3.12 “’WY’. Wonder what that means.”

Once the door to our suite was locked and chained and the curtains shut, I cut open the plastic containing the pink pills and unloaded them onto the glass coffee table. Examining them, I found a cursive “wy” imprinted on one side of each tablet.

I had a copy of The Economist with me at the time, which happened to have a short article about recent seizures of amphetamines in Thailand. According to the weekly, anti-drug operations had netted some six million pills that very week; another seven million pills were nabbed the week before.

“I think I now know why this was so hard to find,” I said to Jean, tossing him the magazine.

A good month for the narcs, yes, but evidence, too, of the booming trade in amphetamines in Southeast Asia. The article also stated that the pills, imprinted with a “wy” logo, were mainly produced by the United Wa State Army, the largest drug trafficking organization in Myanmar, and exported primarily to Thailand.

“Check this out,” I told Jean, holding one of the pills up. “’WY’. Wonder what that means. Wa’s Yaba?”

Jean grunted. He couldn’t be bothered to look up, focused as he was on separating the paper lining from the foil of the Nestlé Crunch wrapper. Brushing the flame of his lighter quickly under it, he picked at the paper and pulled it neatly away.

“Ha hah!” he said proudly and handed me the foil.

Never underestimate the creative resourcefulness of a junkie.

Borrowing Jean’s Swiss Army pocketknife–the guy never travelled without it–I cut the foil in half, and, crushing one of the tablets, placed a fair amount of powder on one of the tin squares. With a straw clenched between my teeth, I flicked the lighter and, passing the weak flame below the foil, waited for the smoke to rise.

Nothing. I tried again and waited, but the shit wouldn’t burn. Instead, the pink powder melted, forming a dirty liquid that stumped the two of us.

“What the hell is this?” I said, putting the foil down.

Jean gave it a shot, but no luck.

“Maybe the bastard sold us ‘X’,” he said.

I popped half a pill into my mouth, chewed on it a bit, and then washed it down with gin. Jean did the same, and returned to the task of trying to make the pink powder to burn.

“It’s awfully sweet. Almost chocolaty,” I said, chewing on another half.

“It’s probably been cut with something,” Jean replied, the irritation in his voice, crystal clear. He had begun to simmer. It had been a frustrating three hours just trying to score the yaba and, now that we had, it was a big disappointment. A big nada.

We gave up trying to coax a plume of smoke from the pink powder, and swallowed one more pill each.

Slouching back into my chair, I turned on the TV. MTV was playing the same irritating video by a band I’d never heard of before called Crazy Town. I’d seen it more than a dozen times since arriving in Bangkok two days earlier. I shuddered to think of having to spend the next week listening to this goddamn song over and over and over again.

“Come my lady . . . Come, come my lady . . . you’re my butterfly, Sugar baby . . . “

“Ugh. At least the chick in the video’s hot,” I said, pressing the “mute” button.

When another thirty minutes had passed, and still nothing, Jean banged his fist on the table and jumped to his feet. “Fucking bastard sold us children’s aspirin!” He paced the room like a caged tiger.

I was about to concede that we had been duped when I began to feel a mellow yet distinct tingling throughout my body. Before long, Jean was feeling it, as well.

“I don’t know what this is, but I’m starting to feel pretty damn good,” I said.

“Me, too,” Jean said, a broad smile spreading across his face, the furrow in his brow softening.

Twenty minutes later, high as kites, we left the suite and hit the clubs.

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

© Aonghas Crowe, 2009