Ghost with a guitar

'How are you, Mali? Do you remember me? I am Muss.'

That was Muss, my Thai bass-guitarist friend, whom I had not seen in 18 months.

The other night, he turned up at Mum's shop in Thon Buri.

Muss - who is polite, and knows his manners - introduced me to a girl he brought with him. 'This is my latest girlfriend,' he said.

They sat the the bar. I was sitting with a group of regular customers at a table nearby.

The regulars are all much older than Muss, who is in his mid-20s. In another age, I befriended Muss. I took him home to sleep at my place a couple of nights to keep him company.

He was still at performing arts school, with another six months left before graduation. He did not mix with his student friends much, and felt lonely, so asked if he could sleep with me at my place.

I took him home. He suffered an allergic reaction to the air-conditioning. I held him in my arms as he tried to sleep on the floor instead. He managed to get some sleep. I had none.

Those days are over. I no longer take lonely young men home, and they are sensible enough not to ask.

Muss still has the shoulder-length hair of old, but has dyed it a blondish yellow. He wore a green T-shirt, and army shorts.

His girlfriend, who had a jaded Khao-San Rd look, has also dyed her hair blonde. I warmed to her. No one likes to be referred to as the 'latest conquest'.

'Can't you think of another way to introduce your girlfriend?' I asked Muss, as I slipped back into parental mode.

'She does not want to hear that she is just the latest in a long line of girls.'

Muss looked at me perplexed, until his girlfriend explained to him what I meant.

'Oh...sorry,' he agreed.

Muss has kept his big chest muscles, and his baby-face features. He had spent the last 12 months working on an album with his five-member band. They had just finished work.

I excused myself from my circle of drinking friends, to join him briefly at the bar.

Muss borrowed my phone, so he could dial his own number into my memory.

'I change my phone number often, but I see you still have the same phone after all this time,' he said.

'Do you still have the photographs in your cellphone which you took of me?'

'No - I have only just deleted them,' I said, which was true. After two years of thinking about Muss, and wondering how and where he was, I had finally taken the decision to delete his pictures from my phone, not even one week before.

I wanted to talk more, but I couldn't. A young, obnoxious type who had evidently arranged to meet Muss sat opposite us and was intent on having his say.

Muss wants to find a distributor for his album. The young man opposite, largish and wearing a black cap, looked like a typical entertainment industry type: full of himself.

He urged Muss to have patience. 'Jai yen yen,' he said over and over, as if trying tio explain why he couldn't distribute the album, despite Muss's pleas for help.

The black-hatted man spoke patronising nonsense..like an over-aged teenager trying to impress.

Reluctantly, I took my whisky bottle, and returned to the table occupied by my regular drinking friends. They are in their late 30s, or older. Some have families. Most have jobs, and are relatively settled. I have 'upped' myself since the days I drank with Muss and his friends, in the sense that I now act my age.

My friends have passed Muss's phase. He is still at the stage where he has yet to make anything of himself, and is looking for people who can give him a hand-up.

The last time we met, Muss asked me to pay his rent for one month - as a loan, of course. My partner had just been admitted to hospital, so I said no. I never heard from him again.

'Muss is like that - he makes friends with people to get things out of them,' a mutual friend told me once.

No wonder, then, if Muss cannot find a steady girlfriend, or even steady friends. He is too busy trying to impress as he tries to get ahead in life.

Pardon my ignorance (2, part)

She had seen the film, couldn't understand it, so decided to change it half-way through. She didn't ask us if we were interested in seeing it through to the end.

Mum has done this to me before. Where the television is concerned, she is boss.

'The ending makes no sense,' she said for a third time, looking at me, with a half-smile on her lips.

'Makes no sense to whom? ' I asked.

Chin said nothing, and went back to his comic books rather than watch Godzilla, Mum's choice of superior entertainment.

Kathoey Best refilled my glass for the 10th time. Life went back to normal.

Mum's husband emerged at the shop, after taking a short nap at home.

He saw we were watching Godzilla. Normally he is a serious politics man. He picked up the remote. Maybe he will turn over to the next channel, Inside Man, instead?

No. He turned up the volume. He wanted to hear Godzilla's roars even louder.

'I'm going back for a shower. Don't change the channel,' Mum said to me.

She walked away.

Kathoey Best left to chat up a young man with Chinese looks who serves at the shop next door.

Twenty minutes later, he returned.

'We really must be like family. Our interests come second to hers. Who cares what the customer wants?' I complained.

Best picked up the remote, and changed it back. We had missed about half an hour of the movie, and were into the last 15 minutes. It was pointless watching it.

Mum returned, and grumbled as she saw that we were watching Inside Man again.

She asked if I wanted to share the meal which she had cooked. I declined, as I don't like to eat with Mum and her husband any more. They are too wrapped up in their gambling talk, so I let them eat together in peace.

'No, I'm not hungry.'

