WHEN I d
ecided to move to Thailand, I wanted to be in the hub of things. I needed to get to the airport frequently, but mostly I wanted to be surrounded by the Thai people. I looked at condos that were far away from town and some close to town but in an almost foreign setting. Nice places with lots of Farangs (foreigners), upper class you could say. But I just didn’t care for that type of thing at this point in my life. I wanted to be surrounded by people who were as curious about me as I was of them.
A new culture to be explored first hand.
My Thai friend I have known for years told me he had a condo. I was surprised he never mentioned it. It was in an older building in the middle of a Thai-only area. It seemed nice inside but the outside and neighborhood seemed a little rough.
I thought about it for two years while I was working a job in Taiwan. One day I had the feeling to talk to him about it. I bought the place and flew back and forth from Taiwan to Bangkok every two months and used it as an office. On December 31st 2008, I left my job and permanently moved to Thailand.
At first it was al new but real y quite frightful. I had a good job in Taiwan so I could semi-retire here but fil ing the days up can be difficult and you go through a sort of depression of feeling useless. I had to think of a lot of things to keep us (me?) busy, and we can al get caught in the trap of just sitting around talking to the guys drinking beer and whiskey al day and one day turning into another. That was getting old and driving down my ambition and energy to do anything.
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One of the things I used to do frequently was pul out a table by the sidewalk and drink beer everyday starting at about 3pm until about 7pm, then I would go home and usual y have a few more while I watched a movie. When I first started spending time down there I noticed how bold the rats were. It’s not like you saw them al the time but once in a while I would see one scurry from one place to another. I began to get this idea with the guys that we needed to set up traps or practice target shooting. They do have some electric powered pistols now that shoot plastic bal s that wil actual y take out a rat. Everyone is in favor of it but I think I am the one that has to pay for it.
A few days later I’m walking by my friend’s restaurant that serves pork leg. Chit, the owner of the restaurant was lighting something and putting it over this grate where the rat always pops in and out of.
“Mickey,” he said and grinned.
“You mean Mickey the rat, not the mouse?”
“Yessir.” Chit said in his gentlemanly tone that always gave me a good chuckle. Some people can be funny saying anything as long as they say it in the right tone at the right time. He is Thai but speaks good English. To have a sense of humor in a second language takes some practice.
The fire that burned over Mickey’s house had no effect. The next day I walked by a little shop sel ing odds and ends like knives and mini crossbows and binoculars. There it was right in front of me. It was black polished steel in the shape of a pistol. I glanced at it a few times and kept saying no to myself.
“Is that one of those electric guns that shoots plastic bal s?” I asked. He looked at me with the look that he understood a little of what I was saying and knew I was eyeing the gun. “Gas, BB gun,” he answered. I looked at it again from a few other directions without touching it.
Touching it meant I was serious about buying it. “Wil this take out a rat?”
Another customer was now listening in, so they were both trying to understand what I wanted, and you could tel they wanted to answer correctly but did not quite know the meaning of the question.
“Can I blow away a rat with this?” I showed them about a length of a foot or so between my two hands and tried to describe a rat scurrying around. I felt like a jerk doing this but I was getting better at charades over the years. I think it paid off.
“Yes, can kil rat.”
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I told them thanks, and left with my wheels turning. I real y wanted to plaster some of those bloody rats but how were the other people around me going to react? Save the rat movement? And a BB pel et is metal and could bounce off something and hit somebody and hurt them. Even a plastic bal could maybe have an adverse effect too. There are people at some of these shops around my condo that have cats, and they are afraid the cat wil catch one of the rats and get sick or die. Besides, most of the cats are afraid of them since they are at least half their size. So my plans are on hold but the wheels are stil turning until Mickey is lifeless in the bottom of the dumpster.
I was passing a little shop a few weeks later and saw these smal cages about a foot long and six inches square. A light bulb went on in my head, Mickey’s home! I bought the contraption and brought it back to my complex quite happy with myself. Chit and Pui his wife were starting up their business for the evening and I showed them Mickey’s new home. I was not sure what to do with it when I caught him but I was intent on getting him. Chit took over and set the thing up and used a big piece of pig fat for bait. Pao and his wife had taken the day off so we put the trap in the back at the outside of his shop.
I stuck around and had a soda water then headed upstairs to do some work on the computer and see if I could find anything in English I could read. After a couple of hours, I went back downstairs and Chit told me Mickey was in the cage.
