American Splendor

By Gary Jones Monday, July 05, 2004

It may be hidden from prying eyes off Sukhumvit Soi 22, but Bangkok's Washington Square is a compact slice of Americana lost in space and time. If you're in the Thai capital and happen to need a fix of bourbon and Johnny Cash tunes�or a quiet spot to chow down fried chicken amid Jim Beam and Burma Shave signage�then you've found your mecca.

Washington Square's genesis dates back to the 1980s, when its collection of raucous bars, women and cheap accommodation drew hordes of U.S. expatriates and adventurers, including many former servicemen who had chosen never to return home. Some began living in the square, and a handful still do, making this one of the last refuges of the hard-bitten American in Asia, looking to get drunk in peace.

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The square's Bourbon Street restaurant boasts an award-winning cajun-creole menu raved about by the U.S. consular corps�but everything else in the area is for the serious boozer or bold, cultural tourist. At the square's straining heart nestles the Texas Lone Staar (sic) Saloon, a favored hangout of grizzled Vietnam vets and supposed former CIA spooks. The bar's tag line, FOOD, WIMMIN, LIKKER, is painted across its windows, though the emphasis is almost exclusively on the latter.

Many of the Staar's regulars live on the square and refer to themselves as "Squaronians." Over the years, they have included the locally celebrated Mekhong Kurt, Generous George, Speedo Keith and a host of other larger-than-life characters, some of whom have been bouncing around Bangkok for decades. After more than a few fingers of bourbon, Squaronians delight in chewing the fat under the Texas Aggie flag and the moth-eaten Cape buffalo head that�alongside yellowed Waylon Jennings and Kitty Wells record covers�grace the bar's wood-paneled walls. They'll wax nostalgic over fortunes made and squandered, over women loved and comrades lost. They'll whisper of gun running in Laos, of Tet and of black ops. Tall tales? Who knows. Truth, legends and conspiracy theories overlap and blur once the booze is flowing.

Prime time to drop by is 3 p.m. every Saturday, when the Staar provides free food to all drinkers. Tread carefully, though: Squaronians like to keep to themselves, scaring off strangers with thousand-yard stares. Perhaps that's just as well. As one former resident who managed to escape its pull said, the square is "self-contained, self-righteous, fascinating, and a fire escape to nowhere."