White Rabbit
She moved like a cat and smelled like nothing I’d ever smelled before… something like gunpowder mixed with rocket fuel and roses. At a glance I guessed her to be around my age, maybe a year or two younger at the most. As soon as she walked in the bar she became the only person in the room. And she had sat next to me. I smiled awkwardly as she took her stool; temporarily struggling to make my stupid mouth work, and just about managed a “Hey, how do you do?”
She smiled back the way you smile when kids show you their attempts at drawings of… well anything. One of those “oh hey! So, this is shit but… you know. Cool! Trying is cool. Good work there slugger.”
This girl, it appeared, had not come here for the conversation.
“Jack and Coke. Rocks” She said to the bartender in an accent that made me think of cross-Atlantic flights.
She sipped her whisky and coke and stared away from me at the television in the corner, showing some weird Irish version of Lacrosse… Hooky is it? I waited until I could take a discreet look at her face, to get a measure of her… she was slim… short with slightly messy hair that, it seemed, was probably well cut at one point or another. Something about her posture added an air of quiet confidence that belied her diminutive stature.
I couldn’t zero in on it but there was something about her that indicated she could probably handle herself in a knife fight.
I returned to my thoughts for no more than a second when the girl turned to me, hand outstretched and said, “Jules”. I took the hand and stared at her for a split second, still perplexed by her strange gait… and then introduced myself.
Evidently Jules had come to Saigon in search of escape. A life of monotony in America had driven her to deep depression with associated drug use, much to the dismay of her ultra-conservative family. Her mother had insisted she undergo extensive psychological treatment to “rid her of the power of Satan within.”
Utterly incredulous but nonetheless devotedly respectful of her mother’s beliefs and, more importantly, fears, Jules conceded. She submitted to the voluntary drug tests. She attended the support group meetings. She agreed that she would listen to her mother, but insisted that she remained in full control of her treatment.
For months they argued about the efficacy of medicinal treatment for depression, the reliability of the clinics she had been referred to (all private, high-profile, discreet and utterly useless). Jules spent two months touring every facility within a 200 mile radius of the family home.
Eventually both her and her mother were forced to agree that not a single one of the facilities they had visited had a success rate that anywhere near justified the exorbitant rates charged. It was at this point that Jules made a proposal.
Rather than spend 10 thousand dollars on treatment that, in all likelihood was not going to do a goddamn thing, why not spend a fraction of that sending her out to learn meditation and mindfulness in the monasteries of Northern Thailand? It wasn’t a hard sell.
While Jules’ parents were pious believers in the teachings of good old American Jesus Christ they were also, deep down, children of the beat generation… Hippies who grew up, but never completely gave up. Remnants of the 60s peppered their house and a huge picture of the Maharaja with the Beatles still held residence in her father’s study. A reminder of a heritage neither of them were ashamed of.
Jules’ suggestion to go to Thailand also marked the first time in the entire process of seeking help that she had expressed any interest whatsoever in her recovery, having up until that point insisted that she was fine and it was the world that was depressed. Her parent’s took this as a sign that it may be the only thing that she would agree on and bought the tickets the very same day.
She explained this story of hers while locking eye contact and gesturing wildly whenever she hit the highs and lows of the narrative. The way she held my gaze was supremely intense and intensely erotic. I couldn’t look away until the point at which she admitted to taking advantage of her parents too get a free holiday.
I couldn’t fathom how to react to her confessed duplicity in lying to her parents for some reason. Maybe it was because she clearly loved and respected them so much, I don’t know. But it made me feel like I was somehow complicit in something too minor to acknowledge but too wicked to ignore. This feeling of romantic, outlaw complicity came with a lot of new, strong feelings: feelings that I somehow wanted more of. I started imagined a murderous rampage of bank robberies and explosions. Just me and Jules and an arsenal of firearms….
Jesus man. Focus. Stop thinking about rampages and get back on track.
….Anyway, with a compromise reached Jules was soon on her way to Thailand, with a short stop-over in Saigon to visit an old school friend who had wound up teaching here.
