Cast Away

The goal of finding a place less populated with people -- or at least with familiar habits and familiar sounds -- is enjoying only moderate success.  From Bangkok I travelled down to an island called Ko Pha Ngan (or Phangan; it seems to be spelled both ways, in roman letters).  From a rough eyeballing on the map, it seemed to be a small enough island.  I'd researched for days several small island options -- ones where there are no cars or motorbikes, and electricity is available for a only a few hours per evening via generators -- but I didn't make any notes as to which island offered what.  So I pointed more or less at random, using Airbnb again to locate some secluded-looking bungalows in the hills in the middle of this island.  Before disembarking on the speedboat that brought us over here, I knew I'd chosen poorly.  Young, perfectly tanned, waxed or dreadlocked, chesty and yoga types, by the bucket full.  Everyone already smoking and drinking on the boat, getting pre-shit-faced before we touched land.

Approaching the island, I could see it was in fact enormous.  Jurrasic Park was all I could think of.  Several communication masts blinked their patient red lights from the hill tops.  The first night, walking the roads full of speeding motorbikes and cars and trucks which evidently forgot how to use their brakes, I ended up on the north side of the island, surrounded by belly-thumping bass beats and raucous party sounds.  I scoped out the long stretch of beach with bungalows featuring porches full of low-lit couples or families drinking or playing games.  The noise from the nearby rave was everywhere, all-consuming.  The farthest distance I could manage to walk along the beach wasn't far enough to escape the sound.

The next day I decided, seeing as how I'd booked the bungalow for three nights, and on a whim of the can't-beat-'em-join-'em variety, to rent a motorbike of my own.  A Honda Click 125i.  I knew I was adding more noise to the already boisterous scene, but what a pleasure to charge through the air so effortlessly, inventing wind, climbing horrifically steep hills at fantastic speeds, death or serious injury just a blink away, waiting on either side of my bare legs and feet.  To bring life back into such crisp focus and detail; what a thrill!

I ducked and zoomed and plummeted every road and back road I could find on the island.  One evening I even found my treasure: a completely deserted beach, with a large abandoned campfire left as glowing coals, the burble of fish surfacing briefly in the soft starlit water, and a crude but robust swing, strung high high up to a looming palm tree.  It took 30 minutes of determined scoping and re-reading the map, but eventually the search paid off.  I swam briefly, naked under the sky, quiet and alone and happy, and air-dried by swinging standing up on the smooth plank of wood under the palm tree.  Exiting the rock-rough water edge in the dark, I managed to puncture a nice hole in the bridge of my left foot.  It felt insignificant at the time, but examining it in the head torch light back by the campfire, I found a notable wheel of blood surrounding a dark spoke.  A proper puncture, like a tire.

It was sore, and still is, but one of my sub-goals is to toughen up my feet -- there is a connection, I believe, as Sami once pointed out, between the sense of belonging, home, self, and the feet.  Stepping even on smooth sand in bare feet sends an aggravating sensation up my spine: an admixture of electrocution, sexual stimulation, tickling, and a plainly annoying sub-tremor that is perhaps best described as a sonic gouging.  I never did figure out what that business was with my feet, back in the crazy days of Savannah, when they seemed to have a mind and sexual interest all their own.  And so I likewise understood nothing when the "issue" suddenly went away.  The auto-sentience has never returned, but the extreme sensitivity remains.  Every awkward barefoot step I take, these outdoor island days, I remember that moment in the orchard, at Evelina's castle.  Before visiting the llamas and dogs and sheep among the ripe apple trees, she asked if I didn't want to take my boots off.  I panicked, wanting to say Yes, but knowing the electricity that would be riddling my head and spine if I took one shoeless step, even on that soft grass and dirt path.  I declined, but I made a mental note that, one day, I would meet her again, and I would be able to go barefoot with her, on a walk to anywhere.  As of now, the sensitivity remains, and echoes feebly throughout my character, has even infected my eyes, I'm sure, but one day I will find I've developed leather soles, and my core being will be more even, more secure, more steady, and I will walk sockless without hesitation, and lust without terror or remorse, and be a thing that could and should be loved.  It will take time, and I don't know the path to walk to get there, but for now I'll keep listening to my body and treading intentionally and trying to be thankful, in general.

