Swimming to Cambodia (1987)

1. Saturday, June 18th, 1983.

2. Waihin, Gulf of Siam, Thailand.

3. It was the first day off in a long time,

4. and about 130 of us were trying to get a little rest and relaxation

5. out by this pool at this very modern hotel

6. that looks something like a very modern prison.

7. Something like the prisons people or private prisons people

8. are investing in here in the United States instead of hotels.

9. Something like a pleasure prison.

10. A kind of place that, say, if you were taking a trip to Bangkok

11. and you took a side trip down to Waihin,

12. you might come and stay at this hotel,

13. but you probably wouldn't go off the grounds

14. because of the high barbed wire fence around the hotel

15. to keep you in and the bandits out.

16. You probably wouldn't even go down to the Gulf of Siam

17. because of the dogs, some of them rabid,

18. that tend to intimidate you and drive you up against a wall

19. until you learn to pick up a piece of seaweed,

20. shake it in their face, and everything is hunky-dory.

21. And it was the first day off in a long time,

22. and the Thai waiters are running and smiling

23. and bringing us more closter, closter, closter beer.

24. Everyone is ordering the closter.

25. No one is drinking the local beer,

26. which is exported to the United States,

27. because they say it has formaldehyde in it.

28. And the Thai waiters are running and jumping and smiling,

29. and they can't get to us fast enough,

30. and there's a saying that says

31. the Thais are the nicest people money can buy.

32. And it's not a silly smile, it's a deep smile,

33. because they have a philosophy, sanug.

34. Sanug, loosely translated, means fun, pleasure.

35. And they don't do anything if it isn't sanug.

36. And they ask you first, and if it isn't sanug,

37. they won't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

38. Also, another idea that may have to do

39. with the rather radical Thai Buddhism,

40. after they have the sanug,

41. they don't have to suffer for it afterwards.

42. And it was the first day off in a long time,

43. and some of the British crew had the good sense or bad sense,

44. depending on how you look at it, to buy women

45. as soon as they arrived in Bangkok.

46. I heard each man bought two,

47. so he wouldn't risk falling in love

48. when it came time to leave.

49. And there the crew were like these 250-pound beach whales

50. out by the swimming pool desk,

51. lying there with these skivvy little chickadees,

52. 90-pound, in from the country in two-piece bathing suits,

53. walking up and down on them, giving them shiatsu.

54. And it was the first day off in a long time,

55. and the Thai waiter is running to jump over hedges

56. to bring us more Closter beer.

57. And all of a sudden, the waiter trips, falls,

58. the Closter beer is full,

59. and explodes on the cement by the pool.

60. And the waiter looks up with a great smile and says,

61. Sorry, sir, we've just run out of Closter.

62. And Ivan, devil in my ear,

63. Ivan Strasberg, head of the second camera unit,

64. a bit of a Mephistophelian figure,

65. gray-beard, handsome man, South African,

66. comes up to me and says,

67. Spalding man, hey, there's a party tonight

68. up at the Gulf of Siam.

69. One of the workers' mother's got a summer house up there.

70. Hey, could I borrow your toenail clippers, man?

71. Sure.

72. Come on over.

73. And do you want to smoke a Thai stick, hey?

74. Should I bring some marijuana, man, hey?

75. Sure.

76. Why not?

77. I mean, it's a party.

78. After all, I hadn't smoked any marijuana since I've been...

79. Every time I am in a country

80. where the marijuana is supposed to be so good,

81. you know, India, Mexico, Northern California,

82. now Thailand,

83. I always feel that I should try it, you know?

84. Maybe this time it would be different.

85. Maybe this time I would experience a sense of well-being

86. like everyone says they do,

87. you know, a sense of rest and relaxation,

88. be able to sleep even.

89. You see, it tends to unlock my kundalini in the worst way.

90. It gets stuck there in my lower chakra there like a snake,

91. like a fist, like a snake shaking its tail,

92. like a studebaker stuck in sand.

93. I thought, maybe I'll give it a try this time.

94. I thought, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait a minute.

95. I better speak with Renee first before I do it.

96. Renee, my girlfriend, was over there visiting me for 14 days,

97. and I had made a promise, a commitment, you see,

98. is to return, as soon as the film was over,

99. to return to her because we had rented a cabin

100. for the summer in upstate New York,

101. in Krumville, New York, you know,

102. K-R-U-M-V-I-L-L-E.

103. And let me tell you, Krumville, New York,

104. was looking less and less interesting to me

105. the longer I was in Thailand, you see.

106. The other thing was that I hadn't had a perfect moment yet.

107. And it's very important for me to have perfect moments

108. in exotic countries like that, you know, I always like to have them

109. because it gives you a good sense of closure, you know,

110. kind of lets you know when it's time to go home.

111. And you never know when you're going to have a perfect moment.

112. I mean, the best had a long, and you never know when you're going to have one.

113. Look, I had a vision of myself by now

114. as a kind of wandering, bachelor, mendicant poet,

115. wandering all the way down the beaches of Malaysia,

116. eating magic mushrooms all the way as I went

117. until I reached Bali, evaporating in a state of ecstasy in the sunset.

118. But I wasn't telling Renée that.

119. But she could see that my will, or what was left of it,

120. was beginning to vacillate, and we fell into a fight

121. on the way to the party at the Gulf of Siam,

122. and we were fighting all the way, and we got there to the Gulf of Siam,

123. and it was exquisite, you know, unlike the Hamptons,

124. where you have a boat and a bigger boat,

125. and then a ship and a bigger ship, and desire, and a carrot,

126. and a carrot, and a carrot, and desire, and desire, and desire, and desire.

127. There was nothing to buy out there in the Gulf of Siam.

128. I mean, it was like one big piece of calendar art.

129. I just said, look, look, look, Renée, look at this beautiful sunset.

130. Please stop with the arguing.

131. I might be able to have a perfect moment right now

132. when we could go home together.

133. But she was very confrontational.

134. She always wanted to talk about what was going on in the moment,

135. in the relationship, not about perfect moments, what was going on,

136. and we fell into a fight, and she began crying,

137. and we were fighting, and we went back to our separate corners.

138. Renée went to Julian Sands, who was consoling her.

139. She was crying on his shoulder.

140. I went to Ivan in my corner, devil in my ear,

141. Ivan Strasberg, who said, Spalding, man,

142. don't let her get the upper hand in this argument.

143. I mean, after all, what's she going to do, man?

144. How many straight single men your age are

145. that are left in New York City anyway?

146. I said, Ivan, no.

147. And boom, pow, we went back at it again from our corners

148. and began to clash, and Renée said,

149. all right, I'll give you an ultimatum.

150. Either you give me a date when you're coming home,

151. or you marry me.

152. I said, all right, July 8th.

153. I'll be home by July 8th, and now it was time to make up.

154. Now it was time to have the pleasure, because in our culture,

155. first you suffer, then you have the Sanug.

156. That's the order of it.

157. So now it was time to have the pleasure, and we went down by the Gulf of Siam,

158. and now it was dark, and the party sounds were in the distance,

159. and the waves were lightly lapping, and there we sat, Ivan, Renée, and I,

160. and Ivan lit that tie stick and passed it down.

161. I had no idea how strong it was.

162. I took a few mild tokes.

163. And closing my eyes, this overwhelming wave of anxiety came over me.

164. And with my eyes closed, I could see this pile of black and brown shit

165. steaming on the edge of a stainless steel counter,

166. and I knew that shit represented all the negative energy in my mind,

167. and I could see a string going from my third eye to that shit,

168. and I knew all I had to do was simply pull my head and have done with it,

169. pull all that negative shit off the edge of the counter,

170. and as I was pulling, I saw beside it a bubbling pile of pastel energy

171. that was floating and connected from tendrils that went from pastel to shit brown,

172. and I realized the pastel energy represented all the positive energy in my mind,

173. and that if I pulled a negative off the counter, I would pull the positive with it,

174. and I'd be left with nothing but a stainless steel counter.

175. And all of a sudden, the counter turned into a tunnel

176. that I was going down at the speed of the Santa Cruz roller coaster

177. right toward the center of the Earth.

178. Aaaaah!

179. I knew I was getting healthier this time.

180. The tunnel wasn't black. It was gold leaf,

181. and the gold leaves were parting like an iris.

182. Ei-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!

183. Until I couldn't stand the speed of it any longer,

184. and I pulled back and grabbed the beach and let out with a great,

185. oh, oh, oh, huh,

186. leaving that for Ivan to interpret.

187. I had no idea where I was.

188. Maybe in Southeast Asia.

189. I didn't know ratty palm trees in the different distance.

190. I mean, it felt like I was in a demented Wallace Stevens poem

191. with food poisoning.

192. Renee, I had no idea where Renee was.

193. Maybe going back to Krumville, maybe for a walk.

194. I saw in the distance what looked like Thai Girl Scouts

195. dancing around a bonfire.

196. Gals holding hands, not an hallucination.

197. I had the clear sense that if I got in that circle

198. and held hands with them, I would be healed.

199. I would be whole.

200. I would be back in time again.

201. And I got up and I began to stagger like a Bowery bum,

202. like a drunken teenager, like a fraternity brother

203. I've never been before in my life.

204. And all of a sudden I realized I was gonna be very sick.

205. And I pulled off into a far corner of the beach

206. and up it came like a wretched Thai dog.

207. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.

208. And as the vomit came up, I covered it over with sand.

209. And the sand turned into a black gauze death mask

210. that flew up and covered my face.

211. So be vomit, cover sand, mask.

212. Vomit, cover sand, mask.

213. Vomit, cover sand, mask.

214. Until I looked down and saw that I'd built

215. my entire corpse out of sand.

216. And my face was staring back at me.

217. And my teeth were cutting through the rotting lips.

218. And my ribs were coming through the decomposing flesh of my side.

219. And Renee was standing over me going,

220. what's wrong, hon?

