Welcome to the Fun House Dive into Welcome to the Fun House with this enticing excerpt "The Menace from the North by Jack Corbett From Jack Corbett's latest novel "Welcome to the Fun House".   Expect to find it for sale by Christmas 2011. Jack Corbett, author of "Death on the Wild Side", a novel about the Strip Clubs in East Saint Louis,  traveled with American Feature entertainers across the United States as he shot close to 100,000 pictures during his photo shoots of Feature Showcase, strips clubs, and major adult entertainment events such as Nudes-A-Poppin, Miss Nude World,  and MS. Texas while having over 100 of his articles published in American adult magazines.  It doesn't get any better than to shoot 15 nationally known feature entertainers at an 80 million dollar strip club such as Club Sapphires in Las Vegas with a professional camera with a lens on it that looks like a howitzer and customers keep running up to comment, "I sure wish I had your job and got to hang out with all these beautiful women."  But it  was time for a new adventure and  was time to move on--to Thailand.  Jack spent two of his six years in Thailand serving on his condominium committee which ran the condo, directing the Thai manager and the rest of the staff while developing the accounting system and training Thai staff members how to use it.   Welcome to the Fun House" is much more than just another book about Pattaya's night life and bar girls, offering a real insider's experiences about the way things really work in the Land of Smiles.   Mickel's concentration on the Japanese fishing trawler was absolute as he viewed it through his Nikon binoculars. To the untrained, the boat looked like most other fishing trawlers. Thirty meters long, with a cargo hauling capacity of several tons, made of white fiberglass, it was typical of thousands of similar vessels used all over the world. At first Mickel would have passed it off as just another Russian fishing boat as he often encountered Russian fishing vessels in those areas of the Norwegian Sea that the EU had authorized Norway to patrol as its responsibility for enforcing the Common Fishing Policy of the European Union. But Mickel's eyes were excellent and his Nikon binoculars were the best that money could buy. He could pick out small inscriptions in Japanese across the bow of the boat. For instance, the location of the head, was in Japanese. His instincts told him, something's wrong here. There's not many Japanese fishing boats in these waters, and this one I've seen before. Just two months ago to be exact. Mickel immediately called the steersman on his ship's intercom, "Move in on that slant eyed son of a bitch. I want a closer look." The steersman obeyed instantly, gunning the Norwegian cutter's twin 1600 horsepower diesel engines to the boat's top speed of 28 knots. When the cutter drew within four hundred meters of the Japanese trawler, Mickel spoke into the intercom a second time. "Stop all engines. I take a look now." Raising his binoculars to his eyes, it took him only three seconds to make his decision. His crew of ten men were out on the deck, ready to take orders, each man expecting the command that the time for action had arrived. They all watched Mickel still peering through his binoculars waiting for him to issue the order. "Men. Raise the flag and go get that yellow prick." It had been standard operating procedure for the Norwegian cutter to fly the Norwegian flag ever since the Common Fishing Policy had been agreed upon by all EU member states in a joint effort aimed at controlling over fishing in the Baltic, North Sea, Mediterranean and other waters on which its member countries bordered. But when Mickel issued the order to raise the flag he meant the other flag, which one of his crewman was already hoisting over the stern of the Norwegian vessel. On the flag was a picture of an 11th century Viking warrior's head and helmet which had horns protruding out of it and several lines of text in five different languages, Norwegian, English, Russian, Japanese, and German. The flag read "The Menace from the North" which was the unofficial name of Mickel's vessel. This was a name that was not recognized officially by the Norwegian government or even admitted to. It was more like a pirate flag even though it was not the Norwegian government's mission or Mickel's to plunder. But it certainly was Mickel's goal to intimidate and to strike fear into the hearts of all those who tried to break the Common Fishing Policy rules on the high seas. It was a name that was not easily forgotten, thanks to Mickel's obsessive zeal in making life miserable for everyone he suspected of over fishing because according to Mickel's implacable logic the overexploitation of a steadily declining fish population would ultimately result in world wide famine. Once the Norwegian cutter had gotten close to the Japanese trawler Mickel could see through his binoculars Japanese writing across the ship's stern in addition to what he had already seen on the bow. The painted inscriptions across the stern had long since begun to fade whereas the paint across the bow had been freshly painted. The trawler's name, "Iatsu", had been freshly painted on the hull of the boat for a reason, and that reason was because two months ago the Iatsu had been the "Yamagatoe". Mickel was sure of it. His almost photographic memory and his strong powers of observation were two of the primary reasons making him what he was today. He was one of just ten elite men in the entire Norwegian government who had earned the title of Chief Inspector. Knowing they had been observed by a Norwegian government vessel the crew of the Yamagatoe had touched up the paint on the boat's