At the dentist in Budapest, the moment of truth, when he was about to administer the injection to begin the grand three-part process, the first of which is to remove ten rotten teeth, I folded.  My breath lost touch with my mind's commands, I couldn't control my breathing, the hyperventilating made my lips go numb.  He lifted the chair and kept asking "What?  What?  Come on!"  One of the assistants gave me a wad of tissues; evidently I was leaking snot and tears like a sinking ship, though I mostly remember just the loss of breath control.  I stood up and tried to walk, but the ground kept moving closer and further from my vision, so I sat down.  I thought I had my breathing back after not too long, but then the attempt to speak again brought the whole wave crashing down again.  The dentist said he couldn't work on me in this condition, so we would take a break for two days and try again.

I've been there before, this hyperventilating.  The first time it happened was after an incident at the pool hall in San Rafael.  I played with and learned moves from a trick-shot nice fellow named Jeremy.  He was usually there with his girlfriend, and they were both kind people.  A friend of one of them, Alicia, played a few racks with us.  She was sweet, and gentle, and a fine pool player in her own right, as far as I could tell.  We had a good time playing doubles and drinking bottles of Heineken and playing classic rock tunes on the jukebox.  I had turned 21, and I was trying to learn to enjoy whiskey, and to pick up my small-time smoking habit by opting for Camel Lights (via Alyssa) as "my brand."  I was attempting to elect to grow up, and so far it was a good summer.  I was staying either in the treehouse behind or one of the rooms in the basement of the Whittakers' house.  Rooni was there, KT and Bridgette too, I think.  I remember at least Rooni being there the night Alicia was late to the game.  She was running behind, for some vague reason, and before she got there I was given a very gentle going-over by Jeremy and his girlfriend.  They were sizing me up, asking what I thought of Alicia, the works.  One of them, I think it was Jeremy, said the words, "You know, Alicia likes you."  The phrase stuck and clattered and echoed and rang out with all the pleasure of a rail tie nail driver slamming into ancient stone on the floor of a silent cathedral.  Something inside my chest, what I thought at the time might be a heart murmur or a strange bi-product of severe gas -- something physical anyway -- popped.  It was subtle, but unmistakable.  I remember a blur of nodding and smiling and returning my cue to the table or wall rack and probably making up some excuse or other, then outside and choking on the air around me while walking home.

Rooni was there, on a mattress on a floor, and she saw in my face when I arrived that something wasn't right.  At some point moments later I was on the mat in her room, hyperventilating, unable to stop or to understand why I wasn't allowed control of my own lungs.  I knew and still feel I know how to use them when swimming.  My breathing during my freestyle and breaststroke is timed rigorously, mechanically, and I could always win any contest for who could hold their breath the longest.  Even my self-imposed smoking habit had its own pattern: my lungs knew to inhale half-way before every drag of the cigarette, thereby keeping the normal capacity relatively clean, and only spoiling the "reserve" area, which I only ever used after a heavy sprint after long-distance runs.  Every since 4th or 5th grade, my breathing strategy while running has always been perfectly programmed, has always been entirely under my control.

So the inability to clench shut whatever panic had been opened up within me while heaving rapidly on that mattress was made doubly difficult by the compounded panic derived from the wickedly foreign feeling of not being able to control my own breath.  I felt possessed, and helpless, and angry to be so helpless.

Last night I ventured over to Tesco -- yes there's somehow a Tesco even on this island -- to buy a larger supply of salted peanuts and a 2 litre of water for cheap.  I picked up a pack of gummy sweets as well, opting for the one that seemed softest and closest to the kind I like.  Also I was trying to find a packet that didn't seem to have too much extra plastic.

