Unwilling suitor, reluctant bride (2)

Lort's friends in the chicken shed gave me a quick lesson in bird economics: how much they cost, how much they fetch in competitions.

They also showed me their battle scars, another favourite Thai drinking pastime.

‘I haven’t been able to have children since a vehicle accident many years ago,’ said Lort, pulling up his T-shirt to show me a scar running down the length of his chest and stomach.

‘So they are not your children by birth?’ I asked pointedly.

Earlier, he was boasting about the size of his family. Yet the children in his present family come from his partner's union with her first husband, now dead.

‘I just give my earnings to Ball's mother, and they stay out of my hair,’ he shrugged.

We talked at length about Ball - and his younger brother Beer (Mr B), 16.

Lort said he knew the young men well, as he had been living in the same household as them for years.

'When he's sober, Ball says nothing. When he drinks, it all comes out.

'He and his brother are so different.

'Mr B likes computer games; Ball prefers drink.

'Mr B is outgoing, while Ball keeps everything pent up inside.'

Lort suggested I might like to meet Mr B.

‘Mr B is even more handsome – and super big,’ he added, referring not just to the young man’s physical height or body mass.

Sounds great! Why don’t I just trade in Mr Ball for his younger, larger brother then?

Lort called home. Ball was there, looking after the household’s two babies.

We crossed the vacant lot to Ball's place, so I could be reunited with him.

Today was market day. Traders were setting up makeshift clothes and food stalls in the dust as we crossed the vacant section next to the slum community where Ball and the rest of his clan live.

‘Do you like pork?’ Lort asked.

At his suggestion, I bought slices of pickled boiled pork, so I had something to present to Ball and his Mum. No one should turn up at a Thai home empty-handed.

This was my first time inside Ball's home. The young man looked embarrassed to see me.

His sad face was pale, his clothes ragged, and his arms and legs covered in scabs and bruises.

‘When I get drunk, I like to take out my frustration on walls,’ Ball had told me previously. But the marks looked much more vivid in daylight.

Lort introduced to me to his family: his partner; Ball; and Mr B, his younger but bigger brother.

Also present was their elder sister; her boyfriend, and their infant daughter.

We sat on the floor, as Ball fetched us something to drink.

Ball and Mr B also have an elder brother, Boy, a soldier who is seldom at home.

The list of family members does not end there.

Ball’s Mum also looks after an adopted baby girl who lost her parents.

Both babies slept in cloth hammocks strung across the room.

When he is not working, Ball helps his Mum care for the babies.

Neither of the children was wearing nappies, as Mum had run out. While we sat, a thin stream of urine broke loose from one of the pod-like hammocks.

Ball plucked the baby from its pod, undressed and cleaned her.

'Where did you learn how to do that?' I asked.

'I just copy Mum,' he said.

We were sitting in the living room, on the ground floor of their two-storey, delapidated wooden house.

The space was cramped, but lively. A TV was going in one corner, a washing machine in the other. It reminded me of a student flat.

If I was still in my 20s, I might enjoy living in such a happening place, though probably not for long.

The constant activity going on around me was exhausting. How do these people get any rest?

Ball had attended a job interview at a local supermarket that morning. They gave him the job, and he was to start work the next day.

‘I will sell eggs at a counter,’ he said.

Ball will work a 10-hour day, including breaks, six days a week, for what I imagine is a pitiful wage.

‘You can recommend him for a job at your company. It’s bigger, and I am sure they pay better,’ Lort chipped in.

I’d love to wave a magic wand, I thought, but it just won’t happen.

Ball left school at 15, and hasn’t been back. Why should he get a job when others, more qualified, miss out? That's even assuming I am in a position to 'pull strings', which I am not.

I asked Ball why he did not carry on learning.

‘I am not ready,’ Ball said, his mouth set firmly against the idea.

As we drank in his living room, Lort reopened the conversation he started in the chicken shed, about me investing in a ya dong stand.