bow, trying to paint in a white strip over the black lettering of the Yamagatoe that would closely match the white color of the trawler. They had then simply painted a new name on top of this freshly painted white strip, thus transforming the the Yamagatoe to the Iatsu. As far as Mickel was concerned all of this meant that the fishing trawler was illegally fishing-case closed-"It is up to me to hang the bastards." But he still had to gather enough evidence to make it stand up in court once the Japanese captain was officially arrested on the Norwegian mainland and charged with exceeding his limit of fish. A trawler of this size could not exceed more than two and a half tons of fish, which it was the captain of the trawler's responsibility to substantiate in the vessel's log. The CFP required a strict accounting on how many fish were caught each day. There would be a larger ship lying nearby whose primary responsibility was to provide food, fuel, drinking water and other provisions for the smaller vessels that actually did all the fishing. This nurse ship would also take on the catch handed over to it by these smaller vessels. As his cutter drew up alongside the Japanese trawler, Mickel made several phone calls. One of them was to one of his fellow chief inspectors, a man who was also a great friend of his, who was known affectionately by his peers as Titanic while being feared by those who had tried to cross him. "The Yamagatoe? Sure sure. I know it, said Titantic. I boarded it just one month ago and inspected the boat's log book. It had nearly met its quota. I can't remember exactly, but I think it had already caught more than 2 tons of fish." "Thanks my good friend. I cannot begin to thank you enough. Next time we are in Pattaya together, I will buy you a beer. In fact, many many beers I buy for you." By this time one of his crewmen had brought a megaphone to Mickel who yelled at the Japanese crew, "We are boarding you now and do not fuck with me." Then he ordered his own crew: "Pull up alongside and use the grappling hooks. We are boarding that little shitty Japanese shit, so help me God." Once the crew of the Norwegian cutter had pulled alongside the Japanese trawler and latched the two vessels together with grappling hooks and rope, six big strong Norwegians jumped out onto the Japanese vessel and headed straight to the cargo hold where all the fish were kept. After briefly looking over the ships catch one of the crewman came out on deck and yelled across to the remaining crewman on the cutter. "There's over a ton of fish here." Mickel yelled into the megaphone at the Japanese captain, "How come you have 2 tons of fish one month ago and now you have have over one ton? And why do you change name on your ship." "Me no understand English," the Japanese captain called out. "Me Japan." "Bullshit. Even I understand English, Mickel called back. And I just a stupid Norwegian sailor." "Well get this or otherwise my men help you. Understand? Get your log book and come on my boat now. And I don't mean two minutes from now. I mean now. And don't be telling me I gotta wait while you have to take a shit because I really don't give a shit." Then Mickel turned to one of his men, standing next to him, and said quietly to him, "Get out the oil. Let's give this little man a nice Norwegian reception." It took the Japanese captain just sixty seconds to have one of his men retrieve the vessel's log book from the pilot house and hand it to him on deck. By this time one of Mickel's crew members had poured oil on the cutter's deck in the exact spot everyone knew the Japanese captain would be jumping onto from his own boat. While several Norwegians held the two vessels tightly together to keep the gap between them from spreading in the ocean's swell the Japanese captain jumped into the middle of the oil slick on the cutter's deck. The captain's feet suddenly went out from under him as he sprawled headfirst onto the deck as the Norwegians cheered. "Welcome to my little Norway, you little midget, Mickel said to the prostrate Japanese who now lay practically beneath him. Mickel stared down at the scrawny Japanese captain from the full height of his more than six foot frame. His eyes were icy blue, like the hard cruel waters of the North Atlantic. Although he was now close to fifty, Mickel was still a trim two hundred pounds with large shoulder muscles and arm muscles of tempered steel. "I have special place for you my little guest of honor." Mickel spoke down at the Japanese as the man stuggled to his feet, his face a white sheet of embarrassment. The Menace from the North spoke to his crew through clenched teeth. "Get this little Jappo's guest room ready." The Japanese captain's eyes suddenly changed from embarrassment to fear. Ever since the Norwegian cutter had hoisted its "Menace from the North flag" he expected the worse. He had heard the rumors about the modern day pirate cutter that was officially empowered to act in the name of the Norwegian government which Norwegian officials turned a blind eye to its chief inspector's unorthodox methods of enforcing CFP law. But he had not quite believed them. He didn't understand one word of Norwegian but one look into Mickel's pitiless eyes as he listened to Mickel barking out orders in a guttural no-nonsense accent told him that there really was a Menace from the North, but it wasn't the Norwegian cutter. It was Mickel, the 21st century incarnation of the Viking warrior, and it was Mickel who had insisted that his crew inscribe on the flag that was still hoisted on the vessel's stern the picture of the helmeted Norseman. The captain looked once again at Mickel's face seeing eyes that looked right through his skull, and saw