Note on a Fish Head
By Korski

Poland Hotel Guide

• Dal Hotel • Mercure Hevelius Hotel • Novotel Gdansk Centrum Hotel • Posejdon Hotel Gdansk

Their mother died in February. After she was cremated and her ashes scattered in a northern California surf, Colin, the eldest of three sons, calculated the value of their mother’s assets. The estate, over which he had complete control, totaled just under $2.3 million. By their mother’s will and wishes, each of the sons was to receive one-third of her estate. Three days after his mother’s cremation, Colin wrote a check for $750,000 to himself. He invested the money in time deposits. It was money that would be used for their son’s university and post-graduate education and later for a down payment on a home for him. Colin sent a check for the same amount to Gary, a brother four years his junior. Gary and his wife, who were childless and had their home paid for and no debts outstanding, did not have any present need for the money. They would put it in investments for their retirement. Will, who had no job and refused to look for one, was eager to get his share of the estate. Colin sent him nothing.

Included with the check to Gary was a note that read: Tell Will that he can get his share of the estate by sending me a note of apology and explanation for the Betrayal. As you well know, Will and I have not exchanged a word between us for more than three years, ever since he so dramatically and unexpectedly turned on me. And not alone but with the help of two of his trailer trash friends, as you know! It had never occurred to me that our brother could be so cowardly. To this day, I simply cannot understand why he did this to me. Why oh why? I ask repeatedly. There was no history of bad blood between us. I treated him as a equal, he was always welcome at our home, and all of us thought of Will as family.

I have tried in my heart to forgive him, and I find that I can only do so if he will give me some kind of explanation and apology. I have received neither.

I know that holding back his share of the estate until I get at least an apology and an explanation probably will strike you as unreasonable. But is it unreasonable for me to expect even some kind of an explanation and an apology for something I neither saw coming nor deserved? I think not.

More than once I have, in my mind, disowned Will as a brother. I have thought that were he to die tomorrow I would not even attend his funeral. If this reaction by me strikes you as extreme, I can only ask you to try to understand how deeply I felt the Betrayal. It was a humiliation that to this day leaves me nearly speechless. But enough; you know the story of what happened and there is no need to go into it yet one more time.

Please convey the following message to Will. He will not get his share of the estate without coming clean on why he did what he did to me followed by an apology.

As always, Brother Colin

Four days later, Colin received an e-mail from Gary. Will said he will talk to you under no circumstances. Forget it for all time were his words. He also said, Send the money or else. He did not explain what he meant by the words “or else.” I advise you as a brother to put all this behind you and just send Will his share of mom’s estate.

May good karma find you this day and on all days. Love, Gary

Gary and Colin neither talked by phone nor exchanged e-mail messages with one another for the next three and a half months. In June, Colin sent Gary an e-mail message. I have thought a good deal about Will and this money of his that I continue to hold--no doubt to your continuing chagrin. Stacey is not all happy about my decision. She fears that Will is a bit crazy and who knows what he will do to get his share of mom’s estate. Stacey is particularly concerned because unlike the two of us he needs the money in a way that we do not.

I must once again confess that it all comes as a real surprise to me that he cannot say the simple words, I am sorry for what I did and here’s why I did it. And that, brother, would be the end of the matter. We may never speak again, but he would have his money and this “irrational” intransigence of mine would be history. Of course, one could say the same about Will. What makes him so intransigent? I might ask. Guilt? A turn of the mind that defies explanation? I do not know the answer to this question.

Once again I will be spending several months in Southeast Asia. I expect that I will do as I often do on these trips: look for material for stories and, shall we say, just live this other life of mine that both Stacey and I have found to be mutually accommodating.

This year, I expect to be spending an unusual amount of my time abroad in Laos. I love the people and the landscapes, and only wish I felt the same about the food. I mention this aspect of the trip because I have some new thoughts on how to give Will his share of mom’s estate.

