The Little Prince

Young Ball was B100 better off last night, after spending several hours working on a building site.

His mother found him temporary work with a construction gang. They want him to work every Saturday, though the pay is low.

Ball joined a team of casual workers to help lift things at a condo which is going up close to my own.

He is not used to manual work, and looked tired when he joined us at carer R’s ya dong stand about 10pm.

Earlier, I had dropped in to see him. He had just arrived home, and was about to take a shower.

It was to be another hour before he graced us with his presence. A diva needs to prepare herself.

Showering can take Ball an hour; dressing, and applying face moisturiser and so on another 30 minutes.

His audience – carer R, regular customer Na and I – waited, and waited.

By the time he arrived, we were asking aloud: ‘Where’s Ball?’

I had turned up at the ya dong stand two hours earlier. Three or four customers were there, but no Ball.

‘He is working on a building site nearby...he’ll be here later,’ said carer R, who knows everything about our movements.

So, we hung out for Ball... the shining diva of our tattered ya dong stage.

He is just 19, so is the youngest by far. That alone makes him special.

However, with his small body and features as fine as those of a porcelain doll, he also looks different from the average man on the street.

Carer R likens him to a likay folk dancer (watch a likay performer in action via YouTube, here).

‘The lead actor is putting on his fancy dress and his make-up,’ he jokes.

Regular customer Na goes further: he likens him to a little prince (ลูกคุณหนู, or look khun noo), which one Thai-English dictionary defines entertainingly as ‘His Majesty the Baby/King Baby’.

According to Na, Ball’s appearance or demeanour is similar to that of the pampered offspring of rich parents...the type who have hired help to lift heavy objects for them.

It’s beyond their ken to exert themselves physically in any shape or form, as they are just not used to it.

‘I don’t think a lifting job on a building site suits you...tomorrow, I will take you to look for work somewhere else,’ Na told Ball after his belated arrival.

‘An air-con installation company is interested in hiring me as a driver. I will take us places, and you can install the machines,’ suggested Na.

Ball is unusual, in that wrapped inside this body with a beautiful, china-doll exterior is an ordinary, rough-as-guts teen. He denies he behaves like a spoilt child.

It’s just his sensitive looks, like the petals of a rose which is about to burst into bloom.

Last night, Ball held the stage for almost two hours – the most talkative I have seen my young friend in the two months I have known him.

He talked about his girl conquests, including one youngster with Korean-style looks, who met his younger brother first but then decided she preferred Ball instead.

The lads took the girl home – and then took turns with her in bed.

Neither wore protection.

Ball picked up an infection in his member. The result is regular discharges of something unpleasant. Ms Korea, it turns out, was experienced in the sack.

‘You better take something for that...it could get worse,’ suggested Na.

Ball, however, wants to tough it out. ‘It will heal naturally,’ he insists.

That was just last year.

Mum criticised Ball for stealing his younger brother’s girlfriend. Kae, his plain-spoken elder sister, told Ball bluntly he was a cad.

I enjoyed Master Ball’s company. He looked happy, so I felt no need to boost his spirits by offering a neck rub.

He feels guilty about his girlfriend, Jay, who works at a supermarket while Ball himself drinks the nights away, and sleeps late the next day.

‘I started work at the Macro department store, and met her on the first day – how fateful was that?’

‘She accuses me of living off her earnings. She sits up every night waiting for me to get home, and wants to talk. However, I am tired, have drunk too much, and want sleep.

'We fight almost every night. One night I threw a clothes iron at her. It hit the fridge; Mum has yet to forgive me for denting her fridge.

‘This morning I woke to found a note which Jay had left for me on my bed.

‘She’s now had enough, and has asked me to wait until the end of the month. She wants to find somewhere else to live,’ said Ball.

Ball claims he wants to be single again, but I am not sure is he is ready to let her go. We shall see.