Shattered dreams (part 2)

The angry one and his mum's drinking crowd

Dream must have resented the fact we hit it off, and when we were together would studiously avoid me as usual or even attempt to pull his cousin away if we were talking.

We had many involved conversations standing in Orng's front yard as Dear, an ex-con who served time for drugs in his youth, offered me some well-meant life advice. "Make money, find a woman, have kids," just about sums it up.

Some months later Dear gritted his teeth and moved back to his family home in leafy Bang Krachao, the so-called "green lungs" of Bangkok across the Chao Phraya River. I have not seen him in many years now, after he and Dream's family fell out.

Meanwhile, a neighbour and distant relative of Dream's mother, Orng, invited me to her daughter's wedding soon after I met the crowd.  Dream's mother and her friends were happy to welcome me into their lives, despite my problems with the angry young one.

They held the wedding at a nearby playing field, which was fancier than it sounds, with overhead lights, dining tables and so on. At his uncle's suggestion I kept a watch out for potential trouble. "Teens in the neighbourhood might hear about the wedding and turn up to cause mayhem," his uncle, a DSI policeman and elder brother to Orng, said darkly. 

I kept an eagle eye out for strife which did not arise. Dream dressed up and looked fabulous, as did his mates. I recall much laughter and group photos, but not much else. However, still no talkies.

Time passed. In April 2014, some months after we met, Ong invited my sister and her family, who were visiting Bangkok, to join a religious ceremony at their home. 

Orng had invited the monks to bless the ashes of her late mother, as she does every year on the anniversary of her death. She puts on a big meal afterwards and when she found out my sister was in town was quick to invite her. 

Orng and her friends made a fuss of us, perhaps her first farang visitors, seating my sister, her husband and their three kids at their own table, and explaining the Thai dishes on offer.

My nieces and nephews, the oldest of whom was about 10, were popular, with Orng and the others trying their best to chat in English, and even Dream remarking to his mother on their startling blue eyes. 

On the day we joined them, however, he made sure to sit with his back to my family, as he joined his mates at their own table nearby. 

Later that night, his messenger friend, Laem, invited me to a football game in Klong Toey. We went as a group, including a few kids, but once again Dream pretended I did not exist. 

Orng's place wasn't always so warm and welcoming. In October 2015, Orng's relatives assaulted her after she fell into debt with underground lenders and left them with the bill.

Orng, aware she could no longer afford the repayments racked up over months of casual borrowing, fled home and left her husband Noi to cope with the problem. 

Indian lenders do the rounds of the soi offering easy money at high interest. I see them on their bicycles as they move up and down the lane offering loans or collecting interest, like doctors making house calls. 

Thais in the soi stop them to borrow money for spending as casual as laying a bet on a football game, and worry about the consequences later.

Orng racked up the debts on the quiet and abruptly left her husband rather than tell him what she had done. When the lenders told Noi that he was on the hook for tens of thousands of baht, he told his shocked friends and family. They lured her back home for the inevitable confrontation.  

Her younger brother and elder sister arranged with Noi to be present when she returned, though they went into hiding, for dramatic soap-opera like effect. When Orng turned up in early evening after several nights away, she no doubt hoped she would find her husband alone.

Her family sprang out from wherever they had secreted themselves and demanded she explain. Her younger brother Tong, a surly individual who lived in a delapidated lean-to down the lane, ran out of patience, and thumped her in the shoulder to show his displeasure. 

I was sitting next to him outside their place and was startled to see him hit Orng, especially as he regularly helps himself to food at her house. 

However, he was not the only relative happy to lay hands on Orng that night. Her brother and elder sister chased Orng around the front yard over the next two hours, punching her, slapping her, pulling her hair, tearing at her clothes, and dragging her into the house.

They were demanding retribution for saddling them with debts which they assumed they would have to help pay off.

As the screaming intensified, Noi closed the door to outsiders so family members could vent in privacy. 

Noi, while he may have tricked his wife back home, did not appear to lay a hand on her, I am pleased to say -  but nor did he try to stop the others from hitting Orng.

now, see part 3