Robbing me deaf and blind

I ran into Mr Dependency in the slum, which was jumping to the sound of a dance routine.

‘I have nothing to drink,’ he said.

I couldn’t hear, so in old-man fashion, craned my body forward and bent my ear towards his mouth.

‘What?’

Every evening, women in the slum gather in a wired-fence area next to the main road for exercise.

A trim looking thing gets up on a box and shows off her aerobics moves. The women facing her, who tend to be much larger, follow her movements.

Thais can’t do anything without noise accompaniment, and so it is with this routine. A hip-hop song blares from a sound box next to the aerobics coach.

I was heading to work, but dropped in on my favourite slum shop to buy a laab moo (spicy pork salad) dish.

I was hoping to avoid Mr Ball, whose mother had called moments before I left home.

‘Ball wants to talk,’ she said almost guiltily, and passed over the phone.

‘Farang Mali, aren’t you dropping in today?’ he asked.

‘I have to go to work. I am in a hurry...but I will see you tomorrow,’ I said.

Ball wanted me to buy him alcohol. It was evening, the time when any self-respecting hard man from the slum will start contemplating how to fill his belly with the brown stuff for the evening.

I avoided Ball’s place all day, which wasn’t hard, as I was busy most of it. But on point of principle, I am against giving away money to people who do not work.

As part of a new hard line stance against wasting money in the slums, I have decided to visit only on days off or special occasions such as public holidays. Well, that’s the noble goal, anyway.

As luck would have it, however, I was to run into my young man in the slums just 20 minutes after our phone call, as I was waiting for my laab moo.

‘I have nothing to drink!’ he repeated for my deaf-man benefit.

Boom! Boom! (noise from aerobics workout next to us).

‘Why don’t you ask your Mum for money?’ I asked. ‘Can you wait until tomorrow? I haven’t been to the cash machine,’ I lied.

‘I don’t want to ask Mum,’ he said, but accepted my suggestion that he should wait rather than press the point.

I left happily, thinking that I had made an easy escape.

An hour later, his mother called me at work, sounding desperate.

‘Can you buy him a bottle of whisky on tick? He wants to drink.

‘Last night I bought moo krata (Korean-style home-made bar-b-que) for everyone...I went through B700 in one day,’ she said.

I contemplated her request. I had visited their place the night before, and took part in that delicious moo krata meal.

Feeling sorry for Ball’s mother, I agreed.

A bill of B100 awaits for me when I visit his place tonight.