Last week I purchased a ticket for a flight to Bangkok. Flights were ridiculously expensive, since the airlines fatten their profits on the summer traffic. My itinerary had two stops. Tokyo was two hours, but Delta had scheduled a fifteen hours lay-over at SFO. I was cool with that length of time. My cousin Ty Spaulding lived on Nob Hill. His house was a mansion with a view of the Golden Gate and the Bay. I hadn’t seen him, his wife, or daughter in years. The lay-over made perfect sense and Ty said that he would meet me at the airport.

My single reservation about my departure was my severe cold complicated an increasingly annoying ear infection. My aural passage was blocked with water. My head was jammed with mucus. Fever spikes ran rampant. My doctor warned against flying.

“Changes in altitude played havoc on easr infections.” Doctor Nick was cuatious about my health. We had been friends for over forty years. We would celbrated our fiftieth in 2020.

“I know, but I can’t change the flight.” I actually could, but Man and Fenway were waiting in Sri Racha and my daughter Angie expected me the following week. fluke and Noy were patient in Ban Nok East. “I have children expecting to see me.”

“A couple of days won’t make a difference.” Nick had four kids. Two of them were grown-up.

“I know.” My kids were less than ten years-old. They hadn’t seen me in four months.

“It’s your funeral.”

“I hope not.” I had checked on ear infections online. Few if any people died from them.

“Then have a good trip.”

Tuesday I boarded the flight and medicated myself with Sudafed, aspirin, and antibiotics. The first hours passesd without too much pain. The last two were in agony.

As a student at Our Lady of The Foothill I had read Tom Dooley’s THE NIGHT THEY BURNED THE MOUNTAIN, which recounted his humanitarian years as a doctor in Vietnam. One passage remained fixed in my mind for decades.

“I was treating diseases that most of my classmates would ne v er encounter in a lifetime’s practice, performing operations which the textbooks never mention. What do you do for children who have had chopsticks driven into their inner ears? Or for old women whose collarbones have been shattered by rifle butts? Or for kids whose ears have been torn off with pincers? . . . At Notre Dame the priests had tried valiantly to teach me philosophy. But here in this Communist hellhole I had learned many more profound and practical facts about the true nature of man . . . . I knew now why organized godlessness can never kill the divine spark that burns within even the humblest human.”

The nuns and priests loved this book, however the award-winning Catholic doctor was a paid propagandist for the CIA. As a sinner I forgave his trespass, but ladning in San francisco I felt like the Viet Minh might have secretly jammed a chopstick in my ear.

“You don’t look so good.” Ty was ten years younger than me.

“I don’t feel so good either.” I explained my problem.

“So we don’t need to go to a bar.” Ty grabbed my bigger bag.

“Not at all.” I didn’t shake my head for fear of jostling my ear drum. “A bed would be divine.”

Ty wasn’t lying about a mansion. His house was enormous. He said the rent was obscene.”

“$7000?”

“Not even close.” Ty had retired from Wall Street in the 80s. we had met in the Himalayas in 1990. Our conversations were never about money, yet I knew that he had plenty and i had little.

“10,000.”

“Getting warmish.” Ty smiled with chagrin. He had a house at the fmaily compound in Hawaii. Living costs there were zero. His wife felt trapped on Oahu. It is in the middle of the ocean. “I’m stuck here for the foreseeable future.”

I had a glass of wine and a quiche. Ty is a great cook. I grimaced several times during the quick meal.

“Let me show you your room.” Ty made me comfortable. The window had a view of Alcatraz. I could care less. My ear was worsening and my eyes never shut during the night. The next morning I cancelled the next leg of my journey for $100. It was a bargain. Ty gave me a tour of San rancisco. I hadn’t been their since 1974. The hippies were gone> So were the gays. The city was filled by Silicon Valley money. Ty stopped by his druggist. I got stronger painkillers.

The following evening I flew across the Pacific. The narcotics aced the pain and I made the final segment to Bangkok without too much discomfort. I arrived in Sri Racha at 2am. Mam saw my face and asked, “What is wrong?”

“My ear.”

“You want go hospital?” She expected a negative answer.

“Yes, but I can wait until the morning.” My only visit to hospital had been at birth, save for stitches for fights, falls, and motorcycle accidents, but they don’t count. Once more I didn’t sleep and in the morning we drove down the the modern hospital in the city center. A female doctor checked my ear with a video camera. I watched this exploration on her computer.

“Very red. Not good, but not so bad.”

She wrote out a prescrition for antibiotics, anti-imflamatories, ear drops et al. I graciously thanked her.

“thank me when better. Maybe four more days.”

“Four?” It had already been three.

“Bad infection. You lucky for lose hearing.” She smiled telling me this news.

“Krapkhun Kap.” I wondered what had happenede to not so bad.

Mam drove back to the house. I ate the medicine and went to sleep. I’ve slept for two days.

Am I better?

Not yet, but that’s my excuse for no entries for the past few days.

I even have a doctor’s note.

ps as a young boy on the verge of adolescent my friends and I found great joy in saying ‘Sorry, I cunt hear you. I have an ear infuction’.

Those were the days.