Generous to a fault, ragged towels, cradle-snatcher

Maiyuu is the proud owner of a Moulinex food processor...actually, a mini-chopper, rather than a fully-fledged processor with many different blades.

He bought it himself, but I am paying for it. I suggested he buy the next model up, as his looks too small, but the next model up is twice the price...about B4,000. ‘I am too mean to want to part with B4,000,’ he said.

-
‘Why do you like spending so much money on other people?’ asked carer R.

Ya dong is a social drink. Customers take it in turns to buy a bottle. If I sit down, someone will present me with a shot glass, filled from his bottle. When he has finished, I will buy one.

That sounds egalitarian, but in fact it isn’t. Thais tend to buy half-bottles, while I buy full ones, as I have hangers-on.

When young Ball joins the table, he drinks from my bottle. Carer R drinks from my bottle, too. So I end up paying more than most.

Last night I contributed B400 to carer Ball’s total takings of B700.

As he was counting the notes in his hand, carer R suggested I might like to be less generous. Thais whom I barely know are taking advantage of my generosity.

I agree. From now on, I shall call in advance. If Ball is not there, or carer R has company, I won’t bother turning up.

-
‘Don’t worry – I won’t starve,’ said Ball.

He lost B400 from his pay packet while visiting carer R’s stand the other night.

Like me, Ball has responsibilities. He gives a share of his pay to his Mum. He also gives a share to his girlfriend, who is helping pay for her brother's board at a university hostel in Bangkok.

After dividing up his pay, Ball had just B400 left for himself – and now he’s lost it.

His Mum is angry. ‘Mum can’t understand how I lost it. She said I needn’t bother asking her for food money this week.’

‘How will you survive?’ I asked.

‘I will come home at meal-times, and fry an egg. I will have egg on rice, which fills me up,’ he said.

I contemplated helping my young friend, who I noticed had turned up with nasty red gashes on his arms and legs.

The night before, he argued with his girlfriend. To make a point, he picked up a cutter and started slashing away at his limbs.

‘Are you satisfied yet?’ he asked her.

If I met Ball half-way – say, by giving him, or his mother B200 – then he won’t have to suffer as much over the next few days. He might be able to buy himself some decent food to eat, rather than relying on fried eggs.

‘I don’t want your money, and have never asked,’ said Ball.

‘I know you haven’t asked, but sometimes I might just want to give,’ I said.

However, I am not sure if it’s a good thing. If I pay him money, I am underwriting poor decisions made by others in the household.

Why is he paying for the board of his girlfriend’s brother? And what about idle Lort, his mother's partner? He's a taxi-driver who rarely goes out to work, but sends poor Ball out to earn a wage instead.

-

I had bought Ball a pair of jeans and a belt, which made little impact. ‘The jeans bulge in the groin area. They are too big,’ he told me.

‘I bought the size which your Mum recommended. Try washing them first,’ I said.

But if the jeans failed to make a difference, a ragged towel I presented him the other night has proved a much bigger hit.

I had turned up at carer R’s ya dong stand after work. Ball, who was there, watched as a pulled a towel from my work bag and mopped the sweat off my face.

The towel is barely large enough to wrap around my waist, but I keep it in my bag in case I need to take a shower at work, or to keep myself dry when I venture into Bangkok’s fetid heat.

‘Can I have that towel?’ Ball asked apologetically.

Images of Winnie the Pooh decorate it. I handed it over.

At home later that night, Ball’s elder brother and girlfriend wanted to know where he found the towel. As soon as they saw him wearing it on his waist, they asked about it.

‘They are envious,’ Ball told me.

I didn’t understand this comment. Carer R explained it to me later, out of Ball’s earshot.

‘He comes from a large family. There are not enough towels to go around. They have to share, but now Ball has a towel of his own.’

-
Ball is working on trial at a coffee shop owned by a supermarket chain, but reckons he may soon be out of a job.

His boss has told Ball that he probably won’t pass the test.

‘I cough all the time. They worry that I will pass on my bug to customers,’ he said.

Ball is unwell, with a nagging cough which sounds allergy-related. A doctor told him he has an infection in his throat, but it sounds to me like it has spread to his chest as well.

He is seized by coughing fits, which are strong enough to wake him from his sleep.

‘I might have to go back to working as a security guard,’ he said.

