Chapter 22 - Thailand to America and Back to Bangkok 1978

Ali climbs the stinking steps that lead to his tiny apartment, sweating furiously as he persuades his little chink of a key to grant him entry to his own home. Bangkok is upon him again. He realises that he will never get used to this heat. Maybe no one does.

After an arbitrary sentence of jiggling the key around the door opens and, rather than apply any oil to the lock, he lets the matter slip along with everything else in his life - As long as he does not have to deal with the matter it ceases to exist. The humidity is everywhere, just like God. Ali's head hurts.

He slings his one flight bag down to the floor, gulps as much water from the tap as his belly can take and then collapses onto his floor mattress. Lying on his back, he opens his eyes to focus on the gecko that darts from paranoia to paranoia across the ceiling. Suspicious and still, the lizard can't find anything to hide behind across the uneven bulging plaster. Ali recalls with dread the neurotic whine of the American tourist on the flight out. She had cut her holiday short on account of the 'hideous creature crawling all over my room - Looking straight at me with their evil green eyes!'

Ali has just spent six weeks in the good old US of A and he swears to himself that he won't return until James Brown is made president. He was summoned there by the death of his father.

(Six weeks earlier)

Ali flicks through a magazine in his flat when he blinks and opens his eyes to find himself immersed in a vast void of blackness. There is nothing else of distinction other than himself and his approaching old man. His father steps forwards with outstretched arms and embraces Ali as he has not done since his son was eight. They clutch each other tight, blood rushing to the frontier of their skin and they hug out of space and time. The next time Ali blinks, he's back in his apartment, wet with perspiration.

Stunned by the vision, Ali turns a page of the magazine by reflex and sees across the centre spread a photo of his father, who comes alive on the glossy paper and shoots him a wink. Ali's perceptions explode and in the moment it takes him to put the four walls back in place, the magazine page returns to normal. An hour later, Ali gets through on the telephone to his brother in California to learn that their father passed away that same afternoon. A one-way ticket is wired to Ali and he departs the next day.

Dead and gone. Not coming back. Ali suddenly feel like an actor who, halfway through his enthralling monologue, casts a sideways glance to soak up a little of the audience's admiration - But discovers that the last chair has been folded up, the programme discarded on the floor and that he's performing for an empty hall.

Too late, Ali. There's no one left to laugh at your jokes, slap you on the back or point you out amidst the crowds to cry 'Why, that's my boy!' And there are no second chances to rerun those lost opportunities. It's time to stride out into the ball park alone with no one cheering your name.

His brother is there to meet him at the airport and after over ten years of absence they clearly have a lot to talk about. Almost enough to fill the twenty minute drive back to the house. But not quite.

"So how's Tealand?" His brother asks languidly.

"Thailand. It's hot."

"It's been hot here too."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Nice car."

"Yeah, I bought it three years ago."

"Did it cost much?"

"No, not too much. Say, how long is it since I saw you?"

"Maybe ten years."

"Long time."

"Sure is."

It's fortunate that his brother's house has the number and family name painted on a sign just above the gate. Otherwise Ali is not entirely certain he'd ever be able to find his way back through the labyrinths of suburban hell. Gee, isn't it cute with all these clean-cut squares of lawn in front of every little toy-town house. And these orderly flowerbeds could teach Nature a thing or two! And won't you just look at those adorable fang-toothed hounds stretching their chains to full blood-thirsty length - Let's hear it for the integrity of American hardware!

Ali sets to tracking down Lucette and the kids and spends days on the phone being tossed from branch to branch of his in-law family tree. Each aunt, uncle, brother and family cleaner feels free to give him a piece of their minds (which they can scarcely have afforded) on the perilous state of his no-good ways. Ali takes to holding a piece of putty in his left hand which he can punish as he forces himself to simper into the receiver: 'Well, you sure have a point there!' and 'I guess I'll have to try harder!' or 'Naturally, I'm mighty ashamed of myself!'

Finally, he gets through to Lucette.

"Luc? Is that you?"

"Yes, Ali, it's me." Her voice level and unassailable.

"What's going on? Why did you just leave and-"

"If you're going to get hysterical I'll simply hang up."

"Okay, okay!" Ali forces himself to put a plug in the torrent of feelings that has curried within him these last three years, "But, I mean, can I see you and the-"

"Tuesday, 3 o'clock at _____school. Fatima will be in the library and I'll meet you in the main courtyard."

On the appointed day, Ali stands in front of the school and the mounted clock on the arched brickwork shows half-past three. For the past hour he has been watching the boys and girls come and go at the end of the day, scared that he might not recognise his eldest daughter if she should happen to pass. Finally, he feels a hand upon his shoulder that is too heavy to be good news. He turns around to face a thick-set man in a suit in which he seems quite uncomfortable. His cheeks are ruddy from whiskey and his grey eyes are as inspiring a selection of cutlery.

"Ali?" He says, "I'm Lucy's cousin."

"Right. Where's Luc?"

"I'm afraid you've come a long way for nothing." The cousin says gravely, preparing himself for an unpleasant scene which he hopes will turn violent.

