Conjunction

*

Looking across the conjunction of the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers, everything seemed possible in this part of the world. He was no longer lonely; and his instant notoriety only added to the confusion. Jerking haphazardly down the boulevarde. Dropping by the Happy Pizza. Face grim with pain, eroded with laughter, painted with cigarettes; he was up and down all night getting off the fags while irritable tension coursed through his body and the boy slept, as beautiful in his mind as ever. Pay them well treat them well. It was a successful formula in almost every sense; except the impact on his wallet. He woke up determined to be a millionaire; so he could maintain a lifestyle beyond his means, so he wouldn't have to go and live in Calcutta, as he kept threatening to do.

Much of the humour was lost in translation. But they could tell, they woke up with boners a mile long, they could tell. They never did anything they didn't want to; which could be very annoying. Languid, they plied their trade. The boy, this time Aek, went off to university for the morning and he was suddenly alone again; and busy, there was so much to do; money to be made, precious diamonds to be bought, things to be done. His brain was coming awake again. He wasn't smoking with the street boys in the early hours anymore, and he wasn't drinking around the clock. I go back to program, he had loudly declared, and so it had proved to be. He retraced stories; and he understood things now he had never understood. You are baby. Well yes, he had been, unwise in the ways of this world, utterly inexperienced in their different ways.

His loyalty was never repaid; but he did the right thing anyway; allowed the saving of face; face being all important in this part of the world, and he measured their success by the passing hours, and he hadn't thought of a cigarette for a good 20 minutes. He was too old to do these things. His birthday had passed and he bought what he wanted; but times were fleeing tragically before him and he had to work hard to see the end tune; to have one happy year in Bangkok, to make way for the shallow days and the Fresh Beach boys. He looked down the soi to Classic Boys and remembered the lad in Chiang Mai, making a circling gesture at the side of his head, to indicate the madness of it all; and he remembered.

Here was a boy who ordered a strawberry milkshake with the same guilty extravagance that the previous one had ordered a bottle of Black Label whiskey; and here was another one who wouldn't drink so much as a can of beer and insisted on making his university classes in the morning. Not everything was a wild dance. Not everything was this toxic embarrassment. Not everything led to ridiculous sexual congresses, waking up sandwiched between sex workers of any gender, and not everything led him down the path to dissolution. He had gone back to the meetings and gone back to the meditation; all in a rapid sweep combined with an upmarket apartment he could not afford but dearly loved; and allowed him to pull everything back together, to mark his time as dearly loved; not just the grave sites of young men in Gallipoli, but every day, every moment, the light bouncing off the windows of Bangkok skyscrapers the astonishing architecture, everything a vista, everything glorious.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/world/asia/22thai.html

BANGKOK — The Thai government has moved into the next phase of a campaign against the dissident movement known as the red shirts, freezing the assets of scores of people it says helped finance recent protests, and planning to summon them for questioning.

Two months of antigovernment demonstrations ended May 19, when the army dispersed a red-shirt encampment in the commercial center of Bangkok.

Altogether, at least 88 people died and at least 1,800 people were wounded over the course of the protests.

Since then the government has pursued a dual-track approach to its opponents, with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva emphasizing a program of national reconciliation while hundreds of members of the opposition have been arrested and held without trial.

The prime minister’s reconciliation road map has now added to the atmosphere of acrimony, becoming a new focus for attack from government opponents.

On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, who is in charge of security for the government, said a state of emergency declared during the protests would remain because of a continuing threat of disturbances.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/22/2933414.htm?section=world

Defence Minister John Faulkner has urged Australians to keep supporting the war in Afghanistan after the deaths of five soldiers in just two weeks.

Yesterday three commandos were killed when their helicopter crashed on its way to a mission south of the Australian base at Tarin Kowt.

Last week two soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb, and the total Australian death toll for the nine-year conflict now stands at 16.

Senator Faulkner has acknowledged that the recent deaths could erode public support for the war but he says Australia's involvement is vital in the fight against terrorism.

"Of course I am concerned about the level of public support for what we are doing in Afghanistan but I continue to stress ... how important our role in Afghanistan is," he told Radio National.

"It is absolutely critical for the safety and security of Australians and Australia to help prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a training ground and operation base for international terrorists."