Once, about 5 years ago, I was Christmas shopping with Linda finding dim sum and imitation watches in China town. I think it was on our way to the car that we witnessed a traffic officer being hit by an SUV. There were only a few seconds between the impact and Linda running over to the scene to offer the victim her jacket. She was fast. And I always wondered to myself why my own reaction time wasn’t faster. Because after the impact, and after Linda had run 10 yards ahead, kneeled down and taken off her jacket to cover the officer, I was still staring from the sidewalk with my mouth open.

Late last night, I was driving Kelly, a co-volunteer back to the center after a late dinner. It wasn’t until we were about 3 blocks away from the center that we spotted a body lying on the side of the road with some blood splattered around him. With my motorbike I careened to the other side of around him, but didn’t stop. My right hand was still gripping the accelerator and my left hand moved to cover my eyes for a second while I recollected my thoughts. “What are you doing?!?!” Kelly asked me on the back of my bike, “Stop the bike! We can’t just leave him there, go back!” I would like to think that that exact sentiment would have crossed my mind just as quickly, but I was too busy dropping my jaw in shock to do anything about it. So we stopped and started to turn the bike around, but then for some reason, the following thoughts crossed my mind, “What if he was shot? What if he was mugged and beaten and hooligans were waiting to spot their next victim, i.e. me and Kelly? Even worse, what if he was dead but then came back to life as a zombie to attack?” (note: I have an irrational but very real fear of dead people coming back to life as zombies. Especially at night time. I never even get close to open caskets of deceased loved ones because of this phobia). Luckily, Pi Nik, one of the newer arts teachers also happened to be coming back to the center at the same time to negotiate the incident and bring help bring this guy to the hospital, if necessary.

Because there are no street lights on this road, Kelly volunteered to steer the motorbike and keep the engine running so we could shine some light on this man. I inched my way forward and with the light, could see the man’s face, covered with blood and his eyes closed. Inching forward ever so slowly still, I got a little closer and then, I guess because of the bike’s lights, his eyes started to squint open. “Oh good,” I thought, “at least he’s not dead. And he doesn’t look like a zombie either.” He started muttering something and he started to prop himself up. He looked directly at me and started waving his hand, which was also kindof covered in blood. He tried to prop himself up, but we insisted he stay down. He started rambling on about something and I couldn’t understand him. But neither could Pi Nik, who is a native Thai. The old man on the street was drunk beyond recognition and probably wasn’t hit by any vehicle. He probably just fell face first into the concrete.

Of course, we entertained the idea of getting an ambulance to pick him up, but apparently, according to Nik, an ambulance isn’t commonplace unless you have a broken limb or you’re unconscious or dead. Of course, when I went to the hospital a year ago, I only had a sprained ankle and I definitely felt that the visit was warranted. The old man propped himself up, against our advice and started walking, but then stumbled. We jumped in place and caught him before he fell down. Nik took one arm around his shoulder and I took the other. That’s when I felt a cold and damp sensation against my own leg and got a whoof of this man’s breath. He had pissed himself and he would have failed an alcohol test. He started shouting “I wanna go home!!” it was the first thing I understood out of his mouth, accompanied by spit flying into my face with an ungodly odor permeating a three foot radius of his mouth. “Ok,” Nik said, “We can take you home, but you have to tell us where that is.” And for a few seconds, the old man looked around, confused, eyes unfocused and head bobbing around, he desperately shouted, “WHERE AM I??!” I felt so bad for him. Nik called the police to get some help but he then he seemed to remember which way his home was.

In the last year of working on this site, I never noticed this small path on the side of its entrance that apparently led to this man’s house. We waited for the police to come and give us a hand. They were pretty quick, to my surprise, but unfortunately not the nicest or most effective police officers in the world. Once it was established that the old man’s house was in fact down the narrow path behind the centre, they told us to lead the way. In the meantime, Nik and I were still holding him up by our shoulders. One officer was nice enough to poke him from behind with a night stick if he felt like he wasn’t moving fast enough. The other police officers held flashlights to open the path for us. The old man pointed up a small steep hill and said something like, “My house, it’s right up there.” He felt twice as heavy going up hill and I lost a flip flop on course.

The police officer graciously poked him more aggressively to encourage him to move faster on his own. Finally, on top of the hill, we arrived at a small shack made of cinderblocks. We made it to his house. The police officers told us to let him go, but I could feel his weight collapsing underneath me. One of the officers pulled me away while the old man started fishing for his house key. “I don’t want him to hurt himself,” I tried to say, and they replied, “He’s fine.” And then, once I was about 6 feet away, like in slow motion I watched him fall fast first into the cinder block wall. Again, slow reaction timing on my part I just winced my eyes shut and grimaced before I could do anything. He started falling again, leaving a small smear of blood on the wall of his house, and I jumped back over to pick him up and the cops just stood there holding their flashlights. There was no sense of urgency. While holding the guy from under his arms, I found his key in his front shirt pocket and passed it over to Nik to open the door. That’s when a squishing sound came from the old man’s pants. I looked down at his ankles and sure enough, he had shat himself. Everyone started gagging and covering their faces. When Nik opened the door, the officers announced, “Good. Sir, you’re home and now, the rest of us can go home too.”

And without a second’s delay everyone stormed back through the trail to get back to the main road. One officer lectured me for not letting the old drunk help himself. Maybe he was drunk, but he wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. He was pretty scared and confused. That poor old man, almost left for dead on the street to have the rotten care of Mae Sai’s finest to just dump him off at home in his pitiful shack in the middle of nowhere. Then again, maybe the alternative of going to prison wouldn’t have been so hot either. I hear prison cells in Thailand are awful.