Dream spell breaks (1)

Friends again...

"I know you like me, but I don't want you liking me like that," said my young friend Dream, with whom I have shared a rocky relationship since a regular drinker at his place tried to pair us as foster father and son many moons ago.

"I want to be your friend. I am ready now!" he declared after I dropped in to see his mother and her drinking friends recently after a long absence.

As if to prove his sincerity, Dream, 26, who had spent the night drinking when I turned up after work, hugged me repeatedly and even kissed my neck.

A lengthy heart-to-heart - the first time we have opened our hearts to each other, so to speak, in the many years since we met - followed.

Strange? The night he festooned me with hugs and kisses was also the first time we had spoken in almost three years. We had barely managed more than a few words in the more than eight years, in fact, which had passed since that fateful argument, and yet here he was proposing to make a new start and offering profuse apologies for the past.

Our troubled father-son venture hit the rocks in early 2014, barely weeks after it had begun, when I swore at him one day after he grew distant. 

For another two years after that, surly Dream refused to talk to me. While we made up eventually, relations were tense. While we chatted occasionally on Messenger, we avoided talking to each other if we happened to meet. This is a shame, as the young man was charming company for the brief time I knew him.

I have spent many fanciful hours wondering over the years what my young friend was doing with his life and what he was really like. 

Dream's change of heart gave me an intriguing chance to find out, I thought. However, I was wondering about his motives: while I believe he was genuine about wanting to be friends with this foreigner, I think he was also put up to it. 

A close friend of his Mum's, Aunty Lek (as she styles herself) asked him to talk to me that night, I was to find out later. She likes a nightly drink, but needs someone to pay for it.  If Dream and I made up, I suspect was was thinking, this farang with money might turn up more regularly to see him - and shout her booze by way of saying thanks.

Cynical?

Let's take a step back. About a month ago, I started dropping in to see his mother Orng and Lek after an absence of many years, though I held out no hope of getting to know Dream as I thought that phase had passed. I had visited three or four times at most, stayed half an hour, and left again.

On the night Dream and I reunited, I had dropped in after work. Dream's mother many years ago started inviting friends to drink at her place at night, and one or two locals in the soi would cook up delicious Thai meals for those who came.

On this night Orng and Aunty Lek were sitting outside the house. Dream himself was wrapping up a drinking session with a group of his own friends at a separate table in the concreted area out front. 

Seeing me turn up, he noisily announced his intention to clear the air with an expansive remark aimed ostensibly at his mates, but really meant for me:

"Mali knows what my temper is like, don't you Mali?" he said at the tail end of a conversation as he farewelled his friends, referring to our argument many years before.

Orng's place is in a slum alleyway in Klong Toey, close to Talad Penang market between my condo and office. 

I used to walk to work back in those days when we first met. I would cut through Dream's soi as it's quicker than following the main road.

He was often chatting to mates outside his house. We'd exchange greetings as I walked to work and back again. I didn't think much more of it than that.

Then, as I was heading home on New Year's Eve 2013, my young friend, then 18, thrust a glass of whisky into my hand and invited me to sit with them to drink in New Year.

Most of the regulars were friends and family of Orng's and included some colourful locals from the soi. We enjoyed many boisterous nights sitting at the rickety wooden table outside her place as I got to know the crowd, some of whom, such as Aunty Lek, had been drinking there for many years.

Aunty Lek, a family friend rather than a blood relative who calls herself "aunt" as befits her middle-age, quickly asserted herself as the genial hostess, pouring drinks and introducing me to the others.

When I wrote my first post about this family, I had been drinking there the previous three nights. On night two, Aunty Lek paired me with Dream as foster father/son, even though I barely knew the lad. 

I suspected later she had motives of her own: Lek, a cleaner, is a sturdy drinker who needs her nightly alcohol fix. She saw me as a financial enabler, as cynical as that sounds.

She figured that if she could persuade me to take an emotional stake in the family's life via Dream, I was sure to come back regularly. 

Once there I could be persuaded to help pay for her drinking, Lek barely having the financial means to do so herself. At the table she took on the role of barman, in return for which regulars were expected to keep the alcohol flowing. 

In that first post, I wrote it up like this:

We have drunk together for the past three nights. As the only farang to have joined their group, I am the star attraction.

The first night was for introductions; the second, family bonding.

On family bonding night, I had only just joined the table when Aunty Lek asked me if I wanted to be Dream’s foster dad.

Being hospitable Thais, they are anxious that I keep myself stress-free and happy.

‘Yes,’ I said.

A few seconds later, Lek, who appears to enjoy stitching together the emotional fabric of this family, asked Dream to join us.

Dream, head bowed, quietly took a seat next to me.

‘Farang Mali says he wants to adopt you as his foster son. Do you want farang Mali as your foster dad?’ she asked, getting straight to the point.

Dream, who can be as boisterous as any teen when it suits, gave an emphatic ‘Yes!’

I was surprised, as I thought they were just having fun.

Since then, the family has introduced me as Dream’s foster dad.

No one has explained how this is supposed to work, though for the moment I am happy just to go with the flow.

Our falling out came a mere few weeks later. At the time I wrote:

In the past week or so, I have called and he didn’t answer.

I send text messages, often prompted by snippets of information his mother has given me about her son’s day-to-day goings on, only to get no response.

I was tired of his lack of interest, and told him so when I tricked him into answering the phone one day. I called him on a number he does not recognise as mine, and he answered.

‘What do you think you are doing, ignoring my calls?’ I demanded, swearing at him.

‘You have no right to talk to me like that. You are someone from my home life. When I am at work, I focus on answering work calls,’ he replied.

'Many people enter my life. I am not dependent on you, and can pick and choose,' he said confidently.

now, see part 2