221. I said, I'm dying.

222. That's what's wrong.

223. She said, oh, gee.

224. All this time I thought you were having a good time

225. building sand castles.

226. She was at a distance.

227. They carried me out in that drunken classic Jesus sailor

228. pose.

229. One arm over one man, one over the other, feet dragging.

230. And I was mortified.

231. Because the following day I was supposed to do

232. my big scene in the movie.

233. What pisses me off is that this country has a lot of faults

234. and a lot of strengths.

235. And we have done nothing but play to the faults.

236. I'm telling you, Sid, I will be damn glad to get out of here.

237. This thing is dragged on too long for it

238. to end in all sweetness and light.

239. And after what the Khmer Rouge have been through,

240. I don't think they're going to be exactly affectionate

241. toward Westerners.

242. In February of 1983, I met this incredible British documentary

243. filmmaker, Roland Joffe, very intense man,

244. a combination of Zorro, Jesus, and Rasputin.

245. Body of Zorro, heart of Jesus, eyes of Rasputin.

246. And he'd been sent over by David Putnam, who was producing

247. a film called The Killing Fields.

248. And he'd sent over two cast for actors.

249. And he was seeing people, and he was burning.

250. He was doing all the talking.

251. I was listening for 45 minutes.

252. He talked.

253. He burned with his story.

254. I listened.

255. 45 minutes, he told me about the story of the film.

256. It was about a New York Times reporter, Sidney Shanberg,

257. who was covering the American secret bombing of Cambodia

258. for the New York Times, and his sidekick, Dith Pran,

259. a Cambodian photographer, and how they were curious

260. to see what would happen when the Khmer Rouge marched

261. into Phnom Penh, and how after the American embassy

262. was evacuated and Dith Pran sent his wife and children

263. out with the American evacuation, Sidney Shanberg

264. and Dith Pran fled to the French embassy to hide out.

265. And the Khmer Rouge came in and sent all Cambodians

266. out of the French embassy, or everyone dies.

267. And they sent Dith Pran out to his certain death.

268. The only one that didn't give up hope was searching

269. with Sidney Shanberg, and he searched for years

270. until he located Dith Pran in a Thai refugee camp.

271. And now Dith Pran is working for the New York Times.

272. I said, wow.

273. That's an incredible story, you know.

274. It's so hopeful, it sounds like someone made it up.

275. I'm going to tell you right now, I would do anything

276. to be in your film.

277. I don't even know what roles you're looking for,

278. but I want to be really straight with you.

279. I'm not very political.

280. I don't know anything about secret bombing,

281. and in fact, I've never voted before in my life.

282. And Roland says, perfect.

283. We're looking for the American ambassador's aide.

284. But I can't promise you anything.

285. I have to go out to the coast to cast out there.

286. We have to see how the whole puzzle shapes together.

287. I'll be back in the city in three months' time.

288. We'll chat again then.

289. And I went out and I thought, you know,

290. I want to be involved in this project

291. more than any other project I've almost been involved in.

292. But what can I do?

293. I'm going to tell you, part of why I gave up

294. professional acting was I got so tired of waiting

295. for the big indifferent machine to make up its so-called mind.

296. I wanted to have some influence over my own destiny,

297. my own life, you know.

298. But I wanted to be in this film.

299. I thought, what can I do to influence?

300. I mean, the first thing that occurred to me was prayer.

301. And I thought, mm, Spalding, it's been so long.

302. You know?

303. So the next thing that came to me was that old rational voice

304. that we all know so well, you know?

305. Well, if I get it, I get it.

306. If I don't, I'll do something else.

307. You know, after all, I can still see and walk.

308. And as my mother always said,

309. think of the starving Koreans, right?

310. So I was trying to think of the starving Koreans,

311. but my pre-conscious irrational voice was not behaving so well.

312. It set up this kind of ritualized magical thinking.

313. I mean, it started innocently enough.

314. I literally could not go out of my apartment

315. until I turned my little KLH radio off on a positive word.

316. You know?

317. I was there all morning some days.

318. The stock market is rising.

319. I could go out.

320. Consider moving Marines to safer positions.

321. I could go out.

322. Or you may go to a doctor who belongs to the AMA,

323. but it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to the best.

324. I could go out.

325. And as I went out, I found that I was turning the doorknob 3 times.

326. 3s became a crucial, very important, magical number.

327. I was going 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2,

328. and knocking on wood when I could find wood.

329. Bop, bop, find wood, 6 sets of 9, and 6 and 3 and 9,

330. snapping on my way to the supermarket to buy soup.

331. You know, 6 sets of 9, 9 times every third can was fine.

332. The first 2 cans of soup had botulism, you see, or cyanide.

333. And I thought, you know, Spalding,

334. you're going to end up in the insane asylum

335. before you get the role in the film.

336. And it was around about the time that the little king took over.

337. I don't know if you know him, the super ego figure,

338. not exactly my best friend.

339. And the little king said, Spalding, if you will,

340. something I also knew nothing about,

341. if you can will this magical thinking to stop,

342. this act of will will be the supremo, supremo thing

343. that will get you the role in the film.

344. So around about the time I was developing A Will,

345. I was asked to do my monologues out in Hollywood,

346. and I was doing it in a small theater out there.

347. I got good reviews.

348. And Warner Brothers Television saw the reviews

349. and asked me to come in and read for a sitcom.

350. I said, well, please, you know, come and see the monologue.

351. You'll get a better sense of what it is I do.

352. And they said, well, we'd love to,

353. but we go to bed early out here.

354. So can you please come in in the morning?

355. So I came in and read for the sitcom,

356. and the Lord works in strange ways.

357. And as soon as I was going outside that office,

358. then there, there was Roland Joffe,

359. who was costing for the Killing Fields

360. because Warner Brothers was putting money into it,

361. and he was using their offices.

362. And he said, let's chat again.

363. So I went home and put on my tie and jacket,

364. and I came in, and once again, once again,

365. Roland burned.

366. He did all the talking for 45 minutes.

367. I listened.

368. This time he was talking about Cambodia,

369. what a fantastic land it was,

370. why it was Shangri-La before it was colonized.

371. He said it was incredible.

372. He said Thailand was like a Nordic country

373. compared to Cambodia.

374. They're right next to each other.

375. And he said that 90% of the land

376. was owned by the people.

377. It was earth, it was dirt,

378. but it was theirs, and it was good.

379. And they knew how to have a good time.

380. They knew how to have a good time getting born,

381. a good time growing up,

382. a good time going through puberty,

383. a good time falling in love,

384. a good time staying in love,

385. a good time getting married,

386. a good time staying married,

387. a good time having children,

388. a good time raising children,

389. a good time growing old,

390. a good time dying.

391. They even knew how to have a good time

392. on New Year's Eve.

393. I couldn't believe it.

394. The only thing was that Rowland said

395. because it was such a beautiful country

396. that they had lost touch with evil.

397. Something like the Indian tantric colonies

398. on the east coast of India, B.C.,

399. they got so open and tantric and loving

400. that they were totally defenseless,

401. and the Huns came down and ate them up

402. like chocolate-covered cherries.

403. Now, Rowland said that the Samoans,

404. which also have a beautiful culture,

405. did not risk this because they had

406. ritualized tattooing,

407. in which they initiated their children

408. to pain in a ritual.

409. I didn't know what he was talking about.

410. My eyes are rolling in my head.

411. I mean, I was trying to get a fix on Cambodia

412. all the time I was talking.

413. I thought I knew where it was,

414. and I didn't even have a map of it in my mind.

415. There it is.

416. About the size of the state of Missouri.

417. Rowland told me that in 1965,

418. it had about 7 million people

419. in the entire country,

420. 600,000 in the capital, Phnom Penh,

421. lovely freshwater lake right in the middle

422. of all sorts of recreational activity,

423. fishing, more seaports along the Gulf of Siam here.

424. Then Rowland told me that in 1966,

425. that happy, sexy, sax-playing prince,

426. King Sihanouk, maybe because of his Buddhist tolerance,

427. allowed the Viet Cong to put some few sanctuaries

428. along the border here.

429. Now, the American Air Force was very upset about this.

430. They had a theory that the sanctuaries

431. were being controlled by a central headquarters

432. up here in the jungle.

433. A central headquarters about the size of the Pentagon.

434. Maybe even a replica of the Pentagon.

435. And if they thought we could just send

436. some B-52s over from Bangkok here,

437. don't bother to tell the American public.

438. Just a few raids would take care

439. of the central headquarters,

440. and they had a secret meeting at breakfast time

441. at the Pentagon,

442. and they called it Operation Breakfast.

443. And at the secret meeting,

444. they came up with the menu.

445. And here is a map of the menu.

446. Now, it's a bit of an odd diet.

447. Remember these bombers,

448. the American bombers are coming over from Bangkok

449. six miles up like airborne holiday inns,

450. and they're dropping their bombs by computer,

451. and they come over, and the first stop

452. is this sanctuary for supper.

453. Then around the Parrot's Peak for breakfast,

454. this sanctuary.

455. Then up for dinner.

456. Then dessert, a snack,

457. and then shooting straight up to where they thought

458. the central headquarters was for lunch.

459. Now, Roland told me this had a reverse effect

460. on the Viet Cong.

461. Instead of driving them back into Vietnam,

462. it drove them further into the Cambodian jungles

463. where they hitched up with this weird bunch of rednecks

464. headed by Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge,

465. and the Viet Cong began to teach the Khmer Rouge

466. how to fight.

467. Now, no one knows how they got so weird up there.

468. They were eating barks, bugs, lizards, and leaves

469. up there for about five years,

470. basically going wacko.

471. Now, there are some theories.

472. One is, Pol Pot was educated in Paris.

473. In his strict Maoist doctrine,

474. someone threw into the soup a perverse bit of Rousseau,

475. which put him over the edge

476. and made him worse than Hitler even.

477. A back-to-the-land, pure agrarian racist ideology

478. with no Jewish other to get, you see.

479. The only other they had was the urban other,

480. the city dweller here in Phnom Penh.

