A Place for Sinners Read online

  Whatever. Don’t let it get to you, Amity.

  She distracted herself with memories. There had been the tiger-penis whiskey, the deep-fried scorpions served on little toothpicks—all of which made for fantastic photos. Many of her Facebook friends had already commented on them. And, of course, there were all the buildings: modern Chinese-influenced temples, Cambodian mound-like temples, Myanmar-influenced older temples, traditional Thai temples with pointed, triangular roofs, plus dome-shaped stupa that housed Buddhist shrines.

  I’m totes templed out! read one of Amity’s tweets. It had been favorited a dozen or more times. Looking back, she hated how she’d written it. Totes. In order to feel accepted, to ensure that her secrets wouldn’t be revealed, she felt she had to learn and speak the lingo. A square peg forced through a circle hole; the compromise saddened her. She knew she was smarter than that.

  I’m not that person, or at least I don’t think I am… Totes fucking joke is more like it.

  Their food arrived at their table. Amity wasn’t very hungry.

  Caleb grabbed her by the elbow and signed to her, “Are you okay?”

  A stray dog had wandered in through the open door and sat next to their table.

  Amity locked eyes with it. Her heartbeat quickened; she could feel it drumming against her sweaty singlet top. If I’d never wandered from our tent, she thought, I’d be able to lie to you now and tell you just how okay I am. For real.

  She sighed. The dog was nothing but breeds and beatings. Take me or leave me, its tumorous face seemed to express. Feed me or don’t. It was complacent with its fate.

  3

  The neighboring resort launched fireworks into the sky every night at eleven, dousing Caleb and Amity’s dormitory in radiant color. Their room was empty now, except for them; the tourist trade was winding down in preparation for the rainy season. They had invited Tobias to change hostels and join them, but he’d declined, concerned that he was overstaying his welcome when it came to the third wheel among them.

  The rest of your life is about to start, those fireworks seemed to imply—a wordless holiday campaign.

  Caleb had been half asleep when he heard his sister begin to struggle.

  “What the hell?” he moaned, wiping sleep from his eyes. His mouth tasted sour, as though he’d used vinegar for mouthwash before turning in for the night. Half-remembered images of Danny, his social worker back in Australia, started to fade. Those kind, melancholy eyes—eyes that pierced with an understanding he feared he could never match—had been the last things he had seen before the dream was cut short.

  Another crack-bang explosion illuminated the bundle of sheets on the floor. A glass had been overturned, spilled water drying on the floorboards.

  Amity writhed on her mattress. Tossing and turning in strobes of red and green and yellow. Her moans rose from the semaphore dark-light-dark.

  “Oh, Christ.”

  Caleb tossed back the covers, ran across the room in nothing but his loosening board shorts and thumped down beside his sister’s bed. A tormented face rolled toward him, the freckles of sweat glowing like shards of glass embedded in flesh.

  “Come on, wake up, hon.”

  Amity’s eyes bolted open—two reflected fireworks in the dim. Caleb almost fell over when his sister started thrashing again, unleashing a deep, tone-deaf screech that made his hair stand on end. Amity scuttled off the mattress and shuffled backward until her shoulders slammed against the wall. She buried her face in her bony hands and began to rock back and forth, humming. Caleb watched as she clicked her fingers together, searching for sounds that would never be found, just as she had done in those initial weeks after the accident.

  The dogs had come for her again.

  Chapter Seven

  Robert

  1

  A wilting cigarette, a camera. These objects were Robert Mann’s armory against a world that was abrasive, even shocking. Yet he couldn’t deny how engaged he was. He was growing to spite the ever-so-logical voices in his head screaming at him to cave to pressure and admit just how shit scared he really was—because buddy, you’re wa-aaayyy out of your depth here. But honestly, it was only thoughts of Imogen that threatened to undo him. “I don’t love you,” had been among his daughter’s final words to him, back in his almost empty Manhattan apartment.

  Gray flakes of ash flying, twirling, falling.

