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Cinema verities
They cast me as the white guy with the Indian lover. But my Indian lover found me untouchable.
By Jonah Blank
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Vagabonding
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In which our correspondent wanders the tranquil streets of Thakaek and weathers a dangerous descent.
By Rolf Potts
[07/10/99]

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I've been packed and waiting for close to an hour when I hear the tap on the door. I open it. "Where've you been?" I ask the taller of the two irritably. "I thought you said you'd be here right after sunset." "The tide's running a little strange," he says, with a shrug. "It is?" I exclaim, on a note of concern. The guy holds up his hand with a slightly exasperated look, not to countenance any alarm. He indicates their vehicle. I step out between them toward it.

As we walk down the big guy peers askance at my backpack. "What's in there?" he asks. "Why, what's wrong?" I reply. "You said I could take a backpack." He mulls, frowning. "It's pretty big," he says. I halt, anxiously, to settle the issue. "It's just a camera, and some rope and specialized equipment. I really need it," I protest. "How big can it be?" The guy pulls a face. He says the name of his partner. The smaller guy droops his eyelids and shrugs. He actually chews a toothpick. "Well, OK," says the big guy unenthusiastically.

On this note we get in the car. The interior has a strong odor, of shabbiness and outdoor work. We drive out to the main road and go along for a while, then turn down a dirt road, toward the water. We pull over, bumping and crunching, into some trees. We cut our lights. Beyond us the surf rolls in, its froth gleaming and lazily spilling and surging lumbering in -- like a monstrous presence, it strikes me now as I watch, stirring half-alive over and over under the dark sky. My heart thuds in my chest. My legs feel weak as I trail the two figures down carrying tanks and masks with them. "It's over here," says the big guy. The pair of them begin clearing brush cover off a rowboat. I come over to give them a hand. The big guy waves me away. "Part of the fee," he says, without charm. I follow behind them as they haul the boat to the surf line. The surf thumps and rumbles and seethes around us. The smaller guy climbs in and stows the gear. The big guy signals me to go next. "Sit, sit," he insists gruffly, as I hesitate once aboard, swaying upright off balance with the backpack. I drop down.

He shoulders the boat scraping along into the water, and the smaller guy grapples with the oars, still with his toothpick, and then the boat rocks violently as the big guy clambers in, and takes over. He works powerfully, craning back over his shoulder. I hunch in the stern, gripping the lurching gunwale, the waves appearing huge as we get among them. The spray smacks and lashes at us. My heart roars inside me. In the din of it I try to concentrate on the instructions a final time, but my mind is stunned, inaccessible. The big guy works and works, the smaller guy stares back past him toward me without expression. Finally we're well clear of the sheaves of the breakers. We ride the swell. A buoy grows close.

"Okay," says the big guy. He ships the oars. He and his partner start to fit on tanks and masks. I laugh nervously at the sight of them, as they turn themselves into strange creatures in front of me for their work. My limbs are trembling nonstop. They look at me. "Stand up," says the big guy, testing his mouthpiece. I swallow, and start to do as he says, feeling faint and now poignantly absurd with the backpack on. Suddenly the whole shifting surrounding ocean seems to menace at me. "No -- just a minute --" I protest, and I sink back, overwhelmed. "Jesus Christ," the big guy rasps. The smaller one somehow all at once comes springing through and grips me to haul me to my feet. The notorious last-minute panic flares in me. "No -- wait -- wait --" I gasp, as the big guy joins in. We go grappling over the side.

I struggle in the shock of underwater. Panic seizes me completely. The two of them wrestle with my arms to bring them down behind me, to work around my frantic boots and the encumbrance of my backpack. Their bubbles seethe and boil. It's much worse than I thought it would be, the final frenzy for air, the invasion of the water internally.

Finally my body droops, twisted over off-plumb from the load of the backpack.

The minutes pass. I start to get my bearings. The two figures mill around me in the depths, trailing streamers of bubbles. The big guy works in close and shows me a thumb, querying. I blink at him in his mask, and nod, with a bleary grimace. Around us the murky underseas slowly unveil into terrains of rubble and declivities. The big guy puts his hand on my shoulder and steers me about and points several emphatic times. I make out the eerie, grandiose mouth of the cavern in the distance. I nod, and stare momentously at him. I show a thumb and he replies in kind. I watch his and his partner's boots milling away into obscurity as they start back for the surface. I heft my backpack, feeling it once again as a stalwart closeness. I swing about, and peer forward grimly, and then take the first wading, fearful step toward the cavern, where my perilous journey will commence in earnest.

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