Boss lays down water heater regime

If I leave the water heater on now, I stand to get fined.

While I was out yesterday afternoon, Maiyuu affixed this notice to the bottom of the water heater in the bathroom.

I have a bad habit of leaving the heater on even when I am not using the shower.

Something in the box overheats or over-stresses, so the element burns out occasionally, and we have to get it fixed.

Now, I have been warned that if I continue leaving the heater switched on after a shower, I will be fined B200.

‘If you switch it on, please turn it off. If not, you’ll be fined B200,’ says the notice.

I have already forgotten to turn the thing off once since the notice went up – last night, before I went to work.

Maiyuu told me the grim news when I came home.

‘Please give me another day or so to get used to the new regime,’ I said.

Generous with other people's money

Easy come...easy go!

When I visit Ball’s family in the slum, we spend most of our time in the sitting room, which opens on to an alleyway.

People can enter or leave any time they like. Many do, including some faces I have never seen before.

These include miserable types who come begging for food and money.

I don’t know how well Mum knows them, but they feel sufficiently at ease in her company to just walk in and sit down.

They neither knock on the door, nor call out to announce their arrival. They just appear...wanting things.

About midday, I dropped in to see Ball’s Mum.

She had just returned from a trip to the market, and told me the events of the morning past.

Ball and his girlfriend made it to work, though they had to hire motorbike taxis to get there.

Normally, Ball’s younger brother Beer would take them, but yesterday his motorcycle would not start.

Mum gave them B60 each for a motorcycle taxi instead, which left her short of money she would normally give to Mr B to recharge his petrol tank.

Mr B puts B100 of petrol in the family motorbike every day.

‘I have no money left,’ she said, almost in passing.

I thought about this remark. If he didn’t fill up his tank, how could he pick up Ball and his girlfriend from work?

I pulled out a B100 note, and gave it to Mr B. He gave me a wai of thanks.

Mum was chatting away as she fed one of the kids.

Her own mother sat on a pull-out couch next to us. Another half dozen people were mingling about, including a teenage girl who spends most of her days at Mum’s place (her own parents aren’t up to the task of caring for her), and Mr B.

A moment later, I looked up, and found some old wizened guy had parked himself beside Mum.

He let himself in without a word, and sat down.

‘I haven’t eaten in two days. Can I borrow some money?’ he asked.

Mum didn’t look the least surprised to see him. ‘Perhaps you haven’t eaten for two days because you’ve been drinking instead?’ she asked.

‘Oh, no...I have stopped that. I am back at work, but have to wait three days before they pay me,’ he said.

Mum’s reaction surprised me.

‘Beer, give him the B100,’ she said.

Mr B meekly handed it over.

Hang on – that was money I gave them for petrol, not to help some grafter from the slum!

‘Hand it back! That money is not for you!' I told the old guy.

The old guy looked at me. He knew my name, which didn’t surprise me, as Thais have a way with names.

‘Mali, I really haven’t eaten for days,’ he told me.

‘I don’t believe you,’ I said.

He mumbled a few words, about how he’d repay the loan the next day. Then he left, as quietly as he had arrived.

I was unhappy that Ball’s mother could give away money I had handed to her only moments before, to some bum I had never met.

‘I have known him for years. He’s a building contractor, and hires Ball occasionally to help him lay tiles. However, he’s also a drinker, and forgets to buy himself food,’ she said matter-of-factly.

‘But now Mr B can’t refill his petrol tank!’ I told her, exasperated.

‘He has a good heart,’ she said.

‘I am sure he has...especially when you are giving him things. How much has he borrowed?’

‘He has borrowed B1000 over the years...but one day he will pay it back,’ she said.

‘Now you can add another B100 to the debt,’ I said.

I was angry, though part of me also felt sorry for Thais who insist on giving to those less fortunate.

They don’t appear to apply the same criteria which I would in assessing whether to give: for example, is he a worthy cause who helps himself? Or is he simply an irresponsible waster?

