Ball, me, and the ghost of responsibility

‘No one ever listens to me...I was just want my Dad back!’ said Ball, sobbing in my arms as we sat outside my condo.

Dad died a few years ago. Ball, still a teenager, believes his life has not been the same since.

We had been drinking at carer R’s ya dong (Thai home-made liquor, mixed with honey and herbs) stall nearby, and ended up outside my place, a short walk away.

We were alone, carer R having packed up his stall and abandoned us an hour earlier. He had tried to take Ball home, but without success.

Two hours into the evening, Ball’s mother and her partner had dropped in to see us. They were unhappy to see Ball imbibing heavily, and told him it was time to call it a day.

Perhaps aware that Ball is facing stress at home, they did not force the issue, however.

Ball, who is just 19, and still a youngster in my eyes, was apparently responsible enough to look after himself.

Yet here he was, knocking back shot glass after shot glass of whisky, getting drunker by the minute.

He could barely stand, never mind walk. Carer R tried to guide Ball home, but Ball was having none of it.

He bear-hugged him, clung on to R’s frame, tried to lift him, pull him back to the booze stall. He wasn’t willing to go home, and that was that.

‘Mali, you try taking him home,’ R told me.

I took Ball by the hand. We made it as far as the door to Ball's place, just 50m from R’s shop.

When we arrived, Ball’s thin body stiffened – with fear, or stress, I don’t know.

Ball lives with a family of eight, including his girlfriend Jay, who he believes might be pregnant. He says he wants to do the responsible thing by helping her bring up the child rather than abandoning her.

However, they have known each other only four months, and being a teenager, he would rather have his freedom.

‘I want her to know that I will never abandon her if she is indeed pregnant.

‘But neither of us is sure, and she has yet to take a test. If she is not pregnant, and just tricking me, I never want to see her face again,’ Ball had told us earlier.

Jay comes from Chiang Mai, in the North.

She has a job at a department store, so is pulling her weight. However, Ball and his girlfriend have started borrowing from Ball’s Mum to meet expenses.

Jay is unwilling to ask her own parents for financial help, because she is estranged from them.

‘These are her problems, which she has created as a result of her own decisions. You are not responsible,’ I told Ball.

‘But I feel sorry for her,’ pleaded Ball.

‘Feeling sorry for someone is no basis for a relationship,’ I told him bluntly. ‘Do you love her, or just feel sorry for her?

He refused to answer. He spoke to her brusquely when, 10 minutes later, Jay visited us at carer R’s shop.

Ball and I are born under the same star sign (Scorpio). He feels things intensely, as do I. Like me, he also tends to feel sorry for people.

‘If you feel sorry for people in this life, you will end up in trouble, as people ultimately must be responsible for their own actions,’ I told him.

‘I am not criticising you, because I have spent a lifetime feeling sorry for people myself, and it has brought only misery,’ I said.

‘He wants to behave responsibly,’ said carer R, defending Ball’s decision to stay with the girlfriend, come what may.

We drank for several hours. By the second half of the evening, Ball had grown morose.

When I took him to the front of his place, Ball refused to enter. He insisted that I return with him to R’s shop. I didn't get a look inside, or talk to anyone.

We staggered back out the soi. Carer R, however, took advantage of our brief absence to pack up shop and walk home, leaving me to battle with Ball alone.

Ball tried to drag me across the vacant lot back to my condo, as he insisted I should go home first.

He tried pushing me from behind, then took me by the hand and tried dragging me.

‘But I want to take you home first!’ he said.

Ball, I suspected, wanted to carry on drinking.

This push-me, pull-you nonsense was to carry on for at least the next hour.

Ball refused to go home. I refused to return home myself until I had seen him safely back to his place.

Once, we ran across the vacant lot to my condo, hand in hand.

Another time, he climbed on my back. I tried lifting him, and carrying him back home, but he struggled free of my grasp.

‘I am not gay. What do you want with me?’ he asked.

Outside my condo, Ball pleaded with a security guard to take me back to my unit.

I ignored him, and asked Ball to sit with me.

He started to cry – about his Dad, who died a few years ago, and the family stress enveloping his life since. I took him in my arms, and put him on my lap.

‘No one listens to me,’ he sobbed.

‘It’s alright...never mind,’ I said, rubbing his heaving back.

