Drift Reality > Bangkok > The Scot

The Scot was an old man with a meaty face and tattoos on his arms. I originally mistook him for a Brit. I had returned to my hotel from my excursion into the Thai nightlife when I decided to have a drink at the hotel bar. There was a small band playing and a lovely middle-aged Thai woman singing American covers.

The man was singing along (although not quite as well as the Thai girl), and saying things like "You do it girlie!" and "Sing it girlie!"

He then requested, "Wind beneath my wings." The Thai girl said, "Ve vill sing 'Everything I do.'"

I compulsively shouted, "He asks for a Bette Midler song and you give him Bryan Adams! He wanted a Jewish woman and he is getting a Canadian man!"

She looked a bit disconcerted by my statement. Perhaps she did not know that Bryan Adams was Canadian.

The Scot responded to me by saying, "She is not a Jewish woman," to which I responded: "She is!"

He then turned to the Thai singer and shouted, "Do you want me to kick his (my) ass!" To which I responded, "There you go, why are the British always trying to pick fights with Americans!"

"I'm Scottish," he yelled back.

"Even worse, I saw Braveheart," I shouted back.

He laughed at this for some reason and beckoned me over to his table where he began pouring full glasses of whisky. He apologized profusely for yelling at me and seemed to be very insistent on telling me that the most important think I could do in life was to listen to my heart. He kept saying, "I'm not a hard c@#t," followed by: "If anyone in here looks at you, they're f@#king dead."

He claimed to be a veteran of the British army, which I accepted even though I had my doubts. He kept hugging and kissing all of the employees (even the guys), who would look at him and laugh but at times I felt as though they must have been cursing him behind his back.

He then proceeded to fluctuate between apologizing to me, telling me how many men he had killed, and telling me to follow my heart - for the next hour or so. And he insisted on telling me that I should do what was in my heart, which I took to mean skipping the early morning tour that I had signed up for, sleeping in until 4 and calling the Thai girl I met last night.

At around 1:30, I decided to head up to my room to go to sleep. He offered to buy me a Thai girl for the night, but I declined.