Bad back strikes, the phone girl pays a visit, Ball's Mum opens up

I am sorry for the lack of blogging action over the last few days; I have a sore back.

The chest cold I caught a few weeks ago has now turned into an old man's wheezy asthmatic cough, and when I cough, my back aches.

I went to see the doctor the other day. The pills she gave me (four different types, though I don’t know what any of them are called) should hopefully put things right.

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Maiyuu ducked out briefly, and turned up again with Golf, his woman friend who owns a pet Chihuahua.

‘Can Golf use the toilet?’ Maiyuu asked as soon as he returned.

Visitors to our place can see almost everything from the front door.

I was naked at the time, as I was preparing to take a shower.

Thankfully, I had time to get behind my bedroom door before the main door separating our unit from the outside world opened fully.

While she was in the toilet, I heard Golf’s cellphone go. It rings almost constantly, so she has plenty of distractions tugging her away from whatever business she is transacting with people face-to-face.

I could tell her any kind of shocking news, and I doubt she would have time to register, as her phone would have started ringing again.

It pulls her back into the world of electronic communication as opposed to the face-to-face stuff which most of us call Real Life.

‘Your Mum is on steroids and wants to become a man.’

‘Oh, hang on, my phone’s going.’

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Carer R has been on a visit to the provinces, but hopefully should be back by the time I wander across the slum section to drink at his ya dong stall tonight.

I have just embarked on my weekend break, and am looking forward to meeting people, something I rarely get the chance to do during the working week, as I am stuck in an office.

When I wandered into the slummy section two days ago, a boy aged under 10 who is related to carer R was serving customers at his ya dong stall.

‘Are sales going well?’ I asked. He was pouring a shot glass for some grizzled old man.

‘Not so well. Some customers come because they like talking to P' R, and he isn’t here,’ the young one said.

-

I haven’t seen Ball the egg-seller since last week, though I did meet his mother, when I dropped in to see her at her home on Friday.

I took food, as I recall Mum had asked Ball anxiously a few days before when his pay packet was due.

Ball has found work selling eggs at a supermarket.

Mum invited me in. Ball was at work, as was her partner, taxi driver Lort.

Ball’s younger brother Beer, who ferries around members of the family on his motorbike, was there, as was Ball’s surly girlfriend, Jay.

Jay barely acknowledged me, perhaps because she suspects (rightly) that I hear terrible things about her from her boyfriend Ball.

A few weeks ago, Ball thought he might have impregnated the girl. That scare has now passed. It was just wishful thinking on her part, it seems, though it gave Ball a fright at the time.

Jay lives with Ball’s family, even though they have little enough money as it is.

She fell out with her own parents, who live in Chiang Mai. She works in a supermarket, but still asks Ball's family for help.

Ball wants to end their relationship, but feels sorry for her.

‘How can I throw her out if she has nowhere to go?’

‘Just do it,’ I said. ‘She is visiting her own problems upon your family. You are young, and deserve your freedom.’

Mum looked just as unhappy when I asked her about Jay.

‘They fight, but she won’t go. We end up paying for everything,’ she said quietly.

Jay has an elder brother in Bangkok, staying at a university dorm. 'She won't live with him, as it costs more,' said Mum.

Just like Ball, Mum could always say no, but won’t pluck up the courage. I can't feel too sympathetic.

Mum showed me pictures of Ball’s birth father; and a school leaving picture of Ball's elder brother, a soldier. He will be home in a few weeks.

'You must come and meet him,' said Mum.

While Ball and Beer look like their Mum, their elder brother the soldier is the spitting image of their Dad, who died a few years ago.

Modem kicked for touch, Ball reforms himself

I am still catching up with my obligations on the internet after my modem was knocked out of action three days ago.

They include my commitments to this blog. I like to respond promptly to reader comments, but am still catching up there, never mind on the small matter of posting. Please bear with me.

Boyfriend Maiyuu kicked the modem across the room as we were having an argument.

Whenever we argue, some damage to our household possessions results. This time it was the modem, and a half wall-length mirror, which I accidentally broke as I walked out the door in a huff.

Thinking he was about to be evicted, Maiyuu put it there for safekeeping. Forgetting it was there, I dislodged it from its spot behind the door. Crash! There goes B1000.

The argument is now over, and we back to normal...closer than we were before, in fact.

The man from the company which supplies our computer and satellite TV service has replaced the damaged modem. We didn’t tell him that we had kicked it across the room for sport.

When Maiyuu and I argue, I go into feverish cleaning mode, as the boyfriend sulks and waits for my moods to return to normal.

This time I accomplished more cleaning than usual: I put back the CDs in their covers, dusted the TV and stereo area, and washed down the kitchen.

‘We should argue more often,’ I said after we had decided to call off the argument. ‘The place looks great!’

Maiyuu laughed.
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Readers worried about the health of Ball, the young man I know from the slum next to my place, can take heart.

Ball has started work at a supermarket, selling and packing eggs.

He works a 10-hour day, including breaks. After he quits work early in the evening, he heads for carer R’s ya dong stand as usual, to wind down.

However, he has tempered his drinking habits, so no longer imbibes to excess. He knows he has to work the next morning, so takes himself home to bed after a couple of hours.

I saw him early in the week, on my nights off. He took himself home on both nights after he started to feel the effect of R’s ya dong concoction. 

‘I don’t want to go back to the way I was before,’ he said. ‘When I take too much, I lose control of myself.’

On the first night we met, we shared the stand with customer John, a boisterous type wearing a muscle shirt who assumed I must be a soldier.

'You are wearing a singlet just like mine, and look so well-built,' he said, feeling up my arms.

