The head of the household speaks

'As a man, I have to protect the women of the household. When another man shows up, and I am not there, it doesn't look good,' Ball told me.

‘I don’t like you turning up at our place during the day when I am not there.’

Ball and I were having one of our little talks. They usually start when we are about half-way down a bottle of the brown stuff.

I met Ball, his Mum and her partner Lord in the slum last night. We drank at a neighbour’s place.

Our host is a big woman who makes her own ya dong brew, and owns a large stereo. While she and Mum sang karaoke, Ball and I talked.

‘I know you are trying to help me, but Mum and I will battle on together no matter what happens. She is the mainstay of my life. Mum does everything for us – she has 10 mouths to feed every day,’ he said.

‘I admire your Mum,’ I said. ‘That’s one reason I like to visit her.’

Earlier that day, I gave Mum B400 to buy a new uniform for Ball to wear to work. He is a security guard in Silom.

He has only one, but must wear it to work every day.

I like giving money for useful things, such as his uniform. That money was originally intended for a new watch, which he also needs, but he suggested to his Mum that it would be better spent on a uniform.

Ball’s friends in the slum initially teased him when they saw me visiting his home.

‘They asked if I was living off you...if I had tricked you into giving me money,’ he said.

‘People around here get jealous...everyone is trying to up himself. They see me with a farang, and feel resentful,’ he said.

How touching. The fact that I am twice Ball’s age and might have exploited him, rather than fallen a victim to Ball’s own scheming, doesn’t appear to have occurred to them.

‘I may be small, but I can stand my ground. I told them I don’t like that kind of talk, and that you were my friend. Since then they have stopped teasing. I think they understand me now,’ he said, while adding that I should try to keep a low profile when visiting his place.

I told Ball that I hoped he would persevere with Jay, his girlfriend.

‘I feel sorry for her, and don’t want to throw her out, as she would be alone,’ he said.

I asked Ball if he can distinguish between pity and love. He says he can.

‘I know you feel sorry for the girl, and maintain you don’t really love her – but I have seen you together, and know it’s not true. I think you make a good couple,’ I told him.

Jay is in the family’s bad books after lending most of her most recent pay packet to her elder brother, a fourth-year university student. He has a girlfriend and a child, but can’t support himself financially.

After helping her brother, Jay had nothing left to give to Mum. She feeds the girl every day, pays for the food and groceries, and petrol to get her to work and back...

‘Running this household costs more than B1000 a day,’ Mum told me the other day.

Ball might have to wait until the end of this month before he gets his first pay. His elder sister Kae and her boyfriend contribute to the household's income, and his elder brother, a soldier, sends money home. But it is not enough.

When I dropped in to see Mum earlier yesterday, she had just won B400 on a board game. She spent a chunk of it buying beer for her son.

Ball feels guilty about his father’s death a few years ago. He says he has never made merit for his Dad on his father’s birthday, which he regards as a sin. I have told him that on his own birthday this year, we shall make merit for his father together.

Last night did have its lighter moments. Ball told me about how his younger brother, Mr B, once entered the monkhood to honour his father.

‘He shaved his head, and looked so cute. I stole a look around to see if any of our relatives were watching, and gave him a playful whack on his bald head.

‘We are supposed to treat monks with respect, even when they come from our own family. ''That's a sin," B replied. He was right.'

Mr Ball sees himself as the head of the household. Dealing with the problems which life throws at him - and he has more than his share - is part of being a man.

I admire his courage the most, and the way he is so determined to grow up as a young man worthy of his mother's love and respect.

About 3am, his girlfriend called, and Ball took advantage of the opportunity to flee our drinking circle. He did not say his goodbyes, but I knew when he left us that he would not return.

At Mum’s request, I grabbed my shoes and went after him.

By the time I arrived, his home was closed, the alleyway outside his place empty. I called his number, and he came to the door.

Ball, who had been awake since 6am the previous day, looked shattered, but still managed to put on a smile. He’s the man of the household, after all.

‘Forgive me for adding to your problems, but I am not ready to walk out of your life,’ I said. ‘Good night.’

Hopeless males, battling Mum

Mr Ball took the day off work again yesterday, after imbibing ya dong too heavily the night before.

Put like that, it sounds rather harsh. Let’s have another go. I am sure his sympathetic mother would rather have me put it like this anyway...