  He stared through the camera’s viewfinder and was happy to find the white man in the crosshairs; he wore a shirt so garish it scorched Imogen away. Funny how he’d spent so much time and energy fighting for her, even when he didn’t deserve to win, and just the thought of her now left him feeling hollowed out. Defeated.

  This stranger was close to Robert’s age, though softer around the middle, and was walking toward the marketplace. He held his daughter by the hand. Robert followed their route and only lowered the camera when the girl turned around and he saw that she was Thai.

  Am I surprised? Really?

  A deep groan, almost a roar, echoed from across the road.

  Robert lowered the camera. His breath stilted. It was odd that none of the locals passing him by on the street had stopped at the sound, odd that not a single person had scratched his head and said, “Well, gee whiz, that sure was mighty peculiar”. Hell, they hardly even seemed to have noticed at all. Maybe the natives just don’t care; what’s weird to me may be normal for them. Yeah, that’s it! And then a wraithlike concept shrouded him: perhaps the roar had come from somewhere inside, some hidden part of himself that just might house such beasts.

  The place where the bedbugs lived.

  Robert waited for the sound again, but it didn’t come. The cigarette dwindled down to the filter and burned his fingertips. This sudden pain brought the sounds of the street back with it, and for a moment, he was free of Imogen’s grasp. He crushed the remainder of the cigarette under the heel of his sandal and shook his head. What the hell was that noise, gawd-dammit?

  “You’re losing it, old man,” he said, unaware that he was scratching at the bedbug scars under the V of his shirt. He scanned the road and crossed the already busy street, approaching the bright blue kiosk on the opposite side. A man in an old straw hat with a feather through the leather strap was hunched over the window, a bored expression on his face. The sign above him read: GOOD TOURS. VERY CHEEP. ISLAND. LUNCH. FEED MONKEES. SNORKLE WITH FISH. PHOTOS! PHOTOS! WELCOME PRICE.

  Robert rapped his knuckles against the wooden counter, and the man corrected himself, his face splitting open in a wide, toothy smile. “Hello, sir!” the proprietor said. He was dressed in a loose-fitting cotton shirt, speckled with grease, one sleeve rolled up to keep the packet of cigarettes in place. “You American!”

  “Why, yes, I am. How’d you know?”

  “‘Oh say can you see’. ‘Is that you, John Wayne?’”

  “Ha, you do that well.”

  “Obama is very good. He’s a black man, very funny.”

  “Thank you,” Robert said, a little uneasy. “What kind of tours do you run here?”

  “Oh, very good tours, sir. Very good price.”

  “That’s good. What’s the tour, though? Do we leave from here?”

  “Yes, sir. We get on air-conditioned bus and drive to Bang Kao. About an hour, maybe a little more depending on rain. We go to very good restaurant there, right at the water. Good food, famous for four-hundred menu.”

  “Four hundred? Do you mean four hundred recipes? Four hundred options?”

  “Yes, sir. Very good, authentic Thai food.”

  “Well, that sounds great. I don’t want any of this whitewashed Yankee stuff. I like it hot and spicy.”

  “Ha-ha. Oh, you like spicy? You don’t like spicy like Thai like spicy.”

  “We’ll see. And what then, after the meal? We leave on the ferry, is that it?”

  “No ferry. We go on my boat. Big boat, very safe. We go to Koh Mai Phaaw.”

  “What’s that? An island? I’ve never heard of it.
Is it in the Lonely Planet?”

  “No, sir. Hua Hin is not famous for island tours. People go to Koh Phi Phi, near Phuket. This is same-same, but different. Special nature reserve, not many tourist. We go on special boat, to island, you feed monkeys on the beach for one hour. We take you to special cove for swimming with fish, and then we come back, have dinner at four-hundred restaurant. Lots of option; very good.”

  “Do I need to have a snorkel or anything?”

  “We have all for you. And life jackets. And bananas to give to the monkeys, and drinks. We have everything for you. And a good tour guide, my brother. He is very good. You will like him; he love Americans.”

  “And how much all together then?”

  “Uh-uhhhh… How much, for you?”

