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from, The Siamese Collectors: He needed a jolt. A drastic change. An explosion of old habits. He wanted to drop a hot grenade into his broken life. So he cooked up Barcelona and Madrid, Paris, Hong Kong and sent flurries of e-mails with resumes. And finally, when the only offer arrived in a beaten yellow envelope bearing exotic stamps, his father insisted he take it. At first he refused. Thailand to him was third rate, tainted by ideas of the Golden Triangle, white slavery, sleazy tourists and terrorism. But he only had two choices and neither he nor his father lingered when action was needed. So they said a quick goodbye on the porch, blinking at the crisp noon sun and sweating as the taxi idled. His father said, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell them anything.”
His plane arrived sometime in the middle of the night. A lone policeman dipped in leather boots and wearing a motorcycle helmet with a loose chinstrap stood guard in the Bangkok airport. Treece slipped his passport into a pocket and watched a dark-eyed Thai girl half-asleep on her arm inside a little glass money exchange booth. A moment later in the open lobby, he nodded to a man behind a walrus tooth moustache holding a piece of cardboard that said: Mike Treece.
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Erich R. Sysak