Young man between jobs (part 1)

Man, telling me I let him down

'I asked someone to be sincere...'  lamented a young Thai friend, Man, writing in English on Facebook.

Man, 18, was upset that I failed to meet him that day as arranged to hand over money. He was about to start a new job and at his boss's request had to get a Thai ID card made, and open a bank account.

Man was about to start work at a German brewery on Rama III Road. We had arranged meet on Chua Phloeng Road, across the way from my condo, where I would give him some money to get to the get the card done at the local body office, and also visit the bank.

I was taken aback to see his FB post, accompanied by a staged picture of himself, no doubt taken where we were supposed to meet. He was looking at the camera, and holding up thumb and finger in the shape of a heart.  

I suspect he had friend take the picture for him; he and his mates, social media addicts all, routinely take pictures for each other as they dream up their next FB post, I was to discover. It was the first time I had seen the heart gesture, and marvelled at how youngsters have time to arrange these set-piece stunts for Facebook when they could be doing something useful like - well, working.

I did make our meeting as arranged, as it happens - he had left early without letting me know. His friends told me Man had already left for his errands. He borrowed money from them instead.

I met Man and his teenage friends some weeks before on a lone walk one night across from the slum community in Klong Toey where my regular drinking friend Ball lives. 

Ball and his younger brother were seldom home since they started working as chefs at a restaurant in town. I was at a loose end, and decided to go for a walk to see if I could find anyone in the neighbourhood still selling ya dong.

I came across Man and half a dozen mates in a shadowy corner as I walked along Chua Phloeng Road. Some lived in the slum community behind the road frontage; others, like Man, had gone to school in the area and perhaps even lived there once but since moved away. However, they would bike back to see their friends, usually after dark, as they liked to take drugs, shoot the breeze, and race their motorcycles up and down the road late at night when the traffic eased.

"Do you know anyone around here who sells ya dong?" I asked Man and his mates. Man knew of a trader further up in Phra Ram III Road and took me there on his motorbike. 

"Watch out, the farang might seduce you," his friends teased him good naturedly as I climbed on the back of his bike. Unfortunately, that vendor had closed for the night, so Man took me back to see his mates and I shouted everyone beer instead. It was raining as we made our way back, but I held up a small folding umbrella I had brought along to shield us as Man steered his vehicle. 

This was to the first of a series of after-dark meetings which seemed to grow with new cast members every night. Many of the youngsters in the neighbourhood go to the same state school. The primary school is adjacent to my condo; the secondary campus about 200m down the road. 

Occasionally lads from over Ball's way would pay a visit to see Man and his crowd, or we would head over to Ball's side of the road for a meal close to the local 7-11 where a dozen or so traders open food stalls at night.

The first night, we posted a picture of ourselves on FB, and within 24 hours I had 30 or so new FB friends, all of them youngsters who knew Man and his mates. 

When I asked why they seemed to be hiding in the dark, they said a gang of youths had gone past and shot a handgun at them a few nights before (they showed me what looked like a bullet hole in a corrugated iron frontage to some old guy's place). 

now, see part 2