481. So you have to imagine,

482. it's something like 200,000 rednecks

483. rallying 90 miles upstate in New Paltz,

484. about to move in in New York,

485. eating barks, bugs, lizards, and leaves.

486. Also, I think Pol Pot was in competition with Father Mao.

487. He wanted to have a pure cultural revolution,

488. alleviating all intellectuals except for one, Pol Pot,

489. and not have any socialism in between,

490. a pure communist revolution.

491. Now, while all of this was going on

492. and they were rallying up there,

493. Sianuk, that happy, sexy, sax-playing prince,

494. was out of town for the day,

495. and there was possibly a CIA coup.

496. It was a coup.

497. No one's sure exactly who inspired it,

498. but I can imagine.

499. And suddenly, Lon Nol is in office.

500. All of a sudden, in a day.

501. Now, no one in America knew anything about Lon Nol.

502. The press didn't know anything about Lon Nol,

503. except Lon Nol spell backwards, spell Lon Nol.

504. Now, while this was going on,

505. and again, leave it to a Brit to tell you

506. about your own history, I didn't remember this,

507. our President Nixon was developing his madman theory

508. on the banks of Key Biscayne,

509. with Bob Haldeman saying,

510. Listen, Bob, just let the rumor get out

511. that I've gone mad.

512. And the Viet Cong will stop their bombing

513. because they'll be so sure

514. I'm going to press the green button.

515. And while he's developing his madman theory,

516. he was taking military advice

517. from B.B. Roboso and John Mitchell,

518. and watching reruns of Patton starring George C. Scott

519. on his bedroom wall over and over again.

520. Now, while this was going on,

521. and again, leave it to a Brit to remind me

522. of my own history, Kent State occurred.

523. Certainly I remember Kent State to my dying day,

524. but I'd always lumped it in with the Vietnam War.

525. I forgot that it had to do with the Americans,

526. specifically American invasion of Cambodia,

527. and it was a lovely May day.

528. Granted, the kids were burning down

529. the ROTC training building,

530. and it was a lovely May day,

531. and Governor James Rhoades just happened to call out

532. the Ohio National Guard,

533. who happened to have live ammunition in their gun,

534. and they opened fire on the students.

535. Fifteen were shot.

536. Four innocent bystanders killed.

537. This caused enormous dissension in America.

538. 100,000 protesters marched on the White House.

539. Hague had troops in the basement of the White House

540. thinking there was going to be a siege.

541. Nixon didn't get any sleep that night.

542. He was up, he made over 50 phone calls.

543. Eight to Kissinger, seven to Haldeman,

544. one to Norman Vincent Peale, and one to Billy Graham.

545. And after one hour's sleep, he got up and put on

546. Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1 on the record player,

547. and with his Cuban valet, Manolo Sanchez,

548. he went down to the Lincoln Monument

549. to talk to the protesters about surfing, football,

550. how travel broadens the mind.

551. In fact, one student said,

552. I hope it was because our president was tired,

553. but when he asked me what school I was from

554. and I told him, he said,

555. how's your team doing this year?

556. Now, the Cooper Church Amendment went through.

557. This was supposed to stop any close ground support troops

558. in a country where there was an undeclared war,

559. I.e., Cambodia.

560. But I found out only two years ago

561. that we are not living in a democracy

562. and that the president is commander-in-chief

563. of the armed forces and could bypass the Senate

564. and Congress to give orders for war,

565. and he did, he said, continue the bombing.

566. The only thing he did do was say

567. no more American close ground support troops

568. more than 21 miles into Cambodia.

569. Now, how they were controlling this, I don't know,

570. whether the troops had odometers on their legs or what,

571. but more than 21 miles, you turn into a pumpkin

572. or you had to head back.

573. Now, someone had to go over to Phnom Penh

574. and tell Lon Nol of this new ruling.

575. Haig went over, broke it to him.

576. Lan Nol saw the downfall of Cambodia,

577. the writing was on the wall.

578. He turned to the window and wept openly in front of Haig.

579. Haig went back and reported this public weeping,

580. and they sent over a team of psychiatrists

581. to examine Lan Nol and came back with a report

582. that he was a vague, unstructured individual,

583. that he used astrological, folkloric,

584. and occult references in his addresses to the nation.

585. If you can imagine such a thing, I can actually.

586. Something like, my fellow Americans,

587. I'm not going out for the next two weeks

588. because my moon is in Gemini type thing.

589. Now, the Cooper Church Amendment went through

590. and this bombing went on for 5 years.

591. The Supreme Court never passed any judgment on it,

592. and the military speaks with pride today

593. that 5 years of the bombing of Cambodia

594. killed 16,000 of the so-called enemy.

595. That's 25% killed, and there's a military ruling

596. that says you cannot kill more than 10% of the enemy

597. without causing irreversible psychological damage.

598. So 5 years of bombing, a diet of barks, bugs, lizards,

599. and leaves up in the Cambodian jungles,

600. an education in Paris and Varennes

601. of strict Maoist doctrine with a touch of Rousseau,

602. and other things that we will probably

603. never know about in our lifetime,

604. including perhaps an invisible cloud of evil

605. that circles the Earth and lands at random

606. in places like Iran, Beirut, Germany, Cambodia, America.

607. Set the Khmer Rouge up to carry out

608. the worst auto-homeo genocide in modern history.

609. Whenever I travel, if I can do it,

610. I'll travel by train,

611. because I like to hang out in the lounge car.

612. People tell me fantastic stories there.

613. I think it's because we figure we'll never see each other again.

614. I mean, for me, the Amtrak lounge car

615. is like one big rolling confessional.

616. Last year, I was on my way up from New York City to Chicago,

617. and this guy comes up to me and says,

618. Hi, I'm Jack Daniels, mind if I sit down?

619. I said, no, I'm Spalding Gray, have a seat.

620. What's up, Jack? Oh, nothing much, I'm in the Navy.

621. Oh, really? Where are you stationed? Guantanamo Bay.

622. Oh, where's that? Cuba. Oh, I should have known that, shouldn't I?

623. What's Cuba like? I've never been down there.

624. We don't get into Cuba, man.

625. We get free flights down to the Virgin Islands any time we want.

626. What do you do down there? I get laid.

627. Oh, really, you go to horse, too?

628. Are you kidding? I never paid for sex in my life.

629. I get picked up by couples. I'm into that, you know, threesomes,

630. triangles, pyramids, there's power in that.

631. I could see what he was talking about.

632. He was cute enough, I could see how someone would pick him up.

633. He was in his civvies, though, he wasn't in his Navy outfit,

634. but he had a nice little bod.

635. The only kind of weird and demented thing about him,

636. it was that his ears hadn't grown.

637. They were like these little pasta shells.

638. I mean, it was as though his body had grown,

639. his ears hadn't caught up yet.

640. So I say to him, so where are you off to, Jack?

641. Pittsburgh. Really? What's up there?

642. My wife. Oh, how long's it been? A year.

643. Oh, I'll bet she's been doing some swinging, too, herself.

644. She's been waiting for you all this time?

645. Oh, no, I know her.

646. She's got fucking cobwebs growing between her legs.

647. But I wouldn't mind watching her get fucked by a guy

648. once I get up there, as long as I can watch.

649. I wouldn't mind that at all.

650. Really? You mean, you're going...

651. Now, let's go over this again.

652. You're coming all the way from Cuba to Pittsburgh?

653. No, man, I'm not stationed in Guantanamo Bay anymore.

654. I'm stationed in Philly. Philadelphia? Really?

655. What's going on there? Can't tell. No way, man.

656. Top secret.

657. Oh, come on, Jack.

658. Top secret in Philadelphia? You can tell me.

659. Nope, no way.

660. And he proceeds to have five more rum cokes,

661. and he tells me that in Philadelphia

662. he is chained in a waterproof chamber,

663. down there with his right arm chained to the wall,

664. sitting next to a green button

665. that goes to a waterproof silo in this ship

666. with a nuclear missile in it and a nuclear warhead on it.

667. And he's down there, high on blue flake cocaine,

668. a new breed up from Peru that the Navy doesn't test for.

669. And he's down there, high on lots of coffee and blue flake cocaine,

670. just waiting with those earphones on his little ears,

671. waiting for a message to fire his rocket at the Russians.

672. And I just turned to him and said,

673. Why waterproof?

674. I mean, I just thought with the details and work out,

675. I could have started with, Why a green button?

676. And he goes,

677. Waterproof, man, waterproof.

678. You ask, Why waterproof? I'll tell you why waterproof.

679. When my ship sinks in an ocean, any ocean, anywhere,

680. I'm still chained down there in that waterproof chamber.

681. I press that green button, it activates that rocket,

682. it goes up out of its waterproof silo, up, up, up, up, up.

683. I get a fucking erection, man,

684. every time I think of firing a rocket at those Russians.

685. We're gonna win! We're gonna win!

686. We're gonna win this fucking war!

687. But I like the Navy, man. I got to travel everywhere.

688. I've been to India, I've been to Africa, I've been to Sweden.

689. I fucking didn't like Africa, though, man, I don't know why.

690. Black women just don't turn me on.

691. It's not that I'm prejudiced or nothing like that, man.

692. Now, here's a guy, if the women in the country don't turn him on,

693. he misses the entire landscape, you see?

694. He just turns into a big fuzzball, a black hole,

695. that he steps through that comes out the other side of the world.

696. In Sweden, I fucking love Sweden, man.

697. You get to see real Ruskies there.

698. They're moshed in at gunpoint, they're allowed two beers,

699. we drink all the fucking beers we want.

700. We're drunk on our asses, man.

701. We're over there yelling,

702. Hey, Ruskies, what's it like in Moscow this time of year?

703. We hire Swedish whores to go over and put their heads in their laps.

704. You should see those fucking sweat, man.

705. They're stupid! You know, they got liquid fuel in their rockets.

706. That rocket's a rusty, they're gonna sputter, they're gonna pop,

707. they're gonna land in our cornfields.

