Unwanted bike, Ball plays host, rhapsody to youth

The bicycle which I helped Mum buy for Ball’s girlfriend Jay sits unloved in the living room, which is already cramped for space.

Jay has taken it to work just once in the two weeks since we bought it. Mum and I put B300 each towards the purchase.

At the time it seemed a good idea. If Jay took a bike to the supermarket where she works as a cashier, Mum could save on the money she gives the girl for her expenses each day.

Some days, Mum gives Jay B100, which includes B30 for a motorcycle taxi. The rest goes on food.

If Jay was to take a bicycle, Mum could spend that B30 on something else.

Jay, however, is reluctant to take the bike – an old second-hand thing with a basket in front, similar to the type which tradespeople use.

‘She claims that the supermarket won’t give their staff any parking spaces, so she has nowhere to put it,’ says Mum.

Now, Mum has cut the B100 she gives to Jay to take to work down to B60-70.

If she wants to take a motorcycle taxi to work, she can pay for it, but she will have virtually nothing left over to buy herself food.

-
Several nights ago, red shirt protesters clashed in Silom with the so-called multi-coloured group, which supports the government and opposes the red shirts’ demand that it dissolve the House.

I called Ball and suggested he might like to stay at home the next day rather than going to work in Silom, where he is only a short distance from where the deadly clash took place.

‘Mum, Mali says I should stay at home!’ said Ball excitedly.

I suggested to Mum that he might like to check with his employer whether he should go into work, as it may not be necessary.

In the end, he went anyway, as his boss still wanted him there as a security guard, in case someone tried to sneak into the building.

Ball’s younger brother picked him up that evening. The next day he walked home, once again without trouble.

-
Ball, friends and family were sitting crammed around the TV, watching a football game.

It was my first glimpse of Ball in three days. ‘Come in!’ said Ball, who appeared to be host for the evening.

He looked sporty in a white collared T-shirt and shorts.

Carer R, wearing a sulky look, was also among the crowd.

He and I don’t get along at the moment, as I resent the way he keeps Mr Ball out drinking late, even on nights when he has to go to work the next day.

I decided not to accept Ball's invitation.

Carer R had called me the night before, shortly after midnight. He and Mr Ball were having a beer outside the local 7-11, he said. Would I like to drop in?

‘I am leaving for the provinces on Tuesday,’ he said, as if that was supposed to make the prospect of his company sound more inviting.

I declined.

Carer R is leaving Bangkok to start a new life in the Northeast, where he will live with his girlfriend’s father. We part on bad terms, which is a shame.

When Ball stays up late at R's invitation, Mum calls me, worried; so does his girlfriend Jay, sometimes in tears.

I don’t need the grief. Carer R should find someone his own age, and with no responsibilities, to imbibe with instead.

-

In the lively comments section of the previous post, Anon says:

''Do you stalwarts suppose that BKK would be a reliable contributing fixture in this slum family's daily life if Ball didn't posses 'delicate beauty ?' Remove BKK's lust for Ball from this story and none of it would have happened.''

I like those words 'delicate beauty'. I can't remember where I wrote them, but they sounded good at the time.

Old men have rhapsodised about teenagers before:

'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate...'

...And the world survived the shock and trauma of it all.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

–William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is often thought to have been written about a teenage male.

Some academics group it among the so-called Procreation sonnets, which argue that the young man, to whom they are addressed, should marry and have children.

His child will resemble the young man, so his beauty will live on.

Former Pink Floyd lead singer/guitarist David Gilmour has put the sonnet to a song.

Watch him perform it here.

Let's pay the grocery bill

Maiyuu is fine, for those wondering. He spends his days cooking, sleeping, eating. While I am work, he waits for my return. When not sleeping, he watches TV.

TV is his best friend when he is not cooking or sleeping... but that’s okay. We all have our indulgences. I have my friend Ball and his family to keep me occupied.

-
I told Ball’s girlfriend Jay that I would like to buy him a watch.

She agreed to take me shopping while Ball was at work.

Jay and Ball had gone shopping recently and spotted one at a shop at the Lotus hypermarket. He told Jay: ‘I would like us to pull some money together at the end of this month to buy it.’

Ball has a special relationship with his watch, as anyone who has ever sat with him for more than five minutes will know.

My young man is constantly looking at his timepiece.

Until recently, he wore a watch owned by his younger brother, but it failed to keep good time. As the batteries wore down, he would fret over the thing more and more.

Finally, he discarded the watch in favour of a gold band, which I didn’t like.

