An English guy named David, a teacher who has lived in Thailand for many years and is into rare orchids and german shepards, is there. It seems that David owes Ron's sister some money and is trying to straighten the matter out. Ron's sympathies clearly lie with David.

"David, you're a good man, despite what everyone says about you. You're my friend. Fuck her! She's a fucking bitch!" "That's a very _proper_ use of the adjective," agrees David. "David, I have a million baht," continues Ron, "I can't touch it. It's overseas and they won't let me touch it, not until I'm fucking dead." (laughs) "David, I'll pay the money!"

David insists he's had every intension of paying her, he just doesn't like the way she's been going about collecting it, threatening to have his paychecks held up. "They need to get about twenty signatures from me before she can do that," scoffs David. After some more banter along the same lines, David leaves to go talk to Ron's sister.

Ron is hungry and keeps whining at his "old wife" to make lunch. He tells me he "fucks his wife like a rabbit" and she finds younger women for him as well. He offers his wife to me and I laugh. "You laugh?" he says, implying he was serious.

Ron is also a teacher and some of his students drift in and out of the house as we talk. He physically drags the shy young Thai's, especially the girls, over to me to talk. When lunch arrives some of them stay, along with Ron's teenaged son, who looks like he just woke up.

The food is simple, but fabulous, extremely spicey and typical of the northeast style. In the middle of lunch, Ron pops off, returning with chicken and sticky rice, even though we had enough food to go round already. Everyone eats and drinks beer, even the youngest Thai's, who all smoke as well. After lunch they play guitar. Ron puts on an Elvis Presley tape and loudly sings along.

"I love America," says Ron, and as with most of the things he says, he repeats this after awhile. "I love America. I spent thirty years working for Americans. They were like my parents. I knew Kennedy and Reagan. I want to tell fucking Bush that no one can win this war." Earlier he'd tried to get David and my opinions on the upcoming Iraq war and we both dodged the issue like diplomats. Ron tells me he worked in Cambodia for ten years for the UN doing translations, learning many secrets in the process. In the middle of this story he sometimes stops to swear at his students, not in anger, but just because he's weird. I chastise him for teaching his students such aweful language. "Sometimes you have to be crude," he explains. Then he admits that he's a crazy "scoundrel".

Three women and a guy walk in. After a bit they invite me to go with them to a farm. Ron's wife joins us as well, but not Ron. There's not much at the farm now, just a few horses and some workers digging out a large pond with heavy machinery. The plan is to build a "fish farm" and a few bungalows. I believe they mean to have some sort of recreational fishing spot where you can eat what you catch and stay there. I should add that at this point all of my communications are extremely difficult because none of these people can speak much English and my Thai is even more limited.

We have more food, but one of the larger horses keeps coming over to bother us. He's beaten away but keeps coming back to snatch food. Finally, even though the horse seems to have calmed down a bit, the guy takes a gob of the Thai equivalent of Tiger Balm and rubs it on the horse's nose as punishment. The horse goes crazy, sneezing and shaking its head wildly.

We leave and go to the house of the woman who owns the farm. This is a large, very modern house, and several workers are busy adding a new addition. I learn that this woman was married to a Swiss guy who had lost a leg and an arm in an accident. The Swiss guy passed away about a year ago. Clearly this woman, and perhaps some of the others I've met, are making some preliminary designs. I make a tactful escape.

I visit Ron the next day. He's with another Thai guy. Ron seems half drunk in the early afternoon. "They all come to me when _they're_ feeling bad," says Ron. He wants me to buy him some beer, which I do but Ron just lays down and spills it. Eventually, he stumbles home to nap.

Before leaving, Ron had explained that this other Thai guy, who speaks no English, was crazy. He's right. This guy pulls out a stack of business cards, some of them clearly Xerox copies, of important people in the Thai government. Everytime I asked Ron for a translation of a card, he'd explain the title of the official and end with an emphatic "fuck him!". Now that I'm alone with the card guy, I'm amazed as he continues to pull out card after card after card to show to me. This guy is clearly nuts, so I can't resist giving him my own card to add to his stack.