Free Bangkok Hard Time by Jon Cole Page A

did the paperwork for bonding to a broker. A few moments later, I was out the door and home free. It had all been so easy. Perhaps too easy.
    In a hotel room, I struggled to get most of the bag off my back without losing the contents. The next morning was spent at the Customs brokers’ office getting my gemstone import business accomplished and picking up my stones. By late evening, I was off the flight to Tulsa and picking up my van at the storage place. I dropped off my stones and a portion of the white goods in the unit.
    It was late in the evening as I pulled into the long driveway in front of a sprawling rock house with bits of plastic still glued to my raw back. I had to yield to a limo that was just pulling away. Bill’s massive frame was silhouetted in the doorway. He invited me in with a huge grin on his huge face.
    “Whose limo was that?” I asked.
    In reply, he smiled and dropped the name of a well-known Country&Western singer who was a frequent guest at his house.
    “Damn; you mean I missed her again?” I bemoaned.
    And even though he said no, the response sounded duplicitous, so I dropped it. I was happy enough to see my boxer Butchie, who was just as happy to see me. The subject turned to the business at hand when I gave Bill the bag I had brought. “Wanna taste it?” I offered.
    “Hell no!” He snapped “Are you crazy?”
    As Butchie and I left, Bill said to come by the restaurant in a couple of days. There had been no talk of money. I only knew that my obligation had been more than settled. Even if for some reason I never saw another dime from this deal, I was still way ahead due to his extreme overpayment for the gemstones from the first trip.
    Two days later, I was well received by Bill at the restaurant and he sat me at the bar. He left and returned momentarily with two large takeout bags of seafood. “Here is your takeaway order, sir,” he said. Taking the hint and the bags, I left.
    Back at my cheap motel room, I opened the bags. In one was a large broiled Maine lobster with a baked potato and a double order of steamed asparagus. Bill had remembered that I was fond of that particular side dish. Inside the other sack was a plastic bag containing enough cash to buy a small house in the nicer part of Tulsa. That is, if I had wanted another small house in the nicer part of Tulsa. I was floored. Butchie and I ate butter-dipped lobster while I explained to him how and why we were not staying in any more cheap motels. Butchie did not care for steamed asparagus and I was glad of it.
    After another run to the storage unit to drop off cash and pick up my smack, I went to the lawyer’s office to sign divorce decree papers. I signed without reading them and wrote a check for what now seemed like chump change to me. Butchie and I then set off on a road trip.
    We headed east to see some old Bahn Pee Lek friends. First, we went to see Dennis K, followed by a visit to others on the East coast. One of them told me of another International School Bangkok acquaintance who was also showing up from time to time with heroin he had brought back from Thailand. I would look for and quite by accident find this fellow alumnus the next time I was in Bangkok.
    What with sharing my stash for a month with the others and smoking a little more smack each day, I was soon on the phone with Thai International making reservations for another trip.
    This time I was returning not just for greed, but for a burgeoning need. Without realizing it, the drug had snuck up on me. Upon waking one morning, I discovered the first thought of that day was to ingest more heroin. For a few hours that morning, I tried to put the desire for it out of my mind until the physical ramifications of resisting it set in. I realized then that I was an addict.
    As I recalled Pee Lek’s admonition of “today OK, tomorrow no OK”, it was becoming clearer what he had tried to impart. After dropping Butchie off at Bill’s house a few days later, I was back