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Dundee and his gang threw me on the back of a motorcycle and herded me down to what would turn out to be the actual border minutes later. I went along literally for the ride, trying to assess what options I had, if any. That’s when I saw what was really waiting for me.
When I first laid eyes on them, an alarm sounded in my head. I recognized this as the same alarm that had gone off when I was a boy and two men in a van tried to abduct me and my brother. It had also once sounded when I was mugged on a dark Seattle street. It was loud. I definitely couldn't ignore it.
There were about seven of these guys. Some of them had their Khmer scarves wrapped around their heads. I looked over and saw that Dundee was sporting his as well, with his hands raised as though he'd just scored a goal. It had to be a signal of some kind.
As I passed these men, I was venturing into the no-man's land between Cambodia and Thailand known as Poipet. They stared at me and sized me up, oblivious to the fact that I was finding them all increasingly suspicious.
All of a sudden, as though they could sense my apprehension, they pretended to be deeply preoccupied with their cell phones. This was easily another one of the worst performances I'd ever seen.
FUCK THIS.
I heard one of the thugs laugh and say something – the only word of which I recognized was "Farang." I assume the guy was speaking Thai, but it could have been Cambodian. From the tone and the laughter, the sentiment was pretty obvious:
"Whiteboy scared".
I soon found my way inside the Thai Customs building (an actual real government building, not a fake one). I had no idea what to do. These guys had already put their stamp of approval on Slick’s paperwork. Obviously I couldn’t trust these assholes. If I lost my cool or freaked out and asked them for some kind of help, the chances were they'd just hand me back to my Cambodian tour guides. My pulse was now pumping off the charts. I tried to look calm and collected in silly backpacker attire and fading wanderlust.
I remember staring at the faces of the Thai custom's agents, subtly trying to spot bad performances. They were definitely in on it. What would they do if I called them on it?
It was becoming eerily clear how very few moves I had left. The devil wasn't just walking next to me, he was in front of me, behind me, stamping my passport. There was no point in calling anyone on any of it. They'd just shrug their shoulders and say something in Thai that I couldn’t understand.
Dundee began demanding I stop screwing around. There was a taxi waiting for me with a bunch of supposedly hot undocumented working girls and I had to catch it. I'd been hoping maybe he'd forget about me and find some other unsuspecting whitey to stuff in that taxi – someone who wouldn’t take up so much legroom – but no such luck.
The Thai Customs officials didn't seem too bothered by Dundee's insistence. They did, on the other hand, begin to look busier than usual. I asked them if they knew this guy. I asked if I could trust him.
That didn't help Dundee's mood at all, but it was the only move I had.
The Thai agents shrugged their shoulders, sputtering things in Thai I couldn't understand—sometimes vouching for Dundee, sometimes not. I considered screaming "HELP ME! CALL THE US EMBASSY!", until I realized these guys would probably just bury their heads even deeper into their paperwork and that Dundee would only grow more and more angry. It didn't help that the border was closing in five minutes.
Deep down though, I knew nobody working there would ever make that call. They were just as in on the operation as anyone else. There is no real government entity working on behalf of its citizens in Poipet. It’s a sham, all of it.
By this time, there were no more Thai tourists crossing the border. It was just me, Dundee, and the Thai customs agents with their time-honored tradition of stamping away human lives. My heart sank. I really had no choice but to follow Dundee back out into the night and try to pretend that I really believed he was taking me and these women where we wanted to go. That our dreams of Angor Wat Elephant Rides or making it as a karaoke host in Rotterdam were still viable realities.
"Richard, why do you do that to me?" Dundee implored.
I tried explaining that it was late at night, and that I don’t trust anyone I just met this late at night, anywhere. In retrospect, I can't believe I was that honest with him, but I was hoping it would make it seem like I wasn’t worried. I didn’t want him to know just how scared I was.
I began to notice more guys on cell phones. Every step I took into the six hundred or so yards of the no-man's land between Thailand and Cambodia was met with more and more guys on cell phones stepping out of the shadows. They were following me.
It was then that I stumbled upon something even more absurd.
Casinos.
An Asian mini-Vegas wasn't exactly what I'd expected to find out here. The first casino I passed caught my attention immediately. It was like walking through a desert and finding a day spa. I didn't get it. The guide book never mentioned Casinos. Where the hell was I again?
It was there that I noticed something else. Young, very attractive women stumbling around with drunk Thai men. I'd seen this in Bangkok.
Prostitutes.
Poipet was beginning to remind me of Mos Eisley, where Obi-Wan and Luke Skywalker went to ask the smuggler Han Solo to take them to Alderaan. What was it that Obi-Wan said about the city?
"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."
That’s Poipet - the Mos Eisley of planet earth.
In some ways, Mos Eisley is much more a real place than Poipet. The fact is this part of world doesn’t really exist. No country claims the surly contents of the unincorporated six hundred yards of no-man's land between the borders of Aranyapratet, Thailand and Poipet, Cambodia. It's a free-for–all in every sense of the term. The main thing driving its existence is that it gives the Thais a place to gamble, since gambling is illegal in Thailand. It also allows the Thai mafia to launder money through the casinos – making it a win-win for everyone involved.