a man who would have gladly raped all the women while killing all the men of any village in his path if only he had been born a thousand years earlier. Two of his crew pulled the black plastic cover off the cutter's 50 caliber machine gun while four burly men brandished 7:62 millimeter automatic rifles. Two men came up from below the deck. One of them saluted Mickel and said, "The guest room is ready Sir." Mickel shouted in English to the Japanese on the fishing vessel as he patted the muzzle of the 50 caliber machine gun: "You know what this machine gun will do. It will go right through your ship. It will go through your ship's walls. It will make matchwood of your bridge. I will open big holes in your hull and you will all be swimming in the water while your boat sinks. So I take your captain with me and you will follow my orders or die." Mickel followed two of his crew as they escorted the Japanese captain below the deck. The little storage room was ready for its new occupant. Just five feet in length it was too short for the Japanese to comfortably stretch out in. There was no bed inside. As one of the Norwegians opened the door to the storage room, the putrid odor of rotten fish started to pour out of the small confined area. The Japanese captain recoiled in horror when he saw the two pillows that had been laid out for him on the storage room's floor. At each end of the little room was a single steel cage full of rotting fish. But the Norwegians had been kind enough to put a thick towel across the top of each cage so that he'd have something soft upon which he could rest his head. It would be up which cage he'd use for his pillow. The storage room was just four feet wide, which was far too short for him to lie across. Since it was less than three feet high, he couldn't sit up in the storage hold either. Which meant that he'd be forced to sleep with his head just inches above a few hundred pounds of rotting fish. The Menace from the North had stopped the Japanese fishing trawler two hundred miles from the Arctic Circle. It would take the Norwegian cutter a day and a half to make it to the nearest port where the Japanese ship captain and his crew would be met by the Norwegian authorities. They would be arrested, thrown into jail, and only then would they be allowed to seek legal representation. But Norway was among one of the most civilized countries on earth so everything would be handed with the utmost diplomatic protocol. From then on everything would be handled in a proper court of law. And by the time the Norwegian cutter got to port, the Japanese ship captain would be let out of the stinking storage bin. He would be given a clean shower, the rotten fish would have been thrown overboard and the storage room given a thorough cleaning. Except for the cutter's Norwegian crew there would be no witnesses to back up the Japanese captain's stories, and other than a little bruise here and there from his falling on the desk as his feet had gone out from under him in the slippery oil, no evidence of any physical abuse. So the entire event never happened. It would just become one more chapter in the legend of the "Menace from the North."   The Bahthaus   When Herman the German finished building the Fun House he saw what he had done and he was proud. It's walls were thick, its foundation was deep and secure, and its frame was as strong as a Tiger tank. As he paced its seven floors he said to himself, "Well done Herman." He had aged ten years building his masterpiece which had actually taken just three years off his life. "The owners will never understand what I've gone through but I love them anyway. The owners don't know what's best for them so I'll just have to decide for them," even if there aren't any owners yet. Herman the German had arrived in Pattaya just three years ago, full of hope and idealistic notions of what a paradise the place could become. But so had thousands of other Germans before him who had seen the constantly twisting and curving of the shoreline with its many rock formations, coves and inlets and noted the place's vast potential. It was also just 2 hours from Bangkok. But even before them came the Americans who had come for R & R during the Vietnam War when Thailand served as a major base for the American Armed forces. These Americans swiftly started turning the former fishing village of Pattaya into what would become the world's largest brothel. Through the years, the place grew rapidly much like many of the boom towns of the American West-towns with names like Dodge City, Abilene, Kansas, Deadwood South Dakota, Virginia City, and Tombstone. Like mushrooms the boom towns sprung up quickly once gold, silver, or other riches were found close-by. And with them came hordes of highwaymen, murderers, thieves, gamblers, con artists, claim jumpers, rustlers, and whores out for a quick buck while miners and cattlemen settled in to make their fortune. The boom towns were at first temporarily built of tents, to later become more permanent houses as streets of dirt started to sprawl out everywhere in all directions without the slightest concession to urban planning. And so it was with Pattaya. The whores came to service the young men of the American Army, Marines, Air Force and Navy. But for Pattaya it wasn't gold or silver or cattle that brought in the dregs of Thai society. It was the constant flow of Westerners that started with American servicemen looking for cheap sex combined with an ample number of women willing to supply it that turned the place into the fastest growing boom town in Southeast Asia. Knowledgeable cognoscenti often joked that Pattaya's foundation is composed of cum stains. And through the years as the numbers of