Uncorrupted

I am slowly throttling life out of my relationship with Mr Ball and his family, because I don’t like the direction it is taking.

Why buy things if they are not wanted? Why buy the brown stuff if it is abused? Why give myself heartache worrying about teens who are not my own?

A week ago, Ball drank too much, and argued with his girlfriend, Jay. His harsh words reduced her tears. She vowed it was time to leave.

None of that might have mattered, except that I had paid for the alcohol which led to Ball disgracing himself and making life a misery for his partner.

His mother had asked me over to their place, and suggested I buy a 700ml bottle rather than the usual half-size, as she and a friend would share it with us.

In the event, Mum and her friend disappeared for the night.

I siphoned some of the stuff off, intending to take it home. But not enough, it turned out.

Ball knocked back the alcohol furiously on an empty stomach. Two hours into our session, he had forgotten himself, and started to argue with his girlfriend.

‘You hang over me all the time...I need my freedom, but you won’t let me go,’ he complained, swearing at his girlfriend.

The words hurt. Jay cried. I tried to console the poor girl, but it didn’t work.

‘He doesn’t love me. I have done my duty, trying to keep him away from this stuff....but he thinks I am merely interfering,’ she said in tears.

Jay fled to their bedroom upstairs.

‘You are lucky to have her. Jay wants you to quit with good reason – look what happens!’ I said. ‘Most women would have walked away by now.’

Ball, however, was on a roll.

Having tasted freedom away from his ever-watchful girlfriend, he wanted more.

He asked me for a loan of B200 so he could carry on partying with a group of slum friends.

They intended travelling to a friend’s house to celebrate a birthday. A taxi fare there and back would be needed.

After calling his mother asking for permission to go, he managed to obtain some money.

As he begged me for the money, dribble fell of his chin. I wiped it off. He had no idea what he was doing, and was in no state for going outdoors.

I left, wondering if he would manage to get back safely. If he didn’t, I would have only myself to blame.

He visited his friends nearby, but didn’t make it to the party, because he was too far gone. About midnight, he staggered home, vomited, and fell into bed.

Was it just another episode of reckless teenage self-indulgence? Of course, but it wouldn’t happen if a few rules were set down at the outset.

The next morning I visited his place with a mock contract I had drawn up setting down those rules. If he wanted to drink with me in future, he would do as I wanted.

I had called his mother to discuss the contract.

Ball, who was playing with the toddlers when I arrived, turned his back on me. I asked him to leave the toddlers alone, and look at me until I had finished speaking.

His mother and girlfriend did not seem at all flustered that Ball had made a fool of himself the night before.

Mum had gone out, but must have heard what happened. Jay was there, despite her earlier threat to leave.

They were pretending nothing had happened – but why?

‘Overseas, parents with troubled children offer them a contract to sign setting down the rules they must follow if they want to enjoy the benefits of the privileges they desire,’ I said.

Most of that would be lost on Mr Ball, who had barely recovered from the excesses of the night before, but never mind.

The contract had six clauses. Unable to sleep, I had written it out by hand early that morning.

1: I will not drink to excess.

2. If I do, I will not pick fights with my girlfriend.

3. I will eat before, during or after...I will not drink the stuff on an empty stomach.

4. If I drink at home, I cannot carry on elsewhere when it’s done.

5. I will not ask to borrow money to carry on indulging.

6. No one has the right to stop me. But if I break the rules, I can be punished.


Ball listened attentively. His mother chipped in with a couple of feeble comments, telling me it was unlikely to work, as Ball was too stubborn.

I explained how it I wanted it to work.

‘Mum may refuse to buy your favourite food or grocery item for a day, a week or whatever, depending on how badly you breach the contract,’ I said.

‘I won’t ask you to sign. I just want you to know how it is done.’

Still on a high from the night before, Ball helped himself to a can of beer from the fridge.

He slapped his knees in pleasure. I don't know why he was so happy, especially when I had just given him a ticking off.

An hour later, Mum had gone out, and the girlfriend retired upstairs. ‘I didn’t say that stuff just to embarrass you,’ I told him.

‘But I have to take responsibility if you do stupid things. For your own safety, and to spare me embarrassment, I have to lay down rules,’ I said.

‘I don’t mind. If you were my father or mother, you would have said the same thing,’ said Ball. ‘I could have met only two of those demands at the most,’ he joked, referring to the contract.

-
Since the contract episode, I have scaled down my involvement with Ball’s family.

I visit once every two days, if that. My stays are brief.

Previously I might have visited several times a day, depending on when Ball’s mother called, and what I was doing.

Now that I have laid down rules, I feel a burden has been lifted.

It is up to Ball whether he follows them, and up to members of his family whether they care.

I laid down a few rules for myself at the same time. Don’t buy him things, and don’t give money to his mother.