And of course the Cambodian Mafia knows how lonely a Thai man can get on one of his gambling adventures abroad. They make sure he is never alone, sort of a sluts-for-slots package deal. He never even has to leave the casino.
On the other hand, if he gets his kicks below the waistline at about knee level, he’s welcome to visit a place known as the "chicken farm" and buy sex with a child for about the same price as a Big Mac. In fact, Poipet has the highest number of 10 year olds with HIV anywhere on the planet. It might be a Disneyland for pedophiles, but hardly for the children forced to surrender their bodies there.
One does have to leave the casino to go to this place, since there are a number of Thai families that stay in Poipet's casinos from time to time—but it's only a matter of walking a few hundred feet. During daylight hours, old European and American men apparently stop by this joint as well. So some Farang sightings do happen in Poipet, along with the occasional border runner during the day. But at night, everyone—even Thai tourists—know to stay indoors. It’s just too dangerous and irreputable to go outside. The Casinos offer a bubble, an oasis to Poipet’s true horrors. It seems as if everyone visiting there just makes peace with it on some level, as long as they don’t have to really see it.
So a Farang at night is a real rarity and seeing one roaming around after dark can mean only one thing: you won't be seeing him for very much longer.
There I was, each step another star performance in my own disappearing act. I passed another Cambodian checkpoint, filled out a bit more bullshit paperwork, and pushed onward. By this time, I couldn't count how many shadows crept beside me. At one point, LaRusso even growled at me. Like a wolf. It was primal. He and the others used this wolf pack mentality to guide me further into their territory. I would guess it's the same tactic they use to herd undocumented female workers into a cab, or to steer a couple of cute college co-eds toward the end of their backpacking trip. It definitely works.
I turned around and stared LaRusso down, to show him I would fight if necessary. I wanted him to believe his growl didn’t scare me, though it certainly did. It worked. He looked away. This bought me a few more seconds. I mad-dogged the others as well. Some would turn their heads away and pretend to be taking a casual night stroll. Others would mad-dog me back, sinister grins across their faces. Most of the guys weren’t very big, but they had strength in numbers. There wasn’t a single person around who would lift a finger to help me. My only strategy was to try not to show them fear. It was a very surreal moment...a strange check-mate in progress where neither side really knew how to close the deal and take the Queen for good.
My Thai language ability was just good enough to know that some of them were talking about me on their cell phones. A few were evidently having legitimate conversations after all. But it didn't make me feel better. I could hear them describing my height, which direction I was heading.
More laughter.
"Where's the taxi?" I asked, trying to pass myself off as more of a disgruntled yellow cab customer than a terrified kidnapping prospect.
"Just a little further." Dundee said.
All I saw before me was more jungle road and endless darkness.
"Where's the tourist police?"
That made him think for a second.
"Right over there, Richard".
I spotted a guy selling barbecued pig intestines, but that was about it. Maybe he did work for the Tourist Police, and he was just moonlighting as a evening swine tripe salesman. I’ll never know. Clearly Dundee's main objective was to keep me moving further and further into the shadows, away from the protective neon glow of the Casinos, to a place where my screams would not be heard over the roar of slot machines and blackjack wins.
More laughter. They knew it was only a matter of time. They closed in.
At this point I was tempted to curl up in the fetal position. It's a very primal sensation. You feel it in your stomach and in your legs. I could sense my thumb wanting to work its way into my mouth as well.
My intuition told me this was it, it was over. If I turned around in an attempt to go back, it was pointless. Nobody would help me. There were no legitimate law and order options. I had reached the end of this life, essentially offering up my head on a silver platter to the very same people who might have taken it in the previous one. I had made it that easy for them.
At the same time, though, something very special happened. Something I hadn’t counted on. At about the same time the year before, I had started chemotherapy, and had been forced to face the fact that I may very well die. That moment in time had taught me that no matter what happens to you, you still have a choice in how you are going to respond to it. You can, if you choose, decide to give in to the fear and give up. I had seen others do make that choice and they soon died—long before some had even begun their treatment. Once the soul checks out, the body soon follows.
You can instead choose to not let fear guide your life but embrace it as an opportunity. An opportunity to say "fuck you, I am going to give it a shot anyway." You'd be surprised at what blessings await you when you don't succumb to the darkness. You always find a hidden treasure.
I think I somehow derived a certain confidence from my cancer experience, a certain fearlessness. It's not a death-wish, just a certain acceptance that even though bad things are going to happen, you should always keep going. You will surprise yourself.
What all this adds up to is that I didn't give a damn anymore what these guys wanted me to do. I had had enough. My people pleasing days were over. If I was going to disappear forever, I wasn't gonna keep going a-hop-skippity along with it.
I stopped, turned around, and started walking back, fully expecting to be stabbed in the process. I really didn't care at this point.
