Cue in the theme song from The Twilight Zone as this has to be the most surreal incident I've witnessed in Thailand.
The scene: a bar in Thailand.
The time: the recent past, late at night.
Into the bar walks a middle-aged Caucasian male, short of stature, balding, with a bit of a paunch. He's wearing sandals, cargo shorts and a green T-shirt. Not a physically imposing figure, but no worse than thousands of other farang men who visit LOS bars every night in the never-ending pursuit of booze and women. He hasn't taken ten steps into the bar before he's confronted by a girl who had been sitting near the entrance. She blocks his forward progress and yells at him, using an abrupt index-finger pointing gesture to punctuate her words.
I'm seated about ten meters away and can't hear what's being said because of the background music, but I have a clear view of the action. Given her facial expression and animated body language, there's no doubt she's very angry. The farang looked bewildered at first, but then anger washed across his face as well. He's shaking his head in a vigorous "No." He makes a dismissive motion with his hands and seems ready to try to push past the girl.
Four more girls jump up and form a five-girl line with the angry girl at the center. They were diminutive in size, but I had no doubts they'd be a formidable as the defensive line of the New York Giants if push came to shove. One held a beer bottle behind her back. If I had had any telepathic powers, here's what the outnumbered farang would have heard me projecting into his mind: "Make it right, assh*le. You're about to get a beating. If the girls can't take you, the male staff sure as hell will." But the farang appeared oblivious. Faced now with five girls, he looked even angrier and was gesturing for them to stand aside. Had he touched one of them, he'd have certainly gotten the bottle across his head.
At that point, the mamasan reached the beleaguered farang and ordered the girls to sit down. I've known that mamasan for years and she's an expert at smoothing things over. Just like St. Nick, she was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, and I'd laugh when I saw her in spite of myself. All smiles, she approached the farang and took his hand in a reassuring manner. He seemed relieved and happy at her arrival, but it became immediately obvious the situation hadn't been resolved.
The farang's expression turned angry again and he pulled his hand free from the mamasan's. He shakes his head "No" rapidly again, then looks over his shoulder, as if he's about to leave the bar. A few more words exchanged with the mamsan, a bit more head-shaking from the farang and he turns on his heels to exit the bar. A shout goes up from the girls and three of male door staff step into the bar, looking very serious indeed.
Finally the realization hit the farang that he was knee-deep in some heavy shit. He must of reassessed his likelihood of leaving the bar unscathed as he glumly returned to talking the mamasan, although I sensed his heart wasn't in it any longer. But her words, however unpalatable, were a better option than taking on three Thai males in a physical confrontation.
All this happened very quickly in real time; not more than a couple of minutes had passed since he entered the bar. I still had no idea what had caused the commotion. My best guess would be that it had something to do with payment either to the bar or the girl. What else could it really be? On the other hand, why the hell would the farang go back to a bar where he had a beef? It was a bit of a mystery.
And I had a choice to make. My beer was almost finished, so I could either do the smart - call chek bin and get out before any real trouble started - or order another beer and await the denouement of the farang's predicament. As I said, the mamasan and I had been friends a long time and I was sure, for the price of a drink, she'd tell me what had happened.
At that point, the farang manager entered the bar and the mamasan motioned him over. The mamasan broke off and left the two farang to sort things out between the two of them. She noticed me sitting there and came immediately over. As I suspected, for a drink she was happy to fill me in.
The pudgy farang had been in the bar the night before. He'd paid the bar fine for the girl who had confronted him and agreed to her price for a long-term session. According to what the girl told the mamasan, nothing unusual had happened until she was supposed to get paid. The customer had gotten two rounds - one at night, the second in the morning - and seemed well pleased with her services. But when it was time for him to open his wallet, he wanted to give her less than half of what he'd agreed to the night before. He felt the girl was trying to cheat him, but since he'd done his research, he knew "the right price" and he wasn't going to give her more than that.
The girl had, of course, argued the point with him that morning, but to no avail. It finally ended when he threatened to call security to have her removed from his room if she didn't leave with the money he was prepared to give her. She decided she couldn't win and went home, bitter and disappointed over the money she'd gotten. I don't want this to turn into the 10,754th discussion about what's proper compensation for the girls, so I won't name any sums. Suffice it to say the guy is very optimistic if he thinks his price for L/T is an acceptable one.
OK, I had the background, but the big question remained: why the hell had he come back to the SAME BAR from which he had taken a girl he cheated the night before? Was it simply a case of the farang not being the sharpest blade in the box or was something else involved?
My attention shifted back to the customer and bar manager. They seemed to be having an amicable enough conversation, although the customer looked a bit worried. He shook his head "No" again a few times, but then shrugged his shoulders, took out his wallet and peeled off a few bills. He held them out to the manager, who didn't touch them, but called over the aggrieved girl and she accepted them. I couldn't see if any more words were exchanged. The farang lumbered out of the bar with no more dignity than a defeated orc.