There is so so so much plastic waste in Thailand.  Maybe it's all over Asia, I don't know yet.  But I can't fathom how much extra plastic packaging is provided, needlessly, on a constant basis, nor where it all ends up.  In the states you're provided with large plastic bags at most supermarket checkouts, and you might double-bag a heavy load.  In Ireland, as with some other European countries, you're charged a small fee, about 22 cents, to purchase a plastic bag, incentivising everyone to either carry their purchases or bring their own reusable bag.  Having gotten used to this, I was blown away here in Thailand when the purchase of three small donuts required four separate plastic bags, plus scotch tape.  If you buy a bottle of water, that goes in a plastic bag, with a straw, which is also plastic wrapped.  If you buy a bottle of water and a bottle of juice and a takeaway meal and a packet of cookies, the bottle of water gets its own bag, with the plastic-wrapped straw, then the juice gets another bag, with another plastic-wrapped straw, then the takeaway gets its own bag, usually doubled, with a fork and a spoon, each individually wrapped, and of course the lone pack of cookies goes in its own plastic bag.  Of course, you can't seem to be expected to carry all these items in their plastic bags, even though they each have the standard grab handles, so all this goes into yet another bag (though the takeaway is probably too big to fit, so it might get its own larger plastic bag.  It took a day or two to scrape my jaw up off the floor after witnessing this practise.

So the gummy sweets, I felt the bag, could sense the squish of the jelly treats inside, couldn't detect any other crinkling feeling or sound.  So I got them.  And outside in the parking lot I opened them.  Unbelievable: each of the two-dozen-or-so jellies was individually wrapped.  Not small handful portions each in their own sachet, but each and every last one of the single pieces was housed in its own full plastic mini envelope.

I was just finishing the small struggle of opening and eating three of the treats and stuffing all the excess plastic back into the plastic shopping bag and finding a place for this in the motorbike hold space, when a young blonde woman approached her own bike, adjacent to mine, and shot me a warm, very friendly, uninvited smile.  I continued to load up my bike and get the gear in order, when she spoke up and asked, holding a brand new Nokia brick in the space between us, "You don't happen to have a phone like this, do you?"

"Er, no, but, uh, maybe I can answer a question for you."

"Well, I just got this, but in my pocket somehow the little light came on -- see? -- and I can't figure out how to turn it off."

"Okay, may I?"

She handed me the phone and I went into the phone settings with her watching just beside my head, and we found the menu for the light and turned it off.  I showed her after how holding down the directional pad like so can be a shortcut, though I'm not sure why the light stayed on like that.  She thanked me and I nodded and hoped that that could be that.  Already dangerous, suffocating thoughts mounting in my chest and back of my head, heat and pressure, so much heat and pressure.  All the usual storm:

Anger at having been snapped so abruptly into conversation; paranoia that this wasn't an accident, that she turned the light on as a kind of ice breaker, to start up a conversation with a stranger.  Why me.  Why can't you pick on someone else.  And her softness, and the dizzying allure of her brown eyes.  The way she punched down her long skirt against the bike seat with her knuckles when she sat down.  The purity of her shoulders and the cleanliness of her unassuming smile.  Intoxicating.  But also aggravating; enraging, even.  Sharp words of rebuke forming in my head in the mud and slick cobra coil of confusion.  The softest version I can find.  "Look, I don't want to be rude, but I'm not looking to make any friends here, but you're a beautiful woman who seems very friendly, so I know you'll have no trouble meeting other people, just, please let me bid you good night and be on my way."  I want to untie my coil in an instant of predatory lust and rip off her head in my jaws.  I want to kiss her shoulders and the corner of her mouth.  So much information when I glance at her left eye that I can't remember who is talking and who is listening so I look away, but I don't want to, I want to keep staring.  I want to take her to my bungalow stay in the jungle and lead her up the steps with her hand firmly in mine and lay her back on the all white bed under the mosquito net and left up her long flower skirt and slide down her legs whatever bikini or pants are warmly waiting there and kiss up in to her moist and breathing groove and fuck her gently in the trees.  But I also want to tear her apart -- I want her to suffer for speaking to me, for making chit-chat, for noticing me back into life for that moment or two.