Ball’s first job, after he left school, was working as a security guard at my condo.

Many youngsters from the slums where Ball lives apply for work as guards at the condo, as it is so close to their home.

Often, they are there just a matter of weeks before they leave again.

Ball is already unwell. I don't want him to end up at my condo as a guard; it would look too sad.

-
Ball asked me to massage his arms and legs, which looked angry and red where he had slashed himself.

Miraculously, I was carrying a pottle of lemongrass-scented balm for easing muscle pains.

I rubbed balm on his arms and legs, and went to work. Within half an hour, he had fallen asleep in his chair.

Carer R tried to lift his body to get him home, but he fell into my lap instead.

I scooped up his legs, and cradled Ball in my arms, where he stayed for the next hour. Carer R chatted away aimlessly, and when he tired of that, played with a street dog which sleeps under his table.

Ball was snoring soundly, but I could barely move, and my legs were starting to ache.

Finally, I decided it was time for bed, as I could stand his weight no more.

Carer R helped me as we tried to get Ball to his feet.

I carried his leaden weight down the alley towards home, but had to stop every 10m to rest.

Mercifully, Ball woke. Carer R offered him a piggy-back ride home, but he managed to get there on foot himself.

His girlfriend Jay met him at the door, and took him to bed.

Earlier, as we sat at the ya dong stand, Ball told me that I was being too kind. He was starting to feel embarrassed.

I was massaging Ball’s back. Carer R told him not to worry.

‘The farang wants to give. You don’t have to ask, and you shouldn’t think he is this or that way inclined if he is helping you.

‘He’s doing it because he wants to, and you shouldn’t feel bad about it,’ he said.

The joys of being used

The spell has broken. My relationship with Maiyuu feels much healthier, while my friendship with Ball and carer R has moved on to a more sensible footing.

I visited carer R and young Ball last night at the slummy ya dong stand. It was not like previous outings – I grew bored!

First, Ball bought out his baby sister for a play. He sat her on the ya dong table while I was trying to drink.

‘I just love Nong Fresh. I think about her all day when I am work. We hardly get the chance to see each other, because she’s usually asleep when I come home.

‘Today I finished early, so we were able to see each other. I think of her as if she was my own child,’ said Ball.

Yes, yes, dear. Now, can we put the child away, please?

He took the child home, and returned to the shop.

I had been to the Carrefour department store earlier, and bought Ball a pair of jeans and a belt. He pulled off his black work slacks and tried them on.

They fit, though carer R, who was with us, reckons I chose the wrong type. ‘Ball likes the slim-fit look,’ he said.

‘I don’t care what he likes...this is all he is getting,’ I thought.

Ball gave me a quick, half-hearted wai by way of thanks. ‘I shall save them for when I go out,’ he said.

A man who makes roti snacks on a food cart rolled past. Ball, who has known the guy for years, pulled him over for a chat.

They talked guy talk. Carer R cracked a joke, which Ball, who was feeling the influence of his ya dong, misunderstood.

After the roti guy left, Ball challenged carer R. ‘Are you suggesting I don’t pay my bills? Is that what you were trying to say?

Carer R insisted that he had meant nothing by the comment; Ball had simply misunderstood.

Ball wore a grumpy, pouty face. ‘I think we should go,’ I said.

I paid the bill, and asked if I could walk Ball home. No, he wanted to escort me back to my place first.

So we headed off across the vacant lot for one of our push-me, pull-you walks, where we agree to part, but then change our minds.

Neither of us manages to get all the way home before we turn to follow the other one back first.

After 10 minutes, Ball decided he had had enough playing, and really did want to go home.

Good. As he walked away, carer R called me on the cellphone. He wanted to vent about Ball. Could I come back to the shop?

I returned, and stood for 10 minutes as carer R talked at me. The dialogue went on, and on...please, Lord, let me go home.

Finally I managed to say my goodbyes, only to bump into farang C, who lives in the same condo complex as me, and was passing on a motorcycle taxi.

He joined us at the ya dong stall for a drink.

Carer R took advantage of the opportunity to start venting again: first, about his parents, then back to the old topic of Ball and how aggressive he can turn when he’s had a few. He talked for at least an hour.

Farang C, who doesn’t have much Thai, grew bored, and angry. He tried to ask this or that, but carer R kept talking at me as if farang C wasn’t there.