In most cases he doesn’t welcome the gifts; they just make him feel awkward. As for Mum, she likes to spend the money I give her for Ball on other things.

Ball has always wanted us to be mere drinking friends, which is how we started out when we met at carer R’s ya dong stand.

While he might need a father figure in his life, he doesn’t appear to want it from me.

I have scaled down my visits because I am worried about what Ball’s neighbours are saying. I am more than twice his age. How must it look, with me haunting his living room every day?

True, all of Ball’s ya dong friends, including me, were years older than himself.

But that is the way with drink. Our shared interest in alcohol conquers all other differences.

Ball’s mother likes me visiting. I can’t be sure that Ball also wants me there, however, and in any event he should spend less time drinking, and more time getting to know his girlfriend.

He has no work, and spends his days rattling about home, looking after the toddlers, and alternately bickering and playing with his girlfriend.

In the absence of anything to worry about on his behalf, I find we have little in common.

I turn up, chat to Mum, we share a couple of beers.

After having barely exchanged a word with her son, I go home.

-
I was too needy, as everyone here can see.


I wanted Mr Ball to give my one sign, just one, that he valued my presence as an older figure in his life.

It never came, and I was wrong to expect it.

Ball is a different person when he is under the influence. When he’s had too much, he pines for his Dad, and is happy-go-lucky.

When sober, he can be serious and stand-offish.

When he’s had a few, he likes me being around. When he’s hungry for it, he's happy to drink with whoever happens to provide it.

Yet I don’t believe he’s an alkie.

The alcohol helps relieve his burdens and worries, just as playing the guitar, for example, helped me get out of myself when I was young. He has found a vehicle to release his youthful pent-up emotions and fears.

‘You're not hooked. This conviction of yours that you need to drink every day is nonsense. You’re just going through a phase,’ I told him.

His mother agreed. ‘You are nowhere near that point yet,’ said Mum, who recalls the plight of Ball’s father whom she nursed though an alcohol-related illness until his death, a few years ago, in his 30s.

Those are the most important words I have spoken to Mr Ball, who tends to be fatalistic.

‘You don’t have to drink so much, and please don’t,’ I said in tears.

Mum and girlfriend Jay looked at me - in shock, I suspect.

If they didn’t know how I felt before, they do now.

Perhaps the farang had lowered himself, crying in their presence over a mere teenager.

That was another ‘watershed’ moment, as the saying goes, to emerge from our little contract meeting.

Now that I have shed tears, I no longer feel the need to prove anything.

Ball knows what I expect of him, even if his mother fails to lay down the law.

If he disgraces himself again, he has only himself to blame, as I will no longer be party to such mistakes, if I am careful.

I doubt he cares much about how I feel, but nor is that important. If nothing else, he owes a bond of good behaviour to himself.

‘You have your whole life ahead of you,’ I told him.

‘You love kids, and are lucky in that regard – even if your work life is falling apart, you will always have the children,’ I said, referring to the two toddlers of the household.

Ball dotes on them, and regards the adopted one, Nong Fresh, as his own daughter.

‘They will have grown up in a few years,’ he said sadly.

‘If some guy man ever wants to take out Nong Fresh when she is a teenager, he’ll have to get past me first!’ he said protectively.

That’s alright, I told Mr Ball.

‘By then, you will be ready to have your own kids...and as a mere friend I would l love to be around to see that day,’ I said.
-

The trousers and shirts I bought Ball for work...where are they now?

Some, he gave to his elder brother Boy, the soldier. Others lie abandoned and unloved somewhere upstairs. He hasn’t worn them since I bought them for him months ago.

A bicycle I helped buy for girlfriend Jay is also collecting dust upstairs. I doubt it has ever been used.

At least he has never stopped being himself, despite my well-meant, but meddling presence. I liked to think of it as helping. My more critical readers regard it as interference.

Regardless, it failed to change him. Well done, lad.

Perhaps my motives were not so malign after all.

-
I still meet Ball occasionally.

We drink a little, make small talk, and I leave.

It won’t grow much beyond that, I suspect.

We come together on special occasions, such as family excursions to the supermarket, or even in moments of crisis, such as when idle taxi driver Lort suffered a seizure and had to be carted to hospital.

For the rest of the time, however, we appear to just drift.

Ball rarely leaves home without the girlfriend. I asked him why. He says it is part of being Thai.

‘Once you have a girlfriend, you can't let her do much unaccompanied outside home. Nor will she let me do much,’ he explained once. Each worries the other will find someone else.

It is primitive, childish stuff, but that's what they think.

Ball has his demons, which drink and caring for the kids of the household help relieve.

If I stick around, it is as a drinking friend, trying to disguise the way I really feel.

I have to put away my desires to care for him as an uncle or father. I have to forget pity and compassion; they were misplaced.