressure wins out and consuming too much spice is unavoidable. Here is an example of just such and instance, when I had lunch with my friends in Nakhon Ratchasima:

Phramaha Nattapong sat by himself and was brought a number of plates of food, as is the custom for feeding monks. Nut, Gak and I sat together and ate rice noodle soup. Nut took a spoonful of dried chili peppers and added it to his soup, smiling. Next Gak did the same thing. They smiled at each other and looked at me.

I am a big fan of spicy food and am not afraid to try something new that might be a bit on the hot side. At the same time, I am not the type of person to simply eat something for the sake of burning my palate. This was more than a matter of culinary preference, though. Everything hung in the balance – national pride, masculinity, ego – as I looked at the smiling faces before me.

I reached for the hot peppers and took an equal amount as the others did, adding it to my soup. They laughed with excitement, knowing the challenge was just beginning. We each took a mouthful of soup and swallowed it, the two of them watching me intently, waiting for this strange farang to completely lose his shit.

The soup burned me and I could no longer distinguish between temperature and spice. Each exacerbated the other. The overall heat was overpowering but I managed to swallow, thinking of the cooking process happening to my trachea and stomach from the steaming liquid as it blanched my gullet. I wanted to drink something cold but did not want to show myself as weak. I fought back the tears and recalled my karate practice from years earlier, which was at times much more painful than this, especially on the rare occasions that I missed a block and took a fist in the face. There were no tears then. Why start with all that now?

My comrades were duly impressed and slapped my back in an accepting way as we got down to the business of finishing the soup. I ended up having two bowls just to dilute the fire in my belly and try to wash the spice out of my mouth, innards, pores and eyeballs. The spice had become systemic in my body, possibly even my soul, and I was not sure if it felt good or not.

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