She was the first thing he saw, and though old conditioning urged a retreat to what now seemed the safe-as-home haven of his bungalow, much older urges kept him moving forward, the girl as lovely as any coaxed by mad dreams from a feverish brain, skin so dark it blended in a smooth ridge into her shadow, eyes onyx as an abyss, face as fine-ridged as fired porcelain; inside were tables ringed by molded plastic chairs, a karaoke machine that resembled a jukebox from his childhood, the kind with actual records inside, and receiving no welcomes or directions from the group of girls gathered in the corner, giggling and gabbling and slack-jawed staring like the villagers he’d encountered, he sat down in a corner, quaking but alive as fire.

Her strong sisters, able to resist the mamasan, were unwilling to approach the boxida, who might herald sick horrors or drink their young blood, so before she could summon courage or thought, she sat down across from him, back to her sisters, looking in his face, her only defense a smile so broad her back molars gleamed, as long seconds slid forward with the most bated of expectations on both sides, hush reverberating from her sisters behind; he drummed his fingers on the table and, in a voice deep-rumbly as yesterday’s thunder, pronounced a sound that must have passed for a word among his people, the shack going dead silent, no one sure what he could want, until he curled his fingers around an imaginary glass and put it to his mouth, causing great peals of laughter among the sisters, and when the boxida said the word again, she caught a muted echo of the language spoken here across the river, and the word was, “Drink?”

 “Drink,” she repeated, standing up, knocking her knees against the table and nearly falling over, a smile rising on his creased face like a creature from the murky deep, white and dark at the same time, and crossing the uneven cement floor for beer, she tried to ignore her sisters, gazing at her in wide wonder while trying to pretend all was normal, that they were as used to seeing boxida as they were to picking the plumpest crickets out of the supper pail, the mamasan peeping in from the back doorway, wondering if what she’d heard was true, that you could reap enormous profits off boxida, and glad that should the boxida prove to be the blood-drinker of village legend, the casualty would be the shack’s least-valued hand, that sniveling bitch so stoic beneath her blows; she brought over four cans of beers and a pail full of ice, not re-eyeing him as she plunked ice in the glasses and poured it over the beer and they clinked glasses, she still not looking up but unable to stop the smile furrowing her face.  They drank.

A sister got a song going; over the loud music, in patchy phrases and long silences, surreptitiously studying each other’s faces, the two worked out that he spoke no Lao and she spoke no English, but they had enough Thai between them for the basics: names, citizenship, ages, confirmation of eye colors, a mutual lack of Thai singing ability, compliments on looks (which she could not believe he meant), mutual affection for beer (both drinking too fast), a comparison of hand sizes (a sharp thrill running up his arm to touch of her silken skin); and then, beer gone, she said, “Go?”

He wasn’t sure why she was ready to go, or what they’d do once gone, but eyeing over her beauty once more and bucked up with raw reality and liquid courage, he said, “Okay.”

She scribbled a number on a damp napkin and slid it across the table; new realities dawning on him, he accepted with a nod, barely reading the digit, handing some bills over, heart jigging wildly at the thought of lines-never-to-be-uncrossed and a sweat-sudden fear that this was an elaborate setup, and any moment cops would burst in, clap him in handcuffs, and take him to a stinking solitary cell somewhere in the monkey-howling jungle, here where no one even imagined he existed, while she gave over the shack’s share to the mamasan, who endeavored to see how much the little girl kept for herself, but she kept the bills tightly palmed, and then returned to him, where they drank their dregs, (older sisters observing every movement), and went to the jeep, he shivering from bowels to crown – he’d never done anything of this sort even in dreams, or been so bewitched by a woman’s lithe animal-grace, but he tried to show nothing, and she followed him out slump-shouldered and silent, not looking back at her sisters, though she wasn’t quite sure she would ever see them again.

He got in the jeep and fumbled with the keys, dropping them twice, pawing for the ignition through a haze, senses muffled in cottony stupor, as she watched, lacking any of the prerequisites necessary to form judgments, all the reference points of all her previous life washed away; he got the jeep going and they backed over the rain ruts down the slope, headlights reflecting the dull green eyes of the languid buffalo, turning left and then right, past the checkpoint, cops lounging on ubiquitous plastic chairs, into town, and he relaxed somewhat as they neared the bungalow: as yet he’d committed no crime, as she gripped the door handle in a fierce try for calm, realizing the only one who could bring her back to anything she knew was the one who’d taken her out of it. 

Parking with front wheels on the river promenade, the spot he’d left less than an hour earlier, he was working on forgetting the transaction that’d brought her here, so it seemed uncouth to take her straight to the bungalow; she followed him to the promenade railing, water diamondwhite under a plump moon daubed by wispy clouds, encircled by a silken halo, the moon walking a moondog, reminding him of the pre-superstore vacant lot behind his childhood subdivision, last refuge of the fireflies, where they played on warm nights, the only place he remembered noticing a moondog before, which to her was a good omen, since the moon, that giver of false light to nefarious spirits and vicious animals, only became docile when accompanied by the kind spirit of a gentle white dog, a comforting pale like his skin, here in this place where she was uncertain of the very ground, suffused in dappled alabastrine light that sharpened outlines while obscuring details, of the forest across the river, of the boats rocking in the river below, of each other’s faces, which they watched each other watching for the first time.

“A moondog,” he said, in his language.

“A moondog,” she said, in hers.

Each understood, somehow, and he stroked her arm, soft as moonlight to touch, and she leaned against him, and they watched the moondog walk.