I went over and checked and sure enough there was a large brown rat in there about the size of one of those dogs old ladies put in their purses in America. Mickey was a dirty white colored rat, so I believe we nailed a relative. I took the trap over to Chit and he picked it up and walked over to where al the dumpsters were. I was wondering what he was planning to do. My thought was to tie a rope on it and toss it in the klong (canal) for an hour or so then dump him in the dumpster.
Chit had other ideas. When we got by the dumpsters he started shaking the cage very violently then threw open the front door and threw the rat splatting him on the ground. He regained his composure in seconds and ran drunkenly under the dumpsters.
“I think he has a headache,” I commented.
“I think he wil be dead by morning,” said Chit.
We went back to his place and baited the cage up again and set it in the same place. I went over to Chit’s and scrubbed off layers of skin with soap and went up to bed. Just being close to the vermin made you feel dirty.
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The next day I checked the trap about 10am, but the door was open and the food was untouched. Hopeful y the rat did not limp back to his friends, have a little huddle, and discuss further strategies of getting food that was less deadly. I knew Mickey was a smart one but my plan was to banish him and his friends to a new neighborhood. I figured if enough of his relatives started disappearing, the rest may start looking for a new place to search for food. It would not be an easy task because these rats were street smart and also fearless. I always thought of rats coming out at night but I see these buggers during the day running in between people’s legs like they were cats.
Remember the movie Ben? Michael Jackson singing the theme song? Wel that showed rats in a whole new light. Not only were they smart but also trainable. This kid with al these filthy vermin al over him and the idea of the plague and rabies and countless other diseases never entered his mind. Oh to be young again.
Chit was on vacation for a few days so I waited until he got back before we thought through a new strategy. We had caught one but we both knew it was not Mickey. We baited the trap that night with the same pork skin that the rats and most of Asia enjoy and set the trap in a new place. It was the vendor’s stal next to Chit’s and no one was there, it was al closed up for the night. Disappointment came the next morning when the bait was hanging on the dangling hook. The bait was stil there but seemed a little smal er. Possibly it dried out? Did the rat go in for a little nibble knowing if he got greedy and took it al the doors would slam closed? I was beginning to think there was a rat learning curve we had set in motion.
Just as I was walking across the smal soi (al ey) in front of Chit’s to Pao’s place, I saw a rat scurry under tables and then run across the soi and run under some other places half-hidden. So now it was a game! He had probably spoken to the rat that had suffered some mental damage from us before, and ate just enough pig fat to not spring the trap. Then to real y annoy us he made two runs in broad daylight in front of both Chit and I to show who was the wiser of the species. I wil not be out done by a rat even if I have to plant claymore mines topped with smel y pig epidermis!
Days later and stil the trap has not been sprung. Mickey has presented himself as a worthy adversary from the rat kingdom. We have tried different types of bait and nothing has worked. There is some sort of Stalag 13 for rats, I am beginning to think. Yesterday Chit took the cage and thoroughly washed it so there was no rat smel from the previous occupant. I found a place that was deep frying sausage that if he did eat he would most likely die of cholesterol related il nesses. Not only that, but it did smel rather fragrant for that type of dish so I skewered it on the hook that holds back the spring that slams the door shut.
Stil no luck the next morning, and not a nibble on the tasty tidbit.
That next morning, I headed downstairs again and Chit and his wife Pui were there.
“Mickey is dead,” Chit said with a grin.
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“What do you mean? You got rid of Mickey without me even seeing the bugger in his last remaining seconds?”
“Yessir,” he said with his calm humor.
“Wel , that’s just great! Now I hope there wil be more when I get back? Maybe you weren’t out smarted by a rat but I was. It must have been that greasy sausage I used - he knew it was harmful to his health. You got him on a fish head right?”
“Yessir.” He smirked
“Okay! Wait until I get back and we’l rework this scenario with fish heads. You made sure Mickey was dead right?”
“Yes, a few flaps on the floor and it was over.”
“Okay, so he’s not going to tel any of the other rats not to eat fish heads I hope. They got a little network going that I think we’re homing in on, and as long as there are no survivors to tel the secret I think we’re okay.”
“So you’l be back November 2nd?” asked Pui.
“Late that night so wil probably see you on the third. Depends If I just feel like hitting the sack when I get home. Who knows, I may come down for a soda water. I guess it’s about time. I better be going.”
“When does your flight leave?”
“No idea, I just know it’s usual y around this time when I leave so I forget al the rest. If you had flown this same airline to Taiwan at the same time every day, you just don’t think about anything except when you usual y leave for the airport.
See you in a week.”
