When in Rome – David Lohrey

October 16, 2025

E Pluribus Unum

 

 

I.

 

The setting is a barroom somewhere between Okinawa and Morocco,

where Chinese girls stroke men’s egos, lick their ears and make obscene propositions.

 

These are the last places on earth

where Western men can live like kings on next to nothing.

 

How many men do you know who like sex but hate women?

We know what the girls see in the men but what about him?

 

If they can’t cook or won’t give blow jobs, what good are they?

That’s what my friend Maxwell once asked, as we sat sipping tea on the Corniche.

 

These are harsh words, said only in a whisper back home. Call it leave, R & R,

or going on holiday, a single man on his way to Thailand is not looking for friendship.

 

Most of the weddings take place before the men sober up. The bar girls start as girlfriends

and end up as old-ladies. Their panties hang from the shower.

 

He sends word back home of coconut-sweet kisses and plans for imminent nuptials.

There is bliss for a fortnight, at least, and then reality sets in.

 

This is where 50-year-old men live with their 25-year-old wives…

he may get all the sex he wants, but he is forced to adopt her village.

 

I’d wager it is about the same with the boys, but if he takes a wife, she is very likely to

come with a hungry family and all of them have bad teeth.

 

He’ll pay or die in a traffic accident. His cute little flower wouldn’t hesitate

to take a contract out on him. Her brother might drive by on a scooter, waving a pistol.

 

By the time she receives delivery of the new bike and covers a few abortions for her sisters,

the little teacher will be broke. Now he’ll be sent out to make some real money.

 

 

II.

 

Some gals want you to buy them

a drink, but most would prefer

a house.

 

The expats in Saudi hook up

with Thai bar girls who want

it all. They’re the same as

the women in Beverly Hills.

They want it all, all right,

and then they kill their mates.

 

Take the kids, keep the house,

even the family car – they’ve

swallowed and demand compensation.

 

For some, it’s a cruel fate: to be

left in the desert for the rest

of their lives, paying for kids

they’ll never see to go to college.

“I love my daughter,” he cries,

after his fifth bottle of Coors.

 

The evening is young and he

hasn’t eaten. “Bring me another.”

His wife is a bitch, but he loves his kid.

 

He was wiped out 3 years ago, lost

several hundred thousand dollars.

He lives alone now in a dorm for single men.

He empties his groceries and throws the plastic

bags on to the floor. The bags float like amoeba

throughout the house. There are over a thousand.

 

That’s Ken, but he is not unlike Bill.

Ken and Bill resemble Keith but

could be confused easily with Tom.

 

They’re about the same, lost in the East,

masters of Pattaya and Chiang Mai, lonely

souls in search of love. When Keith died,

his wife sold his TAG Heuer watch to the neighbor.

Before she called the police, she and the other

wives stripped him naked. She sold his Nikes, too.

 

Most of these guys are fat. They have hairy noses

and pink bellies. When a man like this marries

a 20-something bar girl, he’s through living.

 

No one white will touch him. He

stinks from the waist down. Women

his age and from his hometown want

to be in charge. They have gray hair

and don’t want their bottoms smacked.

Now he waits to die.

Life is a shit sandwich; maybe not

for you but for some.

 

These guys are drunks. These guys

are tyrants. They like to drink and to

start fights. They drool and wipe

their fingers on the front of their shirts.

They need to be put to bed.

 

III.

 

Oh, Bill, Bill, do I feel sorry for you.

I remember so well being served gin by you.

When I look at your gut, I feel ill.

 

But, Bill, the real reason I feel sorry

for you is that when I see you, I think of myself.

I fear your stoop and gigantic gut is me in the future.

 

Your still in the sink, hissing; you made orders of fresh juniper

berries and barbecue chips. Bathtub alcohol at $25 a pint.

You passed out thimbles. “Have a taste. I take checks.”

 

Bill: you taught me to be on time. “Be out front at 8 or forget it.”

Yes, you made me hustle. I’d never been spoken to like that

in all my life. Whoever thought of leaving a friend behind?

 

Bill, you were a shit. You weren’t good for much. You bragged about

your guns and your hatred of women. All you liked was Asian pussy.

Are you attracted somehow to their indifference?

 

When I think of a redneck like you climbing all over those little girls,

I wonder how God could abandon our planet. Something about you

embodies our miserable condition.

 

Bill, Bill, Bill: you talked of a plot to overthrow the President.

Just what you had in mind I can’t say. You must have fantasies of making

things right, just like a little boy. You advised me to buy a gun.

 

You were famous for smuggling pork from Manama into Saudi at the

Al Khobar causeway. I watched you stuff your tool compartment with the

leanest chops and spare ribs. It’s a miracle you were not caught.

 

How you loved to serve straight gin and grilled bacon, English style,

cut wide but thinner than an American pork chop. You didn’t give a shit

about Islam.

 

Bill, the Vietnam vet. This is where you picked up your world view.