'Why, what's wrong with you?' she asked with a scowl.

Declining her offer of hospitality probably hurt more than the fact that we went back to watching the movie of our choice.

Once, I remember reading a guidebook for farang visitors to Thailand: 'If someone offers you a meal, always accept.'

Well, I didn't. Call me ungrateful.

Mum and her husband sat down next to us at the counter to tuck into their meal, while Best, Chin and I watched the last 10 minutes of Inside Man.

The closing credits came up. Bitchily, Best asked: 'So, did you understand the ending?'

'Yes, I did, thanks,' I said.

Pardon my ignorance (1)

'That movie is no good. The ending makes no sense,' said Mum.

Three customers including me were watching television at her shop in Thon Buri. We were the only ones there.

The American thriller, Inside Man  was airing on satellite TV.

I knew what that meant, as I have heard it before. Mum wanted to change the channel, and was canvassing for support. She wanted someone to agree with her.

No one did. We were enjoying the show. Thais can get involved in western movies, even when they don't understand what is going on. This one had Thai subtitles, but that is beside the point.

Thais are usually taken by movies which have visual impact. The sight of two farang screaming at each other in a slapstick comedy which bombed at the box office might turn off the average western viewer, but it can hold the attention of Thais, because so many Thai films are made in the same vein. They also wonder if farang carry on that way in real life.

Inside Man is a star-studded thriller about a bank heist, by director Spike Lee. It combines suspense, drama and quirky New York-style humour. I am not surprised if much of it was lost on Mum, who prefers to watch action movies, such as Godzilla, showing on the next channel, about a giant lizard tramping through the streets of New York.

I was sitting at the table with graphic designer Chin, who had turned up with a handful of comic books, and a new kathoey friend, called Best.

Chin devours Japanese comics avidly, and had just been to a bookstore to buy the latest releases. However, he put them down to watch Inside Man.

Ladyboy Best, who comes from a high-class family in the North, but is out of work at present, busied himself filling my whisky glass. Thais are famed for their hospitality, but this is one courtesy I can do without, as I prefer to pace myself when drinking.

I do not want people filling my glass while I am not watching, but it would be impolite to decline, so I say nothing.

Mum repeated her comment about the meaningless ending, then took herself behind her shop to cook a meal for anyone who was interested. Good, I thought - maybe we can get some peace.

However, half an hour later, she was back.

'The ending is no good. I will look for something else,' she announced, while taking the remote, and blithely changing the channel.

The three of us who were watching Inside Man were left, as the Thai saying goes, with mouths agape. We are regular customers, but our needs come second to those of the shop's owner.

now, see part 2

Back from travels

My partner is back, which is good news. He returned bearing food, which is also a welcome sight, and clever of him, as it salved my irritable mood.

Maiyuu and his friends, who went to the provinces to make merit at a temple, but were away longer than expected, stopped by the roadside on the way back to buy desserts which are hard to find in Bangkok.

They include those roasted sticky-rice desserts made in bamboo tubes (khao lam), and softer desserts, like a custard pudding, which are sold in silver metal trays (mor gaeng).

He bought them in Chon Buri and Petchaburi, which are well-known for them. Now I am busy putting back on the weight I lost during my three days of flu.

Time-wasters

Day two without the boyfriend. In years gone past, day two, three, or four in a row would be nothing out of the ordinary. But these days I am used to him being home.

Last night Maiyuu sent a text message to say that the car had broken down. The travellers were waiting for a mechanic to arrive, but if the repairs finished too late, he would have to spend a second night away from home.

Maiyuu left for Singha Buri to make merit with kathoey friends on Friday morning, just as the flu decided to pay me a visit. I was too ill to go in to work, and have called in sick for the last two nights.

Unfortunately, I have had to spend all that time alone, as there is no one else here. Most of the cooking which Maiyuu did before he left - pizza, a spicy sausage salad, and pastry puffs - has gone to waste, as I couldn't eat it.

They went away at short notice. To expect otherwise would be to involve Thais in 'planning', which is almost a foreign concept. Similarly, I am sure no one bothered to check the roadworthiness of the car before embarking on the journey.

When I called him yesterday at 11am, his group still had not risen for the day. This morning, I called at 8am, as I am tired of him wasting time in the company of veteran time-wasters such as his kathoey friends - one of whom even makes merit for pet animals.

Maybe that requires a separate trip to the provinces. Hey, why not make that one day for dogs, and another for cats? Who cares?

They have achieved little with their lives, but I don't see why they should have to act as a drag on mine as well.

I would like some human company around this place, as I am getting sick of being alone. Having Maiyuu around makes my own company much more bearable.

'The car is now fixed,' he told me sleepily on the phone.

Hopefully, they might get home at a reasonable hour, preferably before I return to work this evening. If his job is to make merit at temples, mine is to go out to work, to keep him in the style to which he has become accustomed.