Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
a stream. It was also for sale cheap, the girl went on without hesita­
tion, only two hundred kwai, about twenty-five American dollars.
“Where’s the mother dog?” Esmé asked.
“Muzzer no here,” the girl replied.
“It’s an orphan?”
And the beauties were quick to assure her, “Fun, fun. Guarantee
you money-back.”
Unlike Esmé, who still preferred T-shirts and jeans, the beauties
were swathed in tight dresses and perched on chunky-heeled shoes.
They carried key chains slung on low-hipped belts, attesting that
they owned cars, or at least had privileges to them. In their well-
manicured hands, they gripped petite cell phones, always at the
ready to offer their services. Harry had received just such an offer
a half-hour after checking in. A voice cooed in a Texas twang and
Chinese tones: “Hello, honey, you lonesome tonight?” And though
Harry was tempted, he was also a veterinarian who was well aware
of the precise opportunistic methods by which parasites and deadly
viruses travel. Down, boy. Good boy.
Bennie Trueba y Cela had received a similar call and had laughed
uproariously. “Sweetie, you’ve got the wrong number,” he said. He
had the girth and robustness of his Texan mother, and the sensual
lips and extravagant gestures of his Spanish father, who died a
month after Bennie had announced to him by letter that he was gay.
This sent Bennie to a psychiatrist to examine his problems with other
people’s anger, disappointment, and criticism. “My father’s death
was like a complete rejection.” He said some variation of this at al­
most every session, making it sound each time as if it were a sudden
epiphany.
Bennie’s room at the Glorious View Villa was the one that would
have been mine, across from Vera’s at the end of the hall. The hotel
liked to please tour leaders and gave them rooms with a mountain
view, that of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Its numerous jagged
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