‘Mr Ball rose late, complaining he would be unable to go to work, because he was so stressed the night before over his girlfriend that he forgot himself, and drank.’

When I turned up at their place yesterday afternoon, I found him asleep in the middle of his mother’s bed. He was one of three people asleep on a ragged mattress, squeezed together like peas in a pod.

Ball's younger brother slept on one side, Mum's indolent partner Lort on the other. The guys like this room, because it has air-con.

I closed the bedroom door and let them get on with it.

Mum was in poor spirits: ‘Sometimes I just want to leave. I have 10 mouths to feed in this household, and get little help,’ she said.

The family drama of the moment concerns Ball’s girlfriend, Jay. She was paid for her supermarket job the other day, but declined to give any of the money to Mum.

Naughty Jay lives at Ball’s place for free. Mum feeds her, gets her youngest son to take Jay to work every day, pick her up for meal breaks, take her back...

Mum has also lent her money, both for herself and her elder brother, who always seems to be facing some financial crisis.

Ball and Jay have been together half a year.

One day, Ball turned up at Mum’s place with Jay in tow. Ball had just started work at the Macro department store, where Jay was also on staff.

Ball met Jay on his first day at work, and brought her home to meet Mum.

That was sweet. However, Jay wanted more than merely making Mum's acquaintance.

She was living with her elder brother, but wanted to move in with Ball instead.

Her brother has his own girlfriend and child. Their parents live in Chiang Mai but have split up.

Jay won't ask them for financial support, so asks Ball's Mum instead. Otherwise, she relies on what she makes as a supermarket shelf stacker.

Jay's pay of B6500 came out this week. Mum doesn’t know where it went, but on the same day as she was paid, Jay turned up at home saying it had all gone.

Her elder brother, who studies, needed help with this and that.

Ball was unhappy with Jay, as he knows his mother needs help running the household.

Mum was bitter, too.

‘I feed her, provide her with board; she also gets transport to work every day. Why can’t she contribute?’ asked Mum.

As is my wont, I offered advice. ‘Ask to see her payslip. Let’s see how much she’s really earning. Next, start withdrawing services...no motorbike to work and back. No meals either, unless she contributes.’

Mum listened, but said nothing.

‘The other day she called from work, asking [youngest son] Beer to go out and buy her some clothes,’ said Mum.

‘She said she’d pay me back. He didn’t go, but still I wonder...if we had bought her the clothes, would she have bothered paying for them?’ asked Mum, as if to rub salt in her own wounds.

Referring to the three men in the bedroom next to us, I said: ‘Why does the burden of looking after this household have to fall on a woman?

'Those three guys are sleeping in air con, oblivious to the world, while you worry about how to pay for their next meal,’ I said.

Other than talk, I didn’t offer much help. I gave Mum B40 to pay for a beer, so Ball would have something to drink that night before bed. If he wanted more, Mum could pay for it.

I offered to drop in to see her again after I finished work, but in the end I didn’t bother.

By then, Mum had started drinking ya dong herself, and her spirits had improved.

Also by then, I am tired, and need rest. I want to see the boyfriend, and enjoy my life away from my slum burdens.

My usual routine, after I finish work? I call Mum, and ask after her son.

I drop in to their place after walking home, to make sure the Charmed One has gone to bed.

If he hasn’t gone to bed by that hour, he won’t rise at 6am in time for work.

The night before he skipped work, I found him taking a meal with Jay.

He had black rings under his eyes, and looked worse for wear. As they mounted the stairs to their room, I said goodnight to my errant son, and left.

Last night, I found only Mr B, his younger brother, milling about. ‘Is he asleep?’ I asked through the open doorway leading into the slum.

‘He is.’

‘Good,’ I said, and left.

That’s it. Mum was imbibing ya dong nearby, but I didn’t want to hear more tales of misery, so I went home.

PS: Where are Mum's dreams? I refuse to believe they reside in the bottom of a bottle of ya dong. Maybe they reside over there...on the other side of the rainbow.

Leaving something tiny behind

‘We love each other most when we are poor,’ said boyfriend Maiyuu, talking about our relationship. ‘Do you agree?’

‘I do, but I don’t know why – perhaps because, when we have no money, we have to rely on each other,’ I said.

It was the day before pay day, traditionally a day of penury in our household.