We decided to go. As farang C and I walked home, carer R called me on the phone another two times, venting some more about Ball.

What is wrong with these people?

Farang C grabbed my phone, and swore at carer R. He was sick of the young man. ‘Grow up. Get a grip on your life. Stop boring people!’ he said.

To me, he said: ‘You let these people whinge and whine about their lives. They are using you, and taking advantage.’

We parted, and I went home to see my boyfriend for the first time since early afternoon. More than 12 hours had passed, but he was still up waiting for me.

Since opening up about young Ball, I feel as if my relationship with Maiyuu is on a sounder footing. While at Carrefour, I bought him an egg separator.

He was pleased with the purchase, humble though it was. 'I used to have one, but accidentaly threw it out,' he said.

Today I am going back to look for a more substantial purchase – a food processor, or blender.

Maiyuu asked if he could buy a new screen for his computer. I said yes, so he’s gone to the store to take a look.

We are buzzing again; I feel as if we had temporarily lost touch with what matters in our lives, but are in the process of rediscovering it.

My pay came out last week. Money always helps.

As for Ball and carer R, the spell appears to have broken. Carer R is a great talker, but also a tedious worrier.

Earlier the same day, I met him in the market. We sat side-by-side under an umbrella, picking the tops off a basket-full of chillies for a woman friend of his who sells them nearby. It was pleasant, wholesome, and fun.

Last night, however, I saw another side of carer R, as indeed I did of young Ball. When something has upset him, carer R is like a dog with a bone; he just can’t let it go.

‘Ball still loves you as an elder brother, and you still love him like a relative,’ I told carer R.

I was in sweet-talk mode. How Thai I sound. Sometimes, I wonder if I am losing sight of the real me.

‘But I can still cut him off if I don’t like him. It’s my shop, and I serve who I want. Even if you were to take his side and not come back here again, I’d still cut him off,’ he said moodily.

Ball, too, can be stubborn to the point where he just refuses to listen.

As we crossed the lot, he asked me again and again if carer R had meant to insult him. ‘No, Ball, he didn’t,’ I replied. ‘You just don’t get it.’

Neither Ball nor R went home happy. Far from being alarmed when farang C grabbed my phone and started swearing at carer R, I actually enjoyed it.

I felt as if farang C had restored some balance to what was becoming a one-sided relationship, where I let my Thai friends ride roughshod over me.

The parting words in this frustrating saga should go to Maiyuu.

When I walked in the door, I offloaded briefly.

‘I have been wanting to come home for hours, but people kept dragging me back,’ I grumbled.

‘But that’s what you are like. You are soft-hearted with everyone outside home; hard-hearted only with me.’

Boyfriend asks for gift, Ball asks for nothing

‘I shall prepare myself for the day when you turn up with Ball and say he’s moving in, and that I have to move out,’ said Maiyuu, after I told him the story of Ball.

I thought I had better come clean, as my friendship with Ball has been preying on my mind.

Maiyuu had noticed changes in my behaviour, which meant he already suspected I had met someone new. I might as well tell him.

‘When he’s sober, he’s straight. When he’s drunk, he likes men,’ I said, while adding that Ball lost his Dad a few years ago, and dislikes his mother's current partner, Lort.

‘He lives with his girlfriend, but is sick of her. He likes being with me because we can talk – though I also hug him, massage him, and care for him,’ I said.

Maiyuu listened patiently. He did not get angry: ‘I don’t have the right,’ he said. ‘It’s your life.’

‘But if you did feel you had the right to comment, what would you say?’ I asked.

‘You hardly buy me any gifts to show your love for me. If I found out that you had been buying things for someone you barely know, how do you think I’d feel?’

‘I have hardly bought him a thing. Lotion for his scalp...that’s it,’ I said, while declining to add that I had been thinking of buying him clothes as well. Naughty farang, park that thought!

I proposed a solution. ‘I might have to stop accompanying him back to his place. That’s when I start caring for him, as I can’t do it at the ya dong stand...it’s too public,’ I said.

What a pragmatic fellow I am. I should have added: ‘I might have to insist on my right to walk home unaccompanied as well, as we also like to cuddle and hug on the vacant lot between his place and mine.’

I left that bit out. One can be too generous with information.

