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“When you play in a band with a guy and his woman all night, week after week, you pick up on things. Like who wears the pants.”
“Mya calls the shots.”
“Did I say that? I was talking about pants. And you know what, she has a voice that can drive a man to do and say things, promise things he couldn’t imagine himself doing.”
The owner of the bar walked over as the band was about to go back on stage. Alf called him over and introduced the big man to Calvino. Gung, whose name was the Thai word for shrimp, shook hands with Calvino. In his time Calvino had bought a boatload of shrimp on his tab, not to mention a trawler’s worth of fish and one or two drinks. It was private eye fishing bait. This Gung drank rum and coke. A few rum and cokes would crack open the shell of most people named Shrimp. Patience was all that was needed.
“Gung,” said Alf, “I was just explaining about Rob and Mya. This fella is working for Rob’s old man, who wants him to drag our boy’s ass back to Bangkok.”
“I’m all for that. You guys sound like shit without him.”
“Go blow yourself, slumdog breath.”
Gung smiled.
“What is it you want to know?” he asked Calvino.
“Rob’s address in Rangoon. Assuming you don’t have it, then can you help me narrow down where I might find him? My first question is what made Rob and Mya take off for Rangoon? They have work here. Rob wanted to make a video of the band. Doesn’t sound like a situation he’d want to leave. Second question, why haven’t they contacted anyone in the band in over a week? That doesn’t seem normal. They’re friends. Why haven’t these friends got his address and phone number in Rangoon? That’s about it,” said Calvino.
“You talk like someone from New York.”
“I am from New York.”
“Intense, man. Like a machine gun on rapid fire.”
“Tell you what, after you answer my questions, you can tell me why you named the bar Le Chat Noir.”
Gung scratched the reddish stubble on his chin. His rum and coke arrived in an oversized glass. He took a sip.
“I’ll start with your last question since that’s one I can answer without any bullshit. When you die, that’s it. There is no afterlife. Zip, zero, a blank screen without snow. ‘Le Chat Noir’ really means to me the big blackout. Gone baby, gone,” said Gung, the luk kreung—mixed race—owner/manager. He was a big man with a large head who looked half-Viking, half-mongoose, born into a coiled cobra of a world. The mongoose DNA came from his Thai mother.
“Le Chat Noir was actually my second choice to name the bar.”
Calvino watched Gung size him up, as if he had shrimp antenna whipping through the air around his face.
“And your first choice?” asked Calvino, who was doing his own assessment.
“Fuck Everybody,” said Gung.
His eyes narrowed as he sucked on a cigarette.
“But the assholes who run ‘The Big Show’ wouldn’t let me register it. They said you can’t use ‘fuck’ in the name of a company. And I said, ‘Truth. Isn’t that a good enough reason?’ But the Big Show runners, man, they just don’t get it. Rob did. So did Mya Kyaw Thein.”
Alf butted in: “‘The Big Show’ was Rob’s expression. He wrote a song called ‘The Big Show.’”
“Mya Kyaw Thein came up with the name,” Gung added.
Alf rolled his eyes and said, “Man, in Texas, you’d be thrown on the barbecue, Gung, for telling such lies.”
“Ain’t a lie. She’s the one who taught him what she called the Lesson. The Burmese know a thing or two about the Big Show. They get it. Only they got a different cast in Burma. But nothing’s changed. It’s still the uniforms who run the country on one big policy—Fuck Everybody. Now the rest of the world thinks that Burma’s opening up and everything’s gonna change. Bullshit. Same Big Show, different actors.”
“That’s what Mya said?”
Alf’s Texas drawl had a little contempt in the tone.
“But she’s not here, is she? This man wants information about her. I am answering his questions.”
The price was a giant rum and coke.
