Dream spell breaks (3)

Nearby Talad Penang, in Klong Toey

A touching assessment of my worthiness as a life partner followed.

'You would make a good partner," he said, "but Dream has no style," he added, referring to himself diminutively in the third person. By "style", I gather he meant that he was straight, so not a good match.

"Bring your partner around to meet us some time," he offered expansively. "And if you ever need a new one, get in touch."

Some idle conversation about work followed, with Dream noting that his boss is a foreigner, like me.

"He likes me because I speak my mind," he said, asking if I had met many other Thais like him in my travels.

"No, Dream, you are a one-off," I said confidently.

Commenting on why we have remained virtual strangers all these years, he said:  "I see you biking past but never said anything. I wanted you to be the first to talk," he said, explaining the absence of any greeting. I felt the same way, needless to say, but apart from that, it never felt right.

Finally we reached perhaps the strangest point in the evening, when Dream started a sales pitch on the virtues of drinking. Lek, I gather, had told him that I had quit alcohol and seldom sat at their table for long when I drop by.

This, of course, had to change.

If I am not shelling out to help cover the cost of the next bottle of whisky, as I did regularly in the past, regulars like Lek are forced to go dry. 

I suspect this is what prompted her to approach him, though I don't know the precise nature of the plea. Perhaps it sounded like this: "If you tell the farang you want to be friends, he might come back and start drinking again."

Orng's place is in a quiet alcove at the end of the soi. In years gone past, she could draw 30 or more drinkers on good evenings, including her elder brother, a DSI policeman, who was treated with great respect. 

Some regulars further down the feeding chain still come even without an invitation, as Orng's  place adjoins a community centre overseen by the soi committee. Some of that space around the spirit house outside his front door is regarded as common land. 

Some of her regulars - messengers, labourers and the like - are noisy drunks. I spotted one guy in recent weeks urinating on the front path running up to their place, just metres from the front door.

Surely Dream had grown sick of this riff-raff by now? Well, no, at least not on this occasion.

"People still gather here to drink at night," he began.

I chipped in to finish his sentence: '...making a lot of noise."

Naively, I thought he was about to complain about the drunken regulars who gather outside his house, depriving his family of that middle class eccentricity known as privacy and perhaps also interrupting his sleep.

Silly me. "People still gather here, and alcohol loosens people up nicely," he added. "My mum and Aunty Lek don't have many friends, so you are welcome to come back and keep them company as you did before."

I had heard enough. I suggested my young friend head inside for a shower and sleep. He smelled musty after drinking outside for hours.

By this time he had hugged me half a dozen times, and even kissed my neck, for which he sought my permission.

"Aunty Lek, please look after Mali," Dream, ever the generous host, said as he bade farewell.

now, see part 4