Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

feet impastoed with the root goo that caused him to resemble a comic-book Chinaman (in real life, Asians were no more yellow in complexion than Caucasians were truly white), the wad of leaf in his jaw beckoning—reaching out! —to the massive green rampage of forest spirits along either bank. Or so it seemed. At some point he commenced to play with the baby ocelot.

That Switters was no pet-lover has been established. For days he’d paid keener notice to the wild parrots in the trees than to poor Sailor in his nearby cage. Yet, the truth was, he had sort of a soft spot for very young animals: for puppies, for bunnies, for small kitty cats. If only they wouldn’t grow up! He’d sometimes wished there was a serum with which one might inject pups and kittens, a drug that would arrest their growth and retard their descent into adulthood. Oddly or not, his liking for domestic animals was restricted to those months when they were still frisky, spunky, and playful, before they became cautious and staid, before their spontaneity was genetically assassinated and their sense of wonder crushed by the lockstep rigors of the reproductive drive and the territorial imperative.

During the period when Switters and Bobby Case were under fire in Bangkok, tattletale embassy personnel having observed them on more than a few occasions in the company of what the ambassador referred to as “underage” girls, Bad Bobby had addressed their alleged misbehavior. “It’s only natural,” he’d said, “that I chase after jailbait. I’m a midlife adolescent, I can’t make commitments, I’m scared of intimacy, and last but not least, I’m a piece of south Texas white trash who likes his pussy to fit tighter than his boots. But with you, though, Swit, it’s something different. I get the feeling you’re attracted to . . . well, I reckon I’d have to call it innocence.”

Unwilling to flatly deny it, Switters had asked, “Attracted to innocence in order to defile it?”

Bobby hooted and threw up his hands in mock horror. The girls in the Safari Bar all tittered because he was crazed Bobby Case and he was drinking with his crazed friend Switters. “You’re not fixing to feign a guilt trip on me, are you? ‘Cause if you are, I’m going on home and read Finnegans Wake.”

“You desert me in my hour of need, I’ll follow you home and read Finnegans Wake to you.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Bobby exclaimed, signaling frantically for another round of Sing Ha. The girls wanted to join them—the Safari girls loved Bobby and Switters—but the men bought them champagne and shooed them away. They were under fire and needed to talk.

“There’s folks,” said Bobby, “who think sex is filthy and nasty, and they’re spooked by it and mad at it and don’t want anything to do with it and don’t want anybody else messing with it, either. And there’s folks who think sex is as natural and wholesome as Mom’s apple pie and they’re relaxed about it and can’t get enough of it, even on Sunday.”

“Personally,” said Switters, “I think sex is filthy and nasty—and I can’t get enough of it. Even on Sunday.”

“Uh-huh. Yes indeedy. And it’s particularly nasty when it’s all sweet and fresh and innocent. Isn’t that how it strikes you, Switters? I believe you lingo jockeys refer to this as paradox.” He yelled “Paradox!” at the top of his lungs, and the girls laughed merrily. “Or, we could say that innocence and nastiness enjoy a symbiotic relationship. Symbiotic! For the connoisseurs among us. Also for young folks, who’re just busting with nastiness night and day, and have a completely innocent kind of awe of it.”

“You’re a troubled man, Captain Case. There’re dark forces at work in you, and I will neither sanction them nor be a party to their rationalization.”

“Yeah, well, don’t forget who your employer is. If you and me didn’t rationalize our butts off, we couldn’t look in the mirror to shave.”

“You haven’t shaved in a week.”

“Beside the point. What I’m trying to get at here—and I’m doing it on your behalf and in your defense, since I’m not fit to be defended—is that consensual, non-abusive, good-hearted fucking is not in and of itself defiling, not even to the very young.”

“It’s often a matter of cultural context.”

“There you go. Look at the ladies in this very room.” Bobby gestured wildly at a gaggle of chic bar girls huddled around the jukebox. They giggled and waved back at him. “At least half of ’em are as innocent as rosebuds.”

“Because their minds are still curious and their hearts are still pure.”

“There you go. Sure, the shadow of the big A is hovering over ’em like Death’s own helicopter, and they have to put up with the bedside manners of snockered Sony executives and unhappy shit like that, you know, and sleeping with jerks can definitely numb a person’s heart, but frequent fucking hasn’t traumatized ’em or even cheapened ’em, not these ladies or anyone else, except maybe in those unfortunate blue-nosed societies that are uptight about the body in general. It’s a matter of attitude.”

“Cultural context.”

“There you go. I read somewhere that in the olden days, when a girl reached a certain age—puberty, I reckon—she’d be initiated into sex by one of her uncles. Same with a boy, only an aunt would do the job. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. It was considered a highly important learning experience, the uncle and auntie were teachers, and it was a serious though evidently smiley-faced family duty. And the thing is, you know, there’s no evidence that this hands-on brand of sex education was anything but beneficial or that it ever left even the most itty-bitty psychological scar.”

“Well, that was then and this is now. Today, it’d land the kids in therapy and the adults in jail. For decades in both instances.”

“Different cultural context, if I can coin a phrase. And precisely why we should avoid America like the mumps. Thailand is perfect for an ol’ boy like me, who’s into sitting and hankers to be every niece’s uncle; and it’s perfect for a cat like you, who’s got this deep secret Jones for innocence.”

“Yeah, so deep and secret even I don’t know about it. Maybe you ought to consider, pal, that you might be indulging in a simple-minded supposition.”

“Supposition!” hollered Bobby, eliciting the usual amused response. “Okay, son. Forget it. You don’t appreciate my support, I withdraw it. I wouldn’t want to sully the Patpong night with any supposition.”

They went quiet for a while, pulling on their frosty Sing Has. Then Switters said, “In regards to my personal proclivities, you’re generating considerable flapdoodle.” Immediately he bawled, “Proclivities! Flapdoodle!” in a voice more thunderous than Bobby’s. He nodded at his friend and said softly, “To save you the trouble.”

“You’re a gentleman and I thank you. The ladies thank you, too.”

“However,” Switters resumed, “I have to say you’re correct when you suggest that loss of virginity is in no way equivalent to loss of innocence. Unless, of course, innocence is defined as ignorance.”

“In which case,” put in Bobby, “every sum bitch in the state of Texas is innocent as a snowflake. I share this with you as a fellow Texan.”

“You won’t find the term ‘Texan’ on a single document in my resume.”

“Only because you’ve doctored your damn files. All-region linebacker at Stephen F. Austin High School. Or do I have you confused with some other, more studly, guy?”

“We only lived in Austin two years. And I spent both those summers with my grandmother in Seattle.”

“Well, let’s see: factoring in your age, that makes you one-eighteenth of a Texan. Woefully inadequate, I admit, but it probably accounts for your good looks.”

“And my appreciation of red-eye gravy.”

“Praise the Lord!” Bobby called for more beer. “By the way, I been meaning to ask you: how come you never went on to play football in college?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Seems every campus I visited on those, uh, recruiting trips, all the players ever talked about was money. Football was a business to them, even at the college level, and the lone dream they had in life was to be let loose in the NFL gold mine with an agent and a shovel. So, I decided to give rugby a whirl. Rugby’s every bit as rough and every bit as challenging, and a lot more fun because in America, at least, there’s never been a chance anybody could make a nickel on it. I guess I liked it because it was beyond the reach of commerce and hype. In rugby you were just a guy laying his teeth on the line for the sport of it, you were not a commodity.”

“Uh-huh!” Bobby crowed, with a triumphant smirk. “There you go. Attracted to purity. Switters, I rest my case.”