I can’t hear you

On Tuesday evening I had a business meeting which was held in a booth at a local restaurant. Originally we planned to meet at 4 p.m. but due to circumstances my colleague re-scheduled for 6:30. By 9:30 business had been discussed, diagrams drawn, dinner eaten and drinks emptied. The question became, “What do you want to do now?”

We decided to go out. I put a few options on the table (Tokyo Joes, Soi Cowboy, the V Club, the Pent Club, etc) and my friend said that he’d like to check out the Pent, as he hadn’t ever been to a g-club before.

We arrived a bit before 10 p.m. and it was a quiet evening. There were two guys onstage picking guitars and singing some nice tunes. I actually liked what they were playing, but they were replaced at 10:30 by the usual 6 person band singing English love ballads. At that point my friend and I retired to the coyote-club disco in the back. They were only just getting started when we went in.

My friend liked the Pent and paid for a membership while we were there. I imagine he’ll be back often.   We stayed until about midnight, buying drinks for two cute coyote dancers.  Finally we left together.

Once he had hopped into a taxi, I walked to Nana Plaza. I decided that I wanted to see some places that I hadn’t been to in a while, or where I hadn’t been in a long time. I went to the third floor.

First stop Hollywood Strip. It sucked. I had a beer and left.

Next stop was the Carousel. I had never been in this bar before and it was rockin’! The go go had two large stages that rotated (hence the name Carousel, I guess). There was also a ‘cage’ above the bar, with about a half dozen dancers. The different presentation was effective, and the girls looked pretty sexy.

The place was fairly full of customers, plenty of girls, good music and everyone was having a good time. While I was there they threw a soft blanket on the rotating stages and had a pair of girls on each stage do a fake lesbian show. The girls were giggling and playing… it wasn’t real, but it was sexy anyway.

I should have stayed at Carousel longer — it turned out to be the best bar I visited all night — but after one beer I left and went to Rainbow 4. The usual lineup of stunners was on display. I bought a drink for #82 Gadai (rabbit) and cuddled her 40 kilo body for a while. She spoke good English and was pretty, but I wasn’t looking for a short time so she got bored and wandered away after finishing her drink. Then I spotted #66 who had a great body and a pretty round face. I was just starting to re-think that short time decision when she sprinted off the stage to collect her barfine from another guy.

She changed clothes and returned. Her customer never paid any attention to her… just kept chatting to his mate. After ten minutes of standing around doing nothing she grabbed her mobile phone and headed to the toilet. I realized I was getting bored too, so I paid my bill and left.

I went to Mandarin Table Dance. I barely had time to sip my beer when the lights came on, the music turned off and I was sitting in the middle of closing time. I sipped my beer slowly and enjoyed watching two dozen girls trying to use two small spaces to get changed and go. When my beer was done, I headed down the broken escalator and into the melee below.

I stopped at the burger cart and ordered two burgers with everything (bacon, egg & cheese) then went across to the Nana Plaza parking lot to eat my burgers and watch the fun. I grabbed a heineken, and on an impulse, bought a Singha for a very cute freelancer standing next to me.

She took the opportunity to chat with me as I ate my burgers, and she was easy on the eyes. I found that I just wasn’t in the mood for a short time tonight… I wanted to just sit in the middle of all the action and enjoy.

After ten minutes the burgers were gone and the girl was starting to figure out that she was gonna have to look elsewhere for her rent money. Neither of us moved away from the particular piece of real estate however, so over the next hour or so, she continued to chat with me occasionally and was part of the background of my night.

What distracted me from her was another girl who sat beside me and worked to get my attention. Finally she succeeded.

She was deaf. Completely. She could read lips with some skill, but couldn’t hear. Her speech was particularly difficult to understand, but I found myself a bit intrigued.

I started talking to her. It was a slow, difficult process. It might well have been painful if I were in a different mood, but I was in just the right frame of mind for it. I’d been to a restaurant, a g-club and four go go bars, and I was pretty mellow. I’d just finished two hamburgers, so I was content to sit and chat.  She wasn’t particularly pretty or sexy, but she was making the effort to hold my attention, so I gave it to her.

She understood a bit of English, and I understand a bit of Thai. It was difficult for both of us to always know which language was being spoken at any point in time. She couldn’t hear me, only read my lips. I could hear her, but in addition to all the other issues, her pronunciation was so horribly unclear that it was difficult to identify each word. Not knowing whether it was English or Thai made it particularly problematic.

As I said, though, I was in the mood for it, so I sat from 3 a.m. until 4 a.m. chatting with a deaf Thai hooker in the parking lot of the Nana Plaza hotel. If I ever write my novel, that’s a scene that has to make its way into a chapter.

She had a lot of time invested in me, and around 4 a.m. she suggested that we go somewhere so that she could show me that, while her hearing was broken, the rest of her body worked fine.

At this point, I was getting tired, and I still wasn’t in the mood to get laid. I asked her if she came to Nana every night and she said yes. I thought vaguely to myself that I might come back later in the week, stood up slowly as I realized my 48-year-old back was stiff from sitting on the concrete for two hours, and I hobbled over to a taxi and went home.

Looking back today, it may have been a disservice to sit and talk with her so long if I wasn’t going to go with her. At 4 a.m. she’d have to start all over again, or face a night with no income. I probably will go back to the parking lot later this week to look for her, but the chance that I’ll see her or recognize her again is pretty slender.

Anyway… I’ve had enough beer and whiskey for one week, and I’ve got a deadline on a project, so I don’t think I’ll be going out again before the weekend. If you happen to bump into a hooker who can’t hear you, tell her I’ll be looking for her again.