She stopped her story abruptly and, sipping carefully on her barely touched whisky and coke turned to me. “And what about you, pilgrim?” a flicker of a smile played on her lips.
“Same as everyone I guess… Fancied a change”
Jules took another sip, maintaining perfect eye contact.
Then, “No.” She let it sit in the air.
“No?”
“No. for one thing: No you can’t just say no after I told you all that.”
“Uh….”
“And secondly, No, it’s not true anyway.”
I narrowed my eyes while attempting to not look too freaked out, “What are you talking about?”
“Oh Mr ’I Fancied a change’? Really?”
I feigned incredulity. “Yes! Didn’t you ‘fancy a change?’ Wasn’t that why you suggested coming to Asia rather than… oh I don’t know… the Betty Fucking Ford clinic or whatever?”
Her facial expression, which until now had been locked in a sort of distant, porcelain irreverence; shifted slightly, with a hint of a smile appearing in the corner of her eyes.
She nodded a shallow nod, slowly and deliberately. Almost sarcastically. “Alright, sure. My point is though that everyone explores the world because they want some sort of change. I guess I can’t contest that, so you win one.
“But my point stands that while that may be true, you can’t get away with saying just that given the level of detail, colour and entertainment value I just treated you to with my story.” Clearly pleased with herself, she took another sip as I put my glass down, ready to interject.
I was too late though, she snapped back in,“And in any case, I don’t believe a word of it. Most people don’t go exploring looking like that. People go running looking like that. And I could see the signs of a man on the run all over you from the moment I walked in.”
I turned a little more to face her, being careful not to appear too confrontational. “What do you mean?”
“It’s the way you dress… shows you only just got here. The way you look to the door everytime someone comes in, you’re scared of something… you keep peeling your bottle label…. Frustration…. And in any case, its kind of a numbers game. I mean 80 plus percent of expats in this hell hole are on the run from something or other, be it women, kids, drugs, crime, taxes… whatever. So don’t worry hun, if I’m right, and I daresay I am, you’re in the majority around here.
I had to hand it to her. She was good, and I had nothing to fire back with. I pursed my lips, flared my nostrils and raised my eyebrows in what I hoped expressed something along the lines of a ‘its just another whacky adventure!” stopping short from waggling my hands like a vaudeville minstrel.
Judging from Jules’ expression I probably looked more like I was trying to swallow a lightly spoiled oyster. I tried to move the conversation forward.
“OK… sure. Maybe I am. Should that be a surprise though? Wouldn’t any sane person want to run away from the hellish reality of the UK as it stands?”
“Hey, don’t ask an American about hellish realities. We’ve got you Trumped.” She was very pleased with her joke, barely able to stifle her laughter. Jules was clearly a fan of puns. I raised a toast in honour of her shit attempt at humour, and also, somehow, in commiseration for the terrible state of her country… she met it with a clink that very nearly broke both glasses.
“Escape is important man. I’m not judging, just observing. Look at it like this. If it weren’t for people looking to escape bullshit in your country way back when, there’d be no America. You go further back and, there’d probably be no anything.
“People trying to find new stuff across oceans, over mountains and into space is what drove us to where we’re at today. No one got anywhere by accepting bullshit.”
She let it hang in the air in what I was starting to pinpoint as a tic of hers.. some sort of trademark dramatic pause…. This time I joined her in saying nothing. Then she turned to face me, holding her glass for another toast.
“To escaping bullshit!”.
She downed the rest of her whisky and coke in what seemed like a second and then bolted up, grabbing my arm as she rose.
“Come on”
“What… Where?”
“Elsewhere dummy, lets have some fun”
She grinned at me and tugged at my forearm as I drank the rest of my drink.
She was trying to hold a serious look on her face, which I met with equal solemnity. We kept it up for all of two seconds before bursting into laughter and stumbling out of the bar and into the crisp night air.
More here… https://medium.com/@rinseandrepeat/down-the-rabbit-hole-c21c26c6627a#.3nawpkx68
