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Mr Nice

Being true to myself for the first time

By Christopher HowePublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 16 min read
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I remember seeing a photograph of Howard Marks, the self-confessed drug dealer, in an article in the Guardian in was the mid-1990s. Marks had just published his autobiography. ‘Mr Nice,’ he called it. That’s when the thought first came to me. Perhaps it had been Marks on the plane to Bangkok that day? There was no Google, no Wikipedia. It wasn’t as easy back then to just look things up. So I let it go.

But that photo started some kind of delayed reaction. A full twenty years later I was channel surfing one night, and stumbled across ‘Mr Nice - The Movie.’ Entertaining as it was, I didn’t make the connection straight away. There was nothing about Marks and Thailand. But the next day I found myself typing in ‘Howard Marks Bangkok,’ and there it was, as if everyone had known except me. Marks had set up a massage parlour in Bangkok in 1984. He had been doing deals with the CIA and needed to get away from Europe for a while. It didn’t last long, just a few months while things calmed down. Soon afterwards he fetched up in Mallorca, where he could be close to the European drug market. But the timing of his stay in Bangkok was exactly right. It really could have been him.

In June 1984 I was on a Romanian Airlines flight to Bangkok with Adrian, a classmate from my secondary school in the UK. He was never really a friend, but I was back in my hometown over the Easter holiday – I was working in Devon after leaving school – and we’d caught up in the pub. Perhaps I was boasting a little. I’ll be travelling around South-east Asia in the summer, I said. Just a backpack, no plans, see where the trail takes me. I thought he might boast about his own plans, but I never expected him to decide to join me. I didn't say no soon enough and it rapidly turned into a problem. He pestered me constantly, ringing up two or three times a week. So many questions. What kind of gear should we take? Did we need injections, or malaria tablets? What places would we go to? I told him I had a copy of South-East Asia on a Shoestring, 4th edition, and I just wanted to see where the trail took me.

By the time we got to the airport, mid-July 1984, Adrian was stressed out about everything. He hauled a huge daypack onto the plane and annoyed everyone, fussing, opening and closing his bag, putting his tickets and passports and boarding passes away, and then getting them all out again.

When we changed planes in Romania it was only a sharp-eyed flight attendant who spotted, while checking my boarding pass and baggage tag as she gave me my transit card, that my pack had been tagged for Bucharest, not Bangkok. I had to leave my passport and go through to the baggage carousel on the Romanian side to retrieve it. That spooked Adrian even more, me being escorted away by a couple of Romanian security guards, all Eastern bloc uniforms and holstered pistols, leaving him alone in the departure lounge with our flight already boarding.

On the leg to Bangkok I was on the aisle, Adrian was in the middle and – let’s call him Howard – was in the window seat. Howard quickly charmed Adrian. How knowledgeable Howard was! And how funny! Didn’t I think so? Howard handed Adrian a magazine in French and said everyone knew how to read un peu, didn’t they? We should be ashamed if we didn’t. Adrian started ‘reading’ the magazine as if he hadn’t dropped the subject when he was thirteen. And thinking back, I’m sure Howard was speaking with a gentle Welsh accent.

I’d had enough. I pulled my blanket up over my head, turned away from them, and closed my eyes.

While I was sleeping Howard convinced Adrian that we shouldn’t hang around in Bangkok, but instead go with him to Pattaya. As I woke he was saying things like ‘It's a gentle introduction to Thailand,’ and ‘I can show you around, no problem.’ In 1984 Pattaya was one big red light district. Loud motorbikes ridden by older, pony-tailed white men with tiny Thai girls clinging on behind them. 24-hour floorshows. Aggressive women grabbing at your arm and shouting ‘give me baht, give me baht.’ I’d read the Lonely Planet and tried to tell Adrian it was a bad idea, but Adrian said he’d already told Howard we’d do it. What did we have to lose?

We made our way through immigration to the baggage hall, and then through customs, past the ‘death sentence for drug smugglers’ signs.

As we left the terminal, to my horror, Adrian turned and handed Howard a bag he’d carried through for him. As Howard moved away to wave down a taxi, I was furious. Hadn't he ever seen Midnight Express? Heard about the Bangkok Hilton? Adrian said I should relax. Howard’s a good guy, friendly, he’ll look out for us, he said. I glared at Adrian as Howard called us over, pointing to our taxi and telling us to get a move on.

As we piled our packs into the taxi Adrian said he'd agreed to pay half the fare to Pattaya in return for Howard's help. The real Howard Marks had made millions by 1984. He wouldn’t have needed to share the costs of a taxi with two teenagers. Given what happened later that evening, maybe Howard had something else in mind - especially now we all know what Charles Sobhraj, 'The Serpent,' was up to a few years earlier - but at the time I was just annoyed with Adrian. I didn’t have the confidence to do the obvious and sensible thing. I should have walked away. Instead, two hours later and one week's budget already gone on the taxi fare, we were dropped off a little after ten in the morning at a run-down backpackers with a promise that Howard would come back later to take us out for dinner.