  “Yeah, how much?”

  “Five hundred baht. Very good price. Best price in all of Hua Hin. There is not very much monkey and island tour here, because of protection.”

  “Protection?”

  “On waters. Protection for royal family on the water, along the coast. We have special clearance to go to islands off land. Very good. Very special.”

  “I haven’t seen many kiosks like this, actually. Are there many tourists in Hua Hin?”

  “Oh, yes! Tourist very good. But it is rainy season. And there is not any others like us, doing monkey and island tour. We are a special. A unforgettable experience. Very good price.”

  “Five hundred baht?”

  “Yes, but I do special price for you because you are first customer of the day. You are good luck for me. I am good luck for you. We are friends now, see?”

  “Now we’re talking, how about four hundred baht?”

  “Oh-hhhhh. Four hundred baht? That is not enough, sir.”

  “Well, I don’t know. It just seems expensive to me.”

  “Okay! Okay. I do four hundred and fifty baht, just for you. You are first customer, and I need good luck. There are not very many tourist in Hua Hin at this time of year. You are lucky.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  “Very good, very good.”

  “So, what is it you guys are called?”

  “We are Unforgettable Experience Monkey Island Tour. We are an unforgettable experience.”

  “I’m sold!”

  Robert handed over his money and put the receipt in his zippered fanny pack, which was cutting into the soft pad of his stomach. The humidity was already on the rise.

  “So you come back tomorrow at seven a.m. in the morning time,” the proprietor said.

  “Wait, tomorrow?”

  “Yes. In the morning at seven a.m. in the morning time.”

  “Shit, I didn’t realize it wasn’t today.”

  “Oh-hhhhh. Sorry, sir. We only go twice a week because of nature reserve laws, and only once a week in rainy season. Off season, sir. You come back tomorrow, yes?”

  “Well, all right. I guess that’ll be okay.”

  “Good one, sir! You are a good American. ‘Hi-ho, Silver, away!’” the proprietor recited through bouts of laughter as he tapped the kiosk counter with the doubled-up baht.

  “Yeah, that’s the ticket!” Robert said, shaking the man’s hand. “Hey, tell me this… Why’d you do that? The tapping on the counter with my money?”

  “What this? I do it because you are first customer. First customer is always good luck.”

  2

  Amity jogged down the hostel staircase, which for the first time since their arrival wasn’t buzzing with activity. This didn’t surprise her; it was before nine on a Monday morning. She stepped into the foyer with a notebook and a pencil case tucked under one arm and saw two young Thai women chatting near a sign that read:

  NO VISIT FOR YOUR FRINDS AFTER 10 NIGHT.

  QUIET FOR GUESTS AT SLEEPING

  NO DURIAN.

  The women’s faces looked to have been whitened with an array of chemicals, the sight making her skin crawl. Amity tried to fight the feeling but couldn’t overcome it; she was disturbed, plain and simple. Things are so different here, she thought. Having a tan is the norm back home, yet it’s frowned upon here, especially for women. In Thailand, brown skin means you work outside. It flags you as a peasant.

  She’d bought a tube of overpriced sunscreen at a market alongside the Pran Buri River in the Prachuap Khiri Khan province a couple of weeks before. The label proclaimed it to be 80 percent UV protective cream and 20 percent whitener. Amity had been forced to use it, as there was no other alternative, and her skin now looked semitranslucent. Her empathy ran deep and veered into the pity she’d so often been dealt. It was, after all, human nature to mourn the wounded.

  The tide was out and the beach was littered with ocean debris—a speckling of driftwood shards, jellyfish and trash. She sat down on an uprooted tree to the relief of her aching thighs, which hadn’t grown accustomed to the use of squat toilets yet. A blue bird lit upon a hand-size seashell nearby, but it flew away before she could finish her sketch.

  It felt good to have the pencil between her fingers again, pouring all of the sights she’d seen onto paper. A visual diary crystallized memories that she would otherwise forget.

  She stopped sketching and glanced around.

  It’s great to be on my own. Even for just one morning.