When sober, Ball says little, just sits and broods.

He drinks as a form of release, just as his own father did before him. Ball’s father died of an alcohol-related illness.

I nursed him, pulled his hair out of his eyes, and held it in a small bunch behind his head.

Combing back his hair, I had noticed earlier, has a transfixing effect on Ball.

Ball wore shorts which were too big for him, but no underwear. I spent half the night pulling up his pants for him.

Ball enjoyed the attention, I suspect because he gets little of it at home.

Earlier, when his parents visited us, I massaged Ball’s arms and hands. Carer R rubbed Ball’s face with water to cool him down, sober him up.

Half an hour after the teary episode outside my place, the heavens had had enough of watching over us. They sent down heavy rain.

Ball and I agreed were standing in the vacant lot, half-way between his place and mine.

While Ball danced in the rain, I took shelter under a make-shift carpark in the middle of the lot.

'Hug time!'I said.

We hugged. I kissed his head.

'Now, Mr Ball, it is time for bed.'

Ball ran away - came back - then pretended to walk towards home a second time.

This time I did not wait to see whether he would return again, but walked towards home myself.

Ball can’t cope with these problems when sober, yet I do not want to see him only when he is drunk.

He has to find another way to deal with his demons. I am willing to help, but as yet I do not know where to look for the solution.

Ball gave me his mother’s cellphone number, but I have not called, as I don’t yet know what to say.

Karaoke deception, New Year's challenge

Bored of home and the boyfriend, last night I headed for a run-down karaoke joint where I met a promising member of the gay set the night before.

Well, I thought he was gay. In fact, my eyes deceived me. It wasn’t even a guy, but a girl.

The shop, in a large open area in front of a slum, is close to my office. I walked past it the other night on my way home from work.

At the end of a short alleyway leading into the shop I saw the figure of someone I took to be a young man.

His face was pointed away from me. He was chatting animatedly to a mother figure.

I approached the shop, and asked the lad what time it opened. He told me, and I left.

When I saw his face, I was sure I was chatting to a young man...he even had facial hair, or so I thought.

However, when I returned to the shop last night, I realised this was not the case.

I recognised the person I had seen briefly the night before. It was not a young man, but a masculine looking teenage girl, possibly a tom.

I sat down, ordered a beer, and chatted to the cook. She introduced me to her two children, the owner, and her own two kids.

‘Many people from your office come here for lunch. It’s their regular,’ she said.

Here’s the self-delusional piece I wrote yesterday about the shop. I deleted it out of embarrassment, but am reposting it here. Try not to laugh.
_
Two work friends and I visited a run-down karaoke joint after our shift ended the other night.

It’s down a small alleyway, which opens into a large open area in front of a slum.

I pass this place on my way home every night, but until I found it on a walk with my friends had assumed it was someone’s home, overtaken by rowdy young people.

Last night when I passed the place again, I saw a youngster chatting animatedly. I thought it might be a girl, but wasn’t sure.

I walked down the alleyway to take a closer look. The animated one was in fact a young man, talking at great gusto to an older woman, perched on a table, massaging her feet.

Mum and her son? Who knows.

‘What time do you open tomorrow?’ I asked.

The youngster, who spoke in a hoarse voice, gave me the time, and smiled broadly.

Tonight, I will go back. Some of the best karaoke singers from the neighbourhood go there, judging by the performances we saw the other night.

I am also interested to learn more about the owners and their families, and how their relationships work.

Mr Animated, while too young for me, has gay potential. I want to see more.

-

Bass's mother knows I am lonely. Thais always know.

I will get Bass to call you, so you have a friend for company,’ she said.

Bass is a student, aged 16, who I used to teach English.

His 's family runs a drug store in a two-storey shophouse about five minutes from my home.

The other day I was walking on that side of the neighbourhood and dropped in to see them.

I found the mother there alone, as everyone else was at work, or school.

Bass had sent me a SMS message a few days before, wishing me the best for the year ahead. I replied, but decided to follow it up with a visit in person, as I hadn't seen them in months.

Bass's mother chatted as she whipped up a batch of chrysanthemum juice, which she sells at the shop and delivers in the neighbourhood.

Mum, who is my age, is Chinese-born, and moved to Thailand as a girl.