Maiyuu’s spirits cheered. By late yesterday – when I took myself off to the ya dong stand again – he was back to normal.

Earlier, Maiyuu told me about some of the items he would like me to buy for him, if I wanted to show him my love.

‘Some nights I go to bed, and wonder if you have bought me something – just once – to show you care. But when I wake in the morning, it is never there,’ he said.

'You have my ATM card...in theory, you can buy whatever you want,’ I said. 'I have never bought gifts for people on a whim, as I don’t know what people like,’ I added.

‘A food blender like the one Martha Stewart uses on her show,’ he suggested.
-
At the ya dong stand, carer R was sitting alone, waiting for me.

I had called in advance to say I was coming. His other customers had gone home for the night.

No one else was around but for the rubbish collectors. As is the Thai custom, we offered them a nip of ya dong to take the edge off their labours.

At my invitation, Carer R talked about his hair. He ties it in a knot on top of his head, like a spouting water fountain.

After 10 minutes, he releases the rubber band. It stays upright on his head, which he likes, because he gets sick of it sweeping from the front of his eyes.

‘I need a haircut. This is the longest it has ever been. Before, I wore it ultra-short,’ he said.

R showed me pictures of himself and his wife in his cellphone, taken about 18 months ago while he was in his past job as a salesman in a Timberlands store. In some pictures, he wore a hat and a scarf.

Even with short hair, he is strikingly handsome, I thought.

Half an hour later, Ball’s Mum emerged, followed by her partner, Lort.

‘I don’t want him drinking too much, as he has to work,’ said Mum, referring to Ball.

‘He was here briefly, but had to go back to work for a meeting,’ said carer R.

Lort, who fancies himself as a man of influence, boasted about his generosity to the common folk in the area.

'If I meet someone who asks me for money, I give him whatever he needs, even if I end up without cash for a meal or transport home,’ he said.

Mum, who was listening, agreed.

‘He likes to visit his problems upon others,’ she said, unimpressed. ‘When Lort gets home he’ll ask me for the money which he just gave someone else.’

Mum and Lort finished their ya dong and went off to get something to eat. Half an hour later, Master Ball himself arrived.

‘They asked staff  to attend a meeting - and after that ended, made us clean the windows!’ said Ball, looking disgusted.

He has started working for a coffee shop owned by a supermarket chain.

Ball sat next to me. I touched him. He immediately reached out for my hand, and held it briefly in his.

We talked about Ball’s flaky scalp, and a sinus problem which affects his breathing.

Ball, who suspects both conditions are caused by an allergy, sounds like a child with a chronically blocked nose. He coughs constantly.

'At work, the boss asks me to wear a facemask when I serve customers, as he worries that I have that new strain of flu!’ he said.

The final conversation of the evening concerned Ball’s dress.

He was wearing boxers, which he borrowed from his brother.

‘Would you like some more of your own?’ I offered.

I asked what type he likes. White briefs, he said, as long as they are ‘manly’ – they can't rise too high on the waist.

Carer R needed bed, so we left. Ball took me across the vacant lot towards home.

He found it hard to walk straight, as he had put in an hour's solid drinking. The path is treacherous, littered with broken stones and stray dogs.

Ball stopped for a wee, and waited for me to do up his pants.

We passed a flat-bed truck in the middle of the lot. Ball flipped down the back so we could sit on it.

‘Why don’t you like women?’ he asked. ‘That kid you keep at home – is he a good person?’

‘I used to like women, but changed my mind. My boyfriend is not a kid – he’s 31,’ I said.

Ball does not believe me when I tell him that Maiyuu and I share little intimacy with each other.

He moved on to the subject of money.

‘I am not like other Thais. Have I ever asked you to support me financially?’ Ball asked.

I talk in English occasionally, when I want to emphasise something. ‘Good boy!’

He mimics me.

‘Good boy!’

We said goodbye. I turned to watch my friend -  still in his work uniform of serious white shirt and black slacks - stagger home across the vacant section.

If I truly love my boyfriend, I might have to stop myself showing so much interest in my new friend. I don’t want any of us to get hurt.

Time to get honest

Idle taxi-driver Lort escorted me back to my condo the other night, as Ball himself wasn’t up to the job.

Ball had been drinking at the ya dong stand since 7pm. By the time I arrived, after 11pm, he needed rest.

