Clothes going cheap

Clothes in Bangkok are astonishingly cheap...trousers for B350 or less, T-shirts for B100 or less.

Normally I leave the clothes shopping to boyfriend Maiyuu, who has a good eye. If I need something, he buys it for me. Otherwise, I don't bother to ask.

In the last month, however, I have been clothes shopping several times - for a young friend rather than Maiyuu or myself.

I have bought a pair of jeans, and half a dozen T-shirts, or soft cotton shirts with a collar. I spent no more than B700 in all.

Now that I now how cheap these things are, I might have to start shopping for myself - or perhaps even buying clothes for the boyfriend, who complains that I seldom buy him anything.

I want it, but I don't

‘I want you to stop buying me things. We meet over drinks. That’s enough,’ Ball told me.

I had just bought pizza for Ball, myself, and carer R.

After I ordered the thing, I handed over the phone to carer R, as I am hopeless with directions.

‘Come to the end of the soi. We’re at the ya dong shop,’ he said.

‘I have never seen anyone eat pizza with ya dong before,’ said Ball.

A shot glass of ya dong goes for 10 baht. Most customers are taxi drivers, and other simple types. It is a country drink, though its popularity is now seeping into Bangkok as well.

Ball reprimanded me for spending so much (480 baht, for a large pizza, chicken, and garlic bread).

‘R and I are embarrassed. There’s no need to be so generous,’ he said.

As soon as the pizza arrived, Ball took out a slice and gave it to one of the kids who lives with carer R’s mother-in-law.

Carer R asked if he could take out a few more slices, just in case his mother-in-law was to get hungry later in the evening. Another child aged about 10 lives with her. He declined an offer of pizza, but took a piece of chicken and garlic bread instead.

It was exciting watching this activity. I liked the way carer R and Ball helped others before they ate anything themselves.

The night before, Ball told me he rarely eats fast food, as his family doesn’t have the money. He didn’t put it quite like that, but I knew what he meant.

‘I eat it if it should come along,’ he said.

‘So, would you like pizza if I order it?’ I asked.

He smiled, nodded, and said nothing.

That’s a Yes, as far as most Thais are concerned. Ball and R feel a keen sense of kreng jai (obligation), if I do anything out of the ordinary. As an honorary Thai, I try to keep my head down and do as everyone else does.

I might buy a full bottle of ya dong for everyone, rather than a half bottle as the Thais do, but if no one makes a fuss, no one needs to feel any different.

Occasionally, however, I want to do a little more, if only because the act of giving is so enjoyable.

Carer R and Ball don’t know it, but for me the highlight of ordering a pizza was seeing how they gave to others around them before they agreed to partake themselves.

Even then, they were reluctant. I had to find a plate for Ball and put a slice of pizza on it myself before he would agree to eat. Carer R ate nothing, claiming he was sick of pizza, as his last employer used to shout his staff to pizza meals so regularly that the novelty had now worn off.

How does the foreigner know what is an acceptable display of generosity - and what will make people feel awkward, rather than happy to be the recipient of someone else’s largesse?

For Thais, it is probably easier, as no one has much money.

I have more than the average Thai, though not a huge amount more. In any event, boyfriend Maiyuu holds on to my ATM card, an arrangement which suits me – or I might be inclined to show even more generosity (and discomfit my Thai hosts in the process) than I do now.

‘I wonder if you can separate the two. I know you have never asked me for anything, but perhaps I just like giving. Can you understand that?’ I asked Ball.

In truth, I have not given much. I have bought him a belt, and a pair of jeans, because someone in his family told me that he had none.

I have bought food for his mother twice, and now the pizza. Yes, I’m bad. I am making people feel awkward, but hopefully not too much. In any event, can’t they find it in their hearts to forgive?

‘We don’t have to be like father and son. We can just be drinking friends, as you’ve given enough,’ said Ball.

‘You're getting old. Why don’t you try to find a girl, and have a family? Thais like to deceive farang. I worry you have ended up with someone no good,’ he added.

‘I have only ever had two girlfriends – Jay, my present one, and one other girl, who left me,’ he said.

Ball's girlfriend paid us a brief visit, though he shoo-ed her away.

