Killing Plato

villages and poor farms far upcountry, constantly throng those same streets and bars.

The girls are prostitutes, of course, but on the whole and in a different context, you might be hard-pressed to tell. Instead of the makeup-caked, crack-addled hustlers most western men can spot easily enough back home, these girls are mostly casually dressed and pleasant looking; they are friendly in a way that seems genuine; they laugh and joke easily among themselves; and they respond to even the stupidest comments from the tourists with smiles that appear unfeigned.

When there are no customers to entertain, the girls eat the food they buy from the street vendors, drink cokes, watch television, listen to music, and gossip among themselves. Occasionally, in a modest effort to improve business one of them might call out, “Hello, handsome man!” or “Come talk me!” to any unattached males who wander into range, but mostly they appear unconcerned with commercial promotion and seem content to let fate shape their prospects.

Soi Crocodile is one of the little lanes right in the heart of it all, and it is every bit as much a part of the action as are the other little streets in the area. But there is one way in which it is just a tiny bit different.

The street is known locally as Soi Katoey, the Thai word for the men turned women for which Thailand is, in some circles at least, justly famous. Thailand has achieved international recognition for precious little in its history, but Thai doctors have become universally celebrated for at least one thing: their ability, with a few judicious snips here and there, to alter biological men into women indistinguishable from real ones, except of course that they frequently look a whole lot better.

Thai katoeys are as distant from the lumpy, clumsy transvestites who lurk in the western sexual shadows as doves are from crows. On the whole, they are tall, slim, tanned, and toned. They generally wear stylish dresses and chic, take-me-tonight slingback heels, and they often sport refined jewelry and expensive handbags. They look, almost to a man, like elegant and sophisticated women.

If CW was going to a bar on Soi Crocodile, I figured he had a huge surprise coming. I really wanted to be around to see him unwrap it, so to speak.

Walking toward the center of Patong we jostled through the evening crowds along Beach Road. On the whole, these were mostly people I wouldn’t have wanted to invite back to meet Anita.

“Jesus, Slick,” CW muttered, reading my mind, “is this the parade of the fucking mutant tourists, or what?”

A man who looked either Indian or Pakistani abruptly materialized out of the crowd right in front of CW, grabbed his hand before he could pull it away, and began pumping energetically.

“Nice suit for you, sir? Welcome! Welcome! Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”

CW tried to extract his hand, but the little man wouldn’t turn it loose.

“Best price for you, sir. Very best price.”

“No thanks.”

“But, sir, I am waiting for you. Welcome! Here is my card.”

When the tailor held out a business card, CW feinted with his left hand as if suddenly seized with enthusiasm to acthuquocept it and then snatched his right hand away as the man loosed his grip in delight at apparently having latched onto a live one. Without another word, the man turned away and scanned the crowd for a better prospect.

“Nice move,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I see the little fellow takes rejection well.”

“I imagine he’s had a lot of practice.”

A small boy held out a black cloth duffle bag with large plastic wheels. An old woman unfurled a piece of cloth with a red and green pattern that might have been the flag of some country I didn’t immediately recognize. A young girl, a plastic tray of cigarettes hanging from a strap around her neck, gripped half a dozen packs in one hand and waved them back and forth as if she were semaphoring. At the edge of the sidewalk a man was selling hammocks woven from thick blue and white cord. Every time he spied a group of likely looking prospects, he would slip out of one of his sandals and use his bare foot to stretch the hammock out by way of demonstrating its size and potential for comfort. When too many tourists walked by at the same time, the guy looked as if he was doing an impression of a pissed-off stork.

The Blue Lotus Pub sits right at the beginning of Soi Katoey. Like the Paradise Bar, it’s open to the street and offers a panoramic view of the exotic delights of the neighborhood. CW nodded at two men sitting on stools that had an unobstructed view of it all and led me to an empty pair of stools right next to them. After ordering us each another Mekong and soda, CW made the introductions.

The one CW introduced as Chuck Parker looked exactly like somebody who ought to have a name like Chuck Parker. He was in his late thirties and had the thick, fleshy neck, light brown crew cut, and slightly heavy frame of a college athlete sliding into middle age.

The other man CW introduced as Marcus York. He was a slim black man of medium height and he wore round, gold-framed glasses that stood out memorably against a thick shock of prematurely gray hair. York looked like a character from a David Mamet play: black jeans, black shirt, and a two-day growth of very black beard. If Chuck Parker had been on the college football team, Marcus York had been in the drama club.

CW said both men were Deputy United States Marshals, but I wasn’t so sure. Parker, yeah. He vibed street cop all the way. But York was another matter altogether. I’d bet my last dollar York was FBI, or maybe even something creepier.

“I wanted the boys to meet you,” CW said as we shook hands all around.

“Why?”

“Well shit, Slick, they might bump into you somewhere out there on a dark night and I wouldn’t want them to shoot your candy ass clean off.”

Parker heehawed at that, wiggling his thick neck up and down, but York didn’t move. He didn’t even smile.

I got the feeling CW and his sidekicks were waiting for me to say something, but I couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to be so we all just sat for a while in silence and watched the comings and goings across the street on Soi Crocodile.

“God damn,” CW gasped a few minutes later. “Look at that.”

The katoey CW was watching had just climbed up onto a round platform at the entrance to the soi and had begun to sway languidly to music blaring from speakers in one of the bars. At least six feet tall with long, glistening black hair tied away from her face in a ponytail, she wore a black silk sh bl toeath that ended less than halfway down her smooth brown thighs and she balanced gracefully on red platform slingbacks with six-inch heels. After a few minutes, a second katoey joined her on the platform-this one slightly shorter and heavier, but with a chest on her that would freeze a moose-and they began to dance together.

“Ah, shit,” Parker chimed in. “I’m gonna have me a fuckin’ stroke.”

York, I noticed, said nothing.

As more and more of the katoeys gathered across Soi Bangla, I watched the three men out of the corner of my eye. Parker and CW, at least, couldn’t get enough. Parker moaned and groaned and CW licked nervously at his lips.

Then CW noticed the two katoeys wearing giant rhinestone tiaras and ballgowns who were posing for pictures with tourists. He shot me a quick side-glance, but I kept a straight face and he couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t until he spotted the one in the hoop-skirted Scarlet O’Hara dress bringing a bottle of beer to the one who was dressed like Pocahontas that he got it.

“Fuck,” he moaned, and I admit I had never heard the word used more movingly.

“Gotcha,” I said.

“What?” Parker looked genuinely confused.

“They’re men, you fuckwit,” York finally spoke up.

“You’re shittin’ me,” Parker mumbled, but from the way he climbed back into his drink you knew he saw it now, too.