-
I had gone to Ball’s place intending to discuss a proposal that I top up the money she gives her son every day for work.

If I added a mere B40 a day, say, he would have enough to get a motorcycle home on those days when his brother failed to turn up. He could save the rest.

But after seeing how generous his mother could be with other people’s money, I decided against.

If I enter such an arrangement at all, it probably will be Mum’s friend Noi, who works in the same office as Ball, and helped him get his job as a security guard.

She buys him snacks to eat during the day. I could give her the money instead.

-
‘Ball’s mother has money - don’t worry about her,’ said carer R.

I dropped in to see him at his ya dong stand last night.

‘Ball has started work, but she still gives him just a tiny amount of money each day, as if he’s not earning a wage,’ he said.

Mum also holds on to her son’s ATM card. No doubt she is looking forward to his first pay day, when she can ask him to help meet the family’s outgoings.

-
Ball himself turned up about 11pm.

He stayed clear of the ya dong, which was sensible.

Ball looked haggard and drawn. He was forced to walk home again last night, as his brother failed to turn up.

His mother wants to buy him a pushbike to get to work, so he no longer has to rely on the family motorbike.

However, Ball would rather wait until he has enough money to put down a deposit on his own motorbike, which he will share with girlfriend Jay.

‘I will have to find somewhere to park it. A friend suggests Patpong, but I have no idea where that is,’ he said.

'I will help you with the motorbike,’ I said.

Ball objected.

‘I have asked Mum not to ask for any help from you, except maybe for the occasional drink,’ he said.

'As for your trip home from work tomorrow, let me give you B100,’ I said.

Ball was reluctant to accept it. I bickered and negotiated with him for half an hour before he would finally let me thrust the note into his hand.

As we sat, the rings around his eyes were growing darker, and his breath began to whistle and wheeze in his chest.

It was time my young friend went to bed. At midnight, I escorted Ball home.

Again, I tried to give him the B100.

‘I am worried my friends will think I am tricking the farang,’ he said miserably.

We were standing in the alleyway, which was quiet and still.

‘They can’t see us. Who knows?

‘I have had a terrible day. Let me feel good about at least one thing I have done,’ I pleaded.

Ball took the money, gave me a deep wai, and went home to bed.

Fragrant chef, abstinent home, allowance jitters

Boyfriend Maiyuu is back from a trip to the supermarket in Silom. ‘It’s time for a shower,’ he announced. ‘It’s my first one in three days.’

I’m pleased I didn’t get too close.

-
‘Keep it...he has work tomorrow, so shouldn’t drink.’

That was Ball’s brother-in-law, Tum, who looked alarmed when I turned up at the door waving a B100 note.

I had offered the money to his mother.

‘You might want to keep this, in case Ball wants a few drinks tonight,’ I said.

It was an innocent enough offer, I thought. Ball had called me half an hour before, after rising from a late afternoon sleep.

I know what he is like. When he is sitting at home, with nothing else to do, he likes to play with the kids, chat with the girlfriend, perhaps watch TV, or play on the computer.

Often, his mother will buy him a few beers, but when the drink ends, he will busy himself doing something else.

Yesterday, he went out with his girlfriend, Jay, in the morning.

Later, he slept.

In the early evening, he went out for a game of football. About 11pm, when I was to make my final contact for the day, he had just turned in for bed.

When I called in, he had the whole night ahead of him. After playing ball, I thought, he might like to relax over a beer. I would rather he drink in a sensible, controlled manner than the no-holds-barred marathons of the past.

Ball is doing well. He likes his new job, and wants to make something of himself.

However, it was only a few weeks ago when Mr Ball’s life was a mess.

He spent hours at carer R’s ya dong stand every night, rising late the next day.

His family despaired as Ball turned down one job after another, fought with his girlfriend, and appeared unwilling to help himself.

Tum still remembers the old Ball, which explains his startled reaction when I made my offer.

I can understand Tum’s concern. Far too much booze flows in Ball’s home. They live in a slum, where such things flow freely.