Okay, I exaggerate. But I had run out of money. I borrowed B300 from a work friend late last week.

Yesterday, Maiyuu borrowed another B300 from a woman friend.

After visiting his friend, he turned up at home with a beer for me, and offered me B250 from his borrowed money.

That means he was proposing to keep just B50 for himself, after the cost of beer was deducted.

How sweet. I let him keep it all, as I still had B100 to my name – enough to buy drinks for Mr Ball after he finished work.

Later in the day, Maiyuu went out to buy coffee, as he noticed I had run out.

That was another thoughtful gesture on his part.

Today we are flush again, which means we can go back to being as tense and argumentative over money as we usually are.

Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted.

-
Maiyuu and I are reminiscing about the 10 years we have spent together.

In the early days, we would take a taxi to the YWCA in inner-city Sathorn - where we first met, coincidentally - and play badminton on courts in the building next door.

That was years ago, and we haven’t played anything together since.

‘How about we start badminton again – there are courts just nearby, and racquets don’t cost much,’ he said.

‘I feel like exercise,’ he said.

I'm all for it. Getting to know the boyfriend again after all these years can’t be such a bad thing.

Our lives don’t amount to much, after all. I mean that in a positive way, of course.

As Clint Eastwood and Jamie Cullum put it in Gran Torino, ‘Your world is nothing more than all the tiny things you've left behind.’

How sad, but true. And most of those things we left behind comprise what we managed to do for other people, rather than ourselves.

‘So tenderly
Your story is
Nothing more
Than what you see
Or what you've done
Or will become
Standing strong
Do you belong
In your skin
Just wondering...’

Watch the MV here. The theme song, including Clint's gravely voice, is here.

Elusive timepiece, calculating ya dong seller

I saw a beautiful watch at a pawn shop.

It was silver-plated, with gold inside, and looked expensive, like some mafia type might own it.

‘A man brought it in last night. He wanted money for drink. I gave him B350. If he fails to pick it up by Friday, I can sell it. It’s yours for B500,’ said the shop owner.

A largish woman in her 40s, she runs a shop offering mortgages, selling pawn goods, even buying and selling land, according to a sign outside her shop.

Her shop is close to the slum where Ball lives. He needs a watch, and a cellphone. I have been looking for days, but have yet to find anything I like.

By last night, when I went back to take another look, the fancy timepiece had gone.

‘The owner came back with his B350 and reclaimed it. But now that I know what you like, I will keep looking,’ the owner said.

She has asked me to return today, when she will have a selection of watches and cellphones on display.

-
‘How much does a second-hand cellphone cost?’ I asked carer R.

R’s girlfriend sells cellphones at a department store.

R himself has a small collection of the things, and knows his stuff. But he declined to answer me directly.

‘It depends on what features you want, what the make is, and how old,’ he said.

‘A woman who runs that pawn shop down the way has offered me a cellphone with a camera, and which plays music, for B500,’ I said. ‘Is that a fair price?’

Again he declined to give me a direct answer.

‘Tell me how much you want to spend, and I will ask my girlfriend to look for you,’ he said finally.

Everyone’s an operator these days. If I’d wanted his girlfriend to look for me, I would have asked.

I said thanks, and left.
-
Ball has little time for rest after his 12-hour work day as a security guard ends.

Shortly after arriving home - yesterday he took a song taew (small truck with two bench seats) back from work - he has to pick up his girlfriend from the local supermarket.

Or, if he’s not doing that, his Mum asks him to take her on the motorbike to visit her debtors in the neighbourhood.

She collects interest owing on money she has loaned them.

That keeps her own family going the next day, though often her clients have no money to give her.

‘What does Mum do if they refuse to pay?’ I asked Ball.

She can hardly call in her strapping son to look fierce, as Ball has a small, slight body which would not intimidate anyone.

‘She raises her voice,’ Said Ball.

Ball’s girlfriend Jay has also accompanied Mum on these nightly interest-collection rounds.

‘Often Mum returns home with little, or nothing,’ she said.

-
‘You are growing a belly,’ said Jay, unimpressed, giving Ball's stomach a poke.

Wibble, wobble.

‘You could do with a trip to the gym,’ she said.

Ball had just emerged from one of his interminable 90-minute showers (in which he likes to sing to himself, I have discovered). He donned a long pair of pyjama pants, but wore nothing on his chest.