"Why? What the fuck!"

"Stay calm!" He warns, tensing his biceps with relish, "Lucy just decided that you're still just way too 'far out there' to be part of her life - Okay?"

Ali snorts in exasperate disbelief that he can be this close, that he can have waded through the trappings of this insipid Western world to pursue the partners of his desert paradise, and yet be frustrated by men in suits who might as well be of another species.

"How,"* He asks with a great deal of control, "did she come to this conclusion?"

The cousin hesitates a little before saying with an uneasy shrug.

"Actually, she saw...a movement you made with your hand while you were waiting and saw you were too wacko from that. Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror, Ali?" His tone picking up as he remembers that he wants a fight, "By all common standards you're badly in need of help." Seeing Ali desolate expression, he again lets up a little and suggests, "Look, there's nothing you can do, get it? I have back up if need be." He motions towards two other men, who stand ready at the top of the steps. "But maybe if you try again in a few weeks something might be possible."

Ali's shoulders droop into a subdued slouch and the cousin steers him back down the path.

"But I brought some chocolates for Fatima"

"Er, no - She's growing up now and worries about her weight. Look, you better go."

Ali glances up and catches sight of Lucette at a second storey window. Their eyes meet for a long moment then she is gone. He returns home to his brother's house and spends the next month attempting to not go insane. His brother's wife thinks he already is and does her utmost to make him do The Right Thing.

"Arlee-ee," She drawls, "Now don't take this the wrong way, but have you ever thought of maybe taking some good therapee?" Her voice sounds like an epileptic gear box going up hill.

"I don't need any fucking therapy." He snarls.

"Now don't get upset!" She cries, jumping back and scanning the immediate area for possible household utensils for self-defence. As she sees that Ali's hands are not reaching to wring her neck, she relaxes a little, resuming her missionary endeavour to bring Normality to the world.

"You see?" She exclaims in triumph, "It's clear that you're on the edge! You have zero control over your mood swings. And what it is you do with those twitching hands and arms of yours the Good Lord only knows!" Sighing, she raises her eyes to solicit support for her point, "Now, nobody's saying you're crazy but..."

Ali understands that he has to get the fuck out of here before the deadly altruism of others leads to him sipping medicated orange juices behind sterilised white walls for the rest of his life. He tries to make contact with Lucette again but no one will even entertain his phone calls. In desperation he blows most of his inheritance cash on a detective to locate his family.

It eats away at him to be in this country. Everyone else seems to me numb to the endless media-ocrity but for Ali, every little sound byte of a commercial leaves tooth-marks in his brain. The hamburger jingles rattle around in his head and his nervous energy coils up inside him like a spring ready to unleash. When he goes to the park to dance and release some of his tension, he ends up being driven back to his brother's house by the local police patrol car.

"He's your brother?" The cop asks when he comes to the door, "Well, I'm sorry to disturb you all like this - But you should have seen the way he was hopping around in the park! Why, he was like a squirrel with its tail on fire - And it was scaring the kids."

Each mealtime Ali sits guiltily in front of a full plate of food which he barely manages to dent. His brother almost throws him out when he refuses to eat pork.

"Well, I don't know about any African pig meat but American pork is as clean as it comes!" He shouts, determined to defend his nation.

Finally, Ali receives a call from his hired man.

"They're gone."

"What do you mean they're gone?" Ali shouts down the receiver, "Is that a legal term?"

"They've disappeared without trace and have changed the names by D-poll on their passports. There is no way to find them now. I'm sorry."

On top of this, Ali learns that his sister-in-law means to disclaim him from his share in the family estate on grounds of mental instability. Worse, he fears she may be right in her estimation. He steps out into the garden and looks to each receding horizon of trimmed hedges and plastic penal fences with utter distaste. He doesn't return the wave of the neighbour who leans with one hand upon his lawn-mower.

"Well, I guess I'm out of here." He announces to the daisies.

He begs the money to fly home from his brother, who is only too glad to see the family embarrassment leave. Maybe things can finally get back to normal around here.

Back in Thailand Ali gives thanks for the Pacific Ocean. He hauls himself up from his mattress and unzips his bag to get at the groceries he bought on the way back. All two items. The black bananas have crushed in the bag and they give off a friendly smell of almost alcoholic fermentation. Ali peels off the skin and it falls away from the pulp like clothes from a body at the end of a hot day. He drops the peeled bananas into a mush at the bottom of his glass jug. The Soya milk gloops out happily and when the jug is 2/3 full Ali pours in the sugar from the sack that has survived the attacks of ants, rats and tooth fairies in his absence. He lets about a quarter of a kilo of the granulated crystals flow into his elixir of life and whips it into a froth with a long fork. He drowns it in a minute and a half of healthy glugs and once again collapses on his floor bed.

With the onset of sleep coming on and the day too hot for movement, Ali elects to invest his remaining sparks of consciousness in realms of shooting stars and fractal blood vessels. He presses his fingers hard against his eyelids until sleep takes them away.