whores and sex seeking booze drinking men continued to increase, Pattaya became known as fun city, a place that has often been called a Disneyland for adults except the rides are longer and the lines are shorter. If you never lose track of the analogy of the old American Western boom town and Pattaya, you will understand what Pattaya is today. Just think Gold Rush and how quickly it created a boom town, then substitute "Falang Game" for "Gold Rush" and you have just about got it. It's what Pattaya's all about and it's the greatest goal of all, what Pattaya sex workers dream, scheme and think about day and night. So when you think about all the young pretty girls coming down to Pattaya to sell their bodies, never forget that for a girl spending just one night with a Falang (Westerner) might be more money that her entire family back in the village makes in two weeks. So if a girl can latch onto a falang for a month, or even six months or a year, so much the better. As for all those "good girls" working in shops, as waitresses, in beauty salons or wherever, landing a Falong compared to limiting one's income to what one makes at the shop is the difference between driving a Yugo and a Mercedes. In time the beaches started to fill up with litter. And because of the vast influx of men coming to Pattaya for cheap sex and a plentiful supply of women willing to take care of them, the city started to grow helter skelter in all directions. And although the city major and his henchmen were theoretically responsible for keeping the beaches clean and for making sure that the traffic laws were obeyed and that the streets were kept in good repair, they found it much easier and far more profitable to turn a blind eye to what good government is supposed to be doing. And so the Germans came, and when they saw how chaotic the place had become, they simply couldn't stand it. But the Germans are a very strange race of people. If it wasn't for all the good sex that was on sale practically everywhere, the English, Americans, and Australians would have simply run as fast as they could to find other promised lands. But the Germans saw how hopeless the place had become and instead of becoming filled with despair they rose up together and cried out in unison, "Something must be done about this mess, and we are just the people to do it." And the Germans tried and they tried but no matter what Teutonic efficiency and great planning they put towards such a hopeless task, all their hard work came to nothing. The problem was that even though once upon a time Germans considered themselves the master race, the Thais have always considered Thailand to be the number one country in the world, a notion they've believed in for hundreds of years. Thailand is an insular country that is controlled by a rich and educated elite while the bulk of its population is composed of the poor and the uneducated, most of whom are unable to point Cambodia out on a map even though Cambodia lies next to Thailand. And try as they might, the Germans failed to add order and stability to Thailand in a defeat that can only be compared to their defeat at Stalingrad at the hands of the Russians. Because it really didn't matter to the average Thai if the Germans could build great cars or if they were brilliant engineers, architects, successful businessmen gifted at making splendid products at a decent price, because truth be known the average Thai kept thinking to himself, "Who are these square heads to teach us anything? We already know everything there is that's worth knowing." Vietnam might have had its Vietcong or V.C. in its war against the United States, but Thailand had its own clandestine underground for dealing with such hapless inferiors as these Germans who dared to even think they could show a Thai how to do anything. So they started their own campaign of passive resistance to whatever these Germans were trying to get them to do. For example, if a German employed a Thai to go dig a ditch six feet deep, the Thai would instead dig a ditch that was only five feet deep. And then when the German told the Thai to dig it deeper, even if he held out a tape measure and put his finger on the six foot mark the Thai would tell the German, "Me no understand." Or if a German employer asked a Thai employee to build a wall out of red brick while handing the Thai some money to go out and buy some red brick, the Thai would go out and buy white bricks instead and when the German next checked on the work he'd find the Thai employee had already started laying the white brick. In time, the Germans simply gave up. Still, the sex was very good and the Germans found most Thai women to be half the weight of their wives and girlfriends back in Germany. So the Germans simply shrugged their shoulders and started settling in. Many of them built small German restaurants while marrying the local Thai women. Although their Thai wives already were top notch cooks they started teaching them how to cook German food they. And no matter what can be said against the Thais, nearly all the women are terrific cooks. It's a lot like learning to play music by ear. Show a good Thai woman once how to cook something even if she's never cooked it before or take her to a restaurant and tell her you really like that special Italian dish, and she's going to do a terrific job doing it in half the time most American women ever could. And that's how little Germany started which is in a town just North of Pattaya called Naklua. Here it seems that three out of five restaurants are German. The place kept bringing the Germans in like a magnet. But after awhile most of these Germans started to get fat from all the beer they were drinking along with all