Dan hands me his list as I get off the elevator, still fifteen minutes from the start of clinic. The paper is polished and worn, having been folded twice and in and out of his wallet for half a century. There is ink from at least four ball-point pens on the page. The edges are frayed, almost archival. He’s a little smug, like he just delivered key evidence in a trial. He lifts his chin and looks off to the side, like De Niro. A slight nod of the head.
By ROLF POTTS
Thailand, 2001
1.
In the fall of 2001, while I was living in the south Thailand border town of Ranong, I had a brief love affair with an Australian woman named Eva. I first met her on the swimming-pool veranda of the aging hotel where I was renting a studio for $150 a month. Travelers would occasionally pass through Ranong to renew their Thai travel visas at the Burmese border, and Eva had just returned from a visa run with a British couple I’d met the day before. That night the four of us went out to drink whiskey and sing karaoke at a local nightclub. The following morning, the British couple headed north for Bangkok, and Eva moved her things into my room.
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