Her husband is Thai. They have two children, Bass, and his elder brother, Ball, a university student.

Mum learnt Thai after she arrived, but still speaks Chinese, the only member of her in family who can.

‘I can speak a little Chinese, but not much,’ Bass told me once.

‘I have many cousins in China – children of my mothers’ brothers and sisters - but we do not speak the same language, so cannot communicate,’ he said.

Bass shines academically. The last time I saw the family was three months ago, just before I visited my parents overseas.

His school term was about to start, so we suspended lessons.

When I visited again yesterday, his term was about to end.

'You can resume lessons, if you like, though in the mornings he will be busy helping me make juice at the shop,' she said.

Bass hardly needs English conversation, at least at a basic level, as he spent six years at a private school, where 70% of his tuition was in English.

He understands almost everything I say, and responds promptly and accurately.

However, I know I can make him better, and enjoy teaching him, as he loves to learn.

I’ll pencil him in as one of my New Year projects, starting next month.

Peak inside Ball's slum soi

He lives at the end of that grim alleyway

Carer R had ducked home for a midday kip when I turned up at the slum market yesterday.

It was shortly after noon, and I had missed him by minutes. I found trader Joe instead, laying out beef in baskets to sun-dry.

Joe was among guests who joined at our New Year’s Eve drinkathon at carer R’s fragrant-booze stall the other night.

He knows carer R, who is 22 and probably 20 years his junior.

That puts Joe in my own age category.

‘We went for a noodle together, came back here, and R has just gone home for a nap,’ said Joe, explaining R's absence.

I can’t fall sleep on a bowl of noodles, but I am not Thai. Only a sturdy rice dish does the trick for me.

‘How is Ball?’ I asked, referring to the young man with self-lacerated legs, another guest at our drinks party the other night.

Ball is 19, and a possible father-to-be. He loves football, is between jobs (but used to work in a supermarket), and needs friends.

‘I haven’t seen him since the other night,’ said Joe. ‘He’ll be out in the evening...he comes out for a drink every night.

‘He lives inside the community there,’ said Joe, pointing to an alleyway behind us, which leads into a slum.

Normally, I would try to avoid such areas, as the Thais who live there may not want farang looking closely at the way they live.

After leaving Joe, I took a peak down the alleyway.

Three or four builders were lugging construction materials into the slum area.

I joined their builders' march, and at the T-junction stole a peak.

I found narrow rows of two-storey houses squeezed together, competing for space.

The T-junction stank of human urine. It was not a good place to be.

I felt a pang of pity for Mr Ball.

'Are you here?' I thought. 'I hope you are okay.'

In search of a surrogate Dad

‘No matter whether they are men or women, I don’t like my friends getting too close,’ said carer R.

‘I am shy, so I like people to keep their distance.’

I drank at carer R’s booze stall in the slum area behind my place on New Year’s Eve.

Earlier the same day, I had come cross him standing in the vacant slum lot between his place and mine.

He had a cellphone pressed to his ear. I peered into his face, so I could admire his handsome features as he spoke.

‘Don’t stare at me like that!’ he said, leaving abruptly.

That night, as our group sat drinking at his Thai herbal liquor stall, R apologised for his abrupt departure. ‘I don’t even like my girlfriend getting too close to me,’ he said.

When I met him in the vacant lot, he was listening to a recording of a woman from the telephone company.

One of R’s neighbours, a 79-year-old man called Grandpa, was having trouble with his cellphone.

‘I took him to the department store today to help him pay the bill and fix his phone problem, as I don’t think he could have done it himself,’ said carer R.

‘You are kind,’ I told him.

‘Actually, I am not always so kind – but I know I can say whatever I like around you, as you like me,’ he joked.

Our New Year’s Eve party was held around a small table at carer R’s booze stand.

Guests included Grandpa, and a 19 year-old possible father-to-be, Ball. Both live close to R's stall, which is set up on a simple red table at the end of a narrow street in which carer R himself lives.

The street abuts a busy road with a 7-11 on one side, and a vacant lot leading to the rear of my condo on the other.

These colourful characters were just the mainstays of the evening. As we sat drinking, teens roared past on motorcycles. Mothers harried by with their children, and kids aged under 10 set off firecrackers in the vacant lot.

