Salty (5 page)

“You and I have much in common.”

Sheila realized that she was scared; her legs were shaking. She steadied herself, trying not to cry.

“Cool.”

Somporn's eyes studied her breasts.

“Call me ‘Captain.'”

Sheila nodded.

Captain Somporn had his men—and there were at least a dozen of them, toting machine guns and pistols—herd the hostages into a small wooden hut. There, Sheila and the woman from Seattle, her shorts giving off a rancid fecal reek, were handcuffed together and made to sit on the floor across the room from the British couple. Then they were left alone. She could hear the comings and goings of various people in the camp, soft murmurs of Thai being spoken, the sound of a car starting. Closer to her was the constant drone of flies trying to get into the soiled American's shorts and a parade of mosquitoes feeding on them both.

The Seattleite continued to rock gently back and forth, occasionally uttering some gibberish prayers or something. Sheila tried to whisper words to console her, but mostly she kept her face turned away to avoid the stench.

Sheila realized that the British couple hadn't uttered a word since the kidnapping ordeal had begun. She looked across the room at them and forced a smile.

“They just want money.”

The man, a double-glazing salesman named Charlie Todd, nodded. His wife, Sandrine—her mother had taken several ferry rides to Calais in her youth—younger than her husband and with one of those plain yet attractive faces, started to whimper.

“Why did this happen to us? This is our vacation.”

Her husband gently shushed her, trying to keep her calm.

“Don't worry dear, Rupert will come through. He always does.”

It was true that their son, Rupert, was extremely reliable. In fact reliability was their company's claim to fame. It said so right on the side of their van:

Todd & Son Double-Glazing Specialists. Reliable and Tidy. Call for a Free Estimate
.

Working out of a converted carriage house in the Crouch End section of north London, Charlie had built his business through honest estimates and elbow grease, until he'd finally saved enough money to take his wife on a real vacation. Sandrine had wanted to go somewhere exotic. She had always chided her husband that he had “no sense of adventure.” But the fact that they now sat on the floor of a small hut in the middle of a mangrove swamp suggested perhaps they'd got a little
more
adventure than she'd hoped for when they'd booked the trip.

Charlie watched as a mosquito landed on Sandrine's shoulder. He blew puffs of air on her, hard as he could, to interrupt the insect's feeding. Sandrine turned and looked at him.

“What are you doing?”

“Mosquito. Don't want you to catch malaria.”

Sandrine didn't care.

“Stop it. It's annoying.”

“Less annoying than malaria, I'd imagine.”

Full, the mosquito buzzed off. Charlie looked at the crude open window cut into the bamboo walls.

“You know, a nice bit of polycarbonate would go well there. Keep the bugs out. Keep the place cool.”

Sheila looked over at him.

“I'm sorry?”

“A window. Double-glazed polycarbonate. Argon-filled's the best, you know. Best for insulation.”

Sandrine elbowed her husband.

“Charlie, please.”

Turk woke up with the sour taste of stale beer in his mouth. Over the huff and throb of the air conditioner he could hear the clanging and mewling of a group of Thai dancers and their accompanying musicians as they began their cocktail hour concert on the beach. It was dark in the room, and Turk fumbled around for the light. Once he could see where he was going, he went to the bathroom.

Even with the air conditioner cooling the room, he was sweating. Thailand, he realized, was a country that opened your pores. Wake up sweating as the morning sun begins roasting the landscape, sweat all day in the steam room humidity, eat some spicy food that makes you sweat even more, and sweat all night long as you attempt to sleep. It's a wonder the people didn't just shrivel up from all that sweating.

Reminding himself to stay hydrated, he grabbed a cold Singha beer from the minibar and stepped into the shower. He shampooed his stringy hair, letting the cool water—there was no way you'd want to take a hot shower—run down his pear-shaped body. He toweled himself off and sprayed deodorant under his arms. It was annoying how the deodorant
never actually dried; his underarms smelled nice enough but they were constantly clammy.