Tell Will that I will give him the money, but that to get it he must pick it up from me in Vientiane, Laos. I will give him a certified check drawn on a U.S. bank. All that is required is that he come to the Mongkok Hotel in Vientiane on September 4th of this year. I will be there, and I will hand him the check. I am no longer asking for an explanation of what happened, which might not now make any sense in any event were he to give me one. But I am still asking for an apology. For lack of a better way of putting it, it is what might be called a soft apology. When I give him the check, I want him to give me on paper a few words to the effect that he is sorry for treating me in such a humiliating and unbrotherly way. In this way he can say what he wants and we can get around the problem of him having to talk to me if he does not want to do so.

Now you reasonably may be asking why I am doing this in the way I have just stated. All I can say at this time, or am willing to say, is that just as his mind is working in ways we cannot understand, so I must ask you to accept the idea that my mind is now working in ways that, shall we say, must for now remain opaque to explanation.

Incidentally, you should tell Will that his trip to Vientiane will be paid for by me. There will be no cost to him other than the travel time and the hassles of getting a passport. As I recall, he has never traveled outside the U.S. and does not have one. You will note that by setting the date when I did to meet in Vientiane, I have allowed plenty of time for Will to get a passport and consider my offer.

Please stress to Will that this will be his last opportunity to get his share of the estate. And also let him know that I am bending over backward to be reasonable. He need not explain his behavior nor talk to me. He only has to find a few words to say I am sorry.

As always in this short and fascinating life, Brother Colin

&

On August 27th, Colin, while checking his e-mail at an Internet café in Vientiane, found a message from Gary. I persuaded Will of the wisdom of your offer and he will be checking into the Mongkok Hotel on the night of September 3rd. He has promised me he will have an envelope for you with “some kind of an apology.” You will in turn give him the certified check for his share of the estate. He said he also wanted all the interest accumulated to date. I took the liberty of telling him you would also give this to him.

I do hope for the both of you, and me too, that all goes well and that we can once again be the brothers that we were for all those many years growing up and then more or less happily heading into middle-age.

Love and good karma as always, Gary

&

When Colin came into the Mongkok Hotel on the morning of September 4th and saw his brother standing near the long wood-paneled check-in counter, he barely recognized him. He had a full beard and it was white and scraggly. His hair was cut unusually short. Most surprising of all was the weight he had put on. Will had always been thin and athletic, less because of diet and exercise than because of his lifestyle. For years he had lived among bachelors, widowers and divorced men on an isolated piece of property in the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento. Colin thought that Will had put on at least ten years since he had last seen him.

Hi Will, Colin said as he approached him. How was your flight?

You asshole making me come here for what’s mine! I should have shot you right after mom died.

You did that day you betrayed me.

Give me the fuckin’ money, and I’m out of here.

Colin put his daypack on the tiled floor and reached inside and took out an envelope, inside of which was a certified check drawn to his brother for $768,000. A separate check in the amount of $3,000 was also included, along with a note that this money was to cover the plane fare and all other expenses.

Will tore open the envelope on one end and ran his eyes over the two checks and the note. He smiled, then from his rear pocket pulled out a folded and unmarked white envelope. He threw it at his brother. Without further word, he scowled and hurried past Colin and headed for the street. A minute later, Colin saw Will behind a young Lao man on a motorbike.

Colin repaired to the restaurant in the hotel and ordered a late breakfast. While waiting for the waitress to bring him a cup of coffee, he opened the envelope from Will. On a sheet of yellow paper were scribbled the words: Go Fuck Yourself Fuckface.

He stared at the note for a long time. He shook his head and grimaced. And he thought: Just as I feared.

&

That very night, at around eleven p.m., there was a knock on Will’s door in the Mongkok Hotel. He did not hear the first two light knocks. He had had dinner around eight and then a couple of beers and had returned to get some sleep. He had a scheduled early morning flight which would take him to Bangkok, and from their, via Taipei, to San Francisco. The person at the door persisted. Finally Will got up to see who was bothering him at this hour. He was surprised to see the young smiling Lao woman who had registered him into the hotel.