My young friend invited me back to his place in the slums nearby, where I met his mother, Lort, and Mum’s elder sister.

Ball's aunt pumped me with the usual questions – where do you come from, where do you work – which became more specific after Ball’s Mum whispered something in her ear, presumably to explain why Ball and I had arrived together.

Ball was playful, and fun. I massaged his back and shoulders. He asked for a leg massage. I told him to lie on the floor with his legs facing me.

When he sat up again, I hugged him from behind. It felt so good, I wanted to hold him like that some more, but pesky questions from Ball’s aunt were dragging me back...

‘Do you have a lover?’ she asked.

‘I live with someone, yes,’ I said.

She asked how we met. I told her.

‘Where is your lover?’ she asked.

‘Waiting at home,’ I said.

I felt I had better explain my interest in Ball, whom I had barely stopped touching since I walked in the place.

‘I want someone to care for. My lover isn’t interested in physical contact,’ I said.

Thai language allows us to speak in gender-neutral terms, so I was still not sure if this woman understood that I live with a man. Or maybe she just chose not to acknowledge it.

‘Why have you never had kids?’ she asked.

‘Ball is like a son to me,’ I said.

Actually, Ball is more than that, as regular reader Tao has pointed out.

If I wasn’t also attracted to him in other ways, I wouldn’t be sitting in his home.

Ball’s Mum nodded. I expect she doesn't care; if her son is happy - even with some middle-aged farang guy - that’s great.

I noticed skin flakes falling from Ball’s scalp, and spent the next half hour brushing them out of his hair.

‘I have an allergy,’ said Ball. ‘Is it ugly?’

‘It’s not ugly, it’s natural,’ I told him.

Ball asked if he could take me home. He wanted to talk to me in privacy about his girlfriend Jay.

He also wanted to meet my boyfriend, as he was worried Maiyuu might be deceiving me and taking my money.

Ball was unhappy to hear that I was living with someone. ‘You have some kid in your condo?’ he asked.

‘He’s not a kid – he’s 31,’ I said, holding Ball's chin in the cup of my hand, as he bobbed his head up and down drunkenly.

Ball, who was tired and emotional, did not look capable of taking me home, but he insisted he should do it for my own protection. I said my goodbyes to his Mum and the prying aunt.

As we staggered across the vacant lot between his place and mine, I realised we would never get there. Ball could barely walk, and stray dogs were barking at us.

I spun Ball around and took him back to his place.

He wanted to carry on drinking, but Mum, standing at the narrow entrance of their place in the slum alleyway, told him to stop.

'It's time for bed,' she said.

‘Let’s carry on somewhere else,’ he slurred.

‘You have work tomorrow...you must sleep,' I told him.

Ball still refused to enter.

He could not stand. I held up his body in my arms, leaning against the wall of the alleyway for support.

‘The farang won’t let me go,’ he joked with Mum.

Mum and I pulled his body through the narrow doorway, while Ball struggled.

His pants came adrift. I pulled them up, and told him I would buy him a belt.

I said goodbye.

The next day, I bought a bottle of lotion for tackling scalp ailments. I dropped it in to his place while Ball was at work.

‘If that fails to do the trick, I know of another brand, as I have had the same problem myself,’ I told Mum.

She was sitting in the main room with Ball’s elder brother Boy, and his girlfriend.

Lort turned up, and thanked me.

The night before, after I had dragged Ball back home, Lort had swapped duties with his son.

‘I will take the farang home,' he said.

Lort and I walked back across the vacant lot, hand-in-hand.

'You are such a caring person,' he said, referring to the hair episode with Ball.

When we arrived by the side of the condo, he insisted on taking me further – right up to the front door, in fact.

Why did he want to see where I lived?

Ball insists he is not jealous of Maiyuu, but I doubt that's true, as he enjoys the attention I show him.

As a headstrong young man not yet into his 20s, I doubt he would want anyone else laying claim to it.

That said, Ball’s needy side only appears to come out when he has had too much to drink.

Normally, he tells himself he is straight, and carries on life with his girlfriend, who lives at his place, as if nothing has happened on those nights when he forgets himself, and decides he likes male company more.

PS: I wrote the other day that Maiyuu does not know about Ball.