Turk slid into some black cotton pants with an elastic waistband and pulled on a T-shirt. He checked himself in the mirror. His hair was a wet, frizzy mess and he definitely needed a shave, but he was hungry and wasn't about to miss the buffet. He tugged his pants up, dropping the end of the T-shirt over his belly. The T-shirt had an American flag in the background and written over the flag was the message:
These colors don't run—fucking deal with it
. Turk liked that. It was simple. Clear. Patriotic.

Turk stepped outside into the buggy night. Moonlight hit the ocean and bounced back, casting a silvery-blue glow across the beach. He walked along the sand, sending hundreds of tiny crabs skittering back into the waves, following the sound of the music toward the glow of several dozen tiki torches.

Twenty or so couples were grazing at the buffet—a giant U-shaped setup staffed by a dozen Thai chefs in crisp white uniforms—piling their plates as high as they could and sitting at little tables scattered around the beach. Turk looked for Sheila; she should've been back from her safari by now, but he didn't see her. He'd promised her they'd eat dinner together but he was hungry, so he went to check out the food.

Turk stopped and watched as a young Thai woman carved a watermelon to look like an intricate peony. Various lotus blossoms and other flowers cut from mangoes, papayas, chili peppers, and radishes were arrayed in front of her. She smiled up at Turk, inviting him to put one of the carvings on his plate. Turk smiled and told her they were too beautiful to eat. Unlike you, he thought. He started to say something
else, but immediately caught himself and hurried off. He reminded himself of what the shrink had told him over and over again, beating it into his head. Be vigilant. Stay on guard. The addiction can come back when you least expect it. It's not just backstage after a show or at a party when you have to be on guard—the
catalytic environment
again—but times like these. Looking at women carving fruit to look like flowers.

Turk began to survey the buffet like a general inspecting the troops. There were live blue and black crabs moving in slow motion in a large plastic bucket, huge prawns laid out on a bed of ice waiting to be grilled, platters filled with fiery Thai salads—Turk didn't quite understand why you'd want to eat a salad made of red-hot chili pepper duck with mangoes. There was a rice and curry station with vats of meat bubbling in various chili-choked stews. Turk was still trying to understand the food. It looked great—it was beautiful—and tasted good, but why was it so fucking hot? One bite and your lips and tongue would burn and begin to swell. The stuff slid down your gullet easy enough, but once it got to your stomach it felt like a gas burner had been switched on. The worst—and the mere thought of this made Turk cringe—was the next morning. Digestion didn't appear to affect the chilis at all; they were just as biting and potent coming out as they were going in. No amount of beer could dilute the raw, burning sensation he felt after sitting on the toilet in Thailand.

A chef threw some strange-looking vegetation into a white-hot wok. The wok exploded in a fireball of oil and vegetables as the chef deftly flipped and tossed the contents up in the air. Turk walked over for a closer look.

“What's that?”

“Morning glory vine.”

“You eat that?”

The chef nodded as he continued to juggle the fireball.

“Very good.”

Turk was impressed. It reminded him of the pyrotechnic show Metal Assassin had used on its last two tours. When all the other bands had turned to lasers and holographic projections and high-tech crap like that, Metal Assassin had decided to go old school: smoke and flames and explosions.

Rock 'n' fuckin' roll, man
.

Even though vegetables weren't his strong suit, Turk ordered a plate of morning glory vines. He wanted to watch them blow up again. When the chef flipped them out of the wok and they fireballed, Turk couldn't help himself—he let out a shriek and pumped his arms into the air, his first and pinkie fingers extended in a devil horn salute to the wok master.

Turk took his vegetables and, what the hell, a half-dozen grilled jumbo prawns back to a table to settle in to wait for his wife. A cold Singha materialized at his side. Turk accepted it without hesitation, popped a prawn in his mouth, and washed it down with the beer. Out of the corner of his eye Turk noticed the young Swiss-German girl making a show of ignoring him. He wasn't surprised: hell hath no fury and all that. So he ignored her ignoring him and turned his attention to the show.

Three slender Thai women, dressed in traditional silk robes, sporting golden crowns and long metallic fingernails, swayed to the strange plucking and clanging of the music as they waved their hands in the air. Their movements were sensual and dreamlike, their bodies undulating in erotic slow motion. This was no hula; it was something else. Watching them gave Turk a boner.

