Bangkok Hard Time by Jon Cole Read Free Book Online Page A

lived in the same building as Bobbie, became my part-time replacement at Bahn Pee Lek over the next few years.
    That last hour with Lek was very touching, strange as it may seem. I had learned to speak most of the common Thai language that I could pick up and learned much about the common people of Thailand from him. He had taught me something about life in Thai prison as well. All these things which I had learned from this most unlikely of gurus was to serve me well years later in an even more surreal environment. I left that night promising to return someday.
    Lek advised me “Don’t think too much.” Under my arm as I left were two cartons of special Falling Rain cigarettes.
    Some twelve years later, I would indeed return, but I would never see Pee Lek again.

Back To “The World”
    I got accepted to Arkansas State University and started classes in the Fall of 1968. Departure morning before the flight from Bangkok to Travis Air Force Base in California saw me as a dorky-looking little dude in black horned-rim glasses, dressed in a light blue sport coat and goofy clip-on tie heading to my new life as an adult back in “the World”. Or so my dad had told me. I did not really feel adult, but I was going to do my best to fake it.
    My family, my best friend Dennis and girlfriend Bobbie (still righteously pissed off from the night before and rightfully so) were there to see me off. The goodbyes were exchanged in the military departure lounge adjacent to the arrival hall where the first sergeant had delivered his orientation speech only two short years earlier. As the plane left the ground, I looked out the window. The patchwork of farm fields and rice paddies threaded by canals which surrounded the sprawling city of Bangkok grew smaller till it was gone. It felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest. Most of the GIs on the plane were clapping and cheering like it was a celebration of escape from purgatory. I felt sorry for them again, and I always will.
    Twenty hours later, the Saturn Airways 707 descended onto the runway at Travis Air Force Base just outside San Francisco. Once again, the GI passengers exploded into a riotous expression of jubilation. We were back in “the World”.
    As I exited the plane, I was struck by an acrid, toxic smell: the smog stench of Southern California combined with the fuel odors of the sprawling American Air Force base permeated the still, warm night air.
    Once inside the terminal, I gathered my bags and headed to the customs line. It was only then that I remembered I was smuggling in marijuana. The customs agent looked at me, stifled a grin and waved me through without even looking at the contents of my two suitcases which I had opened for him. Minutes later I was on the bus headed to San Francisco International Airport for my flight via Dallas to Little Rock, where I would be greeted by my huge extended family the following day. Stepping off the bus at the airport, the GIs from Bangkok and I went our separate ways. I was wondering how many of them had also smuggled some ganja.
    Walking through the airport, I was half carrying half dragging my heavy bags. I passed a group of hippies, two dudes and two chicks sitting in the concourse. The hippie phenomenon had really taken off since I had gone to Thailand. Other than a few travelers I had met on the train trip from Bangkok to Vientiane, Laos the year before, these were the only hippies I had ever seen. They spoke to me, saying something like “Hey, brother … peace, man” or some other such hippie lingo while rising to help me tote my suitcases whose combined bulk weighed more than myself. Since the counter I was heading to was still quite some distance away, I welcomed the help. It struck me though that they were not helping me simply for the sake of peace and love.
    When we arrived at the ticket counter, the girls asked in unison for some spare change. “Spare change” was something I did not have and, in fact, had never