that good German food they were preparing in their restaurants. Most of them stopped exercising as they continued to to live it up with their German drinking buddies while their slender good looking Thai wives continued to do most of the work. Herman the German swore an oath never to be like this. "These Germans have gotten soft," he told himself. "And they've gotten so fat that they'd never be able to get into a tank, nonetheless win a battle with one. So I am going to build my own castle and I'm going to look for my kind of people, and I don't care what country they come from, so long as they meet my very strict standards." Mickel goes Condo Hunting With the exception of a single secretary and Herman the German the Bahthaus sales office was empty when Mickel walked in. The secretary was a slender Thai woman, who was probably just over thirty although like many Thai women she looked a great deal younger than that. So far, Herman the German had not sold a single condo although a handful of wanna bee owners had come in anxious to hand over their deposits, but for one reason or the other Herman had turned them down for reasons that he alone could understand. But all of this didn't matter to Herman. Back in Germany his family owned several automobile parts factories as well as several other profitable businesses that included a cosmetics company that had plants both in Germany and in Thailand and a plant that produced electronic components for BWM, Mercedes and Volkswagen. Although he would admit it to practically no one in Thailand, at this point in his life money really didn't mean all that much to Herman. As for the condo building, so far only several stories had been constructed. "What is this Bahthaus all about?" Mickel asked in a loud voice as soon as he entered the sales office. Looking up from his paperwork, Herman the German, started to study the tall burly Norwegian striding over to his desk. Looks like he kind of man I need for a body guard, thought Herman. Where'd they get this guy from, a professional wrestling ring. Nine. He looks too tough to be screwing around like those clowns. "You want to take a look at the building?" Herman asked Mickel. Come, I show you. It is just down the street." "Okay. I follow you," replied Mickel. The construction site was just two blocks down the Soi from the sales office. One glance told Mickel that the place was being built as solid as a German Tiger tank. Massive concrete columns supported the concrete floors, each one over twelve inches thick. But so far only the walls of only two floors had been filled in with large concrete blocks. Mickel noticed that the entire structure was completely unlike most other condo buildings he had already seen in Pattaya. Whereas most were simple rectangles in shape, the Bahthaus was a complicated L shape, complicated by a number of twists and turns that its walls made. The building's outside balconies were not uniform as to either shape or size yet they formed a pleasing continuity that flowed together in perfect harmony with one another. Mickel could see at a glance that each condo owner's balcony would be shielded from the one next to his. But what really struck him was the curvature of one of the sides of the building. It was not linear, forming two curves instead, each curve flowing outward away from the exact center of the outside wall. Mickel couldn't believe his eyes. "My God. That looks like the prowl of a Viking ship." "Exactly," Herman replied. "I am from Hamburg and Hamburg's not that far South of Denmark and you know the Vikings all came from Denmark, Sweden and Norway. We Northern Germans are not all that different from people living in Scandinavia. And I have for a long time been an admirer of Scandinavian architecture." "Oh my God. My God,!" Mickel shouted out loud. "It is. It really is, like an old Viking long boat." "You are from Scandinavia then," asked Herman." "Oh yes. I am from Norway. And all my friends are from Norway." "If you move into this condo building here, they won't be," Herman replied with a broad grin. "What do you mean?" "They are going to come from everywhere. From England, and Germany, from Australia and France, America and even from Russia. Well maybe from Russia. I am not sure yet. Do you want to see the display condominiums? "Look, Herman, I not come all this way to look at nothing. Show me. I want to take a look." The display condominiums were on the first floor. As they entered the first one, Herman said, "This is one of our smaller units. It's only 118 square meters (around 1300 square feet) but it faces the Gulf of Thailand so most of the time you are going to get a nice breeze off the sea which will cool you off, especially at night. In the entryway which was a short hallway entering the condo's living room, Mickel noticed a replica of a Medieval crossbow hanging on the wall. Off this hallway Herman showed him the guest bathroom. "This particular unit has two bathrooms. In fact everyone of our units has two bathrooms with the exception of the two Penthouse apartments up on the top floor. They are going to have three bathrooms and be about 200 square meters (around 2200 square feet)." As they walked into the living room, Mickel noticed several paintings hanging on the walls. One depicted the scene of a medieval jousting match with two mounted knights riding towards each other with one of the knight's long lances aimed at his adversary's shield. The sharp point of the lance was just inches from making contact. The other knight had already made contact however as the painting had captured him leaning well forward as he thrusted his lance right into the helmet of his opponent. In intricate detail, the painting captured the splintering