There were assorted gongs and drums being thumped and whacked by the musicians, creating a slow, mysterious beat. Too slow for Turk—he would've pumped it up a couple of notches—but it didn't suck. Three other players sat off to the side, one tapping out a strange melody on a xylophone type thing called a
ranad-ek
while another one sawed away on a two-string Thai fiddle and the third bleated out birdcalls on a bamboo flute. The whole thing had a mellow jazzy vibe punctuated by irritating shrieks and tweets.

Turk might've ignored the music completely if Sheila had been with him. They would've talked about her day and had a laugh. But since he was still alone, his plate now emptied of prawns and morning glory, he ordered another beer and leaned back in his chair.

The song fizzled out and died. Turk applauded. He was always conscious about supporting his fellow musicians; not many were as fortunate as him. He watched as the fiddle player pulled a strange-looking instrument from behind him and began to play what Turk could only call a riff. The instrument, a
jakhae
, looked like a kind of square guitar flopped on its back. It was not the coolest ax Turk had ever seen, but the sound that came out of it was fantastic. It reminded Turk of the time their lead guitarist, Bruno Caravali, had played a solo on a sitar. Bruno sat a few inches in front of a double Marshall stack with the amps cranked up all the way; it was so loud in the studio that the air crackled with a static charge that made your hair stand on end. Bruno, who had no idea how to play a sitar but was somewhat of a guitar virtuoso, started wailing on the sitar strings. The sheer volume of the amps caused all the other strings on the sitar to vibrate and resonate violently, as if its rivets were about to pop. The sound
that came out was incredible, an otherworldly buzzing. Like a dragonfly perched on the string, only a million times louder. That sound became the signature intro for the Metal Assassin hit “Drop in the Bucket.”

The guy playing the
jakhae
wasn't amplified, but somehow the sound was similar. The music touched Turk; it drifted in the sea air and came to him, gently filling an empty spot inside his chest. Sheila would say it was his heart chakra. That it was proof he was yearning to play music again; that he missed his bandmates. But that was Sheila. She was from California. If it couldn't be feng shuied, ayurveda-ized, aromatherapy-ized, Qi Jonged, or acupunctured, then it couldn't be helped at all. She believed all that stuff. Turk didn't disbelieve it. Just like he didn't disbelieve that maybe some concerned and wise old man with a big gray beard might be looking down on him from heaven, making sure he was okay.

But Sheila would've been right about one thing: He did miss the band. Breaking up hadn't been his idea; that was Steve's ego trip. Turk would've been happy to rock with Metal Assassin until they pried the bass guitar out of his cold, dead fingers. But what could he do? It wasn't like it hadn't happened before. Rock bands are always breaking up, and Turk had been in bands since he was in high school.

There was that first band, Gangplank, which played a kind of punk rock disco. Three guitars that were never in tune, a bass, and a drummer with the largest drum kit Turk had ever seen. To this day he hadn't been in another band where the drummer had a gong.

While they weren't exactly accomplished musicians—they created an excruciating noise—playing in Gangplank was fun. After school they'd go to the drummer's house and rehearse
in the basement. They'd get amped up on root beer and Cheetos, making a wonderful racket until the drummer's dad came in and kicked them out. Turk could still remember walking home through the tidy little streets of working-class suburban Teaneck, his ears ringing, his bass slung over his shoulder in a gig bag, and a smile on his face.

I'm in a band
.

But Gangplank never got out of the basement. They never played a gig. Just when they'd arranged to play at a party—a college party with kegs of beer—the lead singer got grounded because he was failing chemistry.

Turk played with a couple other bands—he couldn't even remember their names—experimenting with punk rock, fusion, and Top 40; everything but country. He played in bars, art galleries, house parties, and rented halls; he played at weddings, bar mitzvahs, bachelor parties … anywhere he could plug in his amp.

Eventually he hooked up with some musicians from New York City. They were forming a group called Play Loud. Turk had always played as loud as he could, and in the other members of Play Loud he found like-minded individuals. They performed a kind of art school heavy metal, with the entire band outfitted in costumes that made them look like extras from a
Mad Max
movie who'd accidentally found themselves at a Dadaist happening.