708. I said, Jack, Jack, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait.

709. Haven't you been reading the literature?

710. I mean, really, it's bad enough if the rockets land in the cornfields

711. with the radiation and everything.

712. No, you don't understand anything, man.

713. The Russians are stupid people, they are backwards.

714. Do you know that on their ships,

715. they don't even have electrical intercoms?

716. They still speak through tubes.

717. Suddenly I had this enormous fondness for the Russian Navy,

718. for the whole of Mother Russia,

719. the thought of these men like innocent children

720. speaking through empty toilet paper rolls,

721. empty paper towel rolls,

722. where you could still hear doubt, confusion,

723. brotherly love, ambivalence,

724. all those human tones coming through the tube.

725. Jack was very patriotic.

726. Hey, I forgot it exists.

727. I thought it was on the cover of Time and Newsweek only.

728. It's still there if you take the train up from New York to Chicago.

729. Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant.

730. Jack stands up and salutes and sits back down.

731. Now I can tell you, I felt to some extent

732. like I was looking my death in the face.

733. I'm not making up any of these stories I'm telling you tonight.

734. Except for one.

735. Except for the fact that the banana sticks to the wall when it hits.

736. That's the only one. Everything else is true.

737. Now I figure if Jack is making up this story to frighten me,

738. if he wasn't down there in that waterproof chamber then,

739. he's probably down there now.

740. If he's white, he's in the Navy, and he wants it enough, he can get it.

741. So I am trying to talk him out of it.

742. I'm making a small stand.

743. I'm saying, listen, listen, Jack, you don't want to do it, right?

744. Look what happened to the guy that dropped the bomb in Hiroshima.

745. He went crazy. You don't want that to happen to you, do you?

746. He goes, that asshole?

747. He was not properly brainwashed.

748. I, he says with great pride, have been properly brainwashed.

749. And also it's a nuclear destruct club, man.

750. It's a brotherhood of fear.

751. It's a whole bunch of people pressing those buttons, not just one.

752. I said, I know, Jack, but if a whole bunch of you press those buttons,

753. you're going to blow up the world.

754. You don't want that.

755. I mean, think of all you have to live for.

756. Here I was hard pressed.

757. The blue flag cocaine.

758. Getting picked up by the couples.

759. Blowing away the cobwebs between your wife's legs.

760. The Swedish whores.

761. Any of that.

762. He said, I'm not going to die.

763. I said, how do you know?

764. We got pubs.

765. Everything was abbreviated.

766. What are pubs?

767. Pubs are Navy publications that tell them where to go to avoid the radiation

768. after all of us have been vaporized.

769. And at that moment, I pictured him actually down under in Tasmania

770. starting a new, small-eared, red-faced, pea-brained humanoid race

771. after all of us have gone.

772. And I thought, you know, the mother needs a rest.

773. Mother Earth deserves a long, long rest with no people on her.

774. Maybe if we're lucky, after all of us have been vaporized,

775. Jack will end up in Africa.

776. He could see I wasn't exactly on his side.

777. It was subtle, but he could see it.

778. And he turned to me, and he was starting to get a little pissed,

779. and he said, listen, Mr. Spalding.

780. I think by now he's calling me Gary Spalding.

781. You would not be doing your, what is it you do again for a living?

782. Your talking cure.

783. If it was not for me and the United States Navy

784. protecting you from the Russians taking over the world.

785. I thought, wait a minute.

786. Wait a minute. Maybe he's right.

787. Maybe the Russians are trying to take over the world.

788. Maybe I'm the one that's brainwashed.

789. Maybe I've been hanging out with liberals too long.

790. Maybe I'm deluded.

791. Maybe all this time I thought I was a conscientious pacifist.

792. I was really just a passive-aggressive, unconscious coward.

793. I mean, and like any good liberal,

794. I should question everything, right?

795. So I should question this.

796. For instance, when did I last make a stand?

797. Just stand up, for instance,

798. let alone for the United States of America.

799. Every time I try to think of the United States of America,

800. I get the cold sweats.

801. I can't even look at a weather map anymore.

802. It's too big.

803. That's part of why I moved to Manhattan.

804. I wanted to move to an island off the coast of America,

805. somewhere between Europe and America

806. with only 17 million people and clear boundaries,

807. outlines, something you can get a grasp of.

808. My girlfriend, Renee,

809. her upstairs neighbor is a member of the art mafia.

810. She first got involved with it

811. when she was working for the man

812. that defaced the Guernica and became famous for it

813. and now has galleries all over Soho.

814. Now she has her own gallery.

815. She plays her quadraphonic torture box full blast above us.

816. Every night, it's Bob Dylan's Sarah.

817. Something must have happened to her way back then,

818. and she really, I know it could be worse,

819. but every night, it's unbelievable.

820. It's like you're in the room with it.

821. I mean, if it was just 1.30 in the morning, fine.

822. It would be like feeding time.

823. You could get through it, but it's diabolical.

824. It's 1.36 in the morning.

825. It's 2.10 in the morning.

826. It's 3.15 in the morning.

827. It's 4.11 in the morning.

828. What do you do?

829. You call the police.

830. They come, she turns it down.

831. They leave, she turns it up.

832. They come, she turns it down.

833. They leave, she turns it up.

834. I mean, she's up there.

835. She gets these guys in from the Midwest

836. that want to become rich and famous in a year,

837. make five-figure number here in Soho.

838. They come in, they're sleeping in sleeping bags on her floor.

839. Whenever we complain, she sends them down,

840. and they go, hey, look, man, New York is party city.

841. That's why we moved here, you see.

842. You can have parties on weeknights.

843. Now, if you don't dig it, you should move to the country,

844. old man.

845. I go back.

846. I'm trying to practice my Buddhist tolerance,

847. which in New York City could be translated

848. to one big escapist rationalization, right?

849. I mean, I'm turning all my cheeks to the wall at this point.

850. Renee is not practicing Buddhist tolerance.

851. She's walking up and down.

852. She's got steam screaming out of her navel.

853. And there are people that say we should start a collection

854. to hire a vigilante to off this woman, to kill her.

855. And I find I'm not saying no.

856. That's how New York has changed me.

857. I'm willing to put money into the pot.

858. I mean, listen, listen, listen.

859. When I was back in Boston in 1964 with my people, right,

860. white bread, homogeneous brick wall Boston,

861. back in 1964 when they had the, what would you call it then?

862. It was a hi-fi.

863. If a hi-fi was on too loud above me,

864. I would simply make a phone call.

865. I would just call up, pick up the phone and go,

866. Hi, hi, Puffy, hi.

867. Hi, it's Buddy Gray down here.

868. Hi, guys.

869. Yeah, just a few notches.

870. I wouldn't ask you to do it,

871. but I got an early dance class in the morning.

872. Right.

873. Yep, thanks a lot, Puff.

874. Mm-hmm.

875. Merry Christmas to you too, guys.

876. Bye.

877. Write down.

878. We had the common language.

879. You know, Renee, Renee's father was in the Jewish mafia.

880. She knows the language.

881. She grew up in the streets of New York.

882. She calls up and goes,

883. Bet you wanna die, right, bitch, cunt?

884. I'll beat your fucking face in with a baseball bat.

885. Bitch, cunt, die, die, die.

886. Goes louder.

887. Renee's convinced the woman's a masochist

888. and is getting off on the language.

889. So the other day, I am walking out of her loft.

890. I have an empty Molson Gold bottle in my hand.

891. I don't know, I guess I was going to get my nickel back.

892. And I am seized with these party sounds upstairs.

893. I'm taking, I'm not out of control.

894. It's a classic Greek rage.

895. My head and gut are completely balanced.

896. My gut is wrenching with butterflies.

897. My head has that old adage,

898. that old ticker tape going across the fur, you know,

899. that old adage, all weakness tends to corrupt,

900. impotence corrupts absolutely.

901. And I just took that bottle and, zoom, hurled it.

902. It went up two flights of stairs, it exploded, boom,

903. glass everywhere like a glass hand grenade.

904. They charged out with their bats and guns.

905. I ran.

906. Because it was an act of passion,

907. I forgot to tell Renee I was going to do it.

908. And she was way behind me picking up plastic garbage bags.

909. So by the time she got to the door, they caught her.

910. But they didn't do anything because she was innocent.

911. She had no idea what they were talking about.

912. And they recognized this innocence,

913. so they didn't kill her.

914. So there's hope.

915. But I say, how does a country like America,

916. or rather, how does America,

917. because certainly there's no country like it,

918. begin to find the language to negotiate or talk

919. with a country like Russia or Libya?

920. If I can't even begin to get it with my people

921. on the corner of Broadway and John Street.

922. So I got the role.

923. And I went to Bangkok.

924. And I arrived, a 200-year-old city in a swamp,

925. and sinking 110 degrees, I get a letter under the door

926. that says, welcome, Spalding Gray Esquire,

927. the British spoil you rotten.

928. They refer to all the actors as artists.

929. The AD goes, would the artist please get on the helicopters?

930. Would the artist please jump off the cliff?

931. Would the artist please?

932. I mean, they will get you to do anything that way.

933. Now, the first big scene of the film,

934. or rather my first big scene,

935. which felt like the first big scene,

936. was here in Bangkok, outside of Bangkok.

937. Remember, we are reenacting the events of April of 75

938. that happened in Phnom Penh, but we are doing it in Bangkok.

939. And the first big scene for me is the reenacting

940. of the evacuation of the American Embassy in April of 75.

941. And I am there with the man that's playing the American ambassador,

942. Ira Wheeler, interesting man.

943. He was vice president of Celanese Chemical,

944. and someone saw him singing in the Glee Club here in New York

945. after he retired, and they put him in the Killing Fields

946. thinking he'd look like the American ambassador,

947. so he's beginning his film career at 64 years old.

948. He's playing the American ambassador, John Gunther Dean,

949. who was the last American ambassador in Phnom Penh,

950. was flown out, now is American ambassador of Thailand in Bangkok.