of the lance as its sharp point pierced the helmet while blood burst from the shattered head hidden inside the helmet. "Oh my God," Mickel exclaimed excitedly. "I like it. All that blood and violence. You know, Herman, men are such violent people. They are like beasts. But that is the truth. But nobody wants to hear the truth." On the opposite wall of the living room were two replicas of English broadswords from the 13th century. In front of the wall was a full suit of armor while adorning the wall next to the broadswords was a mace and a battle axe. The wallpaper on this wall was a deep red which contrasted nicely with the various medieval weapons of war. Their next stop was the master bedroom. It was nearly all done up in teak, which made it appear as if it actually came out of a ship. One entire wall provided a 12 foot long built in wardrobe of closets and drawers. On one of the walls was a large picture frame which had a picture deep inside it so that the whole thing gave the effect of a ship's porthole. The picture was of an island surrounded by the sea. "Where's that picture from?" asked Mickel. "That picture is from somewhere near Krabi. I'm not sure exactly which one it is. Krabi's very nice to visit," replied Herman. "It's not too crowded and the water there is very clean and there's lots of very steep hills close to the water there, some of them like cliffs so you can actually practice mountain climbing technique where and go out scuba diving the next day." "How much is this condo? "Three millon baht which is around 75,000 U.S. dollar," replied Herman. "I think I buy a condo here. I think I buy tomorrow. The only question is which one should I buy. That is the question." "If you want to buy, you will have to give me a 50,000 baht deposit to start off with," replied Herman. "But there's another thing too." "What's that." "Well, you look like the kind of person we want living here. But understand that just not everyone can get a condo here. Three million baht is very cheap when you consider what you are getting here." "Why so cheap then? Herman, I have to agree with you. Three million is very cheap. I have never heard of such a thing." "I will be very honest with you, Mickel. I am building this condo to the highest level of European standards and if you go out and see what other condos are bringing you will see that this is the best deal you are going to find. And it's right next to the Gulf of Thailand so no one can build in front of you to spoil your view. But there is a catch, and that catch is I will decide whether or not someone is the kind of person who's going to fit in here. So I want to take you somewhere right now, and we will have a couple of drinks together to discuss this. You can decide if this place is for you and I will decide if you are the kind of person I want to have living here." "What? Are you telling me that I might not be good enough to live in such a place?" "No. I am not saying that. I am only saying that we should go right now and have a few beers together so that we do not make an unwise decision and that each of us gets what he wants." "Okay. That sounds reasonable, Herman. That sounds good enough so let's go drink a lot of beer together."   The Menace from the North goes Fishing   Thirty stories high, with its white Corinthian columns lining its large atrium through which the ocean breeze coursed through from the Gulf of Thailand, the Olympia Beach Condominium could easily make one forget that the seediness of Pattaya is a scant mile and a half away. Upon entering the atrium one can look directly at the sky above. The upstairs architecture of the building can be likened to a funnel of air that is surrounded by small condos on all four sides with the base of the funnel being the center of the atrium's ground lever with the top open to the stars at night just above the 30th floor. On ground level in the center of the atrium is a fish pond that meanders off to the left of this central area, but on the right side there are several shops; a small convenience store, the condo management office, and the Sabai Bar. Swimming lazily in the shallow marble lined fish pond are a number of carp of many colors, gold, white, red, and blue, some of them weighing as much as ten pounds. As one passes through this atrium one comes to a large swimming pool extending out to the beach. The view across the swimming pool from inside the building of the Gulf of Thailand is magnificent. Because the atrium is open to both the East and the West the sea breeze coming off the Gulf travels through the air funnel between the condos to such an extraordinary degree that air conditioning becomes entirely unnecessary. Herman the German led Mickel into the Sabai Bar while explaining to him, "Here you can get a lot of things you will want including alcohol, pineapple, coconut, and banana shakes, soft drinks, coffee and you can even get a massage." Herman pointed at several massage chairs off to his right then pointed to a small winding staircase at the back of the room, "And up here is where you can get either a Thai Massage or Oil Massage." The bartender was a Thai woman in her mid thirties. Seated before her on several bar stools were several older women dressed in the orange uniforms "massage girls" often wear. "I'm buying so order anything you want," Herman said to Mickel. Then pointing at the bartender, continued, "And this is Manny, our bartender here and owner of the place. She also gives the best massages here or practically anywhere else also." Mickel stared at Manny through eyes as harsh as the Norwegian Sea, paused for a moment then suddenly became effusive as he greeted her loudly. "So you are Manny. I am so pleased to meet