In the spring of 2009, one of my brothers got out of the Marines and a friend of ours, and me graduated from college. We figured it was a great time to get after it in terms of celebrating, so we planned this 6-month world tour of debauchery. It turned into 3 weeks of Australia and Thailand, and fun and hilarity ensued. I won’t tell the whole story of the trip here as there are a bunch of gems, but on one particular night, we bonded like none other. I’m telling this story because it’s funny and because it shows the fact that by keeping things lite during hard times, we can become closer.

The setting – Pattaya Thailand.

Yes. The biggest red-light district in the world. There are some seriously fucked up things going on there, and it was worse back then. No matter. We were there and we were going to have a great time.

The last day we were in Australia, my brother got the swine flu. After another week of traveling around and partying in the south-eastern islands of Thailand, he was getting really sick. Like, couldn’t breath sick. So, when we got to our hotel in Pattaya, I had to throw him over my shoulder and carry him up to the fourth floor; no elevators. I plopped him in bed and that’s where he stayed for the rest of the day and night.

When we first got to Thailand we met up with another friend who was living there. It was awesome because he spoke the language and could get us around and broker deals all over the place.

Anywho, while my brother was on his deathbed at the hotel, the rest of us went out on the town. We ate fried cockroaches, saw sex shows, partied with prostitutes and pimps, and drank ourselves silly. It was some serious adolescent filth that we won’t forget. Most of the bars back then were set up like a big car-park where inside an open metal tent would be 8 separate bars. Almost all of them were run by transvestites and all the ladies working at them were prostitutes. There were other legitimate bars, clubs, and venues, but the majority of it was like this.

The people in Pattaya must have been too used to seeing old dirty men coming to their city for weird and fucked up sex stuff, because as soon as we started strolling through Walking Street there was a deafening roar of, “Hey sexy boy, I LOVE YOUUUUU!!”. It was really strange, ego pricking, and a little off-setting. I’ve never felt like such a piece of meat in my life.

We stayed out most of the night and when things were starting to wind down we all met up close to the hotel. We decided it would be hilarious to get my brother a lady-boy (as they referred to themselves back them). Also, it only cost $1500 for a whole sex change over there, and a common saying was, “the prettiest ladies in the world are actually Thai men”.

So, we reached into our pockets to combine our monies and go hunting for the prettiest lady we could find – guessing it would be a man. We had nothing. Which led me to come up with the idea to borrow my brothers debit card. I ran up the four flights to our room, asked him to borrow some cash and he directed me to the bank card. I ran back down, grabbed the guys, grabbed some cash, and we started our search.

We walked all the way down and all the way back. There were no more pretty ladies left, or at least the stunners we wanted to surprise my sick brother with. We were getting pretty dismayed when out of the corner of my eye I saw the prettiest lady I’d seen all day. She was crazy hot.

I walked up to her and asked her if she had a man voice. -I was a prick- She said, “no, I not do it”. With some coaxing, she finally relented and proved that she used to be a man. So, I offered her $10 to walk into our room, take off her clothes and wake up bro. I made it very clear that I didn’t want anything sexual to happen, but just to wake him up naked. She accepted and we headed up.

We grabbed the video camera and gave her the OK. She walked in and started to take off the clothes.

My brother could be heard saying, “Jason? Jason, is that you? Wait, what? Who the FUCK are you? Where’s Jason?! Where’s Jason?! Oh, not again! Where’s Jason?!!!”.

He was still awake because I just asked him for the card maybe 30 minutes earlier….

He was obviously out of bed because she ran out of the room half naked, swiped the $10 from us and flew down the stairs. We were dying laughing in the hallway, but we could hear my brother storming to the door.

So, I did what any brother would do after fucking with their brother who is raging-bull mad; I ran into our friend’s room and hid behind the door.

He came storming into the hallway yelling at our friends, “Where’s Jason?!?!”. They were good friends about it, but it was pretty obvious I was part of the shenanigans. He came barnstorming into their room looking for me. The door swung open and bashed me in the nose. I was hiding behind the door while it was open, but the door wouldn’t open all the way because it would stop on my nose. He noticed it eventually, slammed the door shut, pointed at me and said, “You mother fucker!!”.

With a hardened Marine and blackbelt fist, he smashed me in the should or face and I crumpled to the ground. After all the excitement and the blow I passed out for a little bit, but it was deserved…and hilarious.

I guess my brother went back to bed, but the rest of us drank in the glory of the hilarious event for a while. It was grand and perfectly suited for the setting we found ourselves in.

The incident quickly blew-over and we were all good the very next day. Hell, we called a house doctor who gave my bro a shot in the ass, some white powder to snort, and some pills to eat. The day after that we were all getting tattooed in our hotel room; drinking scotch, smoking weed, watching Thai boxing, and listening to classic rock.

To this day we laugh about that night and I couldn’t feel more fortunate to have him and the rest of the guys in my life. We got closer from this experience and from staying light, forgiving, and making the best of wild situations.