951. John Gunther Dean.

952. I've met politicians before, but I've never met statesmen.

953. This man was a noble, noble man,

954. a combination of a ship's captain, we'll say the QE2,

955. and a boarding school principal, let's say Phillips Andover Academy, right?

956. He said, We saw Cambodia as a ship floundering in heavy seas.

957. We wanted nothing more than to bring that ship safely into port.

958. When we saw we weren't going to be able to do that,

959. we wanted to go off her with dignity.

960. I cut down the American flag you see here behind me

961. and wrapped it in plastic over my arm,

962. and sure enough, there was Ira Wheeler playing the American ambassador

963. running with the American flag wrapped in plastic over his arm,

964. me, the American ambassador's aide, running beside him,

965. headed for the Cadillac limousine.

966. The first thing that happens when you get there is that the air conditioner breaks.

967. Then the electric windows break, the radiator boils over,

968. and the entire exhaust system is dragging on the ground by the end of the day.

969. I am laughing, I find this very funny.

970. Ira is not laughing, he is sweating.

971. This man sweats like-a, like-a, like-an Ira, I would have to say.

972. They are changing his shirt.

973. He is back there in a slough of despond,

974. because for the first time in his life he's studying Stanislavski in acting,

975. and he's brought the textbook An Actor Prepares and Building a Character,

976. and he's trying to do an emotional memory

977. because the director, Roland Joffe, has told him to look like he's on the verge of tears,

978. and he's trying to be on the verge of tears all day,

979. just in case they turn the camera on.

980. He is in a slough of despond in the backseat

981. thinking about something awful from his past.

982. Up until then we've been friends, now he's not talking to me.

983. I'm bored, so I'm talking to the driver.

984. He's an extra, an American expatriate from San Francisco

985. who says America has gone to the dogs, gone to the wow-wows, he called it.

986. He's gone to Thailand, the pure land, to become an elephant expert.

987. He is working for the Thai Agricultural Committee counting elephants.

988. That's what he does for a living.

989. He sleeps at night with the elephants on the ground.

990. The elephants sleep standing up.

991. In the day he gets up with his little elephant counter

992. and goes out counting the elephants.

993. The only problem is, he said, he has a bum leg now,

994. a game leg, and he can't outrun an elephant if it charges.

995. And it will charge in his sleep if you wake it.

996. And he said he may be killed within the next month or so by an elephant.

997. In the middle of all this, Ira Wheeler looks up and says,

998. Will you stop it, please?

999. Will you stop whatever it is you're talking about up there?

1000. I am trying to have an emotional memory.

1001. I said, Ira, here is a man that's actually about to be killed by an elephant.

1002. Try working with that one.

1003. And here we are, driving through black smoke,

1004. pouring off of burning rubber tires that they're making look like a real war,

1005. headed for the non-existent Sikorsky helicopter we're supposed to get on.

1006. It's not there, I assume, because the American Air Force

1007. has not given the Thai Air Force Sikorsky helicopters yet.

1008. Just these little choppers driving through Marine Guards,

1009. Americans dressed as Marines.

1010. Who are these guys?

1011. I suppose some of them didn't get enough of the war,

1012. so they're over there joining Bo Gritz,

1013. who's starting his own foreign legion, to go in to look for MIAs and LAOs.

1014. Others are Americans that are there dealing drugs,

1015. which is extremely lucrative but very dangerous,

1016. and others are Americans that are there for sex and drugs.

1017. Capital S, small d.

1018. Because on one lower chakra level, Bangkok is one big whorehouse.

1019. Now, it's not all our fault for the R&R and the war,

1020. the Australian tourists or the Japanese sex tours that come through in busloads.

1021. Certainly the tradition of concubines existed for thousands of years in Thailand,

1022. but we kind of blew it out of hand with the Vietnam War.

1023. We had Quonset huts filled with Thai prostitutes

1024. that were drinking a kind of Chinese herbal medicine for birth control,

1025. so there were a lot of Amerasian children born out of this experience.

1026. Now, after the war, they knocked down those Quonset huts

1027. and moved all the prostitutes back to the red light district, Patpong.

1028. If you've been in Bangkok, I'm sure you've seen it.

1029. There's not that much to see.

1030. You can see the gold Buddha in the day and Patpong at night.

1031. If you saw The Deer Hunter recently,

1032. those shots in Saigon were shot in the Mississippi Queen Bar in Patpong.

1033. You go into the Mississippi Queen Bar,

1034. it's like they're still shooting the Deer Hunter.

1035. There is no sense of seduction as in across a crowded room.

1036. They fly to you and stick, and their body is big enough and they are small enough

1037. you feel like a Christmas tree.

1038. You can hold six of them, two in your elbow, two in your lap, two in your shoulders,

1039. and they are laughing and giggling, and they are so apparently happy,

1040. and they are grabbing at your tinkler and grabbing at your wallet,

1041. and they are so cute, and if you can make up your mind which one you like,

1042. you can go back to your hotel and spend the entire night for $26 a 500 Thai baht.

1043. Now, if you don't want to do that, because you don't want to be kept awake

1044. by a laughing, giggling Thai prostitute, and you want to be in control,

1045. you can instead go to a massage parlor.

1046. And the massage parlors are very much like department stores.

1047. Every floor has about 35 women fully dressed with numbers on,

1048. sitting on tiers under fluorescent lights, all looking at one point.

1049. It's not the Buddha, it's the TV set.

1050. Now, the men walk back and forth by this one-way mirror like little sultans

1051. until they see, if not the perfect woman, at least the perfect body,

1052. and then they say, Would you call number eight for me, please?

1053. And the man goes, Number eight?

1054. And number eight stands up, and you can tell immediately by the expression on her face

1055. it's not going to be as great as you fantasized,

1056. because among other things, you've interrupted her TV show.

1057. And for a little bit of money, you go down to a small room.

1058. She stays fully dressed, you get completely naked,

1059. and she gives you a mild tweak, tweak, tweak, massage,

1060. just surface, nothing right keen about it.

1061. A little bit more money, she gets naked, and now you're both naked,

1062. and the mama-san is poking her head all the time in to see that it's progressing financially.

1063. She closes the door and goes out, and now you're both naked,

1064. and she gives you another mild tweak, tweak, tweak, massage,

1065. nothing deep about it, only occasionally you feel her warm flesh brush up against your flesh.

1066. And a little bit more money, and you get a handjob.

1067. And a little bit more money, and you get to fuck her.

1068. And a little bit more money, and you get the supremo, supremo, the body, body massage.

1069. She takes you and puts you in a bathtub and soaps you up into your slipperiest bar of soap,

1070. and she doesn't rinse you.

1071. Then she puts you on a water bed and she gets in that same tub

1072. and soaps herself up until she's as slippery as a bar of soap,

1073. and she doesn't rinse.

1074. And she gets on one side of the room and takes this running gallop and goes,

1075. boop, boom, and lands on top of you,

1076. and it's body, body, squiggle, squiggle,

1077. bubbles coming out between you, you sound like two huge sewer plungers,

1078. there's nothing erotic about it, it's downright hilarious,

1079. and when she finishes with you, for the finale,

1080. and I only heard about this, I never saw it or had it.

1081. It's called Boobly Oobly, it's the final facial massage.

1082. The GIs loved it.

1083. If she had large breasts, she'd part them,

1084. they'd stick their faces in and she'd cry out,

1085. Boobly Oobly and let go.

1086. Now, after you've been fuck, sucked, had your tubes cleaned,

1087. nose cleaned, toes cleaned and you're ready for more,

1088. for rest and relaxation, you can at last go

1089. to Unwinded, a live show in which women do everything

1090. with their vaginas except having babies.

1091. It starts with ping pong balls and she's fully loaded

1092. so they fire an automatic into a soda fountain glass.

1093. So it's pooh, pooh, pooh, pooh, pooh, pow, pow, pow.

1094. Then out comes the Coke bottle and it's a king size Coke bottle,

1095. a glass one I haven't seen in years.

1096. And she shakes that bottle and she shakes it

1097. and she shakes it and she shakes it.

1098. She shakes it for so long you begin to think that's the whole

1099. act, just that shaking of that bottle.

1100. And just to prove that that cap is on tight

1101. and at last she opens it.

1102. And I don't know how she does it.

1103. I don't know if there is a bottle opener in there or teeth,

1104. but it sprays all over the audience brown, warm Coca-Cola.

1105. And what's left of it she pours back into her vagina,

1106. squirts over the bottle and refills it

1107. like a Coca-Cola bottling machine.

1108. Then out comes the banana.

1109. And she takes a few lame shots like the Russian rockets,

1110. they're going to sputter and pop and land in our cornfields.

1111. And for the finale, she aims her vagina down the main aisle

1112. like a great cannon, loads it with a very ripe banana

1113. and fires it, almost hits me in the eye,

1114. almost hits an Australian housewife in the head,

1115. hits the back wall and sticks.

1116. And slowly it inches its way down until it lands

1117. and is devoured instantly by an army of giant roaches.

1118. April 12th, 1975 was the actual evacuation of Phnom Penh.

1119. Lan Nol had long since fled to Hawaii.

1120. Two million people in the city now instead of 600,000.

1121. Khmer Rouge rockets coming in at random and landing

1122. in hospitals, kids in the streets, schools, whatever.

1123. American Ambassador John Gunther Dean says,

1124. we have two and a half hours, all Cambodian officials

1125. and Americans, two and a half hours to evacuate the country.

1126. Cambodians say, two and a half hours,

1127. two and a half hours, we're ruined.

1128. How are we going to convince the Russians in two

1129. and a half hours that we're socialists?

1130. So this leaves behind the Cambodian officials, Long Bure,

1131. Lan Nan and Prince Sirik Matak.

1132. Lan Nol had two brothers, Lan Nan and Lan Nil.

1133. Long Bure, Lan Nan and Prince Sirik Matak decide

1134. to stay behind.