you. I'm Mickel and I'm from Norway believe it or not. And of course I want to have a drink. Give me a Singha. Then he laughed and said, "I think I will have many beers here, so help me God." Mickel and Herman were on their second beers when Manny studied the two men, then asked them slyly, "Do you want lady?" "Do I want lady?" Mickel replied in a loud voice. "Of course I want lady. Who doesn't want a lady?" "Do you want me to have ladies come?" Manny asked as she looked at Mickel while ignoring Herman. "Please, Please. By all means, bring on the ladies so we can all have a good time together," said Mickel. Herman cringed as he watched Manny ring someone up on her cell phone. She's actually doing it, he thought. Now that's all I need is for having someone pick out my ladies for me. Damn that Mickel. I wish he hadn't opened up his mouth. Now how do I get out of this one without having one of the girls lose face? It took the two freelancers just half an hour to arrive. One of them was pretty in the face but a little plump, too plump for Herman's tastes since Herman preferred slender girls but not for Mickel who was already on his sixth beer. Although it was only his fourth beer since he got to the Sabai Bar, he had already had two beers at the condo he was renting before meeting Herman. The other girl, who was tall for a Thai girl and slender, immediately went over to Mickel which left the plump one to prey on Herman. Smiling, the girl approached Herman taking a bar stool next to him. "My name me is Ahm," the girl said to him. "I'm Herman," Herman replied abruptly while trying to hide the fact that he was not at all pleased with how the evening was regressing. "How old are you?" the girl asked. "Old enough to be your father." "What do you say?" "I'm forty-seven." "How old?" the girl asked with a touch of impatience in her voice. "Me siesip-geht", said Herman. "Okay, okay," the girl replied. You young man. You handsome man." Bullshit, thought Herman. She learned that working in a bar the same time she learned other famous bar girl lines like "Where do you come from?" And "How long you stay in Pattaya?" And "Hey sexy man," while yelling out onto the street at men walking past the bar to get the men's attention hoping to get them to come into the bar. This last line would be modified slightly once one of the men got one on one with one of the bar girls to "You sexy man". Bar girls used this slight modification to appeal to the ego of any man sitting near them hoping he'd buy her a drink and eventually bar fine her. I mean who doesn't like to be called sexy? And then, this girl asks me how old I am so that she can better access how well I am going to perform in bed, so if she thinks I'm old she can hopefully bang me just once and then roll over to fall asleep while hoping I'll do the same. She can also use it to appeal to my ego because if she thinks I'm old, she will say, "Me no like young man. Me like old man." But if she thinks I'm reasonably young, she will say, "I like only young man. Old man no good." "Now how do I get rid of her?" Herman asked himself. Herman shot a quick glance at Mickel who already had his arm around the tall slender girl standing close to him, her hand touching his thigh. "My name Nang," the girl said to Mickel. "What your name?" "I don't have a name," Mickel replied. "But you can just call me Prick." "Pick," the girl replied unable to pronounce the R. "Yes. That's me," said Mickel. "Pick. As in pick of the litter. And as far as it concerns you, I am the pick of the litter. But the reality is I'm a prick." "Me no understand." "I bet you have many many boyfriends," said Mickel his voice even louder than it was before. "Too many to count. But that's okay. I like lady who boom boom many times." "I no boom boom many times. I only boom boom you." "Then we have party tonight. In the condo I'm renting," said Mickel. Mickel then looked over at Herman who was by this time looking uncomfortable as he continued to ponder how he was going to get rid of his girl, and said, his voice nearly shouting now, "Herman. Let us have us a little party tonight. You are invited. We have fish dinner tonight, Norwegian style." Mickel suddenly realized that he didn't have any fish left in his fridge. But he had noticed, even admired the plump Carp on his way into the Sabai Bar. He looked back at the fish pond and noticed a row of flags planted along its bank. The flags of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Japan, Thailand, Korea and China were lined up. Mickel concluded that the flags represented the home countries of condo owners living in the building. Suddenly an idea formed in his alcohol addled mind. "Perfect. One of those flags will be perfect", Mickel announced as he looked over at Herman. "They have to have points on them or they cannot go into the ground very easily. They don't have barbs on them so it will be hard for me to hook the fish securely so I will just have to stab and drive my spear through the fish and thrust up into the air so the fish cannot wiggle off the point. Watch me, Herman. I used to harpoon small whales. That was so much fun." Mickel's mind went back to when he was a young teenage boy and how hard he and his whole family had to work just to survive the harsh Norwegian winters. He remembered how his mother used to plant and take care of a large garden and how she used to can all the produce so they'd have enough to eat in the winter. The family also had a few cows. Several were milk cows which his father used to milk twice a day, getting up as early as 5 a.m. Out of this milk he and his sisters would make butter and cheese. They had a couple of horses too, which they used to till the fields before planting