Bangkok Haunts

and cautious at the same time, “and it may be a long shot, but there’s a rumor going around the clubs about a snuff movie with a masked man and a Thai whore. I tracked the story down to a
katoey
who’s famous all over Soi Four for having a HiSo lover.”
    The shantytown at Klong Toey is our biggest and in many ways our tidiest. Most of the huts are of similar size and height and the narrow walkways are kept
riap roy,
or spic and span, in true Thai style. There’s plenty of extreme squalor, of course, if you want to look for it, but generally people are getting on with their lives in near rent-free accommodations, which can be handy if you want to do a course in higher education, are a professional girl nearing the end of her shelf life, prefer recreational drugs to reality, or just plain hate work. Lek has been here before and takes me down a path that follows the railway track, with the endless line of wooden huts on our right: scratching dogs, shy cats, naked kids getting bathed in oil drums, teens with orange and green hair, families eating together in the cool of evening. “He’s an artist,” Lek explains. “That’s why the HiSo master likes him. I came to a party here once. Actually, he’s totally
ban-nok,
worse than me, but he has this creative streak, so he gets these upmarket lovers.”
Ban-nok
translates roughly as “country bumpkin” but is a lot more insulting. We stop at a front door that bears a magnificent dragon in scarlet on black. “See what I mean?” There’s a playful element in the rampant posture, the feminized, elongated claws, the malicious grin.
    “It’s very well done,” I say, which makes Lek beam with pride at
katoey
talent. He knocks on the door. “Pi-Oon, it’s me, Lek.” No answer, so Lek knocks harder. “He likes to smoke ganja, all artists do. Never touches anything else, not even alcohol most of the time, but he can go into a dope-trance for days.” Embarrassed in front of me, he knocks more aggressively, then, muttering
Fucking katoey bitch,
fishes out his cell phone. He speaks into it using his Isaan dialect based on Khmer, sounding much like a whore in a temper. “I told him I was bringing you,” he says, folding the phone and putting it away. “Now he’s all shit-faced from the ganja.” Then he offers me a pained smile. “He’ll open up in a minute. He has to get back from the moon.”
    Finally we hear sounds of life from the other side of the door. A couple of bolts are drawn back, and he opens a crack. Then he reveals himself in his full glory, wearing only a pair of cycling shorts: a surprisingly bony, masculine face with purple eyeshadow and lipstick, long ink-black hair drawn back in a ponytail in the ancient way, and a magnificent tattoo of a chrysanthemum adorning his hairless chest, where two small new breasts are budding. His gestures are exaggerated in the tradition of his tribe, but there’s something else: it is not difficult to believe there is a real woman behind the prizefighter’s features. When he drops the
katoey
posturing, he can seem genuinely female.
    “Darling,” he manages, and bends forward from the hips to allow Lek to peck him on the cheek.
    “You’re stoned,” Lek chides.
    “I’m in the middle of a major work, love. I need the meditation aid.”
    “This is my boss, Detective Jitpleecheep,” Lek says with a slight pout.
    “
Ever so
pleased to meet you,” Pi-Oon says, and beckons us inside.
    Now I’m thinking:
Gauguin.
Pi-Oon has used those same tropical purples, morbid mauves, and old golds to adorn the walls and roof of his wooden hut with images of
katoey
nightlife. A cabaret star with similar features to his is holding a microphone in the centerpiece of a triptych. I realize that every human depicted in his work is a transsexual. I’m most fascinated, though, by the frisson of his big boney tough-guy face, which seems to beg for love and tenderness. He gestures at the floor, which is unencumbered by furniture save for a few cushions. We all sit in semilotus with our backs against the wall. “We’ve come about the snuff movie,” Lek says, still irritated.
    The words cause a dreadful pain to corrupt our host’s features. He places a palm against one cheek, his eyes great bulbs of horror. “Oh my Buddha, oh my, I never thought it was
real,
you know.” Looking at me: “It’s was only when Pi-Lek told me you were investigating that I thought, oh, oh, oh, Pi-Oon has got himself into hot water here.