He would help me set it up, he said.

‘Who will make the stuff?’ I asked.

‘Oh, it will be like a franchise. You won’t have to do a thing,’ he beamed.

now, see part 3

Unwilling suitor, reluctant bride (1)

'If you can find a job for Ball at your company, I will be happy. Perhaps a salary of B40,000?'

That was idle taxi driver Lort, partner to Ball's Mum.

Ball is my new friend from the slums.

‘And I’ll be even happier if you invest in a Thai home-made liquor (ya dong) stall,’ Lort said cheerily.

Lort, a taxi-driver who spends more time at home than he does on the road, is a man with his eye out for the main chance.

He sees me as a suitor for Ball's affections. In return for entering his family, I must pay a bridal price.

I was trying to explain why, a few nights ago, Ball had turned up at home drunk.

He had spent the night imbibing ya dong with carer R and me.

He arrived home about 3am, which was too late for his mother's liking.

Lort didn't care. 

‘What you and Ball do when you’re together doesn’t interest me,' he said. ‘I know what he’s like. When he drinks, he abandons self-control.’

'But I didn't do anything!' I felt like saying.

‘Just B3,000 is all you need to set up a whisky stand,' he said, pressing ahead.

'I know the police and local body inspectors, so even though we are not paying tax on the produce, you won’t get into any trouble.

‘How about it?’ he asked, extending his hand.

He wanted me to shake on it, to acknowledge that we had a deal.

I was sitting in their slum home, squeezed into a small living space with seven or eight family members, including Ball.

Ball looked worried.

'I don't want that. I just want to be your friend!' Ball told me quietly.

Just as I didn’t view him as a potential bride, nor did he want our relationship to go any further for the time being, despite what Lort might have in mind.

This was our first time together since we had met at carer R's medicinal booze stand, two nights before.

R had packed up his stand and headed for bed about 2am, which left me to cope alone with young Ball, by then too inebriated to walk straight, but unwilling to go home alone.

A couple of hours before, Ball’s Mum had dropped in to see us.

‘I will send Ball home promptly,’ I promised Mum.

That wasn't to be.

Ball and I tried to drag each other back home across the vacant lot, without success. I refused to go until I had seen him safely home, and vice versa. We were part-playing, part-serious.

A heavy downpour broke the spell.

Ball danced in the rain, and suddenly felt the cold. He agreed to take himself home.

As we sat in his home two days later, I asked about that night.

'Mum gave me a telling off,' he said quietly.

'I'm sorry Ball came home so late. He was in my care, but neither of us wanted to stop,' I told Ball's Mum, who looked understanding.

Lort piped up: ‘Ball’s mother was unable to sleep until he finally came home, soaked to the skin.’

I have spent several hours over the past couple of days getting to know extrovert Lort.

Lort says he has three young adult sons by an earlier relationship. They now live in the US.

‘Both families know about each other, but have never met, as I don’t want them getting involved,’ he told me one day recently.

I was wandering across a vacant section at the rear of my condo, which leads to the local 7-11, when Lort spotted me.

He waved me over, and invited me to join three friends and himself in a chicken shed, for a few shots of Thai white liquor.

This is the heady stuff which forms the main component of ya dong, an alcohol/herbal mix popular with Thais as a cheap alternative to the branded whisky on sale in stores.

Carer R sells ya dong at his stall. His mother-in-law makes it, and he sells it in an alleyway close to her home. The alleyway lies on the same route that I take to get to the 7-11, which is how carer R and I met.

Around here, these brews are popular; I know of at least two other ya dong stands within 100m of my place.

As we sat in the ramshackle shed on the vacant lot, chickens bred to fight with each other scratched in the dust around us. Hanging in cages above, petite breeder and competition birds (nok khao, nok hua kwan) cooed.

More than 20 many bird cages, I noticed, were hanging from the tin roof.

Now, see part 2 

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.'