I lay on my bed, sweating. It was midday, and there was a small ceiling fan that moved the hot air around a little. I said we should go and get something to eat, so we put our money belts on and wondered if the rest of our stuff would be safe in the room, not that there was much choice. The seafront was filthy, a concrete walkway littered with plastic. Looking down to the rocks covered with black algae I could see flashes of movement. Rats. The smell from the sea was fetid, a mix of decay, untreated sewage, and hot brine. Although there was a swell, the surface of the sea looked smooth, almost oily.

Girls called us handsome, asked if we were married yet, offered to ‘play,’ as we walked along. Adrian insisted on eating at an air-conditioned place called Mama’s, instead of one of the street stalls a row back from the seafront. We ate some fiery khao pad, resorting to icy beer to try and calm the burning in our mouths. As we walked back I told Adrian I thought Pattaya was mistake and we should get out quickly. It wasn’t what I’d come to see, what I’d come to spend my $10 a day on. I wanted to eat street food, to see temples, to meet locals. He said give it a chance. It’s only the first day, we’re not used to it yet. And Howard’s bound to know all the good places.

That afternoon we sat around in what they called the ‘travellers lounge,’ but was really just a few plastic chairs and a Formica-covered table sticky with last night’s spilled beer. I read my Lonely Planet. A German couple, tall and blond with efficiently strapped backpacks and matching t-shirts checked in, looked over, and then ignored us. A single American guy argued with the receptionist. There was constant noise from motorbikes and tuk-tuks. What were we doing here?

In the tropics it's light at six, dark at six-thirty. We sat. We read. We didn’t talk. Howard didn't show. Adrian asked if I wanted to get something else to eat and I said no, I didn’t. Something must have come up, Adrian said. I’m sure he’ll come by in the morning and show us the sights. I don’t know whether Adrian really believed it, or whether he was just trying to convince himself. Perhaps part of me, too, wanted Howard to come back, to show us the ‘real’ Thailand. Maybe I’d been wrong about him, wrong about Adrian’s judgement. But I knew I was doing the same as Adrian, trying to convince myself. I knew Howard wasn’t coming back.

Our room eventually cooled down. Two narrow single beds, with thin mattresses and threadbare sheets, and that tropical smell of mould and drains that I’d get used to over the next ten weeks. It had been a long thirty-six hours since we arrived at Heathrow. I remember looking at my watch just after ten, and I must have fallen asleep soon after that.

I woke to an incredibly loud noise. I remember thinking, still half asleep, about complaining. They shouldn’t allow noise like that in the middle of the night. Or maybe it was an earthquake? No. Trouble downstairs? Then I realised it was someone banging on a door. Our door.

It went on and on. It probably lasted only a few minutes but it seemed it would never stop. The whole room was shaking, with its thin walls and plywood door. Someone was shouting in what I assumed was Thai. It seems hard to believe, but I pretended I was asleep. I didn’t acknowledge Adrian at all. But I was ready to stop him if he made the slightest move towards the door. Then the banging stopped. The sense of relief was physical, the release of tension like a wave through my body. Then it started again. Whoever it was, they were playing with us. Perhaps they didn’t know we were in the room? Then it stopped again, and I could hear footsteps moving away, down the stairs. I didn't move, didn't make a sound, not prepared to risk being heard and giving our presence away. Adrian started making strange little noises, and I realised he was crying, but I just lay there, looking up at the ceiling in the dark.

I think I slept a little, but I was awake again just before six. I had everything in my pack and ready to go by quarter past. Adrian was awake as well by then and I told him I’d checked the Lonely Planet. Buses went back to Bangkok every ten minutes at this time of the morning, and that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t say anything about the door-banging incident. I waited for him to say something about Howard perhaps coming by, or that we should give Pattaya a second chance. OK, he said, and started putting his things in his pack.

Did I deliberately lose Adrian when we got to Bangkok? I suppose I did. It's taken me more that thirty years to admit the truth. When I told people what happened – the girl I was hoping to meet up with in Malaysia, my parents when I got home, anyone who asked me if I was travelling solo – I made it seem like it was an accident, that I really meant it when I said ‘meet you at the station’ to Adrian. I don’t think they ever believed me, not for one moment. They must have known I was lying, but they didn’t call me out. Perhaps they realised I had my reasons.

We’d arrived at a bus station somewhere on the outskirts of Bangkok. I needed to go south, to meet a girl I knew from England who was also travelling, and I wanted to catch a train. I’d been reading Theroux’s Great Railway Bazaar and wanted to follow his journey. It was intensely hot so I suggested heading to an eating-house for a cool drink, while we consulted the guidebook. The number 15 bus would take us into the central city and we could find our way to the railway station from there. That was the plan.

Outside, Adrian was fiddling with his pack again. Where was his camera? Instead of some easy to handle compact, he’d brought an SLR, with one of those padded fabric cases that didn’t really fit. Every time he wanted to take a photo he struggled to get the camera out, and struggled to get it back in, battling with the clips and drawstrings. And now it was gone. He must have left it in the eating-house. He ran back and, a minute or so later, emerged with it in his hand. He’d put it down on a ledge in the bathroom, and it was exactly where he’d left it. I took a photograph of him holding it up, sweating and grinning. It’s the only one I have of him.

