Boyfriend reads minds, the Ball 'harvest' proposal

Readers have asked how boyfriend Maiyuu feels about Ball, my young friend from the slums. The short answer is, he doesn’t know.

Maiyuu knows where I drink. In fact, I invited him there on New Year’s Eve.

He cycled across the vacant lot between our condo and carer R’s shop, and took a quick look from about 10m away, but decided not to go any closer.

I have invited him back since, but he is not interested.

However, he has a good idea of what is happening. After nine years together, he knows me that well.

‘You have found a young man over there, and you’re pretending to be his Dad.

‘He needs a father figure, and you suit each other so well, because you need someone to love,’ said Maiyuu one day.

His description of what had transpired between me and Ball was so accurate that I assumed he must have paid a furtive visit to R’s shop, and asked him for the details.

In fact, he knew nothing. He was just speculating, based on similar relationships I have struck up with youngsters in the past.

Maiyuu hasn’t met Ball or carer R, yet has figured out what is going on.

When I visit carer R’s ya dong stand, I come home late, though rarely beyond 2am, as Maiyuu does like to see me occasionally, even at that ungodly hour of the morning.

Mainly, I visit carer R’s stand on my nights off from work, though I have also been known to visit during the week.

I visited last night, for example, after a 12-hour day at the office.

Two days ago, I swapped phone numbers with carer R. On the first night, he called about 10pm to say he was packing up shop.

I needn’t bother calling in after I finished work later that night, as by then his place would be closed, he said.

Last night, carer R and young Ball called me several times while I was at work, urging me to pay a visit.

They were drunk, having fun, and wanted me to join in.

I turned up as soon as I could. We drank for an hour, before Ball invited us back to his place for something to eat.

Mum, who is celebrating her birthday, was making suki (beef, seafood and vegetables cooked on a portable hotplate, with charcoal underneath), and we were invited.

Ball’s elder brother, a soldier, was visiting home for Mum's birthday.

When we turned up at Ball’s place, the elder brother had just showered. He spent the next half hour drying himself and applying powder to his body. He looked extremely strong, and fit.

‘He’s big,’ said Lort, shooting me a cheeky grin.

Lort sat next to me as we formed a circle around the suki hotplate.

A taxi driver by trade, Lort is the most senior in the household, and keeps careful measure of the younger males' progress beneath the waist.

Ball is so-so big, followed by his elder brother Beer, who is bigger still, and then the soldier, who is biggest of all.

I chatted to Ball’s girlfriend, Jay, who was doing most of the cooking.

She had only recently come back from work, but had changed into casual clothes: shorts, and a T-shirt.

I noticed that one of her legs was bruised, and asked about her injuries. ‘It was a work accident. I had to pay for medical treatment myself, as my employer refused to help, and I hadn’t been there long enough to get cover from the company insurance scheme,’ she said.

Jay has since left that company, and joined another. Now, she works for the same supermarket as boyfriend Ball.

Like me, Ball was dressed in work gear. He had not changed since finishing his shift, but had gone straight to carer R’s ya dong stand.

His white shirt was stained and ragged, his black trousers torn on one knee. I fingered the hole in his trousers, and asked how it happened.

‘Why don’t you buy him a new pair?’ Lort jumped in, before Ball had a chance to answer.

Why not indeed?

An hour earlier, at the ya dong stand, carer R suggested I do away with my farang pretense, and just take the lad.

‘I heard about you, the other night at Ball’s place. You were in his bedroom, and his girlfriend was downstairs,’ he slurred.

‘Yes, but nothing happened. Ball is straight, and apart from that, he’s too young,’ I told R.

‘He’s straight, you’re straight...so what? Just ‘take’ him, as we say in the provinces,’ he said.

Care R used an unusual word, kep (เก๊บ), which can mean arrange, collect, kill, keep - but which in a provincial context sounded oddly like harvesting rice.

‘I know what you’re thinking, and what you want to do,’ he said.

So why don’t I?

Lort is all for it too, as long as I contribute to his keep.

I haven’t asked his Mum about our friendship, though I suspect her answer might be just as non-committal, perhaps even encouraging, because she can see that I care for him.

Ball was sitting next to me, as he should, because he is uppermost in my affections in this family.

I ran my hand through his hair briefly, though had second thoughts when I heard Lort say: ‘I don’t mind you doing that.’

They can see that I care for Ball. However, I don’t want to ‘harvest’ him. To do that would be to declare that he is my own, even if I do have to share him with his teenage girlfriend.

About 1am, Carer R excused himself and went home to bed.

‘I know my limits,’ he said.

Half an hour later, Ball asked if he could take me home. He lives just metres away from carer R’s ya dong stand. I live just metres beyond that.

We played our old game: Ball escorts me across the vacant lot. We stop just short of my place. I turn to watch him walk back across the lot.

Dogs are barking, and the ground underfoot stony and uneven, which makes the path treacherous.

He stops short of his place, turns around and looks at me.

I walk back to him. I hug him, we say our goodbyes, and we try again.

We played this game for 15 minutes, which was mercifully brief compared to the last time we tried to walk each other home.

This time, when I turned to look a second time, he had disappeared.

Ball needs older men in his life, it’s true. He misses his father dearly, and finds it hard to talk to Lort.

But what do I have in common with a youngster just hitting his 20s?

Let’s say I buy him a new pair of trousers. Next week, he’ll tear them again.

Ball has to learn for himself the importance of looking after clothes.

That only comes with time, and a little fatherly advice.

I am up for that, much more than I am a 10-minute conquest in the greasy love pit which Ball shares with his girlfriend.

As I have said before, I am on his mother's side. Mum, girlfriend Jay and I will make a decent man out of young Ball yet.

We want Ball to be pleasant, functional, successful.

I’ll shower you with love, young man, if that’s what you want. I might even buy you clothes occasionally, as hanger-on Lort desires.

But if I do, it’s not because I have harvested you, and declared you as my own, like some marital asset. It’s because I want you to venture into the world as a better man.