In poor English, she said, We got problem with toilets. Need fixing now.

Will said, Do it tomorrow morning.

Now, she said. Must do now! She pushed past him and headed toward the bathroom.

Standing there in only his white jockey shorts, Will shook his head and closed the door and went back to the bed. He lay on top of the covers and closed his eyes and waited for her to leave.

Less than two minutes after the young Lao woman arrived and went to the bathroom, there was another knock on the door. Will sat up and rubbed his eyes and shuffled to the door and opened it. As soon as he did so, he saw the two Lao policemen. Both had grim looks on their faces. They said not a word. One pushed Will backward and toward the wall, and then he forced him to turn around and face the bathroom. There, standing in the doorway, was the young Lao girl. She was completely naked.

The other policeman came to Will’s side. They held him by the arms and forced him to his knees. Then, after putting handcuffs on him, one of them said, No is legal for foreigner to be with Lao woman in room and have sex. You in bad trouble.

Will explained what had happened. They smiled at him, and they laughed. And then one of them forced him to lie on the floor. He put a boot on Will’s face and told him not to move.

In the next twenty minutes, the two policemen carefully went through Will’s possessions. They took all his money—nearly $300, his passport, his plane ticket, and the envelope with the two checks in it. When they had finished, his clothing and other personal effects now scattered about on the floor, they uncuffed him and left with the girl who now appeared just as she had when she knocked at the door.

Will was shaken, and fearful. He had no idea what he would do without his passport and plane ticket and money to get to the airport. He slept no more than fifteen or twenty minutes for the rest of the night. About the only thought that came to mind was how he was going to find the American Embassy when it opened in the morning. He would explain what happened. Surely, he thought, they would recover what had been taken from him and he’d soon be on his way home.

At a little after six the next morning, and more awake than asleep, there were several hard knocks on the door to his room. He was too frightened to open it, but he could not imagine that he had a choice. When he saw the same two policemen at the door, his face turned ashen. He felt the blood draining from his head.

And with good reason. One of the policemen headed straight for the bathroom and within a minute or so came out holding a plastic bag. He held it high and shook it. It was full of a white substance.

You will die, the policeman holding the bag said. For heroin trafficking you die in Laos.

Will protested that he knew nothing at all about the heroin. He shouted that it had to have been planted by the young woman who came into the room the night before and then came out of the bathroom nude. Or you just took it out of your pocket, Will said, looking at the two policemen. It is not mine! he insisted. It is not mine! He was standing in his jockey shorts, shaking all over.

Ten minutes later, Will was dressed and handcuffed and on his way to prison. He was thrown into a cell with twelve other men: eight Laotians, three Thais, and one German. The cell smelled of excrement, sour sweat, rotting fish and dead rats. The floor and the walls were grimy and streaked. They were covered with dried excrement and undecipherable graffiti. There were no cots to sleep on, nor where there mats on the cement floor. There was a hole in one corner. Near the hole was a shirt that the men had been using for weeks to wipe their asses. Either that, or they used their fingers and hands.

The German, the only person with whom Will could talk, said that he was in prison because they caught him in the airport with two kilos of heroin. He was told he would be executed. He had been there for twenty-two days and had talked to no one on the outside. He had no idea what they were going to do with him or how long he would be there before he could see someone in the German Embassy.

On the afternoon of Will’s second day in the cell, the second of two daily meals was served to the prisoners. Each meal was the same: a small bowl of dirty wet rice with a piece of what looked like meat in it, or, if lucky, a fish head. With each meal the prisoners were given a tin cup with water in it. When the guard handed Will his bowl of rice, he noticed that stuck to the fish head with a pin was a small scrap of paper on which was written: Apologize or it will cost you $50,000. You have five minutes to give the guard your answer.

