Bangkok Busted You Go to Jail for Sure

By William John Stapleton

Of all the thousands of stories he had written across his lifetime, author and journalist William John Stapleton had never been happier to write the words "The End" than when he completed The Twilight Soi series with the short book "Bangkok Busted: You Go To Jail For Sure".

The series began in an anguished state after the author wrote a book detailing the decline of Bangkok's famous strip of go-go boy bars known as Soi Twilight, a narrow street adjacent to Bangkok's oldest red light district Patpong and telling the deeply personal, embarrassing and hurtful story of being ripped off by one of the streets better known denizens.

Much had changed in the two years since he began the series.

The writer finally got his pet project, A Sense of Place Publishing off the ground and finally settled in his current city of choice, Bangkok.

But one thing that did not change was the vengeful pursuit of those who did not want to succeed.The book exposes routine robbery of tourists, issuing of death threats to those who did not voluntarily walk away after being stolen from and the tentacles of corruption that ran up and down from the colourful neon lit strip known as Soi Twilight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456610111

Book preview

Interlude.

KOLKATA

Living in Bangkok Michael discovered, as so many had before him, that while you can’t buy love or friendship, you can buy sex and companionship.

As he was also to discover, acting out an ancient contract between the young and the old in modern day Thailand only buys contempt from the gallery of rogues who make up the country’s internationally renowned multi-billion dollar sex industry.

He used to think of his errant and usually fleeting liaisons as loveable. Soon enough he learnt to laugh at their ceaseless trickery and no longer believed a word they said.

Trust no one, take care yourself, is an adage which many of Bangkok’s residents live by. Wise words.

Michael could in no way claim the high moral ground.

But it was obvious to any observer that the frequent scams being run against foreign tourists was a principal contributor to the lack of trust towards the Thais many travelers come to feel.

The legions of stories from expatriates detailing the negative outcomes from liaisons with Thailand’s men, women and ladyboys was damaging the nation’s burgeoning tourist industry. And in a broader sense the country’s reputation.

As well, at the time of writing AIDS related deaths were inching towards the one million mark.

The perception that HIV – pronounced SIV in Thailand because the locals have difficulty pronouncing the letter H - is endemic amongst sex workers is harming the economy.

Michael had no intention of ending up back in Bangkok – the city he had avoided all year after a prolonged battle with the by then famous go-go boy Aek, who had become a hero to many of the country’s male sex workers.

Far from being The City of Angels, for him Bangkok was ahndallai mak mak – very dangerous.

The frequent taunts and death threats he received, along with the burning down of his home following the online publication of The Twilight Soi, had encouraged Michael to stay away.

Indeed he had never intended staying in Thailand for very long in the first place.

He had been on his way to the Algerian coast to act out a life as some sort of latter day Paul Bowles, one of his literary heroes from an earlier time, when he became caught up in the dangerous world of Bangkok’s bars and clubs.

Originally he had thought of Thailand, just as thousands of American soldiers did during the Vietnam War, as nothing but R&R, rest and recreation.

Yet like so many other Westerners at transitional points in their lives, Michael found himself trapped in the whirlpool of modern Bangkok, that futuristic city voted the best tourist destination in the world by travel magazines.

After a crowded life and 25 years of full time employment, in 2010 he found himself adrift.

I’ve never known anyone who knows so many dead people, a colleague once observed.

It was true enough.

Why he had survived into retirement when so many of his contemporaries had died of the twin evils of his generation, AIDS and overdoses, he had no idea.

He felt like a shard of glass cutting into a future he was never meant to see.

There was no way to report back to old friends.

Perhaps their absence, the lack of feedback from people who had known him for much of his life, explained why he had been so vulnerable to a preposterous pack of lies: I love you, I miss you, I stay with you forever.

Magical, mysterious, dangerous, all adjectives applied to Bangkok because, as one Thai writer put it, all could be found within its borders.

Whether it was the physical beauty of the nation’s people, the striking landscapes both urban and rural, the ethnic Thais laughter filled approach to love and life, or the complexity and refined charm of its language and culture, the superb quality of its cuisine and popular music, or even just the favorable exchange rates, it didn’t take long after his arrival before Michael was sold.

Thailand had come a long way from the sleepy third world country dotted with shanty towns and crumbling temples he first encountered 40 plus years before.

In the early part of the 21st Century Bangkok and a number of other regional centres bristled with money and visitors from all over the world.

Bangkok had a population between of 15 to 25 million, depending on how it was counted. The higher estimates equaled the entire population of his own country.

Entranced and intrigued, Michael stopped and stayed; caught up in a string of events and misadventures he would never have dreamed possible.

Two and a half years after his arrival and subsequent flight he was forced to return to Bangkok on what was one of the most confusing and disorienting days of his life.

On that day, against his will, he had flown from Bangkok to Kolkata and back again.

Michael hadn’t been in India for very long, indeed never even left the airport, before being frog marched back on to the Air Asia flight returning to Bangkok - despite his protestations that the city he once loved so much was no longer safe.

Far from being a humble traveler on a religious style quest for knowledge, experience and understanding, he had become more like a deranged tennis ball fleeing and then dribbling