Wild Songkran days

Boyfriend Maiyuu went out last night. He’s back just now. I don’t know where he went, as I haven’t asked. We don’t feel the need to exchange information about such things.

-
Ball's Mum was celebrating Songkran (Thai New Year), and did not want to be disturbed.

Members of her family tried to call, to no avail. She had vanished, though thankfully she took the toddlers with her.

As several readers have observed, the water-splashing festival of Songkran is a time when normally sensible Thais forget themselves.

I last saw Mum briefly on Wednesday night. She had spent the day knocking it back, she told me. She was seated with some friends in an alleyway close to home.

Former taxi-driver Lort had his arm around some other woman. If Mum objected, I couldn’t tell, and to be frank, couldn’t care either.

It was after midnight, and Ball was playing Songkran in Silom for a second night in a row.

Miraculously, he was to make it to work the next day. In fact, he’s missed only one day at work so far all week.

-

Ball's girlfriend Jay is in trouble with her boss, after Ball punched a colleague of hers from work.

Jay works at a local supermarket. Until a few months ago, Ball worked at the same place.

‘He has many lingering problems with staff here,’ Jay had told me.

Three nights ago, Ball turned up at the supermarket to pick up Jay from work.

He was under the weather, and started to argue with a tomboy from the supermarket.

She pulled his hair. Ball thumped her lip, and left a bruise above her eye, Jay told me.

Ball didn't mention the clash, but I wouldn't expect him too, either. He also kept it from his Mum.

Jay, who is still trying to sort out the drama at work, called to ask if I had heard from Ball. ‘Is he intending to play Songkran again after work tonight?’

I had no idea. ‘Since the fight happened, he has avoided dealing with the problem. He goes straight from work to playing in Silom,' said Jay.

'If he had apologised at my supermarket the next day, everything would have died down by now.

‘At work, I can’t look my friends in the eye, as they know what he is like.

'Meanwhile, the tomboy’s mother has complained to the supermarket manager, who has issued me with a warning notice, even though the fight took place after hours,' complained Jay.

'I have nothing to do with it, but the manager is upset that I have failed to bring Ball to account,’ she said. 'The victim could have been a customer...what then?'

By late last night, however, the drama had abated.

Jay had managed to contact Ball, who said he had been to her workplace and had ‘cleared’ the matter with the injured tomboy whom he had hit a few nights before.

The dispute was unlikely to escalate any further, which is just as well for Ball. If the tomboy's mother had gone to the law, he would have found it hard to defend himself.

'Please don't tell Ball's Mum,' said Jay.

I have not spoken to Ball about the incident. When I dropped in to their place about midnight, Ball was in bed.

Jay was somewhere outdoors, and Ball’s mother had yet to return home from her day of celebrating Songkran.

It was just another dysfunctional day in the life of a Thai family over Songkran, perhaps. But it is worrying nonetheless.

Lonely, frustrated uncle

‘Can you pick up Ball at work?’ Mum asked me on the phone.

She was visiting temples, making merit.

Ball’s girlfriend Jay took one of the family motorbikes to work, but would be too busy at 7pm to pick him up from his office in Silom.

Enthusiastically, I agreed.

‘I am becoming a member of this family!’ I thought to myself.

Put aside the fact that my hands once slid creepily over Ball’s spindly legs as I offered him massages at carer R’s ya dong stall.

These days, I am a family man, and keep my hands strictly to myself.

If he wears a pair of shorts with a split in the crotch, as he did the other day, I tactfully avert my gaze. When he pulls down his clothes to examine himself down there, as he did the other day, I scratch myself, look at the ceiling, and pretend I didn’t see it.

‘Why did you leave our place so early last night?’ Mum asked, bringing me abruptly back to earth.

I had walked out half-way through a drink with Mr Ball and his girlfriend. Mum had gone out somewhere, and Ball was being moody and uncommunicative, so I did the Thai thing, and just left.

No goodbyes or other signs that I was going. I just climbed to my feet, and walked out the door.

‘Ball was moody. I can’t talk to him at the moment,’ I said.

‘It’s his girlfriend. When they are together, he’s crotchety,' she said.

After talking to Mum, I sent a message to Mr Ball, which I followed up with a phone call later in the day, to make sure he knew what was going on.