Will sat down against a wall and brought his feet up and a rat as large as his forearm ran in front of him. He read the note several times, threw the bowl of rice against the facing wall, and shouted, Fuck You! Never!

By the fourth day in the cell, Will had stools that had turned to water and he was vomiting. At night cockroaches the size of his middle finger crawled up his arms and onto his face. Rats roamed among the prisoners and bit those who wore no shoes and didn’t sleep with their hands under their chests. Will tried fitfully to sleep on the cement floor by curling up in the fetal position. He wondered if there was more than what his brother was doing to him. How long would he be here? He kept repeating to himself, Never! Never! Fuck my mean brother!

The second offer came on Will’s sixth day in prison. This one was also on a small ragged piece of paper, and it was also attached to a fish head. It read: A No will now cost you $250,000. You have twenty minutes to decide to tell the guard yes or no.

Will took less than two minutes to again shout: No! Never, you cunt-face piece of shit I should have killed! This time he did not throw the rice bowl against the facing wall, but instead dug into the wet rice with his filthy right hand and stuffed as much as he could in his mouth. He thought he could feel his stomach shrinking by the hour. He itched all over. He scratched the growing red patches on his arms and legs.

One week after the second note, when the guards brought the first meal of the day, Will found yet another note in his rice bowl. Like the other two it was pinned to a fish head. It was pinned through an eye. This one read: A believable apology or you lose everything. You have until noon to decide.

Will went to an edge of the cell and lay down and put his head on one of the German’s legs. The German had not eaten for two days. He did not look well, and the last two times he had to pee or shit he went in his pants. Now and again he banged his head against the wall and shouted something in German. Lately he had begun scraping the knuckles on his hands on the cement floor on which they slept. They were red, scarred, and bleeding.

A guard woke Will at around noon and asked him what he had decided. He mumbled incoherently. The guard did not know what to make of his words. He asked him repeatedly what he had decided. He nodded, he shook his head, he nodded. The guard did not know what to make of his behavior. Finally, he turned away from the guard and closed his eyes. The guard walked away and closed the cell door. Will felt like he wanted to die.

Just before sundown that very day, two guards came to the cell and dragged Will to his feet. A little over an hour later they had Will back in the very same room that he had taken at the Mongkok on September 3rd. His two bags with all of his possessions were on the bed. On top of one bag was a clean towel and soap. On top of his second bag was his passport, his plane ticket with a new departure date, the money that had been taken from him, and the same envelope that had contained the note and the two checks.

On a small folding table next to the head of bed, and not far from a chair, was a tray of food. It was not Laotian food. It was what Will and his two brothers ate with their father and mother on Fridays when he came home from work and celebrated the end of the work week. It was a large cracked crab on ice in a ceramic bowl. Beside the bowl was a crab fork and a small bowl filled with mayonnaise. There was also a Caesar salad and a large baked potato that had been split in half, and on the potato halves were ample quantities of sour cream. Sprinkled on the sour cream were chives, just as Will would have them when young and having this very kind of meal with his parents and two brothers. All that was missing was the tall glass of milk. Instead, there was an expensive bottle of red wine with a corkscrew lying beside it. There was a note attached to the neck of the bottle with a gold braided string.

The note that Will would read after he showered and put on clean clothes and began to devour the crab and the baked potatoes and the salad read: The best of times. Remember?

Will could not find the courage to open the envelope that had contained the two checks until the plane that evening was off the ground and headed for Bangkok via Phnom Penh. He felt broken, and he found himself crying at unexpected moments. He would cry like this for the next several months.

When he finally opened the envelope, he saw that now there was only one check, and a note that read: Enjoy the rest of your life. Brother Colin.

Colin never told Stacey, Gary, or anyone else what had happened in Vientiane. Nor did Will ever tell anyone. No one would ever know that the amount of the second check was used to pay the girl and the policemen and the prison guards.

 

Stickman's thoughts:

Great story!  Sounds like the Korski-meister is not someone to mess with!

The author can be contacted at korski1@cox.net.
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