  Amity loved her brother, despite his tendency to cradle and coddle; and she knew that traveling Thailand would be impossible without his support. On her own, Amity suspected that she would be torn between a desire to explore and a country that refused to accommodate her disability—and it is a disability, she often reminded herself. Amity didn’t appreciate people pussyfooting around the concept or trying to convince her otherwise. In order to accept the truths in her life, she felt it was important to first own them, and Amity had learned long ago that denial got you nowhere.

  She glanced down at the page across her lap and was caught off guard by the face staring back at her. The rendering wasn’t very accurate, or even articulate, but from within the messy lines and smears, there peered two perfectly captured eyes that she hadn’t seen or thought about in two years.

  His eyes.

  She smiled, memory touching her inside. Down there. Her fingers were blackened by lead shavings.

  Amity noticed the bright blue kiosk on the opposite side of the street and wondered what they were offering, glad for the distraction. Probably bus trips out to the Huay Mongkol temple, or maybe just another cooking course—but her train of thought was derailed by a glimmer of warm sunlight probing through the tall aluminum fence next to her.

  A warm flicker across her cheek.

  She put her eye to the hole in the rusty tin and peered through.

  Amity drew back, a thin gasp zipping from her throat. A lock of her hair fell over her face as she stepped backward, a clutched hand thumping against her breasts. Warm wind wrapped around her.

  Holy shit, you’ve got to be kidding me.

  The grimy fence, caked in layers of ocher dust and exhaust burns, stretched back to the corner she’d just passed. A middle-aged white guy in a Hawaiian shirt was jogging with his young, female Thai friend across the intersection. He was pointing at the fence, announcing the sweat patches under his arms, while the girl laughed at his enthusiasm. They slipped behind the corner and out of view.

  Amity followed close behind. Motorcyclists buzzed by so close she could feel the heat of their engines against her side; their shadows flickered across the path.

  She caught the mismatched couple disappearing through a gap in the fence. A chalkboard with the words GOOD PHOTO scrawled on it was hung near the makeshift door. Her chest tightened as she stepped across the threshold.

  It can’t be what I think. I’ve got to be seeing things. It couldn’t be—

  The two dead trees on either side of the door made a hollow of twisted sentries. She passed under their gaze and entered the lot, which was little more than a square of lifeless soil with a shanty on the far side. There, she saw the juvenile elephant in all of its glory. It had been t
ethered to a pole with a length of barbed wire; a local man on an old wooden chair sat in the animal’s diminutive shadow.

  By the time she’d crossed the lot, the tourist in the Hawaiian shirt had shoved a bundle of baht in to the Thai man’s hands and was preparing to get his photograph taken. His sweaty arms wrapped around the girl’s thin waist and drew her close enough to rest his chin on the crown of her head.

  Amity could almost smell his breath brushing against her. Phantom hands on her flesh.

  The tourist’s lips separated in a smile—a parade of rotting teeth.

  Amity couldn’t hear the camera click, but she was close enough to see the starburst flash reflected in the elephant’s gummy, bloodied eyes. A photograph captured. Money well spent.

  She ran up the hostel stairs leading to her room, half-blinded by tears and choking on sobs, only to stumble across the top step. Dull pain lashed through her shin. The wafting smell of burning incense from down the hall gave her an instant headache.

  She wished she were alone so she could swear out loud. Alone, it didn’t matter if her words failed to make sense. Seeing the elephant in the vacant lot had scoured away the thinning layer of her defenses. She wanted to punch something, to pull at her hair.

  Let me out.

  Let me out of my fucking head!

  Her fingers kneaded away at her shin, the pain receding. Grab on to the hurt, she explained to herself. Let the anger go with it. Let the anger carry the RED away.

  But sometimes the RED lashed back. Sometimes, the RED had teeth.

  The echo of a gunshot.

  A bearded, hipster-looking guy clipped her shoulder with the guitar strapped to his back as she stood up and stepped into the hallway. He didn’t even notice.

  Jesus, watch where you’re going, she wanted to say.