The Long Trip Home: Live Drunk or Die

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The Road Less Traveled

Live Drunk or Die
by Nicholas Mistretta

The train stopped a little short of the Thai border around noon, and it had been a long, hard-seat night with little sleep. We spent an hour and a half confused and hot and miserable, then we boarded a local bus full of school children. Dan and Seamus sat up front, their constant jabbering was getting on my nerves. I lurched to the back like a lost bum and sat among the shy schoolboys, all of us silently staring out the window together.

After about an hour-long start and stop ride, we came to the border and filled out necessary forms and dug proper documents from our disorganized packs. Then, we waited in line where the pens didn’t work until some guy who couldn’t help us sent us to another line. All finished and safely across into Thailand, we walked a mile to the nearest train station and bought three third class tickets to Bangkok on another all night train that was ready to depart. Ferries and minivans and taxis and ships and trains and buses and tuk tuks, and all in the last three days. It was wearing us down. Even worse, upon arriving in Bangkok, we had planned to hop the very next train to Chiang Mai, another all night sleepless extravaganza. But we got drunk and changed the plan.

The train was a late starter. No engine. So we waited and waited some more while the oven hot Thai breeze pushed through an open window and stole what little energy I had. I could hardly sit up. Keeping my eyes open and focused was too great a task. New places, odd faces, a glance, a growl, murmurs in the wind. People crawled on board to peddle sweets and treats and strange meats, even providers of the almighty hooch. Everyone struggled for my attention.

So we waited and waited some more while the oven hot Thai breeze pushed through an open window and stole what little energy I had.

Third class was awful, but we made the best of it by drinking heavily. I bought a round of beers several times while we played cards in our laps. I checked my bank balance at an ATM at the station and discovered that my student loan check had been deposited into my account. For over a week I had been spending Dan’s money. We were sitting with a well off Thai woman in her mid thirties, attractive but worn, on a business trip she told us. She owned a brothel of sorts and was off to buy girls for her bar. Just a little trip to purchase some people.

“Inside I’m rotten,” she said, out of the blue, “but the beer helps.”

Dan and Seamus and I peeked at each other sideways with goofy eyes. This broad was different. A self proclaimed Lucifer who knew the score. Then she began buying rounds, and we liked her much better. People were stacked in the cars like dishes. At every stop more people got on but fewer got off. How long can this continue, I wondered? The cars were bulging like in a cartoon. Metal bending, and arching about to explode. Pulsating, breathing. The three of us shared one bench seat about four feet wide, puddles of sweat accumulating between pressed together legs.

And later we were drinking whiskey from a bottle, and I couldn’t say when, where or how we got it or how much time had elapsed since playing cards with the crazy woman now almost forgotten. Somehow, Seamus lost his sandals off the train then I threw my socks out a window because they were soaked with toilet water. We hung off the train like baboons, and I was certain one of us would lose a head or a limb.

I looked forward to getting a good meal, taking a shower and sliding a soft pillow under my weary head.

Two girls sitting in front of us lured us from our games and finally surrendered to our advances. They told us they were getting off the train soon to catch a ferry to an island. Well hell, it was unanimous. Naturally we’d go along, which surprised them since they hadn’t asked.

We got off the train with an empty bottle and jumped into a sawngthaew that drove us through the groggy midnight hour to an unknown port. We knew we were in Thailand, but that’s all we knew. Our ferry departed at 1 a.m., and we got there with a few minutes to spare, the last to board. There were no seats on the boat, just two levels with sleeping mattresses and pillows. I couldn’t even stand upright without smashing my head on the ceiling.

Seamus passed out immediately, of course, and Dan rolled onto his side and began chatting up a girl we didn't know. We had already forgotten about the two girls who were responsible for our diversion, which no doubt pleased them immensely. I walked outside and lay down on a slim, low lying deck with one arm and one leg hanging into the sea. I was stone tired and drunk but happily alone and comfortable, content as hell. The most content I’ve ever been. I looked forward to getting a good meal, taking a shower and sliding a soft pillow under my weary head. I gazed into the deep black sky with complete satisfaction and the thrill of anticipation only a wanderer can know.

We didn’t know where we were going, we didn’t care. Maybe it was the whiskey, maybe the moon. We just wanted to live free, and by doing so, we had taken a sudden detour. And now we were bound for some island off the coast of Thailand. Wrinkled neon glistened along the shore while stars flickered above, and I had the feeling that magic awaited me on the island that I nearly missed.

Nicholas Mistretta spent his 30th birthday at work. Delivering pizzas. It was shortly thereafter that he emerged from the fog. After earning a degree in journalism he left for India. He traveled around the world, wrote Vagabond Zoo, taught English in Korea. And now he’s hunkered down in Thailand. Live Drunk or Die is an excerpt from his recently published travel memoir Vagabond Zoo. More excerpts can be found at his website, along with a free Chapter 1 download.