The problem is bad enough without my adding to it. In future I will resist making such offers, as they make me look bad too.

-
I have yet to decide whether to subsidise the food/travel money which Mum gives Ball to meet his expenses at work.

Ball’s Mum gives him about B60 a day, which is enough for lunch and a magazine. It is not enough to cover a motorcycle ride home, should he find himself stranded in Silom without a lift, as he was last Friday.

Mr Ball’s brother normally takes him to work, and, 12 hours later, picks him up for the journey home. However, sometimes he forgets, as he did last week.

Ball was forced to walk home, a journey which took more than an hour.

Reader Hendrik argues that a walk after work wouldn’t do Ball any harm, should his brother again forget to pick him up.

However, I don’t like the thought of Ball having to walk such a long way. He's only just started his job, and I want it to go well. I do not want him to return to the way he was before.

To safeguard against such problems, I thought I might top up the money which his mother gives Ball, at least until he saves enough for a deposit on his own motorbike.

Another B40 a day would give him enough to hire a motorcyce taxi home...though, as another reader pointed out yesterday, he could always take a bus, which is much cheaper, though is unlikely to go right to his front door.

I will talk to his Mum, and see what she says. I will also consider how guilty I am likely to feel if I embark on this venture.

Any money which I invest in Ball is money which I could spend on myself, or long-suffering boyfriend Maiyuu.

So, we will see.

Ball's long walk home

This blog's fourth anniversary is coming up. To mark BOTM's birthday last year, I named my favourite Thai-based blog with a gay theme. It was Kawadjan's blog, which you can find here.

This year I want to carry on as I started last time, and name the blog I enjoyed reading most over the last 12 months.

-
I dropped in to see Ball, who is still enthusiastic about his job as a security guard in Silom.

It is a do-little job – he sits beside the lift in an inner-city building for 12 hours a day.

He might punch the lift button for visitors, and takes a note of people who come and goes, but there is not much more to it than that.

On the plus side, he can take two days off a week like any other worker – Ball claims most security guards are lucky to enjoy any time off from work at all, unless they swap shifts with colleagues – and while he is at work, can sit in air-conditioned comfort.

On the minus side, buying lunch in the Silom business district is expensive, as I discovered when I took Ball for an interview there last week.

We grabbed a quick meal on Soi Convent. The food was dull, but they charged us twice as much as we’d pay in our part of town, in a slummy/industrial district just 10 minutes away.

‘I go looking for food, and it can take me 10 minutes to find something which looks tasty and which doesn’t cost too much. I might also buy a newspaper or a magazine to read,’ he says.

Mum gives him B60-B70 a day. He will get through most of that on food alone.

Ball’s younger brother takes him to work, and picks him up again – when he remembers.

On Friday, Ball’s second day at work, his younger brother forgot to pick him up. Or maybe he was busy somewhere else. No one knows these things, because no one bothers to ask.

Ball had just B20 left in his pocket, so had to walk back, a journey which took more than one hour. At Suan Phlu market, about 10 minutes from home, he asked a motorcycle taxi how much he would charge to take him the rest of the way.

‘Forty baht,’ he said.

‘Never mind...I will walk,’ said Ball sadly.

The motorcycle taxi guy took pity on Mr Ball, looking sweaty and bedraggled in his security guard’s uniform, so took him home for B20.

Ball and I drank a few beers in his mother’s bedroom. His ailing girlfriend Jay, Ball’s elder sister, her toddler son, the family’s adopted daughter, and a visitor in her 50s were squeezed in with us.

The visitor, a friend of Mum’s, asked me irritating questions about where I worked, and how much I am paid.

‘I bet you are paid at least B100,000,’ she said in an asinine, oily voice.

‘No...he gets just B300,’ said Ball, making a joke at the nosy woman’s expense.

Ball has ostensibly quit drinking ya dong, but took a small shot-glass of the stuff when he visited carer R the other night.