When I got back a week later, the Mickey incident had taken a break. Soon after that, we got back on the frenzy and nailed two more that I can say are snuggly in the bottom of a dumpster. I believe when we broke the communications network of the rats, mainly by taking out Mickey and his cohorts, that al mayhem broke loose and none of the rats were aware of what was going on because a serious link in their chain of command was broken. Now the stupid rats were running around with bad intel igence. I knew we could do this, and I hope this technique wil be used al over the world to bring this rodent population back to normal.
Sad to say, three years later I stil see a rat that has the same appearance as Mickey. He is running around laughing at us and has set his network back up. I think he is also getting bigger…
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IT WAS a dream, or maybe it was reality. To this day I don’t know. Dreams and reality can get confused at times, until you wake up.
It was during surgery that it happened. I perceived myself to be awake. I was strol ing around the hospital. No one saw me when I strol ed down the hal s. This might have been because I was looking down at them. I was walking above them, or so it seemed. There was a bandage on the back of my head.
I recal looking down at the doctors just before departing on my exploration.
I was thinking about this as I regained consciousness in the intensive care unit. That’s when the true reality set in. I’m laying here with tubes coming out of different bodily places. And the smel was terrible. This tube in my nose was ful of foul smel ing gas. The taste in my mouth was dreadful. As for the bladder? Wel , that damn nurse should have let me go earlier when I was hoppin’ the fence.
“Nurse!” I yel ed, “Nurse.” I remained there for a long time wondering if they were al out to lunch. I saw activity but nobody looked my way. I hoped I was awake and not making al this up in my mind.
Final y, a nurse came in. “You’re awake. “What can I get you?”
“How about a bedpan? And a toothbrush to get this terrible taste out of my mouth?”
She started to pul the white canvas curtains around me for some privacy and was about to go when I interrupted her.
“And hey, do you think I can get rid of this tube in my nose? It stinks.”
She smiled and walked away.
A few minutes went by and she brought one of the items I had requested. I was having a little trouble with it though. I had never used one of these things before. It took several minutes before I could relax enough to go. I was a bit shy, and being caught with this funny looking urinal in my hand was embarrassing. I was sure everybody in the place could hear me and knew what I was doing.
Just then I heard a voice, “Devin, can you hear us?”
It was mom and dad. They opened the curtain and walked up to my bed. I was caught with the bedpan under the covers.
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Mom came over and grabbed my hand.
I was stil a bit groggy, but she kept squeezing my hand and asking, “Can you hear me, Devin? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
I gave her hand a huge squeeze. She broke out sniffling.
“Hi guys. How’re ya doing?”
“Great, how are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m fine, this tube is bugging me though. It stinks. I asked the nurse for a toothbrush – she stil hasn’t brought it.”
“We’l talk to her.”
Mom smiled and my father left the room, hopeful y to go look for the nurse. I desperately needed a toothbrush.
The next thing I knew I was being transferred out of the ICU and taken to my own room.
It was great to be out of that room ful of sick people and into my own quiet dwel ing. I stil had no toothbrush. They probably thought I was brain deficient after the operation, and that I could choke on the thing. It was a ludicrous idea, but you never know what goes on in a nurse’s mind.
After I was moved, the nurses al left. I was laying there, stil a bit delirious, when Mom and Dad came in again.
They had my head laying in a specific position for drainage. I am sure I was quite a sight with my head half bandaged and tubes coming out everywhere.
Mom asked, “How are you feeling today?”
“Kind of a headache, but overal not too bad, what time is it? How long was I out?”
“You were unconscious for about sixteen hours. They figured you would be in ICU for about ten days, but you only stayed there for ten hours. When you asked for a toothbrush they figured they had underestimated you.”
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I had made it through, now I wanted to know the whole story.
“What did they find?” I was stil a little groggy, but not enough to completely submerge my curiosity. “Mom, tel me what they found.”
“The doctors said it was some abnormal tissue.”
“Yeah, right, everybody’s taking it easy on me. They must think I can’t handle the blunt facts.”
“You should get some rest, honey. Why don’t you go to sleep?”
I must have been extremely tired, I drifted off before I could reply. I was out for a while, but when I woke up I stil felt a bit rough, probably normal after brain surgery. It was a kind of lethargy where I would drift back and forth from dream-state to half-wakefulness. It definitely minimized my worries. No doubt there were some drugs involved in this mental state, but some of the spacey feeling was due to massive fatigue. As long as I didn’t move my head there wasn’t too much pain. When I did, it felt like a head ful of molten lead. I knew there was pressure building up inside. I could feel it whenever the nurses changed the position of my head.
Some people came to see me and awakened me, but visiting hours were over. Everyone was ushered out by the nurses. I was alone, drifting off to sleep again.