‘I am coming to pick you up at 7pm. I will call you from outside the building, so people don’t have to see us together. And don’t get irritable,’ I said in the message.

When I called, Ball sounded less than enthusiastic. ‘Why can’t Jay take me home instead?’ he asked.

‘She’s busy,’ I said.

The night before, Ball said he might play Songkran (throw water) with his friends after work.

I assumed he wanted to play in town where all the crowds are, rather than close to home, so offered to drop into his place first, get a change of clothes for him, and take it with me to Silom.

He could change at the office, and I would bring his security guard’s uniform back with me. What a good uncle I am!

‘No, I’ll come home first,’ he said.

It didn’t work out that way. I doubt anything every works out so tidily, where teens are concerned.

I took a motorcycle taxi to Silom. Instead of taking me us the back way, to avoid the Songkran water-throwers, the rider took me right to the foot of Silom Rd.

We found ourselves in the middle of a thick bank of people, chucking water and smearing powder on each other. It was like a massive street concert. I spotted a few foreigner tourists in the melee. They looked less amused than shocked.

‘Why did you bring me here? Why didn’t you take the Sathorn Rd route instead?’ I asked him en route. ‘It’s quieter down there.’

‘I didn’t know these crowds would be here,’ he said.

What, on the first day of the Songkran festival? ‘You’re a fool,’ I told him. ‘Go back the way we came.’

Instead of returning the way we came, my motorcycle driver, who thought he knew better, took me onwards to Surawong Rd.

Here we found more crowds of soaked teens on the street jostling and pushing, more eager types on trucks tipping buckets of water over each other. I asked him to drive down the middle of the road rather than down the side, to minimise our chances of getting wet.

It took us 10-15mins to get past the Songkran crowds. One Thai woman on a truck fired a solid jet of water at me. Displaying the amiable, laid-back nature for which foreigners are well-known, I gave her the finger and told her to f- off.

Finally, I made it to Ball's office building, right on the dot of 7pm. The sidewalks were crowded with more hyper-Songkran types, and the entranceways to the place had been blocked off.

I let myself in through the basement carpark, and asked a security guard to take me to the lobby. From there, I called Ball.

But Ball, the little charmer, had left work some time before. ‘Where are you?’ I asked.

‘I am playing Songkran with friends in Silom.’

‘How are you getting home?’

‘One of them has a vehicle. He’ll drop me off,’ he said.

I was furious. I doubt Ball ever intended to let me take him home. The very least he could have done was call and tell me not to come.

I wasted a trip out there, battling through crowds of Songkran fools, and was about to waste another trip back.

I found a taxi as soon as I re-emerged from Ball’s building, where I immediately pulled out my cellphone, and started punching out a stiffly-worded message to His Highness, telling him just how I felt. As kids squirted the taxi with water, I kept my head down, composing.

‘You have no responsibility. I come all the way out here, but you’re nowhere to be seen. You are a little shit,’ I said.

I asked the taxi driver to help me spell the last choice expletive in Thai. It was so nasty, I’ve never sent it in a text message to anyone before.

I handed him the phone to check the text message.

'Is this right?'

He squinted at the thing, and handed it back.

‘I can’t see anything, as I didn’t bring my glasses,’ he said.

Only in Bangkok, I thought, could I get a taxi who can’t see.

-

Almost three hours later, Mum and family returned from their merit-making trip to the temples.

I told her what happened. I went to pick up her son as requested, but he wasn’t there.

‘I even bought him a can of beer to have on the way back home in the taxi,’ I said.

‘I offered to take him a change of clothes, but he said no. He won’t have eaten, and is playing in his uniform. He’ll come back a mess. How will we wear it to work tomorrow?’ I said.

Mum understood that I was annoyed, but not why.

She had spoken to her son several times that evening. ‘At least it’s good that he gets a chance to play Songkran. He’s working, but almost everyone else has taken the week off,’ she said.

Mum bought us a bottle of brown stuff. I bought Ball a beef noodle, so he’d have something to eat before bed.

Mum, I noticed, had bought no food back with her from her travels. The only other thing at home with which Jay and Ball could hope to line their stomachs before bed was dried noodles in a cup, which are hardly appetising.