1135. Prince Sirik Matak sends a letter

1136. to the American Ambassador telling him

1137. that they've decided not to go out with the evacuation.

1138. He reads, dear Excellency and friend,

1139. I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer

1140. to transport me toward freedom.

1141. I cannot alas leave in such a cowardly fashion.

1142. As for you and in particular for your great country,

1143. I never believed for a moment that you would have the sentiment

1144. of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty.

1145. You have refused us your protection

1146. and we can do nothing about it.

1147. You leave and it is my wish that you

1148. and your country will find happiness under the sky.

1149. But mark it well that if I shall die here on the spot

1150. and in the country that I love, it is too bad

1151. because we are all born and must one day die.

1152. I have only committed this mistake of believing

1153. in you, the Americans.

1154. Please accept, Excellency, my dear friend, my faithful

1155. and friendly sentiments, Sirik Matak.

1156. In five days later, all three of their livers were carried

1157. through the streets on sticks.

1158. The Americans took off in their helicopters.

1159. We took off.

1160. We thought it was going to be like Da Nang

1161. with the Vietnamese riding and holding

1162. on to the helicopter wheels, but the Cambodians didn't.

1163. They just waved and went, okay, bye-bye, okay, bye-bye,

1164. okay, bye-bye, okay, bye-bye.

1165. And as the last helicopter took off, a Khmer Rouge rocket came

1166. in and killed one of the innocent bystanders.

1167. Five days later, April 17th, 1975, Cambodia year zero.

1168. The Khmer Rouge marched in in their black pajamas.

1169. Lon Nol's army threw down their guns and raced

1170. to embrace them thinking

1171. that the country would be reunited again.

1172. But the Khmer Rouge did not smile back.

1173. They took strategic positions in the town.

1174. Some of the kids who grew up in the jungle

1175. and never saw cars before jumped in and started ramming them

1176. into first gear and getting stuck in first gear,

1177. driving into walls and trees.

1178. And then the Khmer Rouge systematically began

1179. to empty the city of Phnom Penh.

1180. Out, they said, everyone, out, out, out,

1181. into the fields, they say.

1182. The Americans are going to bomb, they say.

1183. There's no more food left.

1184. When the people ask who will provide for them, they say,

1185. Angkor, Angkor will provide.

1186. Angkor, like some perverse Wizard of Oz,

1187. Kafkaesque thundercloud meant to rain down mana on the people

1188. in the fields and take nothing with you.

1189. You had to go into the fields with no possessions.

1190. And then if you couldn't walk or in the hospital,

1191. they'd chuck you out the window.

1192. Seven-story, 10-story kind of weird survival of the fittest.

1193. And then the killing began.

1194. Eyewitnesses said anyone that was educated was killed.

1195. Any civil servant was killed.

1196. Anyone carrying their own cooking pot was killed.

1197. People wearing glasses would be killed.

1198. The motto was better to kill an innocent person

1199. than to leave an enemy alive.

1200. Dead, dead.

1201. Kids were doing the killing.

1202. 10, 11, 12 years old.

1203. They were too weak from their diet from barks and bugs

1204. and lizards and no more ammunition left.

1205. So they were trying to knock in skulls with these axe handles

1206. and hoe handles, but they were too weak to knock them in.

1207. So eyewitnesses said the kids were taking bets

1208. on how many whacks it would take to knock in a skull.

1209. And they were laughing, a lot of laughter going on,

1210. a lot of laughter.

1211. And eyewitnesses said if you pleaded for your life,

1212. they would laugh harder.

1213. If it was a woman pleading for her life,

1214. the kids would laugh even harder.

1215. And then they would take the half-dead bodies and drag them

1216. into American bomb craters, which acted as a kind

1217. of perfect shallow grave.

1218. And it was a kind of visitation of hell on earth.

1219. Who needs metaphors for hell or poetry about hell?

1220. This actually happened here on this earth.

1221. Pregnant mothers disemboweled, eyes gouged out, kids,

1222. children torn apart like fresh bread in front of their mothers.

1223. And this went on for years until 2 million people were either

1224. systematically killed or starved to death by the same people.

1225. And no one can really figure out how something

1226. like that could have happened.

1227. Certainly, it could research that other holocaust in Germany

1228. because people speak a lot of German and read

1229. and write German and Hitler's either dead

1230. or living in Argentina.

1231. But Cambodia is far, far away and no one speaks enough Khmer

1232. and Pol Pot is still alive and waiting up here

1233. on the Thai-Cambodian border with 35,000 troops supported

1234. by the Red Cross, by the United Nations, and by the United States

1235. of America because so many people would rather see him back

1236. in Cambodia with his nationalist coalition rather

1237. than the Vietnamese who were in there.

1238. And they came in in 1979, some people,

1239. the British particularly saying that it was a liberation,

1240. others saying it was a xenophobic piece

1241. of cake just biting off Cambodia to protect themselves

1242. from China, and I get very confused.

1243. And Roland Joffe came to me and said, Spalding,

1244. I hope this film has taught you

1245. that morality is not a movable feast.

1246. And I get dizzy because I keep seeing it moving all the time.

1247. Now, the last big scene in the film, or rather my last big scene

1248. which felt like the last big scene was here.

1249. Remember, we're in Waihin near Bangkok on the Gulf of Siam.

1250. We are staying in the pleasure prison in Waihin.

1251. We're not shooting there, but it's in that same town.

1252. Right in town in Waihin is this old hotel that looks very much

1253. like the Hotel Phnom Penh, a Victorian hotel.

1254. I'm told it looked exactly like it except it didn't have a

1255. swimming pool and a tennis court.

1256. So the film built a swimming pool and a tennis court

1257. to make the hotel authentic.

1258. Now, I'm playing the American Ambassador's aide,

1259. and for my last scene all I have to do is simple,

1260. is walk down the steps.

1261. I'm leaking information to Sam Waterston

1262. who's playing Sidney Shanberg, and I just have to say,

1263. a computer malfunction put out the wrong set of coordinates.

1264. Seems a single B-52 opened up over Nick Long.

1265. There's a homing beacon right in the middle of town.

1266. Check it out, Sid.

1267. Easy enough for some actors, but for this,

1268. I cannot do stuff like this.

1269. This technical language is like doing algebra or geometry.

1270. I have to make an internal film, internal, to memorize this.

1271. Right? My own particular images.

1272. So I'm starting to go through it.

1273. A computer malfunction.

1274. I see a Macintosh with spaghetti coming out of it.

1275. That works for me.

1276. Put out a wrong set of coordinates.

1277. I see an oscillator from 7th grade science project.

1278. I don't know whose it was, but I remember a grid

1279. work oscillator.

1280. Seems a single B-52.

1281. Well, God, I remember many B-52s from many a drunken dinner

1282. in front of the TV watching that war on television.

1283. Open up over Nick Long.

1284. Long, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick Long.

1285. Nick Long.

1286. I was having trouble with that one.

1287. It was a night shoot, and I was all grisk and bobbled.

1288. Nick Long was a strategic ferry town in Cambodia

1289. that had a homing beacon in it.

1290. Homing beacons aren't supposed to be dangerous.

1291. They're just beacons that the planes take their coordinates

1292. off of, then the navigator, six miles up on that airborne

1293. holiday inn, throws a switch, and the bombs are dropped

1294. over the jungle by computer.

1295. No one really drops the bombs.

1296. But this particular day, the navigator

1297. threw the wrong switch and dropped his entire load of bombs

1298. up the main street of Nick Long, killing over 250 people.

1299. The navigator was fined $700 for his mistake.

1300. And Sidney Shanberg told me that he heard about the mistake

1301. and went in to cover it for the New York Times,

1302. but the American embassy put a press lock on Nick Long

1303. and didn't allow him in, so he snuck in.

1304. He bribed his way in with Dithbran.

1305. He got in there.

1306. He said he saw blood and hair all over the bushes

1307. and realized a lot of people had been killed.

1308. Was about to get his story out to the New York Times

1309. when he was put under arrest by the Cambodians

1310. and held at gunpoint.

1311. Now, while he was under arrest, house arrest,

1312. in flies the American embassy in a helicopter

1313. to give out $100 bills to people who

1314. lost members of their family and $50 bills to people

1315. who had lost legs and arms in the bombing,

1316. and the Cambodians were grateful.

1317. Now, Sidney told me that he thought

1318. he could probably safely walk out in front of the American

1319. embassy and not be shot.

1320. He wasn't sure.

1321. He started to walk and he said the Cambodians

1322. started screaming and clicking the safeties on their guns,

1323. and he said never before had he felt more alive in his life.

1324. Absolutely all the adrenaline going right

1325. on the edge of death, absolutely, totally, utterly

1326. alive.

1327. Let's go, boys and girls.

1328. Take 64.

1329. It's a night shoot and we're up to take 64.

1330. Roland is really covering his ass on this one.

1331. All right?

1332. A computer malfunction put out the wrong set of coordinates.

1333. By the way, I played one of those American embassy

1334. officials that come in in the helicopters.

1335. There was no way I was going to get on a helicopter, right?

1336. But they promised me that it would just go up 10 feet

1337. and land.

1338. They just wanted a shot of it landing.

1339. So the AD said, would the artist please get on the choppers?

1340. Artists on the helicopters, please.

1341. Boom.

1342. Right on like Pavlov's dog.

1343. You know, call me an artist.

1344. I am on.

1345. And ready to go up.

1346. Up it goes, straight up.

1347. The helicopter goes up 1,000 feet, straight up.

1348. I'm looking down out the door.

1349. There is no safety belt. The door is wide open.

1350. I felt like I was in a movie.

1351. Then I thought I was in Apocalypse Now.

1352. I had nothing else to relate it to.

1353. And then I realized I was in a movie.

1354. They were shooting one.

1355. I had no fear because the camera eroticizes

1356. the space it aims at.