His girlfriend is right, it was not a pretty sight. But who cares? Ball was winding down after a long day.

They teased and ribbed each other, as young ones like to do. Ball made a couple of cheeky remarks, for which his reward was a slap over the ear, a belt over the head.

He took the punishment good-naturedly.

Shortly after 10pm, it started to rain, for the first time in weeks.

The fresh smell of falling rain entered the living room on a gust of wind, competing with the stench of babies, old food and musty breath inside.

We finished our beers, and before 11pm, I excused myself. I don’t want to keep Mr Ball away from bed.

‘He gets hardly any time for rest as it is,’ said Jay.

Anniversary plans, wife plays football, Mum-in-law cheers eldest son

‘In August, I will have been living here 10 years,’ I told boyfriend Maiyuu.

‘And in October, we have another anniversary - you and I will have been together 10 years,’ I told him.

I met Maiyuu only weeks after I moved to the Land of Smiles.

‘What shall we do to celebrate? As it happens, I am going to see my family overseas about the same time,’ I said.

‘Never mind. So, 10 years ago, we married. To mark the anniversary, shall we get a divorce?’ he asked jokingly.

‘No, I think we should stay together a while yet,’ I replied.

Where else would I find such a good cook? He’s the keeper of my stomach flame, if there’s such a thing.

-
‘Oops – your wife is calling!’ said Maiyuu.

He was about to enter my bedroom early last evening when he heard my phone go. He assumed it was Ball.

Actually, it was Ball’s Mum. She invited me to drop in before I left for work.

‘Ball is playing football nearby. He might want a beer when he is finished,’ she suggested.

‘Okay, I’ll be right there,’ I said.

I turned to Maiyuu, who was listening.

‘It’s not my wife – it’s his Mum,’ I joked.

I had just finished on the phone. Or maybe I had cupped my hand over the phone while Ball’s Mum was still on the line, I can’t remember.

In any event, Maiyuu and I know not to get too serious about such things.

I like to take a wife in addition to Maiyuu. In my eyes, Ball's a surrogate son. But for Maiyuu's he's my second wife, even if our relationship is innocent.

That makes Ball’s mother my mother-in-law...and appropriately enough, when I am with her, I call her Mae (the Thai word for Mum).

‘Mae!’ I said last night, as I turned up at her place about 11.30pm.

I had just finished work, and was on my way home. I didn’t make it to her place earlier that evening, as I was already running late for work.

'I couldn't get here,' I said, while declining to say that my real reason for the no-show was that I thought Ball had already imbibed enough.

I had seen him earlier in the day, when we polished off four bottles of the brown stuff.

A few hours after I left, Ball went out to play football with his friends.

Last night, before I turned up at his place, I called him from the office.

'I didn’t fall or get any new ankle injuries,' he told me, after I asked.

That means that this week I shall have no new scabs to pick.

Damn. I can’t pursue my lustful ways with his spindly legs!

By the time I called in to see them last night, Ball had gone to bed.

He had only just mounted the stairs to his room, after waiting for hours for me to turn up. But I couldn’t get there in time, so that was that.

Mum was drinking beer with two of her women friends, one of whom, Noi, works with Ball in Silom.

‘He sits there all day, bored and lonely, as he has no one there for company,’ said Noi.

‘However, the cleaning and security staff are amazed at how beautiful he looks. One woman asked if he was gay, he has such a soft face,’ she said.

I chatted to Mum. She pulled down pictures and certificates which she keeps on the wall of her eldest son, Boy.

He is a soldier, and unlike the others graduated with a school leaving qualification, and a youth award.

‘There might be 600 people in this slum. Not one of the families has a son who achieved this award,’ she said proudly, holding aloft a portrait of Boy receiving his award from a member of the royal family.

‘He’s the only one who has never disappointed me. He doesn’t smoke, or drink. He works hard, and looks after his Mum,’ she said.

Ball and his younger brother Beer must have heard this story 100 times before, I thought – about how their angelic elder brother outshines them all.

While Boy has no discernible faults, Ball drinks, while Mr B is addicted to computer games.

Mum still loves the other kids, of course. Boy is merely the pride of the household – its public face which she can show the world when it drops in for a visit.

Boy looks most like his Dad - Mum's husband, now deceased - while the others take after Mum herself.

‘I don’t have any ugly children – that’s a good thing at least,’ she said.