The bus pulled up. In Bangkok, in 1984, buses didn’t stop. They slowed down to walking pace, you jumped on, and they pulled away. Adrian jumped on. Now it was my turn to be busy with my bag. Was I putting the guidebook away? Or my camera? I don’t recall now. I know I wasn’t going to be rushed, not in that heat, not by Adrian. The bus pulled away and Adrian looked back. Was it surprise on his face? Fear? I’ll meet you at the station, I shouted. I’ll be on the next bus, don’t worry. For a moment it looked like he might jump off, but he hesitated, and it was too late.

I stood by the side of the road as the bus disappeared. Peace. That was the moment I knew, for sure, I wanted to be rid of him. We’d been in Thailand just one day, but it was already more than enough time in his company. Even then I didn’t think that would be the last I saw of him. I thought I’d have an hour or so on my own, then we’d be travelling together again. I was already thinking about how I could make my excuses, how I could engineer a more permanent parting of the ways. The incident with the bus was like a dress rehearsal, a practice run. Proof I could do it if I wanted to. Next time it would be for good.

In the Great Railway Bazaar Theroux catches a train south from a station called Thonburi, so that’s where I went. I think I took a couple of buses. Maybe I took a taxi. Funny how I can’t remember now. Adrian went to Bangkok’s Central Station. He just asked someone where he could catch a train south and that’s where they sent him, which was of course the right advice. By 1984 Thonburi wasn’t anything like Theroux’s description. It was already in the decline that would see it closed for good nine years later. I spent a quiet afternoon sitting on the platform, reading and eating khao pad, waiting for the day's only train south. It didn’t seem strange to have to wait five hours for a train. I was enjoying not being around Adrian. Of course I wondered where he was. I hoped he was OK. And I did, really, expect to see him there. I wasn’t surprised it was taking him some time, because he wasn’t really cut out for this travelling thing, and I had our copy of the guidebook. If I'd bothered to look at it, I'd have known I was at the wrong station, but I didn't. When it came time to board my train, he hadn’t arrived, and that was that.

I think it was two, maybe three years later I ran into Adrian on another visit home. We’d had no contact at all. He didn’t seem to want to talk about what happened, really, and neither did I but I guess we had to. I explained the Thonburi thing, blaming Theroux. He told me how he'd found his way to the central station. He said he’d found travelling difficult, to start with, without the guidebook but he’d found an older edition in a backpackers, which had helped. They’d charged him too much for it, but what else could he do? I offered to buy him another beer, even though I’d bought the first round, and he let me. I bought the third round as well, and I think he would have let me pay all evening if I hadn’t made my excuses.

It turned out we’d missed each other by just a day in Hat Yai, on the border between Thailand and Malaysia. He’d hung out at the immigration post, waiting for me. When, before we left England, I’d reluctantly agreed to discuss my ideas for the trip, I told him I wanted to go south to Malaysia and he wanted to know why. I told him about the girl I was hoping to meet on an east coast island. It was a private thing, I told him, she'd be with her parents and sisters. He wouldn’t be able to join us. But he said he’d come along, in case they didn’t mind. If he wasn’t welcome, of course he’d leave, but why don’t we leave that up to them?

So Adrian knew I’d be passing through Hat Yai, and he knew roughly when to expect me. He even left a message at the Hat Yai post office, which I didn’t think to check. If I had, what would I have done?

When I didn’t show he called home and told his parents, who told my parents, who were worried until they received my first postcard a few days later, written on the platform at Thonburi, the first time I told the lie about losing him by accident. Then he headed north to Chiang Mai, rode elephants in the jungle, hung out with the hippies, spent all his money on dope and went home early. I said it didn’t seem too bad after all. It sounded like he’d had a great time. He said nothing and drank his beer.

Two weeks after I let Adrian jump on that bus, I was on a beach in the Perhentian Islands, my skin turning brown, with Jennifer and her family. I suppose I have ‘Howard’ to thank, at least in part, but I would have found a way to lose Adrian, one way or another. I had no choice. I would have had to find a way.

When I look at that photograph of Adrian holding his camera, sweating, grinning, I remember him jumping onto the moving bus and how I suddenly needed to look down, open my backpack, or close my backpack, or put something in my backpack. I can’t remember what I pretended to do but, in that precious fraction of a second, having a reason to not to jump onto that bus was the only thing that mattered.

If I’d been older, more experienced, more mature, I would have simply taken Adrian aside and told him, ‘I don’t want to travel with you any longer,’ but I was just nineteen years old. I worried, as all teenagers do, what other people thought of me, even those I didn't like. But I remember that feeling, that moment as the bus pulled away, like it was yesterday. A feeling of regret but also of satisfaction, of relief, of realising it's OK not to be liked by everyone. I'd been cruel and selfish, but I’d been true to myself for perhaps the first time, and it felt good.

Teenage years
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About the Creator

Christopher Howe

Traveller, conservationist, and writer. I carry a coffee grinder and a Bialetti 2-cup Moka wherever I go.

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