1357. You know, it's like Colgate, Gardall.

1358. Somehow you know you're larger than life.

1359. You'll be protected.

1360. Even if the helicopter crashes, I

1361. knew there'd be rushes my friends could show at New

1362. Year's Eve in the performing garage.

1363. Something would come of this.

1364. And about the sixth time up, I looked down and see, my God,

1365. look how much of the jungle this movie controls.

1366. All the way up the Chao Phraya River,

1367. you could see Thai peasants paid to put burning rubber

1368. tires on a fire to make it look like a real war.

1369. And I thought, of course, war therapy.

1370. Every country must and should make a major motion war

1371. film every year.

1372. Put people to work, get the economy up, get your rocks off.

1373. Do an invasion, a movie of invading Libya.

1374. Skip the invasion.

1375. You land, you don't have to method act when those blades

1376. are going over your head.

1377. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, you're shouting.

1378. You don't have to method act when you look down and see Thai

1379. peasants lying there for 12 hours with chicken giblets

1380. and fake blood all over them.

1381. They're getting paid $5 for a 12 hour day, smiling back at you.

1382. And if they're real amputees, they get $7.50 for the day.

1383. You don't have to act.

1384. It's very much like the real event.

1385. Let's go, boys and girls.

1386. Take 65.

1387. A computer malfunction put out the wrong set of coordinates.

1388. Seems a single B-52 opened up over Niklong.

1389. There's a, I didn't get the image.

1390. I didn't get the image for homing beacon.

1391. And I just blanked and I went, there's a,

1392. there's a housing device right in the middle of town.

1393. Cut.

1394. I know, listen, please.

1395. I knew I should have never drank that booze

1396. and had the marijuana the night before.

1397. How unprofessional.

1398. My concentration was, but Roland Joffe told me

1399. my character would be drinking a lot, you understand?

1400. So I thought I was in character.

1401. You would be amazed what people did in this film

1402. to get in character.

1403. Let's go, boys and girls.

1404. Take 66.

1405. At last, I got the image for it.

1406. For the homing beacon, I saw a pigeon, a homing pigeon,

1407. flying toward a beacon in a children's storybook,

1408. a little lighthouse.

1409. All right, I've got it.

1410. Let's go.

1411. Take 66.

1412. A computer malfunction put out the wrong set of coordinates.

1413. Seems a single B-52 opened up over Neek Long.

1414. There's a.

1415. I knew it didn't matter what I was thinking,

1416. because the audience had just projected on the screen what

1417. they were thinking.

1418. It's all about projection.

1419. As long as I had an idea, there's a homing beacon

1420. right in the middle of town.

1421. Check it out, Sid.

1422. All right, you've heard of pilot error, computer malfunction.

1423. They screwed up on the coordinates.

1424. A single B-52 dropped its entire load on Neek Long.

1425. There's a homing beacon in the middle of the town.

1426. Check it out, Sid.

1427. The entire crew burst into applause.

1428. 66 takes later, and five hours into the night,

1429. we have finished with my first scene,

1430. and my last scene of the movie, their first scene

1431. of the evening.

1432. They're going till dawn.

1433. I am told that all of what I did that night,

1434. if it was processed and the crew was paid,

1435. it would cost $30,000.

1436. When I get back to New York City,

1437. I am called in to re-dub the entire scene because

1438. of the sound of crickets.

1439. But the film is over for me.

1440. I am finished.

1441. And Renee flies back to America to give her man some space,

1442. to give her man some room to have his perfect moment.

1443. And I hear that the film is relocating

1444. to this magical island, Phuket, here in the Indian Ocean,

1445. off the southern coast of Thailand.

1446. And I hear everyone's going down there,

1447. and they serve you magic mushrooms

1448. for breakfast and an omelet, whether you order them or not.

1449. I thought, if I don't have an organic, perfect moment,

1450. I will induce one.

1451. So it's off to Phuket, and I ask if I can come along.

1452. They tell me, no, I can't.

1453. I don't have a private driver anymore

1454. because I'm not with the film.

1455. But if I'd like to come along, it's

1456. all right to ride on the artist's bus.

1457. Fine.

1458. I hear I have to get up at 5 in the morning.

1459. It's a 15-hour trip on a dirt road.

1460. I get up.

1461. I get on this old converted Greyhound.

1462. There's no artist I've ever seen on that before.

1463. I don't recognize any artists.

1464. It's mainly crew.

1465. In the front row, Umberto Pasolini

1466. of the Pasolini banking and film family.

1467. He's dropped out of banking at 28 years old

1468. to carry orange aid for the Killing Fields

1469. to work his way up as a producer.

1470. He is sitting in the very front row of the bus,

1471. pretending his head is a 35-millimeter camera.

1472. And he's practicing pans of that meaningless jungle

1473. for the entire 15 hours.

1474. He's happy.

1475. Next to him are the Cambodian refugees

1476. from Long Beach, social workers, because Pol Pot killed

1477. all the Cambodian actors.

1478. And they had to hire social workers from Long Beach

1479. to play small roles.

1480. Next to me on my left is a British cook

1481. who's saying, Spalding, what's going on here?

1482. Where's your private driver?

1483. I would complain to British Equity if I were you.

1484. I said, well, I'm not really with the film anymore.

1485. Oh, on for a freebie, are you?

1486. Well, that's good if you can get it.

1487. Oh, 15 hours later, which is a whole other monologue

1488. unto itself, we arrive at Phuket.

1489. And we're staying in the raddiest old hotel so far,

1490. the Phuket Merlin.

1491. And we have two days off in a row, because we work so hard.

1492. And we hear that Shangri-La exists, the most beautiful beach

1493. in the world.

1494. And a bunch of us rent a tuk-tuk and go down there

1495. through those winding down 20-minute drive

1496. through rice paddies and water buffalo.

1497. And we come out on this exquisite beach.

1498. I was unprepared for it.

1499. I mean, there was no flotsam.

1500. There was no jetsam.

1501. There were no tourists.

1502. There were no beer cans, no trash bags, just beach.

1503. And huge Indian Ocean pounding on under black monsoon skies,

1504. white seabirds blowing sideways,

1505. ratty palm trees ripping in the wind, rainbows arching.

1506. It was a number nine on a scale of one to 10

1507. for perfect moments.

1508. It was fantastic.

1509. Down the far end of the beach, water buffalo posing

1510. like they were stuffed in the mist.

1511. And Ivan, Ivan Strasberg, devil in my ear,

1512. the two of us, like the two kids,

1513. charged right into that water.

1514. The others go down to have brunch.

1515. It is fantastic.

1516. Body temperature, I am going,

1517. oh shit, my money.

1518. Oh fuck, Ivan, I've got $600 worth of Thai baht

1519. and my ocean briefs.

1520. I forgot to put it in the hotel.

1521. What do I do with it?

1522. I was saving up my per diem just in case

1523. I didn't have a perfect moment,

1524. I would buy one to get out of there.

1525. What do I do with it, Ivan?

1526. He says, oh Spalding, just put it up on the beach there

1527. with my cameras, man, on the high part of the beach.

1528. And we start into the water again,

1529. and he turns to me and he says,

1530. in Africa, I put my cameras up there on the beach

1531. and the natives would run right out of the jungle

1532. and steal them.

1533. What are you gonna do?

1534. Chase the natives back into the jungle?

1535. So I was a little bit back and forth with my money,

1536. you know, a little nervous, not sure about Ivan.

1537. And we started a little further and he goes,

1538. Spalding, man, stay, stay.

1539. On the next day off, I'm gonna take you scuba diving.

1540. You'll have rapture of the deep, man.

1541. You'll see fish the color you've never seen before.

1542. It is fantastic.

1543. And I've never been scuba diving.

1544. In all my life, I've wanted to do,

1545. I thought, this is it, this is a mission.

1546. It's not just a film that I was here for.

1547. It's all coming together now.

1548. Look, I'm basically a very fearful person.

1549. I call it phobic.

1550. I'm a phobic person and sharks and bears

1551. are at the top of the list.

1552. I mean, I swim like this.

1553. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

1554. so they can't get a grip, you know?

1555. I swim really fast.

1556. I check out swimming pools before I go in them.

1557. So what I need is a man that I trust

1558. that can guide me through these phobias

1559. so I can get in touch with rapture of the deep.

1560. I need a guru, a scuba guru.

1561. Ivan is going to be my scuba guru.

1562. And then Ivan turns to me and says,

1563. but Spalding Man, beware,

1564. because there are these stoned fish, eh?

1565. And if you step on one, you're dead in seven seconds.

1566. No remedy, man, eh?

1567. So wear your sneakers.

1568. Ah, he is a bit of a sadist playing into my masochism.

1569. I'm not saying I'm not inviting it,

1570. but by now he's out in the high surf calling into me,

1571. Spalding Man, I see you like the little waves, man.

1572. Come out in the highways, man.

1573. And I am so terrified.

1574. The water, my heart is in my throat,

1575. this rolling, roaring surf.

1576. Also, I don't feel as though I deserve to be there.

1577. This is, I'm like, instead of pinching myself

1578. to prove that I'm there,

1579. I'm running down the beach to look back, to see myself.

1580. And I run down the beach and look back

1581. and miss myself every time.

1582. And down the beach and back, and down the beach and back,

1583. and down the beach and back.

1584. And the third time back, Ivan is gone.

1585. And I go, oh no, oh shit, oh fuck, oh, he's drowned.

1586. I can't believe this is happening to me.

1587. I don't believe it.

1588. People do drown, I've read about it.

1589. We get a notice under our door saying,

1590. be careful when you swim at Phuket

1591. because of the riptides.

1592. Oh no, and the first thing that went through my head,

1593. and I'm telling you, it went so fast,

1594. I can't even speak as fast as the images went.

1595. The first rationalization that went through my head was,

1596. of course, making a film about this much death,

1597. some real person actually has to go.

1598. The next thing that went through my head was,

1599. it's not my fault, not mine, nope, he was suicidal.

1600. The next thing that went through my head was quickly,

1601. find the most responsible man you can.