He hasn’t met Ball or anyone else from the ya dong stand -  but he has noticed changes in my behaviour.

‘You have someone over there. You can’t see the change, but I can,’ he said.

Rose in a lapel: Tribute to a music master

Mr C, from a newspaper profile I wrote of him

As a youngster, I liked to sing.

In the early 1980s, my family and I moved from Sydney, Australia to Christchurch, New Zealand, and my brother and I joined a private boys school.  

My younger sisters enrolled at a private girls' school not far away.

The private school I left behind was a good 40 minutes away by car; for my two sisters, likewise.

When we moved to New Zealand, I was 16, in the last two years of my school life. Living as far away from school as we were in Sydney, my brother, sisters and I had little in the way of a social life. Weekends were spent playing sport or doing homework rather than spending time with friends.

In Christchurch, by contrast, our family home was just across the road from the school my brother and I attended - my social prospects were looking up!

One of the first teachers I met was the music master, a bachelor in his late 50s, who was renowned for his ability to train young voices.

When I met Mr C, a small, dapper man fond of double breasted suits, also worn with a pocket watch and rose lapel from his sister's renowned rose garden, he’d been running school choirs more than 30 years, including at another well-known boys school in the city.

He also directed an elite group for the best singers, the school chorale, and had trained young men who had gone on to be opera singers of international renown. One student was a friend of mine, "K", who went on to sing opera overseas and now lives in the US.

The school chapel, as it was in Mr C's day

Anyway, I would often meet Mr C by the school chapel, which ran by a little stream across the road from my home.

The bridge across the stream was usually iced over in winter and treacherous to attempt.  I would cross that bridge on my travels to school and back every day, and could often hear Mr C playing the organ in the chapel.

One day, shortly after starting at the school, I passed him outside the chapel as I was heading home. ‘Can you sing for me, boy?’ he asked, staring at my face with his odd, crossed eyes.

Mr C routinely referred to boys that way, as a sergeant major would his young troops on the parade ground. No doubt he could not remember our names, but he was known nonetheless for his warm heart and eccentric personality.

He wanted to see if the new boy sounded any good. But right then and there?

Our only audience was the ducks who swam nearby. But no one had taught me to project or handle notes in the confident way my friend K could do; I could not see myself bellowing out a song for Mr C's amusement as I stood by the babbling stream.

As boys we made fun of Mr C, but we also knew that he was a unique identity on staff, and among choirmasters, one of the best. If memory serves, he drove a burgundy Daimler; lucky students might be offered a ride home.

‘Can I sing for you in the chapel some time?’ I asked.

He agreed.

I never did have to sing one-on-one for Mr C.

However, I did join the choir. He never threw me out, so I must have had a passable voice.

I remember the song sheets with musical notation which he handed out every Monday (a new song every week), which I could not read.

The chapel undergoing repairs after Christchurch's earthquake

I recall also the rehearsals, in his acoustically designed music rooms; and the concerts, once we were good enough for an audience, at the city’s town hall.

Occasionally we would also get to train with choristers from my sisters' school.

Mr C played the organ for school chapel services. He also liked to invite members of the choir back to his place for an occasional evening supper.

He put on a grand affair, helped by his sister, a wonderful cook. They lived next to each other, close to the playing fields of the other boys school where Mr C had taught music for many years.

We suspected Mr C, a lifelong bachelor, was gay.

A much younger Mr C, left, with choristers rehearsing for a December, 1969 event.

He knew my parents. He would drop in to see us in our crumbling character home, which like the bridge across the road from school froze up bitterly in winter. 

He brought goodies from the local bakery, or cooking treats which his sister had made.

Once, I filed a story about him for my local newspaper. He brought out huge files of news clippings which he had kept over the years to help my research. It did not surprise me that Mr C would keep such extensive records of himself; he knew he was good, and didn't mind mind telling everyone.

We drew closer to each other, I thought, as he talked about his life.

I left school in the mid-1980s, went to university.

Years later, my parents told me that Mr C had entered an old person’s home. Former students, his favourite pupils, would visit him.

Soon afterwards, in June 1999, at the age of 78, he was dead.

They held a funeral service for him at the school, and named Mr C after that little bridge which I crossed every day. The bridge still bears his name, even if today’s students will barely know him.

PS: Forgive me if I do not identify the school, or Mr C by name.