Border Run
by Matthew Burrell
part 1
Jacob had been sick before; two weeks ago he’d spent several days in a Bangkok hospital with the stomach flu, but he’d never been in a state like this. Pale complexion, sweaty palms, and a high fever were nothing compared to the disorienting queasy sensation that overwhelmed him now. It was so strong it nearly caused him to fall off the motorbike.“It’s happening again,” he explained. “I’ve got to go...”
Doubled over on the side of the road like a hobbled beggar, Jacob reached into his pocket for a crumpled up twenty-baht note which he gave to the motorbike driver, then stumbled through the crowds. He’d contracted amoebic dysentery three weeks earlier at a roadside vendor in Hue, Vietnam, and ever since the mornings began as out-of-body experiences, and afternoons ended with everything coming out of his body.
He caught himself on a railing near a subway tile entrance, before fishing around his pocket for the baht coin it cost to use the toilet. He straightened himself, regained composure, and pushed his way through the turnstile, tripping over a small Thai man who was on the way out and saying, “Sorry about that, I mean katog na krup...”
Inside the fluorescent lit latrine, there was a single mirror running the length of the wall covered in Sanskrit characters in green and pink. Four slitted wooden doors were the only other feature. The urinal and sinks were on the outside, so Jacob was the only one there. He opened one of the slitted wood doors and, inside, the stall was barren except for a porcelain fixture sunk into the ground and open half a meter to a sewage drain. There was a metal handrail screwed into the wall, but no toilet and no toilet paper.
“I’m screwed,” Jacob muttered.
David was standing in the middle of a group of street vendors haggling with a middle-aged Thai woman over the price of pineapples. “Ee sip baht pang muk, sip ha baht, okay?” He had this bag stenciled with elephants and his tan arms were covered in scabs from a case of road rash incurred a few weeks ago when he’d dumped his moped outside of Soi Cowboy.
When Jacob came around the corner, he started in, “Morphine does something to the soul, doesn’t it, mate?” His eyes were wistful.
“I’ve never done morphine in my life.”
“Well, you look peaked, mate. Ghostlike.”
Jacob looked at David. He was a gaunt and hollowed-out caricature of a hippie, who wore dirty, elephant-stenciled yoga pants, a fleece made of hemp that was badly faded, but he had a face like a welder and he wasn’t laid back at all. He argued with nearly everyone they came across since Jacob had met him, twenty-four hours ago, in the twenty-four hour bar on Khao San Road.
“Come on, man,” Jacob said, “look! They’re starting to form up!”
Beyond the street vendors selling fruit and coffee, a line of Japanese minivans were in neat rows like a Formula One start. They all had their engines going, and dozens of backpackers were exchanging handfuls of baht notes for a chance to get their passports stamped for another three weeks in the Land of Smiles. Everyone understood that sacrifices must be made in order to keep their trip going, and they were willing to suffer the discomfort of a three-hour van ride there and three and a half hours back with traffic, on top of the cramped operators and long waits at immigration checkpoints.
“Fifteen baht,” David said to the lady. “Nung... ha... chao jai mai?”
“It’s twenty baht everywhere, dude,” Jacob said. “Let’s go.”
“Fine,” David relented and handed the woman a grungy twenty baht note he’d dug out of his yoga pants. The woman handed back a clear plastic bag filled with pineapple chunks and a smaller bag filled with chili salt. “But you owe me five baht, mate.”
They paused at the intersection of Phahonyothin Road, looking at the nonstop traffic and eating big chunks of savory pineapple from wooden sticks. In the shadow of an obelisk erected in 1941 to commemorate victory in the Franco-Thai War, a row of minivans idled in the morning heat. Outside the circle drive, Thai men in sunglasses and jungle hats ushered tourists into the vans calling out, “Rayong, Rayong, ha roi baht,” and held up five fingers to indicate their price.
Believing (falsely) the diarrhea was under control because the fever had subsided, Jacob gave the first man a five-hundred baht note and boarded a minivan headed toward Rayong.
“Wait a sec, mate,” David said, stopping him before boarding. “Let’s think this through. I’d be willing to bet there are vans for four or even three hundred baht around the corner.”
“Too late,” Jacob said. “I already gave the man my money.”
It was just before noon when their minivan departed from the traffic circle and headed down Phaya Thai Road to Rama IX motorway. The Thai operators had crammed ten other western tourists into the Japanese minivan, almost like they were in competition to see how many full-size adults they could fit in a compact area.
Seated next to Jacob and David was an older couple from California, wearing tie-dyed shirts, who lived in Pi and spoke perfect Thai. Soon they were onto the superhighway at a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour, weaving in and out of traffic on motorway 7 while hot air blew out of the vents like afterburn.
Jacob could feel life teeming from within his body. There were actual amoebas living in his stomach, single-celled organisms from the prehistoric era that caught food and moved by tentacles of protoplasm. And amoebas don’t stop just because he needed rest, or was unconscious, no, not at all, they continued to move and eat, and eat and move.