wheat on them and from the harvested wheat the family would make bread. The family had several implements which they would pull behind the two horses. One was a harrow they used to open up the ground to make a seed bed they planted the wheat in. Another was a heavy roller which they'd use to press the seed into the ground so that the seed had good firm contact with the soil so the moisture could rise out of the soil and germinate the seed. Usually there wasn't enough moisture so they'd just hope the field would get some rain before much of the seed was eaten by birds or it simply rotted from being too dry to germinate. Mickel remembered how they used to sow the seed by hand before using the horses and roller to press it into the soil. But harvest was a different matter. They couldn't harvest wheat by hand so the family had to wait for another farmer to come to their field with his combine, which he used with its flail header to harvest the wheat. The farmer with the combine was the only one in the village to have one since combines were very expensive to buy. When it was harvest time he'd go from one farmer's field to the next and collect a harvesting fee from each family for doing the work. Mickel's family had a half a dozen beef cows and steers, which was just enough to keep replenishing the small herd and still allow them to slaughter two animals a year. But most of the family's meat came from the sea. And all of their lighting. The family didn't have any electricity, which would come years later, so they had to resort to using whale oil for the oil lamps inside the home. It was Mickel's job to go out in a small boat to try and find small whales he could harpoon. One thing he did have, however, and that was enough explosive in the tip of his harpoon to quickly kill the whale if he got the harpoon up into the whale's brain or other vitals such as the heart or lungs. When he was not out hunting whales, Mickel would tend to the fishing nets he and his father had set in the water. There would often be hundreds of pounds of fish in the nets, all of which Mickel had to haul back to the family's house, oftentimes by hand. It was backbreaking hard work. And it was a life Mickel never wanted to go back to again. He had left the farm at 16 to work on a fishing boat. Most of his earnings he sent back home. Two years later the Norwegian government put him to work enforcing the CFP. "I get us some fish for dinner," Mickel shouted at Herman and the women in the bar. Mickel's girl, Herman's girl, their bartender and a couple of massage girls watched him through gaping mouths, as Mickel ran out to the fish pond, snatched one of the flags out of the ground, and started harpooning the largest fish he could find. It was all a joke. Mickel really didn't intend to harpoon the fish at the Olympia Beach condo. All his thrusts with his makeshift harpoon were misses. As he intended them to be. Herman looked on the madcap scene with horror thinking Mickel really was killing the fish. The condo's security came rushing up, one of the two Thai men wrenching the flag from out of Mickel's grasp as the other man tried to restrain the boisterous Norwegian. Then they called the police. "Get the fuck away from me, you little men," Mickel shouted at the two Thai security guards. "Do you really think you can stop me, you little weak pieces of shit." Two Thai policemen arrived onto the scene five minutes later on their motorcycles. By this time Mickel had thrown one of the security guards onto the atrium's floor and had his foot pressed firmly upon the top of the prostrate man's head while the other man retreated. "Yeah Yeah, Yeah, just try and get up. You can't because I am too strong for you," Mickel shouted down at the man whose head was firmly pressed into the tiled floor. Finally with Herman's help the two policemen and the remaining security guard were able to pull Mickel off the Thai man lying on the floor. "I am so sorry," Herman said to the policemen. "He mal. Mal mok mok." Then Herman pulled out his wallet and handed one of the police officers five thousand baht. "Just leave. I can handle him. I take care Norway man. He not do again." The policemen left, for after all, five thousand baht's almost an entire month's salary for an ordinary policeman. Herman then turned to Mickel and said, "I take you back in the car to your condo. It is best for us to leave." Mickel followed Herman to the condo's parking lot laughing his guts out. "I pay you back Herman. As soon as we get back to my lodging I'll get the money out of my safe." Then he looked back in the direction of the bar and added, "There's one thing we forgot, Herman." "And what's that?" "The women. After I pay you back let's you and me go out and pick us up two women. Make that four women." On the way back to Mickel's studio at the Plumeria Serviced apartments, Herman contemplated what it would be like having Mickel live at the Baht Haus once the building was completed. He's a wild man, Herman said to himself as he considered the assets and liabilities of the Norwegian as a full time resident at the Bahthaus. He's about as hard to handle a half starved piranha in a goldfish aquarium, but he's strong and he's tough. And he's fun and interesting. I can sure use someone like him for when I need some muscle and to back up my security once the building is occupied. "Tell you what," Herman said to Mickel. "You come into my office tomorrow with a 50,000 baht deposit and I'll knock 200,000 baht off your price for that condo you said you are interested in buying." Herman knew he was making Mickel an offer that the Norwegian could not possibly refuse. copyrighted U.S. Library of Congress, February 2011             View My Stats