The Extinct

CHAPTER
25

The next day Eric woke up late in the afternoon. He’d scored some mediocre drugs; a few dime bags of H and an eighth pound of weed. He’d stayed up late in the morning smoking, watching the city lights from the balcony and the slow rise of the sun over distant hills.

By the time he showered and smoked a joint, it was already nightfall. The moon was half-covered with dark clouds and hovered in the sky like a glowing orb of pale light.

He left the hotel with a stack of money, his drug-hunger satiated for the moment but already tingling his belly for the next wave of warmth and comfort.

The business district was closing up and Eric walked through a few back alleys into the nearest red-light district, though they weren’t given a name here. They were just a few square blocks of bars and strip clubs and cheap hotels. Wind chimes were sounding from a nearby house as he walked down the sidewalk, running into more and more single men. This was like a playground for them, but much more sinister. Because the usual pleasure for single men was sex, and sex was always mingled with power, most of the girls in this district had plenty of mended bones and fresh bruises. Usually it would cost the tourist only a few extra American dollars to impose whatever fantasy he wanted on the girl. Their pimps-which were the owners of the bars or hotels the girls worked out of-knew they could find another girl to replace her for next to nothing.

Eric walked past a bar that stood the girls outside on the sidewalk in their underwear, if they were lucky a silk or polyester robe to cover them. Men would walk by and choose a girl, taking them to a nearby hotel that was owned by her pimps or just the back of a dark alley if the owners didn’t have a place.

He walked into a bar he hadn’t been to before, a small brick building with a neon sign in front. It was just one large room and the bar was against the wall, wooden stools set up in front of it. In the center of the large space was a circular stage with two girls dancing nude. There weren’t that many people inside, mostly laborers having a few drinks before going home or the odd businessman looking for sex. Eric sat at the bar and ordered a shot of Jagermeister, downing it quickly and ordering another. The music was some loud reggae song and it annoyed him as much as the red lighting and copious mirrors.

“You American?” a heavily accented male voice said.

Eric looked to see a small balding Thai sit next to him. He had his jacket half-way open and rings on every finger. “No,” Eric said. The man laughed. “Yeah, you American. You shy. You no shy, I have good yum yum for you. Five dollar.” “I don’t want any yum yum.” “This good yum yum; five dollar.” The man grabbed Eric’s hand. “You come back, I show you.”

Eric finished another shot and stood. He wasn’t horny, but he didn’t really care where he was and it might as well be a backroom filled with women. The man walked him past the stage, Eric glancing up at the girls, their faces empty and sullen. The man opened a door and led him through it, waiting for him to walk in and then shutting it. There were couches on one side of the room next to another door, a small table in between them. The other side of the room sloped down into a pit filled with water about two feet deep. At first Eric thought the pit was filled with mud, but as he looked more closely he could make out the thin tails and rough skin of small crocodiles. They lay motionless in the water, one on top the other in the small space. The water was filthy and stunk of excrement.

The man yelled something toward the other door and it opened. A young girl stepped out with a baby in her arms. It was crying and naked and the girl brought it over to the man.

“Five dollars,” he said, pointing to the pit. “Five dollars and you watch.”

Eric could feel the acidity of vomit rise in his throat and his stomach felt like it was filled with lead. He looked at the young girl and saw bruises on her neck and her bare legs. Though young, she already had a look in her eyes that he’d seen in the older women. A look of hopelessness, and acceptance of the hopelessness. For a reason he couldn’t put into words, it was the scariest thing he’d ever seen.

“Five dollars,” the man said again.

“No,” Eric said, stepping back toward the door. He was high and half-drunk and the room was lit with red light, giving it a monstrous appearance. It made him shiver and he began searching with his hand behind him for the doorknob, though he didn’t take his eyes off the young girl.

“Yes,” the man said emphatically. “Five dollars and you watch.” He said something in Thai to the young girl and she walked to the edge of pit and held the baby over.

“No,” Eric said, choking up.

“You give, five dollars!” the man said angrily.

The baby’s crying pierced Eric. It was in long high-pitched shrieks and hurt his ears, though the man and the young girl didn’t seem to notice. The man walked closely to him and reached for Eric’s pocket. Eric pushed him off but was too confused to fight. The man grabbed at the cash in his pocket and managed to pull out a hundred and twenty-five dollars. He looked back to the girl and said something. The girl released the baby.

“No!” Eric shouted. He jumped into the pit, landing on one of the crocodiles, sending them both into a panicked frenzy. He grabbed the baby up in his arms as one of the animals clamped down on his boot. He kicked it as hard as he could and then stomped its head. The crocodile hissed and spun the other way, giving Eric long enough to climb out of the pit.

The man was yelling something. Eric grabbed him by his throat, adrenaline returning his strength. The man was small and wiry, his neck greasy with sweat. Eric pressed his fingertips into the windpipe until he heard a crunch. There was gurgled breathing and the man collapsed, choking and wheezing for breath. The woman screamed for security.

Eric opened the door and ran out of the bar as someone shouted in Thai after him. Eric felt the damp air of the street and ran down the sidewalk, the baby in his arms, unsure which direction he was running. The lights and girls and music from the bars melded into jagged fragments of vision, like they were being reflected in broken pieces of a mirror.

He stopped when his lungs burned and his legs felt like they were going to give out. Bending over some bushes, he vomited. Only a thick bile and jagermeister spewing out since he hadn’t eaten today.

When he was through he walked to a nearby hospital half a mile away. The lighting was strong florescence and it made his eyes ache. The baby was wet and screaming. He handed it over to a nurse and stuffed all the cash he had on him into the nurse’s palm. “For the baby, understand.” The nurse nodded quietly. She glanced to the police officer sitting on a chair by the entrance but didn’t say anything. Eric walked out and sat on the curb, and cried.