:: Short Circuit ::

The serendipity of strangers is a drug, and my job is the dopepusher that feeds my habit with leisure.

One night in Bangkok―so old rock song goes. Our work for the day is nearly done, and I find myself kicking back with a beer, sitting across Stef, a fomer European rallying champion, now working with us as an instructor for our drivers' academy.

Stef. I like the way his name sounded so―gruff, like one of those tough-guy characters in a gritty ganster film. Don't you give me that horseshit. You see Stef here? Hand over the stuff, or Stef will take care of you. Stef. Amused, relaxed, even, I sit back and watch my companion, a stranger until today. Now united by work and a passion for cars, we nurse our Singha beers with friendly familiarity.

'Jean,' he says, appreciatively. 'Jean. Simple name, can't get it wrong, even with English like mine.'

I smile. 'Dein Englisch ist nicht so schlecht,' I tell him, my Chinese tongue fumbling over the guttural requirements of German. But it makes a point, and it makes him laugh.

Ed Harris, I think, as I sit and watch him. There is a certain film-star quality to Stef―the quiet masculinity that polishes up his everyday man demeanor, the baritone note in his voice, the pale comma of a scar skimming his upper lip. His love for travel made the world his home, but he's Austrian by birth, and he's got the strapping built to show for it. Just a touch over forty, his weather-beaten face wears the past-day glories of racing in circuits all over Europe with casual pride. I like the lines creasing the corner of his eyes―intense and marble-blue―as he laughs; he's attractive, but only as an after-thought.

'How did you get into rallying?' I ask with frank interest. Having seen the video documentation of his rallying antics―I was stuck with the image of him gunning our racing car into a flyspeck dance of dirt at a Monte Carlo race-track―it's hard to imagine that this man, placid and laid-back now, drinking his beer with unhurried ease, is the same one who has raced competitively for over two decades, a raging speed-demon whose throne is behind the wheel, a gladiator in a ring with a helmet and a shift-stick.

He shrugs; I notice a thin gold chain glistening under his windbreaker. Godspeed, I think instinctively. 'I wish I could tell you wonderful stories: like how my father is a circuit legend or something, and I was inspired at a young age to race. But no. I was simply uninterested in the real world, and rallying is nothing like the real world. No politics. You get in the car, you race, you win, or you lose. Das ist klar.'

His eyes shine with deftly: conviction and passion; no conflict there. He runs an absent-minded hand through his hair―brown and flecked with silver threads―and I notice another set of scars: lopes left by gaping cuts, starting from the tip of the last finger of his left hand and ending just after his wrist.

He catches me looking. 'You have a very quick eye,' he says, giving me his hand with the uncomplicated trust of a child. I slide my finger gently over the lengths of the welds, ghost wounds that have closed tersely over new flesh, deadworms fused to his hand in memory of an angry injury.

'What happened?' I retract my finger, and I think: he looks disappointed.

He throws a customary glance at the scars. His eyes narrow with remembrance: 'My first big race, the European motorcycle circuit. I was 18? 19? Last corner; I was second. My head was gone, all I could hear was the engine. I curved the bend―' he jerks his body sharply to the left for emphasis―'and my bike flew out of the bend, with me going the other way. I was sliding, 5, 6 meters. I broke my knee and wore my hand out, but I knew I would do anything to race again.' He grins sheepishly, like a boy showing off his first toy truck, and then he drains his beer with manly nonchalence.

'Another round?' he asks. I like the note of hesitance he tags behind his question; there is nothing more annoying than presumptious men.

'Bring it on, and this time, on me.' I say, laughing. How easy, these lines―movie-like, running smoothly, little poetic arcs, high on tension, low on impact. Perfect for me. He leans over and catches my left hand, suddenly. 'I just see this. You have one too.' He nods at my own scar, little Horus, snaking up my ring finger.

'Nothing exotic like yours. Sculpting accident.' I say, with deliberate off-handedness.

Stef meets my eyes. He drops my hand, but not the questioning look; and then―'No ring.'

A question. 'No ring,' I say, falsely bright, as if being unmarried is the most natural thing in the world. Which, I think wryly, it is. What is so goddamned natural about being with one person for the rest of your life until death do you part blah blah blah blah?

He nods approvingly, as if being unmarried allows me to be part of a secret society, a brotherhood of sorts, a movement that will be the free spirit that mothers us all. 'I am separated from my wife,' he says, wriggling his ringless finger for comic effect. 'For coming to three years now.'

His tone is light, but his eyes become sombre. Regret can be sobering, and honest emotions are so unceremonious that they demand you to touch, to connect, to reach out. 'You get married, because you believe it's for the best, but sometimes you separate, because it's for the better,' I say, candid but kind. Twenty three fucking years old. What do you know about marriage?

'Very true, for the grown-ups. But maybe for the kids it's not so clear.' I feel sorry for his paternal pain, and it must show, because he says, quickly, 'I'm sorry, this is turning out to be a confession box.'

We smile in unison and unseasoned understanding. We touch glasses as the bartender leaves us with a fresh round of drinks: double Scotch on the rocks for him, and gin soda for me.

'Not tonic?' he asks.

'Not tonic,' I affirm. 'Soda brings out the strength of the gin.'

'You need a soda in your life I think. Someone to bring out your strength.' He swirls the ice in his glass, and then looks at me with philosophical deliberation. 'I like you,' he says simply.

Ah, the old fire between a man and a woman. Always burning, always ready to flame, to engulf―always bright and blinding, a cataract threatening to snag the sight of sense.

He doesn't say more, comforted by the liberty of his own candor. I politely ignore the primal question in his eyes, because this is not a movie, and you don't fall to bed with somebody without consequence or compromise.

And. Even though you've got beautiful blue eyes, my memory is nailed to the eidetic image of someone else's, even if they are paler, greyer and not as frank as yours.