This is where you developed a taste for Asian women. This was when

you swore off American good-will. This is where you departed the human

race.

 

Good bye, Bill.

 

 

Paradise Is Demanding

 

My English professor said there was no poetry, and she was fine with that.

Instead, she said, we would read kidnapping notices off milk cartons, share

stories of masturbation and attempted suicide, describe our crotches and

the reach of our arms, the span of our hips, the stride of our step, and the curl 

of our lips. Some were asked to vomit while others were invited to describe 

the smell. One boy wrote, “I’m a woman, phenomenally,” and was nominated 

for the school’s Kittredge Prize for Human Utterance; as a gesture of appreciation, 

he declared, before the school assembly: “Phenomenal woman, That’s me.” People 

rose from their seats to applaud.

 

We see them, their familiar faces. I think: the sneer is back, although admittedly 

for others, their friends, the sneer is fresh. The chance to feel morally superior 

remains irresistible. To feel triumphant, like a Roman soldier decapitating an enemy. 

Behind his smile, we detect lust. For the Russian soldier who has spent the day 

raping women and children, it is an incomparable gloat. This is what we have now: 

the smell of dried sperm. It pleases them to find the eyes sad in women whose mascara 

runs down their cheeks. Behold their fat lips and bruised mouths. Soldiers love to slap

a woman around, these agents of change. Secretly, they love being called party

animals, especially when the help is called in to clean up.

 

The bodies, you cry. The dead bodies in the lobby. Why can’t I reply, “My mother’s 

violets in the window box remind me of tiny flamethrowers.” Believing is seeing, they 

say; …we are awash in strident belief, a belief-scape, hogwash haven. No problems

a shit detector can’t detect; alas, our instincts are dulled: strident posing, book-learning, earnestness replaces education. No common sense. Not hope and change, but hysteria; 

nostalgia. Soon it’ll be bestiality, mark my words. They’ll be shagging their pet dogs,

boning the parakeets. What strikes one as irresistible is the bulldog in the window. The

lust, one sees already, is bored with human contact. First, dolls, next, robots, finally, corpses. 

The fuckable poodle to be exact. The expensive ones first. People can eat the rest. 

 

“Down with the capitalist roaders!!!” The students cry! “Down with the running dogs 

of American imperialism!!” Remember this: melancholia derives from betrayal; this was

Philip Roth’s conclusion, and who are we to disagree? But betrayal is not a thing; it is 

in a sense an insight. It is an interpretation; it is more than a mere event and possibly less.

One can be mistaken. We often feel betrayed when actually we are just being ignored.

Treachery, I think, requires intent, while neglect can arise from distraction or forgetfulness; 

absent-mindedness leads to others feeling disloyalty, when in fact they have only been

over-looked. Feelings of duplicity are intense, but being neglected is no less so. Years of 

indifference versus years of dishonesty. Think of adultery. Remember the Alamo. 

 

You’ll learn to ignore death. If you are not a terrorist, what are you? Must you feed the neighbors, take care of tornadoes, split the atom, and make ice cubes? Everyone knows 

you can barely add 2+2. They can see you can’t remember to change your socks.

Last week you lost the Empire State Building. You keep asking for your teddy bear.

Can’t you get a panda instead? Buy a boomerang made in China? Forget about God. 

Think about Mom and Dad. It is time for Confucius. Learn to appreciate your ancestors.

Thou shalt not kill…unless you have to. Is that not enough for you? The busker asks for 

what’s left over. You have lots to spare but none for him. Why can’t you say that?

Think of it as another day in paradise. Chinese food is too good to give away. 

 

Menus

 

You’ve had Indian food, sure,

but have you tried chicken chettinad? How about raan?

Or goat Kadhai?

How about an enlarged prostate or a prolonged bladder infection? Are you passing blood?

 

These days, death is not a metaphor.

Like the Royal Delhi, my clinic’s offerings can be described as an attempt

at encyclopedic deliciousness from across the universe. It’s

a dive all right, a real cop-and-fireman watering hole without the jokes.

 

Dishes are half price at lunchtime on weekdays. Try the MRI; 10% off if

you schedule the EKG on the same day. My doctor recommends the CAT scan with ultra- sound imaging. He demands that I

try something out of the ordinary. The nuclear stress test looks interesting.

 

The smell of masala spices that wafts

from the plate can’t be beat. A regal set of dishes can be found in the dosa gallery section

of the hospital. If you crave heat, order the ‘very spicy’ version with direct intravenous injections; no anesthetic. You’ll feel a jolt.

When the thallium begins to flow

you won’t be disappointed. I promise.

 

What about dessert?

It all depends on how long

you have to live. I wouldn’t recommend ice cream. The strawberries look

divine. You can have 2. Maybe you’d like a cup of tea: brown, barley-flavored, and

lukewarm in a small Dixie cup? No sweetener. Call the nurse when you start to feel pain.