When I woke, there was a woman standing in front of me. She was so close to the bed and because my head was immobile, I could only look up and see her mid-section. She was wearing white. The material seemed to be leather. She wore a cross, and made the cross sign on her breast. For some reason I moved my head to see my night stand. On the top of it was a statue. It was an extraordinary statue. It was one of an old lady. She was hunched over carrying a basket. Her eyes were piercing, and her wicked smile accentuated her beak-like nose.
I fel asleep again.
Morning came. I was facing the window now. That was 180 degrees away from the direction I had gone to sleep.
Apparently the nurses had been faithful in their regimen of turning my head every four hours.
I heard the door open. “Good morning honey, how are you? Did you sleep wel ?”
She came around the bed to face me since I couldn’t move.
“Like a log. Oh you see what they brought me? Last night a lady brought me a statue.”
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“Where?”
“Over on the nightstand by my water.”
She looked again, “There’s nothing there.”
“How could you see your nightstand anyway, it’s behind you.”
“I don’t know… but I saw it, and it had a statue of an ugly lady on it.”
Mom checked out the whole room again and said, “I’l go talk to Sister Maurine, she works at night. She’l know.”
A few minutes later my mother came back into the room with a puzzled expression on her face. “I talked with the sister and some of the nurses who were on duty last night.”
“What did they say?”
“They said that there wasn’t anybody who came into your room last night with a statue.”
Maybe I was dreaming al of it. It was possible. But it seemed so vivid, so real, it was hard to think of it as a dream.
“No statue, huh?”
“Wel … I was walking down the hal with the nurse when I noticed a figurine in a little girl’s room.”
“Was it an old woman?”
“Yes. Yes, it was.”
“Did she have a basket and a big nose?”
Mom looked at me quizzical y.
“Yes, she did. Devin, how could you have seen that statue if it was in someone else’s room?”
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That I could not understand. Had the little girl come into my room and brought the statue with her and put it on my table for me to see?
That didn’t make much sense. I was stil unable to turn my head in the direction to see it. Unless she had some type of mystic power that made it possible. I should stay with the dream theory. I might have seen it when I was touring the hospital in my out-of-the-body experience. The mind can play tricks on you. It sounded logical but a lot of things weren’t logical, so I didn’t know what to believe.
“I guess I dreamed it mom.”
“It just seems strange, that’s al . Has the doctor been to see you?”
“Yeah. Doctor John has been in to take a peek at me once in a while. I wish they would bring breakfast earlier. I wake up at the break of dawn then I have to wait hours before I can eat.”
“You’ve always been like that.”
“Yeah, I know. Why can’t people wake up earlier anyway, you know how much of the day goes by while they’re sleeping?”
“Yes, I know. Your father tel s me every morning. Are you comfortable? Can I get you anything?”
“An ice cream sundae?”
“An ice cream sundae! It’s eight in the morning.”
“I know Mom, but I’m hungry, and I hate this thing in my arm.”
“I know honey,” she said, comforting me sympathetical y, “I’l have to talk to the nurses and see what you are al owed to eat.”
Mom had glassy eyes. She had never known me to take an interest in food. I just never felt hungry. “How is everybody?”
“Huh? Oh… everybody is fine. They al send their love.”
I had many visitors during my stay, from my best friend to our insurance agent. It was nice seeing al those people and knowing that they were al thinking about me, even the insurance agent.
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I got better quick. Quick compared to what they expected. I think they expected me to be mostly catatonic. But I was stil in one piece and improving fast. That’s when I started believing in a different force. A supernatural force. One that I didn’t understand because it defied the laws of physics along with a dozen or so other courses held as God’s own truth by academia. It just didn’t make sense, but then it did. There was someone in my room that night, and I don’t think she was from around here; I mean, I don’t think she was from around Earth. There was something about the encounter that made me rule out a dream. It was real! I know I was awake too. That lady, the one who came to me that night was an angel or some kind of messenger.
But I can’t figure out that statue. Why did I see it?
Angels are good supposedly, why would she bring me something so ugly and scary looking? Was it a message? That didn’t make sense. Also there was that catholic sign she did. Why would she do that to me? I’m not catholic.
As I understood from Dr. John everything was removed successful y and it would not return. That was a relief to not go through this again. He said it was the size of an orange. Now I could understand why it hurt so bad. What made it fine at times and then suddenly drive me in such pain where I would pass out after a few hours. Something tipped it off. But what?
I was unusual at that point and used as an experiment that Dr. John knew he could change positively. He only charged $3000 for everything and meeting and checking and testing me in person for years and my family was never charged. I was a success for him and money meant nothing.