‘I told him I had stopped drinking, so he wouldn’t see me much at his stand any more. He understood. Now that I have a job, I have to go to bed early,’ he said.

‘In a couple of months, Jay and I might have enough money to put a deposit down on a motorcycle.

'I can’t leave it at the building where I work, as the company provides no car-parks for security guards. But it would be better than having to rely on family for transport,’ said Ball.

I took heart from this remark, as it shows that Ball is thinking about his future, and intends staying in the job for the long-term.

Jay, who has flu, stirred from under a duvet cover he had dropped unceremoniously on her sleeping body a moment before.

For the most part, Ball fusses over her like a devoted husband. Good, I thought. Perhaps he won’t mind if I slowly withdraw from the scene.

Mr Ball has come a long way since the early days of our relationship, shortly after New Year, when he spent hours at the ya dong stand every night.

Increasingly, I feel as if I am no longer needed, except as a drinking friend who can spring for the odd bottle of beer.

The romantic part of me, which feels sorry for Ball, wants me to supplement the B70 his Mum gives him every day, at least until he gets his own motorbike. If I topped it up to, say, B120, he would have enough to get a motorcycle taxi home should his brother forget to pick him up.

The practical, self-interested part of me says such generosity is unnecessary, as he will probably spend the money on something else anyway.

I am not sure what else I can do here. Perhaps my job is done.

Quiet on Ball front, fiesty at home

Ball made it to work for a second day running, says his Mum.

‘He left before 7am...his brother took him. When he came home last night, I told him that you had dropped in during the day with a couple of beers. I bought another bottle for him myself,' she said.

'He had something to eat, drank just one bottle, and was in bed by 11pm,’ she said, sounding relieved.

Mum called a moment ago. Since I lost my phone – possibly to game-playing thieves in her own home – I have switched telecoms providers.

As it happens, Mum is with the same provider, which offers cut-price rates to its customers – as long as they spend a few minutes chatting at the start of every day at the normal rate.

For the last couple of days, Mum has called each morning, possibly to use up those first few minutes under the promotion.

She reports on Mr Ball’s progress in his new job as a security guard for a Silom company.

He spends most of the day sitting in an air-con office. ‘He’s not used to the cold – he will have to take something to keep warm,’ said Mum.

She gets regular reports on how Ball is faring from her friend Noi, who works in the same company. I took Noi and Ball for an interview with the company earlier this week.

‘I asked Noi to buy him a cup of coffee and something to eat. He has an easy job...he can spend most of his time reading magazines,’ said Mum.

I dropped in to see Mum yesterday, after she suggested I buy a couple of beers for the lad to celebrate his first day at work.

Mum called her friend Noi, who put Ball on the phone.

‘It’s so quiet here,’ he said. ‘I hardly talk to anyone.’

Ball asked to talk to his girlfriend Jay, who is sick with flu and took the day off from work. I handed over the phone.

Moments later, I excused myself.

Mr Ball leaves early in the morning, and returns early evening after I have already left for work. I will probably see him over the weekend, though for my own emotional sanity might try to limit my exposure.

I hope he keeps plugging away at his job. He needs the money, and I need time away.

I seek adventures outside home because my solitary relationship with Maiyuu, who spends most of the day in front of the TV when he is not cooking, is not enough.

Maiyuu understands that I get bored and lonely. However, he also knows that mixing with Ball and his family carries financial risks.

‘I don’t want to know anything about them or anyone else. I am happy with my own life at home, and don’t need the headache,’ says Maiyuu in a heated moment yesterday.

His hermit-like reaction was unsurprising. Maiyuu has cut himself off from most of his friends and family, because the outside world is just too much like hard work.

Sometimes, I wonder if he would bother even with me, if it were not for the home and income I provide.

‘Don’t bother telling me their stories or asking me for advice. In your eyes, they can do wrong, while I am the one who is always no good,’ he said.

How dull. Yet another dissatisfied customer.

We will keep plugging away at it, because we have no choice. Maiyuu and I have put 10 years into our relationship. Who can be bothered starting again?