He supported the anti-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (the red shirts), and wanted to discuss Thai politics.

No thanks, mate. Shut up, if you don’t mind.

In a previous encounter at R’s ya dong stand, Ball and John started to fight.

Ball had imbibed to excess, and started hitting John. Ball, who has a small frame, was lucky to get home in one piece.

The two met again on the night I was there, and made up, though it was a difficult business, and at times I wondered if they would come to blows again.

Early in the night, Ball apologised for his conduct. John accepted it, but was not entirely happy. He tried to get in digs at Ball by talking critically about his mother.

‘I don’t know how Ball's mother can allow him to work so hard,’ he said to anyone who was listening.

‘Don’t listen to him – he’s trying to wind you up,’ I said.

Carer R, who is close to Ball, told John to keep his distance.

‘I would rather you not talk that way about my young friend, as it makes him look bad in public,’ R told John bluntly.

In the end, Ball decided he had better deal with the problem personally.

After apologising repeatedly, he switched seats for a one-one-one chat with disgruntled John.

John, declaring himself as Ball’s new ‘uncle’, accepted his apology wholeheartedly, and heaped praise on the young man.

On the second night, John was mercifully absent. Families who live locally dropped in for a chat. I met two dads and their kids. One child gave me a hug, while the other tugged on my farang arm-hair, and played piano on my outstretched hands.

I also met Ball’s mum, who popped out with her adopted child Fresh in her arms, soon after Ball turned up from work.

Ball loves Fresh, and showered her with kisses.

‘I don’t normally get a chance to see her, as she is usually asleep by the time I get home,’ he told me.

I heard Mum asking Ball about when he could expect to get paid.

By this time, Ball had been at work for three days. He was likely to earn just B1,000 in his first pay packet. It was not due out until three days after Mum asked. I hope she has been able to cope.

‘Mum's partner, Lort, brings very little money home,’ said Ball.

Ball lost his real Dad a few years ago to illness. Lort, who keeps himself emotionally aloof from family, fails to compare.

Lort’s failure to provide has forced Ball and his elder sister into the role as the household’s main breadwinners. Ball, however, shows no trace of resentment.

‘It’s my duty as a Thai man,’ he said.

I have written about Lort previously. He is a taxi driver by trade, and the last time we met tried to interest me in investing in a ya dong stand, or buying a taxi as an investment.

‘I suspect he drinks it all away,’ said Ball.

I have stopped giving a wai greeting to Lort when I meet him. I reserve that for the real battler in the household, Ball’s Mum.

That night, I massaged Ball’s shoulders, as Ball and R chatted about guy stuff.

Ball and I left carer R’s stall for home at the same time.

We have yet to meet since, as my working week has started. I work nights, and R is usually in bed by the time I finish.

‘I feel really warm with you, Mali,’ he told me as he headed towards his his place. 
'You are just like my real Dad.’

If I can make other people happy, my own failings seem less prominent in my eyes. 

I enjoy doing it. Why else, in fact, are we here?

Unwilling suitor, reluctant bride (3, final)

 

‘Imagine how much you could make if you owned a chain of such stalls!’

Lort fancies himself as a man of influence, a wily character who has the world’s measure and who knows how to look after himself, thanks very much.

In the chicken shed, he had asked me: 'When you look at me, do you see a smart guy?'

I gave Ball some money to buy ya dong from carer R's stand. He walked out to buy it and returned home, ya dong in hand, five minutes later.

Lord, Ball and I drank in one corner. The others formed their own circle next to us, but apart.

The other group comprised Ball's younger brother Mr B, the women in the family, and the boyfriend of their elder sister.

They talked among themselves, as they did not seem interested in our group. Nor did our circle talk to theirs, which I found puzzling.

'Why do Mr B and the other lad not join us?' I asked Ball.

'They don't drink,' he said matter-of-factly.

An invisible wall appeared to have gone up in the living room, keeping both groups apart. All because of alcohol?

I did not give Lort an immediate answer on his proposal that I become a ya dong liquor baron.

However, he does not give up easily.

I left his place about 6pm, as I had to go to work. The next day, however, he tried to interest me in the taxi business as well.

I was chatting to carer R at his ya dong stand when Lort turned up on his motorbike.

'Hop on. I'm going on an errand.'

We travelled to nearby Klong Toey.

Lort turned off the main road, drove alongside a park and into a large vacant area under the motorway, where he keeps his taxi.

Taxi drivers rent parking space here from the local public transport authority, which owns the land.

'That's my car. Like it? You could have one just like it,' he said.

'You don't have to drive yourself, just as you don't have to sell ya dong. Someone else does the work for you, while you sit at home making money.'

We stopped for a drink of ya dong, made by a woman in her 30s, who sold the home-made brew surreptitiously from a large carry bag.

The woman, who has two children, comes from the Northeast.

'I clean the taxis, but to supplement my income, I also sell ya dong to the drivers.

'In these times, we all need extra money,' she said.

'You look so young,' she told me approvingly.

Such was the potency of her red, cough-mixture like concoction that I soon forgot Lort's sales spiel about taxis: how much they cost, how much I stood to make. Dull, dull.

'I am not interested in buying into a ya dong stall,' I told him as we made our way home.

Lort took the bad news in his stride.

'Never mind,' he said.

I had chosen a good time to break it to him. Lort was preoccupied trying to negotiate a flooded narrow sidestreet on his motorbike, with my dead weight propped on the back.

I'd make a hopeless businessman. Money and I just don't mix.

Lort is the one with the financial brains. Let him do it, or raise the money from someone else more able. I'm better at emotional stuff.

I can invest time in getting to know Mr Ball, his troubled young son badly in need of a friend...but I'll keep my money to myself.

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