The day starts early again. Very early. Not so bad
really. It’s not a part of the day that I get to see very often, and if you
have to watch the sunrise, an island in the Gulf of Thailand isn’t a bad place
to do it.
It occurs to me, as I’m drinking my hideous instant
coffee, that I have been on the island for days, and haven’t even thrown my
body into the ocean yet. This is an indication of how distracted and stressed I
am by the spa, because the ocean is renewal for me. It continues to be a
mystery to me that a boy who was born in the prairie and raised in the arctic
north can have such a love affair with the ocean. The ocean is where I am truly
happy. The only place where I feel that I am complete. I have said many times
that when I step into the ocean after a long absence from it, it feels like a missing part of myself returns, every atavistic gene in my body reveling in being returned to its birthplace in the primordial ooze. It is a spiritual
experience for me, which is why I am so surprised at myself for not doing it
sooner.
Since Aiman is not chasing his cats around the pool
this morning, there is nothing holding me back from taking a dip in the sea
before the day takes me over. I finish reading my blogs, finish my tragic
instant coffee, and jump on my scooter.
I park my scooter outside the spa and walk across
the road to the beach. The beautiful thing about Chaweng being a party town is
that the beach is deserted in the morning, most of the tourists having only gone to bed a few hours ago. There is the occasional jogger, the
odd Thai fishing boat, but mostly, the beach belongs to me, a vast expanse of
sand stretching miles in either direction.
Sadly, at this hour, on this day,
it is also low tide, so even after wading in the direction of the open ocean
for a few minutes, the water is only up to my thighs. I give up on trying to
reach neck-deep water and lay down in sweet, healing, emerald green liquid. I
close my eyes, and breathe, and search my mind for that peace the usually comes
so quickly. Alas, I am too distracted, too focused on the tasks ahead of me to
let go completely. It occurs to me that it’s a bit like bad sex. You really
want it, but for whatever reason, it’s just not going to happen like you hoped
it would. And, as in the case of bad sex, it’s best to just admit defeat and
move on. So I do.
I pick up my scooter from the spa and drive
to a furniture store that Ajay told me about. I want spa clients to be able to
lock their personal belongs away because Ajay has had problems in the past with
staff stealing money from clients. I had checked for lockers at the Makro Cash and Carry,(an institution for small business on Samui) but the only option there was an 18-locker unit, which is a bit
ridiculous for a spa with 3 treatment rooms. And I certainly wasn't about to spend 8,000 Baht !!!
The furniture store, the name of which I can neither
pronounce nor spell, is run by an odd, yet charming Burmese guy. He has wide
selection of lockers that are more suited to my needs, and they come in a
variety of sizes and colours. Perfect. I choose a 4-door model, in green to go
with the spa colours, and ask if they can deliver it if I supply the address.
They offer, instead, to load my purchase into a motorcycle with a side-car, and
follow me to the spa, all included in the price of course. Having my purchase
follow behind my scooter makes me feel more 'local' than ever before.
We arrive at the spa, purchase bouncing merrily in the side-car, and I tip the delivery guys a few hundred Baht and send them on their way. After finding the
perfect position for the lockers, outside the shower room, it is time for my
assessment-massage with Mr. Jay. Once again, I am pleasantly surprised at the
quality of massage I receive. Mr. Jay has good hands, and does some really
brilliant things to the muscles in my legs. My only complaint is that he uses
WAY too much massage oil. At the end of the massage, I feel like I’ve been
prepped for Turkish Oil Wrestling. (Google it)
With the help of my new friend Patrick (Thai name,
Surasak), who is a fluent Thai/English speaker, I gather the boys to give them
my feedback on their massages. Mr. Pat has no English at all, and Mr. Jay
understands only a little. PP is doing
his best to look managerial whilst sitting in on the meeting, pen and paper in
hand.
Once the assessment meeting is over, PP seizes the
opportunity to use Patrick as translator, and asks if he can tell me some of
his future plans. He lays out his plan to get a credit card system installed,
free of charge, his plans on how banking and cash flow will be handled in the
future, his plans to increase business etc. All of this is admirable, and most
of it quite sensible, but it does seem odd to me that these plans should be
presented now, knowing, as I do, that PP already called Ajay to ask for a job.
It smacks of a desperation. I wonder if he has even thought about the fact Ajay
may have informed me of this, or perhaps he thinks that because Ajay
and I argue we don’t talk about other things. As I have still not yet had the
chance to talk to Mr. Nut, I tell Mr. PP that I will consider everything he’s
presented. And I also let him know that tomorrow, it will be his turn to give
me a massage. He pales.
Once again, it is after 5:00, Pride Bar is open, and
I have not yet had a cocktail. I park my exhausted ass in a bar stool and, once
again, enjoy some social time, some wine, and some of Patrick’s (Surasak’s)
delicious, home-cooked Thai food. (Soooooo yummy).
We, Ajay & I, have arranged another meeting with Mr. Nut
at Ajay’s spa. I depart from the bar and head over to Ajay’s place, praying
that Mr. Nut shows up this time. When I arrive, as we wait for Mr. Nut, Ajay
continues to tell me small bits of gossip he’s heard about PP. How he always
seems to have a lot of gold jewellery, how he would allow people to believe
that he was the owner of Sai Roong, how there was an incident with a customer
complaining about stolen money, which PP never told me about. The more I hear about PP, the more I feel that a shit-storm is coming.
Once again, Mr. Nut does not show up. This does not help my increasing frustration and agitation. I tell Ajay to tell Mr. Nut that tomorrow is his last chance to redeem himself, to tell his story, to perhaps even win his job back because things are going to be changing.
In the name of therapeutic self-medicating, I return to Pride Bar and immerse myself in noise, friends old and new, and in the constant game of trying to get away from crazy Terry, who is still calling me Sally for some reason.
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