I get ready to go, and wave politely, but instead I hear myself suddenly ask her if that's a holiday phone, a temporary, just while she's on vacation.  She turns around and perks up and smiles that simply killer smile again, and says yes, it is, and holds out her right hand, offering "I'm Holly, by the way."

I take her hand, electric shocks, I swallow hard, and grumble to the ground, "Chris, hi," avoiding her eyes, hoping to reclaim my original reluctance and make a timely escape.  But we start talking about the island and the bugs and the roads and where we've been and where we're going, and swapping stories about cheap accommodation.  Apart from images of lust and rage, my only other conscious thought is to be careful to not give any names, only descriptions.  She does the same.  There are more than three full pauses where I'm clearly meant to ask her for her temporary holiday number, at the very least, and exchange details, but I fill them with nodding and pursed lips.  Eventually I offer to shake her hand, aiming at a gentile if slightly cold finality, and say "Nice to meet you, Holly, be safe and enjoy your time over here."

"You too, enjoy the island."  She's clearly let down.  But it's her own fault for starting the conversation.  Anyone else, Holly, anyone but me, you'll do just fine.

I point the motorbike home and dial a less-than-safe speed into my wrist and let it out when the road ahead is clear of other motorists.  I only very rarely allow my self-control to translate emotions into motorised engines, as it's far too easy to lose perspective and the instinct of physics in that realm, but I bit hard and decided this was one of those times I didn't care.  The road was clear ahead of me and I plunged forward, hissing and spitting and barking at the air.  Spewing repeatedly every exact phrase that was passed between me and Holly in the parking lot.  Exploding internally with each syllable.  Why couldn't she just leave me alone.

Back in the bungalow, I get an email from Serena.  A ninety-three-year-old man writing for the New Yorker about the effects and experience of old age on his memory and his desires and his communication.  It's a perfectly told essay; I'm jealous of the style.  But I'm keenly attentive of the subject matter.  I don't know if I've mentioned to Serena how I'm wrestling on a minute-by-minute basis with death and mortality and the tick-tocking of the clock in my blood and the poisonous haunting of how little living I've done with my life, and how little desire I have to spend more, let alone libido to spend on the physical desire toward other people.  Maybe she just read it and wanted to pass it along.  But suffice to say it was timely enough, indeed.  The magnets that must have been there in my youth, they've not been there for years.  Coincidentally, and a little heartbreakingly, the last (and first?) time I remember feeling the wonderful mixture of friendship and physical companionship was actually with Serena, those days in her college land.  Everything felt natural, possible, and safe, and I knew her curiosity and her care and her kinship like I'd never known it with anyone prior.

So I read this article, where, near the end, the man talks about this taboo of older people having sex, being naked as couples, wanting physical companionship "even at that age."  He says he's sure that everyone wants that bare shoulder in the middle of the night to reach to, the patterns we create between our twin selves in relationships, we yearn for them, at every age.  He quoted Lawrence Olivier, somewhere in an interview, saying, "Inside, we're all seventeen, with red lips."  I thought of Holly again, her warm smile in the parking lot light, the shape of her dress as she leaned on her bike, how bitterly pleased I was to disappoint her.  I felt ashamed, and keenly lost.  I read these words, knowing the thoughts of lust, but not the natural desire, not the perfectly sensible animal kingdom desire to be close to and touch another person, or be touched.  I read this wonderfully vibrant ancient man's wisdom about how we all want that connection, all the time.  And it stung to think: I'm sorry Holly, to be so glad to let you down.  And it stung to think: we all want that connection, yes, but not me; I can't find it in me in a way that makes sense.  I only want that physical connection to a horrible, murderous degree.  And even that doesn't surface but a couple times per year.  Mostly there's just this hard shell, which doesn't even feel comfortable to exist within, but feels much worse to be outside of, there in conversation, there on the line with another person's eyes and their beautiful bare skin in the soft warm light.  A residence in an underwater city, occasionally alarmed by escaping oxygen and water leaks.