‘Go home...we’re talking,’ he told her.

‘Can’t I sit for a while?’ asked Jay, who had just finished her job at the supermarket. Ball’s younger brother Beer picked her up on his motorbike, as he usually does.

‘Are you looking for trouble?’ he asked.

She left.

I gave carer R and Ball a brief reading and listening test. Both left school early, though carer R’s English is better.

Ball, I was dismayed to find, can barely read or understand a word.

'I used to skip English classes,’ he said.

Ball asked me about foreign girls. A sample of his questions:

‘Do you think foreign girls would find me attractive, or would they look down on me?’

‘If I flirted with them, would they get upset?’

I replied that foreign girls would jump at the chance to get to know him, as he was so handsome.

‘First, though, you might have to learn a little more English,’ I said.

Ball isn’t interested; not yet, anyway. My friend farang C, who has met carer R and Ball, sent a text message.

‘It is so obvious that you have nothing in common with those people,’ he wrote.

Yet when I am with these two, I am relaxed.

Carer R is like a safety net, waiting to collect my mistakes.

If I say something wrongly in Thai, or behave ineptly (buying expensive pizzas, for example), I know he will come to my rescue.

If a passer-by asks who bought the pizza, R will come up with an explanation which helps me save face.

‘The farang forgot himself, and was thinking of home so much that he just had to order Western food,’ he will say.

I massaged Ball for a couple of hours: I rubbed his shoulders, legs, waist.

He put his legs on my knees.

‘Keep massaging in a straight line,’ R joked, as he watched me plunge my hands right up to Ball's groin.

I went up his shorts leg, but stuck strictly to the leg, just as R advised.

Whenever a motorcycle came our way, I would have to take my hands off him, as he worries about what people in the neighbourhood will think if they see him with a farang.

‘I really enjoyed the night you took me to my bedroom,’ he said, referring to a visit I made to his place a few weeks ago, where we were able to sit in privacy for once.

I can’t recall doing anything special that night, other than inviting him to sleep in my arms.

About 2.30am, I excused myself to go home. Ball, for the first time, declined to escort me across the vacant lot between carer R’s stand and my condo.

Only the night before, he told me how much he enjoys our walks across the vacant lot. Last night, however, he stayed seated.

As the night wore on, young Ball started to look ragged. My young man rose late in the day, but was already in need of bed. His T-shirt was stained in front, and rumpled under the arms.

As carer R chatted away absent-mindedly, I took Ball’s hand, and kissed it.

‘Good night,’ I said.

Ownership claims

Carer R bought us each a steaming cup of Mama instant noodles. Young Ball was so hungry, he was gulping them down as fast as he could.

His hands are tiny, his body still forming, I thought as I watched him eat.

His Mum will be thinking of him, as mothers always do. He has a girlfriend, too, though the two argue often, and she seldom ventures out of doors to see him.

At the ya dong stand two minutes from his home, he also has me, and carer R.

Is it enough? And how do we rank in his life?

Is it a question meant in fun, as I have no right to get possessive.

Ball is close to Na, a fish trader in his 30s who lives next to R's shop. He joins us at carer R’s ya dong stand in the small hours.

I know he likes Ball. After an hour or so of imbibing ya dong, they can barely keep their hands to themselves.

But even as he plays his man games with Ball, Na is looking at me, worried I will get jealous if I see him touching Ball too much.

Often, Ball is at the stall before me. These days, carer R tells me, other customers ask Ball if I will turn up to meet him.

Ball doesn't like that. 'I can pay for myself,' he says.

I have been distant and remote from Ball lately, after a strange happening at his place.

One day I went to see him at his home. I waited in the alleyway outside his front door, which was open. I watched him as played at a computer close to his mother's bedroom.

Mum was in the living room, which like the bedroom can be seen partly from the front door. From the shadows, she called out, inviting me to come inside.

I didn't hear.

I waited in the alleyway for five minutes, but after Ball failed to come out to greet me, I walked home alone.

Later the same day I sent him a text message asking if I could give him some food money...once again, no response.

Last night he explained his apparent lack of interest: he is worried what people are thinking about us.