Half an hour into our session at R’s stall, two men lifted their shirts to show me their battle scars.

One man in his 30s, who had a deep scar running down his stomach, said he earned his scar in an operation on his bladder. ‘I drank too much and it burst,’ he said.

‘I didn’t know that could happen,’ I said.

The second man was Lort, aged 47, partner to Ball's mother.

He showed me his scar, in an almost identical place.

‘My scar comes from a traffic accident,’ he said.

Early in the evening, I met Mr Ball himself.

He lives with an extended family of eight, including Lort, and two infants, including an adopted baby girl.

Trader Joe, the other guy with the scar, knew Ball’s father, now dead.

'I have watched Ball grow up since he was boy,' he said.

A dried fish trader, Joe is a regular customer at carer R’s stand, as is Ball himself.

Lort ducked back into the slum for a moment, and emerged with Fresh, the household's adopted baby daughter.

I held her tiny figure my arms, my first baby hug in months, if not years. She cried, so I gave her back.

‘She is not used to farang faces,’ said Lort.

After Lort left, Ball opened up about his life at home.

He is not happy that Mum has a new man in his life, even if Lort has been around a few years now.

Ball’s dad died several years ago of an alcohol-related illness, but Ball misses him and wishes life could be the same.

‘He was so ill before he died that I used to spoon-feed him rice,’ said Ball, who started to cry as he recalled good times with his father.

‘My Mum is happy that I have a girlfriend, and is prepared to help us bring up our child...but when I feel lonely I still need someone who can listen to me.

‘I do harm to myself,’ he said, pulling up his shorts legs.

His legs were scarred - the legacy of Ball unleashing a knife upon himself one day when he felt in need of attention.

Ball’s girlfriend turned up, and sat with us for half an hour.

'She is two weeks’ pregnant by me,' said Ball, who has the face of an angel and is a keen follower of English football.

‘I can be a listening ear for you when you want to unload,’ I told him.

He liked that idea, as he promptly went into protective mode, fussing over me for the rest of the evening as best a 19-year-old man can.

Carer R also enjoys offering Ball advice.

‘When we want to ask the farang questions about his life, we should ask him first if he minds talking about personal things,’ carer R reminded Ball.

‘And if you really want to know about someone, you should ask him about his work,’ he said.

‘If you want a surrogate Dad, you have found him in carer R,’ I told Ball.

‘He is an excellent teacher, and cares for you very much.’

Indian temple curry adventure

Wat Kaek

Maiyuu is getting over from his cold bug quickly. He has mounted a recovery in just 24 hours, half the time it took me.

That is at it should be, however, as Maiyuu is 10 years younger.

This morning he took a long bicycle ride to Wat Kaek (Wat Prasri Maha Umathewee) in Silom.

That’s the little temple squeezed between high-rises in the central business district.

The temple, forever enveloped in a cloud of incense vapour, is a favourite with Indians and tourists.

I saw it last a few weeks ago.

My friend farang C and I were paying a visit to that wholesale computer barn, Pantip Plaza, which is nearby.

After looking at computers and cameras at Pantip Plaza, we caught a skytrain home from Surasak station, next to the temple. It was covered in incense that day, too, so much so that I could barely make out the tourists milling about outside.

But enough of the travelogue, and back to Maiyuu.

My boyfriend, a practical type, cycled to the temple not to make merit, pray, mix shoulders with wealthy Indians – but to fill our stomachs.

He has found a trader at the temple who sells tasty khao mok gai, a favourite chicken dish of ours.

‘I bought khao mok gai from the temple the other day, and you said you liked it, so today I will bike there again,’ Maiyuu said before heading out the door.

He was carrying his bicycle pump, and a small bag with a carry string which holds his wallet.

‘If you are not feeling well, you don’t need to go that far,’ I said.

I do remember the khao mok gai meal from last week, but didn't realise he had travelled as far as the temple to get it.

Maiyuu shrugged, and headed for the lift.

I sounded half-hearted at best, for I do truly like the spicy chicken, curry rice and sweet cucumber which Maiyuu buys from those parts.

Half an hour later, he was home. 

Last night, even s his energy sagged, he whipped up a clear soup with tofu and mince balls, and a beef vegetable dish.

PS: May I wish readers a Happy New Year. Normal service will resume just as soon as I feel better.