At 11pm, Jay went straight from work to pick up Ball in Silom on the family motorbike.

Earlier, I sent him message, saying I was no longer angry, and asking him to come home. I missed him.

But by 12.30am, they still weren’t back, so this lonely, frustrated uncle went home to bed.

Lie back and enjoy it

Boyfriend Maiyuu and I are likely to sit out the Songkran water-throwing festival.

It’s too hot, and we can’t be bothered. That's what we told ourselves this morning over our gay gentleman's breakfast.

I do enjoy hearing about other people’s plans, though.

After work tonight, Ball will join his family in Silom, the central business district of Bangkok.

As I understand it, they are hiring a pick-up truck. They will have to find a large plastic tub of water from somewhere, and plastic bowls.

They dip the bowls in the tub, and toss water at people.

Or maybe Ball will join his friends for their own celebrations instead.

I don’t understand what is happening, as the information his mother gives me is scrappy, and Ball is so moody at the moment I hardly dare ask.

What I do know is that he has asked his mother for B300 to put towards petrol, and the cost of hiring a pick-up truck.

The trucks crawl up and down Silom, Maiyuu tells me.

I have never been to the centre of town for Songkran, and nor do I care to jostle with water-soaked tourists and bedraggled Thai youngsters for the privilege.

But Maiyuu is Thai, so he knows. At times like these, when I get little help from my Thai friends, I know I can always ask Maiyuu, my most loyal Thai ally of all. Who cares what anyone else thinks, when I have my own Thai, who loves me?

-
Ball and I are growing distant, which will please those readers among you who say my presence in this family’s life is only for the worse.

It seems we communicate best at carer R’s ya dong stand, where we were able to say what we like, and R provided constant, irreverent adult-style chatter to keep his customers amused.

At Ball's place, his Mum is usually present. We also have the distraction of kids, and Ball’s girlfriend, Jay. They listen to everything, and make their own contributions.

I say little, and do little other than play with the kids. I am losing interest in communicating with Ball, who appears surly, or to the extent that he does talk, is interested mainly in his girlfriend.

I knew they would draw closer once he stopped visiting R’s dreadful ya dong stand, and so it has turned out to be.

Ball asks Jay to call him while he is at work. They chat for ages. When I visited Mum yesterday, and we called Ball at work, I could find nothing to say.

‘How are you? Are you working hard?’ no longer carries any meaning.

I tried asking a question or two, but didn’t wait for an answer. I hung up abruptly. Who cares?

So much of my relationship with this family depends on information, and when I am not getting it, everything dries up.

So tell me, Mum...what is this Songkran plan exactly? You want my B300, but I still don’t understand what is going on.

You are hiring a truck? Who is driving...Ball? He’s a kid, in charge of a pick-up? I doubt it.

His younger brother, Beer? Once again, I don’t think so. He’s an unpleasant, moody so-and-so who belongs on a leash, not in charge of a vehicle in a public place.

Idle partner Lort, who does nothing for anyone...I think we can count him out.

Elder sister Kae might be there, but I doubt she’s driving. Her boyfriend is celebrating Songkran with his own family, he told me. So who’s left?

And why does Ball need B300? How much are the others contributing? If I switch off my cellphone today and pretend the bunch of you don’t exist, will you still go ahead and hire your truck? Where do you put the toddlers when all this water-throwing action is going on?

‘Would you like to come?’ Mum asked last night. We were sitting in the family room.

No thanks. ‘It’s too hot,’ I said instantly.
-
Still, I might go. I can feel myself closing up, as tight as a cork in a bottle. I get hurt, so withdraw from people to spite them, and myself.

As we sat sipping our beers, Kae delved into a clothes drawer, looking for tiny bathing costumes for her own toddler son Maew, and the other toddler of the household - adopted Nong Fresh - to wear.

As for Ball, I doubt he will remember to take a change of clothes. If he is going straight from work to playing Songkran on the back of a truck, he will need casual wear, as he can hardly wear his security guard's uniform.

Organising his needs will fall to Mum and me, when I visit her later this morning.

And suddenly I will feel back in the flow of things, as if I am contributing again to this family's goings-on.