Once the farang had cleared the curtains, the girl rushed to hug the manager. With a smile a mile wide, she did a little victory dance on the way back to her friends sitting by the door. Clearly, it had been important in many ways for her that she got the money she felt she deserved.
So far it had been a fairly mundane story. Punters try to cheat the girls every day; some even become cult heroes when they're successful. It's unfortunate, but also a reality of P4P in Thailand . Despite all the stories of moto drovers or even cops collecting money due to the girls, it doesn't happen often. Talk to any working girl in LOS and she'll tell you she's been gipped out of all or part of her fee at least once. Whether she gets cheated a second time depends on how cautious- and accurate - she becomes in picking customers who won't do it.
The strange part had to be the farang's return to the bar. I still couldn't figure that one. But then something weirder happened that made me hear the "Da dee da dee" notes of The Twilight Zone's theme song: the bar manager had collapsed in a fit of laughter on the first row of the bench seating across the room. He was laughing so hard I thought he'd bring up a lung. What the hell could be so funny? Obviously, it had something to do with what had just transpired, but there was nothing farcical about it that I'd seen. The customer had been persuaded to pay what he owed; nothing inherently funny about that. The mamasan had joined the manager and she was also roaring with laughter.
I decided the only way I'd ever find out would be to ask the manager. I'd said hello to him a few times, but had never talked with him. Of course, he could tell me it was none of my business, but then I wouldn't be any worse off than I already was. I was hoping the mamasan's presence would work in my favor, since she had known me a long time. I stuck my courage to the sticking place, walked over and introduced myself to the manager. I asked him if he'd mind telling me what was so funny, adding that I'd understand if he couldn't.
He shook my hand and motioned for me to sit down. He was struggling to bring his laughter under control and wiping tears of mirth out of eyes. I asked him if he and the mamasan wanted drinks, but he said that wasn't necessary and he'd buy me one instead. Then he told me what had occurred with the customer that had caused so much hilarity.
He said that he'd already heard earlier in the day from the mamasan about the customer who had cheated one of the girls. When he reached the bar that evening, the door staff had informed the same customer had come back, but was refusing to pay the girl the money he owed her. The manager had entered the bar half expecting to find the customer in a pool of blood on the floor, with five or six girls stomping him with stiletto heels. He was relieved to find there had been no violence, but the customer's obtuseness surprised him. The man simply couldn't understand that he'd done anything wrong. The manager had tried and tried and tried to explain to him that if he agreed to a price, that's what he had to pay. He couldn't cut the girl's fees after the fact.
But the customer insisted he'd done the right thing. He felt the girl had tried to cheat him by demanding more than what he regarded as "the right price." He couldn't grasp that "the right price" is one to which the girl and her customer agree. He was convinced there was one overriding correct price and anything above that was an attempt to cheat the customer. He felt he'd "stood up" to the girl by not giving her what in his opinion would be an excessive amount. The manager replied that the girl had asked no more than she usually got, but the customer insisted it was too much.
The manager realized he was casting down a dry well. He told the customer no matter what he believed about prices, he was obliged to give the girl the money to which he'd agreed. It finally dawned on the customer that he wouldn't be leaving the bar until he paid and he had begrudgingly handed over the deficit from the morning.
Having resolved matters about as well as he could, the bar manager was nonetheless intrigued by the man's stubbornness and asked him how he could be so certain he knew the right price. The customer answered - hear, punters, now and tremble - that he had read it on Internet boards. Moreover, he'd read that the bar girls respected customers ":who knew the right prices" and paid them accordingly. He couldn't understand the hostility the girl and others had expressed simply because he'd known how to play the game. He'd expected to be welcomed that night as knowledgeable customer who wouldn't put up with any bullsh*t. Instead, he had gotten a lot of hassle. Turns out the guy was a first-time visitor, but was trying to act the part of an experienced hand based on information gleaned from a few punter-board posts.
The manager said he had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping to the floor and not to p*ss himself with laughter. He managed to keep a professional demeanor until the guy left the bar, but had then exploded with laughter. He said he couldn't get over the sheer stupidity of anyone thinking that cheating a bar was the right thing to do, then going back to the same bar expecting to be greeted as a hero! He said he'd wished he'd been able to warn the guy that if he had pulled that stunt with another girl in a different bar, he might have spent the remainder of his vacation in a hospital bed, but doubted words of caution would have made an impression.
While I understood the humorous aspects of the story, it seemed more spooky than funny. Flying saucers, ghosts and store mannequins that come alive in all honor, it's far scarier to think that the real-life actions of even one person are guided by anonymous posts on a punter board.
"You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sex and money but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the P4P Zone!" The customer in the above story could have had a life-changing experience that wouldn't have been of the imagination but because of an overactive imagination.
Bottom line: If you agree on a price with a girl and she lives up to her end of the bargain, make sure you live up to yours. And don't by any stretch of the imagination, Twilight or P4P Zone, believe everything you read on the punter boards.
Evil