'Is the farang coming to see you?' his Mum had asked when she saw the text message.

'I wanted to say yes, just like I wanted to welcome you in the door when you came to see me at home, but I wasn't sure how to do it,' he said.

He is not worried about the gay thing so much as he is perceptions that he is selling himself.

He lives in a slum. He worries that when his neighbours see us, they will assume he has struck up a relationship with this middle-aged farang because he is hard up, and needs the money.

'The truth is, I have never asked anything from you,' he said.

Ball says he likes the way I treat him; and I enjoy being with him, too.

-
Ball, carer R, and myself are often the only drinkers left at his ya dong stand after 9pm.

Carer R loves to talk, and is keen on having me as an audience.

I am not sure what need I am fulfilling, as he is married, and loves his wife. Is she not a good listener?

He also likes the idea that Ball and I are close friends, much more than just customers.

'We are friends, and help each other,' he said last night, as he went off to fetch us instant noodles, which he paid for himself.

'You need something to line your stomach when drinking ya dong,' he said.

We're an odd bunch, it is true.

As I am massaging Ball's legs, back and shoulders, R is busy chatting away, trying to distract my attention with his life stories.

As soon as one tale ends, another starts.

At first Ball and I sat apart from each other, and I had little to say. Ball asked me politely about work, and I responded briefly.

But after an hour at carer R’s stand I decided there was no point in being a stranger.

While carer R went off to buy cigarettes, I asked Ball to sit next to me.

He explained his lack of interest the day we met at his home, and discussed his latest attempts to find work.

His own feelings had not changed, he said, despite my perception that he had grown more remote.

‘I am still the same,’ he said, looking at me earnestly. 'I miss our talks. Some things I say to you, I can't say to anyone else.'

I carry a pottle of ointment for massaging away aches and pains. I pulled it out, and set it on the table.

As I laid my hands upon his shoulders, Ball's small frame relaxed.

After a few days away, we were slipping back into our old roles. We do indeed care for each other, each in his own odd way.

Who gets to own who hardly matters.

Layers of love

Maiyuu is bent over the rubbish bin, peeling an onion.

He has a sore back, weeping eyes...

I remember peeling onions, back in the days when I cooked.

While we have money, Maiyuu toils in the kitchen, making beautiful food for us to eat.

When pay runs short, he sleeps on the sofa in front of the TV – for days, if necessary, waiting for my pay day to come again.

But for the rest of the time, he is busy trying to make me happy.

Yes, he might enjoy making food anyway, as it’s a way of releasing creative energy.

But really, it’s how he shows his love.

We don’t do it in the sack, but at the kitchen table instead.

Argument aftermath

Maiyuu is rifling through our CD collection, looking for a stray CD by Grammy singer Marsha Vadhanapanich. He must have her entire collection, but this particular disc was his favourite. We still have the cover, but not the disc inside.

I suspect it fell victim to our most recent argument. When we argue, I go into clean-up mode, as vigorous physical activity, even with a duster, helps me release stress.

After our argument a few weeks ago, I set to work making order of our disorderly CD collection. CDs without a home lie scattered about; no one ever thinks to be put them back in their covers. Maiyuu was in his bedroom sulking at the time.

I must admit, I took advantage of the opportunity to throw out about a dozen discs for which I could find no home – mainly no-name CDs on which we had recorded this or that, but which we hardly ever play. Out they went, into the rubbish. I fear Marsha’s CD may have gone with them, though I can’t recall it.

I would not have done it deliberately, as I like Marsha, and even after the heat of our argument – when I told Maiyuu forcefully that he would have to leave – I still knew, inside my heart, that we would probably stay together, because we always do.

So it must have been an accident.

‘Why don’t you buy another?’ I asked.

‘You can’t find it in stores now...and it was my favourite, too,’ he said glumly.

Sorry, lad.

Maiyuu wants me to admit that I threw it out, so he can stop looking for the wretched thing.

But I honestly can’t recall whether I tossed it out or not. He suspects I threw it out just to spite him, but really I am not so clever as to know which Marsha albums are his favourites, and which aren’t.

Marsha wasn’t the only material loss we suffered as a result of that row.  I destroyed a B1,000 mirror as well.