He had changed in these short weeks since contracting dysentery, too. Soon after becoming infected, he began to take on the characteristics of the microbes that called his body home. He needed a dark environment in order to thrive. Hostels with basements were preferable, or a bungalow near the beach, anywhere that was close to a source of water and moist and damp.
As they fed, Jacob was subjected to an altered sense of smell and taste, and he became sensitive to light, too, unable to stand in direct sunlight for longer than a few seconds before seeking refuge in shade. When he slept, the amoebas fed and grew. When he dreamed, they multiplied.
Jacob was awakened when the van came within inches of hitting a pickup full of chicken cages and swerved into oncoming traffic. It veered onto the shoulder and came within centimeters of a herd of cattle grazing roadside.
“Forget a driver’s license,” David quipped. “This guy has a license to kill.”
“It’s enough to put gray in your hair,” the older woman from California said. “Steve? Steve, are you okay?”
Steve, Jacob found out, was her husband from California. They’d traveled down together from Pi to make the border run, but Steve was now unconscious and looked dead.
“Heart attack,” the Thai paramedics said when they arrived. “Not look good.”
Everyone stood by the side of the road and smoked cigarettes. It was so hot that fumes rose from the pavement and, when the paramedics wheeled out the gurney, the rubber wheels stuck to the road. They lifted Steve off the gurney, one paramedic with the legs and the other with the arms, and carried him into the ambulance and the woman — his wife — from California got in back and they shut the doors and sped away, sirens blaring.
“Did that just happen,” David said, “or am I still dreaming?”
“What do we do now?” one of the French girls said. She had her passport out and was showing one of the Thai operators the pages inside. “My visa expires tomorrow.”
“This is bollocks,” another Brit said. “Someone probably just died.”
The van’s engine came to life and the Thai operator stuck his head out of the driver’s side window. “Everyone please get back in van. We have to get to border so passport can stamp.”
Two hours later, Jacob hung over the edge of a longtail boat, his cargo shorts around his ankles, and let the warm saltwater of the Gulf of Thailand splash his buttocks. The wake was created by a single engine rotor at the end of a long pole held by a Burmese boatman who sat in the aft. Every few seconds, he would pull the pole out of the water and drop it back in, causing the boat to change course.
“Could you slow down?” Jacob shouted over the diesel whir of the engine.
The boatman smiled and revealed a row of uneven, tobacco-stained teeth. He gave a thumbs-up and nodded so fiercely his dreaded hair bounced over his shoulders. But the boatman held the shaft with the engine below the surface of the water, and the longtail boat did not slow.
“I tried to warn you,” Jacob cried out and let loose a murky brown liquid into the sea. It was painful and relieving all at the same time. When he finally looked up, all half dozen other passengers of the longboat, a young Scandinavian couple, the French girl, the Brit, and, of course, David, were staring at Jacob. The Burmese boatman let out a howl. “Dysentery! Veeery bad!”
Jacob was still on the edge of the longboat when the boatman made the turn toward the Burmese island. Until that point, the island had been a speck on the water, but now they could see other boats heading in the direction of a long wooden pier and green hills spotted in the distance.
“Here,” the Burmese boatman offered, “you take.”
He held a dried leaf with a white powder substance in the center. The Burmese man smiled and ripped part of the leaf and took some himself, as if to let Jacob know that it was safe.
Jacob took the leaf in his hand and raised it to his nose. It smelled like moss and dirt. “No thanks.”
Once he’d pulled up his shorts and took his place in the center of the boat, a Scandinavian woman with wild blond hair sat down next to Jacob, perhaps out of pity, and took out a cigarette, cupped her hand, and attempted to light it. She wore a green bikini top, skillfully hand-woven and designed with overlapping knots, and mesh shorts over a similar bikini bottom. Her arm was covered with a tattoo of vines crawling up her shoulder, and a bright red heart was inside the intertwining vines. Her skin was pale white, and her eyes were so stark they seemed to discern a certain intuition. She was having a hell of a time with the lighter, flicking the sparks without catching a flame.
“Fasho,” she said, smiling, “do you mind?”
Fasho, a Scandinavian with blond hair that was dreaded and longer than the girl’s, cupped his hands over the lighter. Cigarette finally lit, the woman put it to her lips and inhaled deeply before a relieved exhale of smoke over the boat.
Jacob pointed in the direction of the island. “That’s probably where they bury the tourists. The ones who survive the boat ride.”
“What?”
“I said they’re probably taking us to Neverland.”
“Nah,” she said. “I always wanted to go by poison. Heroin, preferably.”
“What’s your name?”
“Elizabeth. But everyone calls me Lizzy.”
“You?”
“Jacob,” Jacob said. “How many runs is this for you?”
“Three. Or maybe this is four.” Lizzy turned to her companion. “Fasho, how many is this?”
“Four,” Fasho said. “Here,” he pressed two white capsules into Jacob’s palm. “Take these. For the diarrhea.”
“What’s this?”
“Salt tablets.” Fasho’s voice was drowned out by diesel and wake.
“What’s that?”
“Salt tablets!” Fasho said just as loud but less clearly.
“Thanks for the malt rabbits!” Jacob said and popped them into his mouth.
Copyright © 2022 by Matthew Burrell