1602. There was no way I was going out in that high surf.

1603. And the man that occurred to me was John Swain,

1604. the Paris correspondent of the London Times,

1605. who had been in Phnom Penh

1606. when the Khmer Rouge marched in.

1607. And perhaps the most narcissistic of the reporters,

1608. he'd come to watch himself be played

1609. by Julian Sands in the movie.

1610. So he happened to be there at brunch,

1611. and I just went, John, John Swain, come quickly,

1612. I can't see Ivan.

1613. And everyone slowly put down their chopsticks

1614. at that brunch and charged.

1615. Some came through the swamp,

1616. some came over the bridge over the swamp.

1617. Judy Arthur, the publicist,

1618. was the first to reach the beach.

1619. I found out later that she was a lifeguard

1620. in a past incarnation,

1621. and had the good sense to run on the high part of the beach.

1622. I was down by the dip of the lip of the water,

1623. and couldn't see out.

1624. I was down there with my knees shaking about to vomit,

1625. and people were around me going,

1626. don't worry, Spalding, don't worry, he won't have drowned.

1627. He'll be all right, he can't have drowned.

1628. He's from South Africa.

1629. And meanwhile, I'm trying to interpret this.

1630. Meanwhile, Judy Arthur spots him bobbing out there.

1631. He's rode a rip.

1632. This guy knows how to ride a riptide for fun

1633. and circle back in.

1634. And he comes in, she calls him in,

1635. and I go, Ivan, no, I'm never going swimming with you again.

1636. How could you ever do anything like this?

1637. And he says, I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry.

1638. You mustn't worry, Spalding.

1639. I had no idea that you were looking for me,

1640. but don't worry, I would never have drowned, man.

1641. I'm from South Africa.

1642. So everyone goes back to the brunch,

1643. and they leave Ivan and I standing there by the ocean.

1644. And he looks up at me and he says,

1645. by the way, Spalding, when you called, how many came?

1646. Did Judy Freeman come, man?

1647. Yes.

1648. Judy Freeman came.

1649. Judy Arthur came.

1650. All the Judys came.

1651. Let's go get something to eat.

1652. The next day off, there was no doubting where we were going.

1653. Down to Keron Beach, it was fantastic.

1654. Ivan passed me a tie stick.

1655. I took a few tokes.

1656. I didn't care if my kundalini got loose on the beach

1657. and went wild, even ran away.

1658. I never wanted to see it again.

1659. A little mild paranoia came over me.

1660. Where to hide my money this time?

1661. I began to dig holes in the sand.

1662. Then I thought, no, under the rubber mat in the truck.

1663. And I thought, you know, Spalding,

1664. thinking this much about hiding your money

1665. is putting out waves the ties can read.

1666. Let them have it.

1667. Leave it on the beach where anyone can take it.

1668. By now, Ivan is out in the highways going,

1669. Spalding, man, you don't know what it is to be a man yet,

1670. man, until you get out in the big waves, man.

1671. And I thought, I'm gonna be a man today if it kills me.

1672. And I'm starting out a little further and a little further,

1673. and I'm seeing hallucinations of gray sharks all around me.

1674. And every time I think of a shark biting me,

1675. I feel all the anxiety come together in my stomach

1676. and go out the top of my head

1677. in a great gray arrow that lands on my money.

1678. And every time I think of being bitten by a shark,

1679. I think of my money being stolen.

1680. And suddenly I have no fear.

1681. And I'm getting further and further out in that ocean

1682. and further and further out

1683. until I'm further out in that ocean

1684. than I've ever been in any ocean in my life.

1685. I am beyond Ivan even.

1686. I can tell I'm further out because of the view of the shore.

1687. I've never had a view like that before.

1688. And suddenly there is no fear

1689. because there is no body to bite.

1690. There are no more outlines.

1691. There's no means.

1692. There's this great body temperature Indian Ocean,

1693. this great warm Indian Ocean

1694. with this smiling bopkin head perceiver on top.

1695. And up the ocean goes and up the perceiver goes

1696. and down the ocean goes and down the perceiver goes.

1697. And wall of water comes up around the perceiver

1698. and the perceiver looks both ways.

1699. It could be in the middle of the Indian Ocean,

1700. no land in sight.

1701. And wall of water goes down and lifts the perceiver

1702. and the perceiver looks down a great bank of water

1703. far below John Swain and Judy Arthur

1704. body surfing like an Hawaiian travel poster.

1705. And wall of water lifts the perceiver

1706. and suddenly a human voice wakes it

1707. and brings it back in time.

1708. It's Ivan calling,

1709. Spalding Man, come back, come back.

1710. I haven't tested those waters yet.

1711. And boom, ah, I'm back in time.

1712. I'm back in fear.

1713. And I'm swimming into Ivan water pouring through my nose

1714. saying it was fantastic, Ivan.

1715. I mean, it was a perfect moment.

1716. It was fantastic.

1717. And he says, Spalding, I have to go out

1718. and test those waters.

1719. Now he swims out to where I was

1720. and he comes back with water pouring through his nose

1721. going, Spalding, Spalding.

1722. I almost drowned, man.

1723. I came this close to drowning.

1724. Now I know the experience of drowning, man.

1725. And I thought, oh shit.

1726. Now I'm gonna have to go out and almost drown.

1727. I'll be damned if I'll be caught

1728. in this male competitive trap.

1729. I know what Ivan's idea of a perfect moment is.

1730. It's death.

1731. So having had my perfect moment, I swam in.

1732. Now elated from having had it, depressed,

1733. knowing that I had to go home,

1734. I went in search for my audience

1735. to tell the perfect moment to,

1736. which is almost as important as having it.

1737. Athel Fugard, my new father confessor,

1738. the most fantastic audience back at the hotel.

1739. Athel, who had just given up drinking

1740. and I think to some extent was living vicariously

1741. through me, at the end of every day would say,

1742. Spalding, come, come to the bar.

1743. I'll buy you a beer, I'll have an orange.

1744. Tell me about your day.

1745. And at first I wanted to tell him about my new theory

1746. of displacement of anxiety.

1747. And I said, Athel, Athel, Athel, Athel,

1748. if ever you lack the courage to do something

1749. and you need that courage, just take a big pile of money

1750. and leave it somewhere where it can be stolen

1751. and go do that thing.

1752. Then I told him about my perfect moment in the Indian Ocean

1753. and he listened, raising an eyebrow

1754. and putting his pipe down, he turned to me and said,

1755. Spalding, the sea's a lovely lady when you play in her,

1756. but if you play with her, she is a bitch.

1757. Play in the sea, yes, but never play with her.

1758. You're lucky to be here.

1759. You're lucky to be alive.

1760. I believed him and I went to bed and slept like a kid again

1761. in Jerusalem, Rhode Island, the entire bed rocking,

1762. sand in the bottom of the bed,

1763. wrapped in the arms of the sea, fantastic sleep.

1764. And the following day I got up

1765. and a little kid was raging inside of me

1766. and the adult was there too, saying I should go home.

1767. And the little kid is going more and more

1768. and kept more where that came from,

1769. stay, stay, stay, and the adult is going,

1770. I've had my perfect moment, it's time to go.

1771. And I thought, how will I get out of here?

1772. How will I be decisive?

1773. And I thought, you know, maybe I'll try acting

1774. like a decisive man.

1775. If I can't be one, I'll act like one.

1776. And I went out of the hotel and said goodbye to all my mates.

1777. As though I were going.

1778. Goodbye, mate.

1779. We'll work together again one day.

1780. Hey, you better believe I believe in this film.

1781. Fuckin' A.

1782. Hey, big guy, look out for those whores

1783. and don't you drink too much, we'll meet again.

1784. All right.

1785. I got to Athelfugad and he looked right through me.

1786. So, Spalding, you're leaving paradise after all.

1787. I said, Athel, you know, I woke up this morning,

1788. I was thinking about a magic mushroom.

1789. Spalding, go back to Renee.

1790. She's a lovely lady.

1791. Take what you've learned here in Thailand back to Krumville.

1792. There is no difference between Thailand and Krumville.

1793. I wanted to believe him.

1794. I also wondered who he'd been studying with.

1795. So I did it.

1796. I got in the car for the final ride to the airport.

1797. And as I was riding, I felt like I was going to the gallows.

1798. I couldn't believe it.

1799. Why was I doing this?

1800. Why did I feel, mainly, why did I feel so inflated?

1801. I'd been there eight weeks and I'd worked eight days.

1802. Was waiting that difficult?

1803. I felt all puffed up, but on the way I thought,

1804. my God, I will never see a little piece of heaven

1805. like this again.

1806. This is the end.

1807. And as I was riding, I said a silent benediction,

1808. a silent farewell to all that I had had and would miss.

1809. Farewell to the fantastic breakfast,

1810. free every morning.

1811. You walk down and there they are waiting on you

1812. with the papaya, mango, and pineapple

1813. like I'd never tasted before.

1814. Farewell to the Thai maids with the king-sized cotton sheets

1815. and the big king-sized bed.

1816. Farewell to the lunches, fresh meat flown in

1817. from America daily.

1818. Roast potatoes, green beans, and roast lamb

1819. at 110 degrees under a circus tent,

1820. according to British equity.

1821. Farewell to the drivers with the tinted glasses

1822. and the Mercedes with the tinted windows.

1823. Farewell to the cakes and teas and ices every day,

1824. exactly at four o'clock.

1825. Farewell to those beautiful, smiling people.

1826. Farewell to that single, fresh rose in a vase

1827. on my bureau in the hotel every day.

1828. And just as I was climbing into that first-class seat

1829. and wrapping myself in a blanket,

1830. just as I was adjusting the pillow from behind my head

1831. and having a sip of that champagne,

1832. just as I was adjusting and bringing down

1833. my Thai purple sleep mask,

1834. I had an inkling.

1835. I had a flash.

1836. I suddenly thought I knew what it was

1837. that had killed Marilyn Monroe.