Signs of thawing

Dream is thawing out slowly, but still hasn’t brought himself to speak.

Instead, he comes out for a look at me, every night when I turn up after work.

He will appear at his mother’s drinking table outside their place, and sit for a few minutes. If I take a toilet break inside his house, he has gone to bed by the time I return.

It’s like this every night. The moment I turn away, he has vanished.

This farang still enjoys springing the occasional surprise, even though I am supposed to be on best behaviour.

I gave everyone a small start the other night when I invited my best friend and erstwhile 'son', Mr Ball, to join the table.

Ball lives in a slum next to my condo. Dream and his family live five minutes away, in a different slum setting on the other side of a railway line.

I had told Ball the story of my new family, and how Mr Dream, since our argument a couple of months ago, refuses to talk to me.

Ball never turns down an opportunity for a drink, so arrived promptly on his motorcycle on the night I called.

My young friend is working as a motorcycle hire guy at the local market, though presented himself without his regulation orange vest on, I was pleased to see.

‘I went home to see Nong Min first,’ he said, referring to his daughter.

Ball parked his motorcycle in front of Dream’s place. I poured him a drink, and introduced him to Laem, a messenger in the area.

Ball, who has worked as a messenger previously, asked Laem about his job.

As he spoke, I applied mosquito repellent to Ball’s bare legs. Ball, aware adults at the table were watching, politely brushed my hand away.

Half an hour later, Dream turned up after his football game. He noticed I had brought along a guest, and, when he wasn’t strutting bare-chested around our little group, gave Ball sidelong stares.

Ball was just as curious, as he wanted to know about this young man who has entered his farang friend’s life.

‘You have helped me with many things since we met more than three years ago,’ Ball said.

‘Dream doesn’t want financial help, but does appear to want me in his life,’ I replied.

I told Ball about the day I had sent Dream a text message asking for a new start – and Dream promptly shut the door in my face.

‘He has no right to do that to you,’ Ball said. ‘His reaction is extreme.’

Neither Ball nor Dream spoke to the other, and 90 minutes later, Ball excused himself and went home.

Ball, who is a responsible dad, returned to help his girlfriend Jay look after their daughter and the other three kids of the household.

I doubt he was interested in staying anyway. The adult conversation was dull, as it usually is. When a young girl ran past us, Ball said she reminded him of Min.

Dream himself stayed with us about half an hour, then went up to his bedroom.

He can spend hours up there, where he is often joined by his friend Ott, a polite lad with a happy smile who lives down the alleyway.

Ott sees much more of Dream than I do, though there are no surprises there…we don’t talk.

His girlfriend, who I have yet to meet, pays an occasional visit. Otherwise his life appears to consist of little other than work, football, and sleep.

Dream confides regularly in Aunty Lek, his mother’s best friend. She in turn tells me what the boy is saying. 

Thanks to Lek and Dream’s mother, Orng, I am getting to know my young friend...and all without speaking a word.

When Ball showed up at the table, Aunty Lek, who sits next to me, gave me a pained look, as if to say, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Dream has been playing with my head for weeks, refusing to talk and playing hard to get. I brought Ball along to show him that I do have other people in my life, and I am not solely dependent on him for company,’ I said.

‘I want to show him that two can play his game. If he serves a ball at me, occasionally I will return it.’

Lek smiled and said he understood. ‘I don’t know what Dream will think about it, though,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry about him. If he’s old enough to play games with me, he’s old enough to get it,’ I said.

A night earlier, as he mulled ending the big freeze he has imposed on our relationship, Dream told Lek he was worried about rejection should he take up with me again.

‘Farang Mali must meet many people in his life. One day he will find someone new and forget about me,’ he said.

Lek assured him that I stand by the ones I love.

‘He wants to love you as a dad, not a boyfriend,’ she said.

Dream barely knows his real father, who left the family shortly after Dream was born. They do not keep in touch.

Lek and Orng have shared details of young Dream’s family history. Orng has showed me her wedding pictures, and images of Dream as a child.

For my part, I opened up about young Ball, and the journey we have passed over the past three years since we met at a rundown ya dong stand close to my home.

Just as I am busy harvesting information, so is Dream keen to know how I feel about him.

A day after I invited Ball to join us, Dream asked Lek who my friend was – couched in unflatteringly direct teen speak.

‘Are they seeing each other?’ he asked.

Lek assured him this was not the case.

‘Farang Mali once looked after Ball as a son. Now Ball has grown up, and has his own girlfriend, job and family. He no longer needs Mali as a dad. They have entered a new phase of their relationship, and are best friends,’ Lek said.

‘I don’t care who he brings,’ Dream sniffed, clearly put out, as I knew he would be, that I had invited someone he regards as a rival for my affections. 

And so the game plays on.

Dream likes having me around. The first inkling I had of a change in my young man’s attitude was the week before.

‘Has anyone invited Mali to the wedding?’ he asked Lek one night. A neighbour, Sun, has invited us to her daughter’s wedding next month.

‘They have, and he’s coming,’ Lek replied.

‘Is he coming tonight?’ he asked.

‘He comes every night,’ Lek said.

Don’t think, however, that Dream is an innocent in this relationship stage play of ours. He is just as skillful at playing games as I am.

‘Is Mali deceiving you, drawing close so he can get access to me, or is he here as a genuine friend?’ he asked his mother.

While Dream has been in no talkies mode, I have struck up friendships with many of the others in his family’s circle.

Unlike most of the locals who gather there every night – many of whom talk a lot, but do not really enjoy a close relationship with Orng or Lek, the emotional mainstays of the gathering – I am now regarded as an insider.

Dream, wearing his cynical young person’s head, wanted to know if I had merely ingratiated myself with his family and friends simply to claim him as my boyfriend.

‘I take people as I find them, and Mali seems fine to me,’ Orng replied calmly.

Thank you. While Dream might be attractive, and my desire to enter his life strong, I have no longing in that direction.

‘I imagine I will know Dream for years,’ I told Aunty Lek. 

‘Our relationship will pass through many phases, just as Ball and I have done," I told her. 

If I get to know this young man better, it will only be because Lek and his mother approve. It will be a friendship conducted in public, or at least under the gaze of those who matter most in his life.

This is why my efforts to redeem myself during this early phase are so important. I have to show Orng, Lek and Dream that I am still a worthy candidate. If I pass their character test, they can clear me for the next stage in our adventure.

‘Mali has made efforts to correct his behaviour,’ Orng's elder brother, a senior policeman, told Dream one night.

‘Everyone at the table is rooting for you and Dream to get together again,’ Lek told me later. We seldom talk about it at the table, but everyone knows we are estranged.

‘Does he know how I feel about him?’ I asked Lek, in what is perhaps my most important question since this saga began.

‘He knows you love him, but is still trying to get over his anger,’ she said. ‘You swore at him, and it hurt him deeply.’

So, bring it on, I say. If you want me to be daddy, step up; or if it's an older friend you want, I can do that too. 

I have rehearsed conversations in my head with Dream, ready for the day he wants to speak again.

Given the many head dramas and sleepless nights this family has put me through in recent times, it will have to do for now. I hardly have energy for anything else.