If I pay the B300 which Balls says he needs, I also will have bought myself a place on that forlorn truck.

I can do whatever the hell I like – toss water at him all night, if I want. That would cheer me up no end, as I think he deserves it.

When I turn up at his place, I receive no word of Hello. He asks me nothing about what I am doing, offers no news about his day. He just drinks in moody silence, or talks to the girlfriend, if he speaks at all.

Still, why am I complaining? Surely I knew what to expect when I started mixing with this family, and with someone so young.

He’s a moody teen, not an adult equipped with a well-rounded set of social skills. I should just lie back, and enjoy it.

Guilt money

Ball’s Mum called. It was Friday night, and her son was tossing it back.

‘Are you coming around?’

I was at work, but said I’d drop in afterwards. I stayed for 10 minutes.

Ball’s elder brother, a soldier, was back home on a weekend’s rest.

By the time I turned up, the soldier had gone to bed. Mum was there, along with the two youngest members of the household – toddlers Fresh and Maew, who were still awake.

Mum’s elder sister was also present. They were watching karaoke videos.

Ball sat in a corner, knocking back the brown stuff.

‘He has been waiting for you,’ said Mum.

She had bought nine bottles of the brown stuff that night, though they were shared. Ball was red-faced, but still relatively sober.

He said little, which is usually a sign that the brown stuff has yet to take an effect.

When I walked in, he did not say Hello. He asked me nothing after I took a spot on the floor next to him, as he was too wound up watching karaoke videos.

‘Why aren’t you talking?’ I asked.

‘I have nothing to say. I am quiet by nature; yet you would have me talk,’ he said.

Rude bastard, I thought to myself.

'I’m going home,’ I said.

Ball ignored me.

His mother asked me to stay, and as I was putting on my shoes by the door, poured me another drink to entice me back.

I returned to their living room, and sat for as long as it took me to finish the glass.

‘Why are you going so early?’ she asked.

‘Your son is in no mood for conversation, so we will talk another day,’ I said, and left.
-
Mum called mid-morning, the first of half a dozen calls she would make that day.

I failed to take most of them, as I was busy.

I returned one call about 2pm. Her son was sleeping, though earlier in the day he had performed errands on the motorbike, taking various family members about town.

‘Drop in about 4pm,’ she said.

I know what Mum wants. She wants me to call around so I can give her money.

‘Mum is in a bad way financially,’ Ball had told me a couple of days before.

Her own mother, and two of her nephews have been staying for weeks. They add to the household expenses. On top of that, Ball’s elder sister lost B3,000 a few days ago.

That added to Ball’s stress levels. He takes on burdens on behalf of his Mum...though by the time he has finished work, would like Mum to help him relieve them, by buying him beer.

That’s where I come in. I visit her during the day, while Ball is at work. If she is having trouble meeting household expenses, and I think it’s a worthy cause, I might help her pay.

Many of the payments are small, and have nothing to do with Ball. I doubt he’d even get to hear about them.

Yet Mum, her son and I have entered an unhealthy symbiotic relationship. Ball goes to Mum, wanting a drink. Mum pays, which is always much easier when, earlier that day, I have given her money, ostensibly to meet some unrelated expense.

I used to ‘tag’ my outlays, if they are Ball-related: ‘Please spend it on Ball’s lunches, or transport...I don’t want merely to pay for his booze,’ I would say.

Yet who is to know?

If I give her money, she has more to go around, which can be a good thing, or bad.

The other day, Mum had an ear problem, but she put off seeing a doctor as she did not have enough money.

If I gave her money towards Ball’s drinking expenses, I thought, she could spend her own money seeing a doctor.

Yet it doesn’t always work this way. She simply spends more on the brown stuff for her son.

Last night, Mum called while I was at work. She wanted to know if I would have time to drop in after I finished.

‘I have bought him one bottle of Leo,’ she said.

Ball, who was sitting next to his Mum, wanted more.

'I will finish late ... probably not,' I said.

‘He probably can’t come, as he is busy,’ I heard her tell her son.

That means: ‘If he doesn’t come, I can’t help you any more – one bottle is probably all you get!’

If I was there, he could drink much more than if he had to rely on Mum alone.

