Calling of work, porcelain knees, Daddy urges

I will ask at the office for work opportunities on behalf of Ball, his younger brother, and brother-in-law.

This is the last favour I perform, as I doubt any of them is really willing to help themselves.

Even if I find answers to their questions, will they bother to turn up?

The questions:

If all three turn up looking for casual, piecemeal work, will you accept them?

Is there enough work for them to do all day? If not, how many hours a day, and how many days a week?

How much will they get paid?

-
When I visit Ball, I look at his face as much as possible. I still haven’t seen it in all its angles. Or if I have, I want to see them again.

‘He’s handsome, isn’t he?’ a crusty old guy asked me.

He would like to see me have a fling with Mr Ball.

‘Yes, but he has a girlfriend,’ I said.

Ball played football the other day, and was nursing a sore back and ribs. I know he wanted me to massage out those painful spots, but I resisted.

We were sitting at the ya dong stand, so we’d have an audience. Apart from that, I rarely touch him at the moment, unless looking for abrasions on his elbows and knees. I like to pick off old scabs. Call me an old scabby guy if you will, but there it is.

‘Don’t you have any new sores?’ I asked, disappointed. Ball has the finest skin, like porcelain. It shows all bruises, abrasions, and scars, so much so that his Mum does not like him playing football, just in case he hits the ground and marks himself.

‘No...I didn’t fall,’ he said.

‘How annoying,’ I replied.

-
When I am work, my work experience seems so vivid that Ball and his family pale into insignificance. When I am at home, I grow bored and restless, and want to see him again.

I would like to split my time between Maiyuu and our lonely lifestyle; and visiting Ball and his family in the slums.

Over there, people are living real lives, even if they are poor and I couldn’t bear to live in such unpleasant surroundings myself.

Home is my bolthole, as all homes are. When Ball and his family get sick of me, they can take comfort in the fact that sooner or later I will have to go home too.

They can go back to living their all-Thai lives, without some farang propped up in their living room.

-
Ball’s Mum and I are just days apart in age. While I have no children, while she has four, all of them young adults.

One child, her only daughter, now has a baby of her own. Two are in the workforce (the daughter, and eldest son), and two idle (Ball and his school-aged brother).

How can one person (Mum), have accomplished so much, and another (me) so little?

Maybe I should wait for Maiyuu to die, shack up with Ball's Mum, and be done with all this gay doubting. Would it work?

I could be a Daddy to four adult children...and what an odd bunch we would make.