Ball is working as a security guard at Silom, but has yet to get paid. That makes him even more dependent on his mother.

When he does get paid, he will probably give a chunk of it to Mum, who will put it in the pot.

She will disperse it to meet his work expenses (B100 a day, as he walks out the door), his after-work wind-down expenses (a beer or two each night) – whatever he needs.

Everyone else in the household gets help on the same basis. Hardly anyone seems to put his hand in his own pocket to meet personal expenses, as he has given a chunk of his income to Mum, who is in charge of the household finances.

Yet no matter how much she gets, it never seems to be enough, as she has 10 mouths to feed.

Foreigners would regard such cup-in-hand behaviour as financially emasculating. Who would tolerate having to ask Mum every time he wants to fill up his petrol tank, or buy a packet of cigarettes?

Yet that’s the way the finances are run in this household, and in many other Thai families, whether they live in slums or not.

If I give Mum B400 to buy a security guard uniform for her son, it may not go to that cause, at least not immediately.

Some of the money I give her probably ends up on paying for the brown stuff, even when that is not the intention.

When he asks for something, she will do her best to meet her son’s request.

I am his friend, so to the best of her ability, she will use the money I give her to meet his needs rather than someone else's.

The thinking is, if we help each other meet his needs, we are both doing our bit to make him happy. And if we love someone, we want to make him happy, right?

Yet is it enough? I don’t like some of Ball’s needs, in particular his desire to imbibe every night. A bottle or two, yes...but when he’s finished them, often he wants more.

And if I wasn’t around, his Mum would have to say no.

I should buy shares in this ya dong stand

Thai-style ya dong

It's Friday, Ball's last day at work for the week.

Tonight, he can toss back the brown stuff with abandon, as he has two days of rest stretching ahead.

Actually, he's been drinking all week, as he usually does. It's just that on Fridays, he can do it without worrying about whether he will rise in time for work the next day.

Wednesday night was bad for Mr Ball, as he spent hours at carer R’s ya dong stand.

Ball called me just before I finished work. I dropped in and stayed for an hour.

Ball has to get up at 6am to get to work on time, and this was already 11.30pm. I urged R to let Ball go home.

‘This is my place, and I’ll drink with whoever I like,’ said R. ‘Anyone who doesn’t like it can go home.’

R had abandoned any sense of responsibility towards his customers. It was late, and he had made no sales in hours. But he refused to close, as he was having too good a time tossing back his own ya dong.

‘I don’t need you to tell me that, thanks. Let him go. This has gone on long enough,’ I said.

Moments before, Ball’s girlfriend Jay emerged, holding his baby sister, Nong Fresh.

R, who is older than Jay, sweet-talked her into letting Ball stay a while longer.

Ball was determined to stay anyway, as he likes to think he is boss.

I asked Ball to go home. He ignored me, too, so I gave up and went home to bed.

R held out his hand for me to shake by way of farewell, but I was too disgusted with his behaviour. I ignored it.

‘Shake his hand!’ Ball slurred.

I ignored him too.

The next day, as I sat by Mum’s side at her place, she told me that Ball did make it to work that morning, but only just.

'I had to force him to get up. They had no one to stand in for him as security guard, so he had no choice but to go.

'It was so hard getting him up. I almost told him to go live with you instead, as I am no longer interested,’ said Mum.

So, Ball did his duty, and went to work.

It was shortly after midday, and we decided to call the Charmed One, to see how he was doing.

Because he had forgotten to charge his phone, we called someone else at the office who Mum knows.

She went in search of Ball, and found him in the cleaner’s quarters, sleeping during his lunch break.

Mum talked to him briefly, and handed the phone to me.

‘How are you feeling today?’ I asked.

‘I have a headache,’ he said weakly. ‘But stock up the fridge for me, and I will feel better,’ he joked.

I visited a shop at the corner of the alleyway, and bought two beers for safekeeping until he came home.

The idea was not to encourage his bad habits, but to keep him away from the ya dong stand just 50m away.

His mother could do with help financially...she hurt her ear the other day, but decided not to see a doctor, probably because she can't afford it.

Any money I give her to help pay for Mr B's imbibing habits frees up money which she can spend on something else.

It’s risky, but so are most gambles. We can but do these things on faith.