Perhaps Ball wants something to cover his wrist. I have never worked it out.

I decided that if his watch meant that much to him, I should buy him a one. Why wait until the end of the month? By then, he might have other claims on his money.

Mum asked if she could come. She needed to go shopping for the toddlers in the household.

At the Lotus store, we found a stall outside a supermarket selling Casio watches for half price. Mum and Jay inspected them closely. Jay chose a smart silver watch with a black band. It cost B600.

At the supermarket, Mum dropped a few items for the toddlers into her trolley. We moved on to the food section, where she found items which she knew would appeal to her son.

‘Ball loves this kind of fish,’ she said.

‘Put it in the trolley,’ I said ‘I’ll pay.’

‘Ball loves macaroni. Can we buy him this ready-made dish of macaroni for him before he leaves for work? Normally he has nothing to eat until lunch,' said Jay.

‘Put it in the trolley,’ I said.

After that, we moved on to the groceries section.

‘Ball likes this brand of shampoo,’ said Mum.

‘Yes, that’s the one,’ said Jay, agreeing with Mum’s selection.

Hold on! This is getting out of hand. But I responded as I had before:

‘Put it in the trolley,’ I said.

I ended up paying B200 for items which Ball’s Mum and girlfriend said he would love, but which they themselves had no money to buy him.

Our day at the Tesco store and supermarket, including the watch purchase, and taxi fare there and back, cost me almost B1,000.

'It is the experience which counts,’ I told myself as we made our way back home. When I am 80 and sitting in my rocking chair, all I will have is memories, as my body won't be up to racing about town any more.

Even in my mid-40s, I am still having adventures. Bring them on, I say, before it is too late.

-

When the day is over, and we take our fading smiles and weary bodies home to rest, who do we need most?

The Dimming of the Day

Richard Thompson (cover by David Gilmour)

This old house is falling down around my ears
I'm drowning in a river of my tears
When all my will is gone you hold me sway
I need you at the dimming of the day

You pull me like the moon pulls on the tide
You know just where I keep my better side

What days have come to keep us far apart
A broken promise or a broken heart
Now all the bonny birds have wheeled away
I need you at the dimming of the day

Come the night you're only what I want
Come the night you could be my confidante

I see you in the street in company
Why don't you come and ease your mind with me
I'm living for the night we steal away
I need you at the dimming of the day
I need you at the dimming of the day

Ball seeks solace in brown stuff, Mum cries

‘How did you know about that?’ Ball asked me, shocked.

I mentioned his bust-up with the tomboy outside a local supermarket.

Ball cleared up the matter on Friday night, sending along his girlfriend Jay – who works at the same supermarket – to apologise to the girl.

Ball had said nothing to his mother or me, though girlfriend Jay knew, as she was present at the time.

‘Lord mentioned it the other night,’ I said.

Jay had asked me not to tell Mum, and in the end I didn’t have to say a thing.

Her partner, taxi driver Lort seems to know everything that goes on in these parts. Perhaps Jay told him.

‘Your mother wasn’t interested anyway. She told him that it was your business, and you’d fix the problem.’

-
I turned up late on Friday night at Ball’s place to find him and his mother in a stand-off.

They were in Mum’s bedroom. I sat down next to Ball, who was flushed in the face. He had spent the night drinking, and wanted to carry on.

He spoke a few stiff words to his mother. ‘You’re pleading with me, and are not being honest,’ he said.

‘I can carry on, or just go to bed,’ he said defiantly. ‘It’s all the same to me.’

Mum had invited Ball out for a night of karaoke. He wasn’t interested, as he would rather spend the night with carer R.

Earlier in the night, Mum saw Ball and carer R heading out somewhere. She stopped them, as thought her son had taken enough for one night.

Making no progress with Mum, Ball declared he was going to bed, and left the room.

Mum insisted I stay with her as she fretted over the argument with her son. They did not raise voices with each other, but Ball had spoken unpleasantly.

‘He’s extremely direct. He would never lie to anyone, but tells them exactly what he feels,’ Mum said in tears.

'I am sure he will be better in the morning. He has had a stressful week,' I said, feeling lousy.

Her son needs a good talking to. But when, and who will do it?

-
Ball was to spend his weekend on the brown stuff.

‘Beer is my friend,’ he told me.

On Saturday, we spent a few hours with R, along with three or four red shirt protesters – the rag-tag mob which is occupying part of the Bangkok shopping district.

Mum knew where they had gathered, and after I turned up at her place, she took me out to meet Ball and his friends.

She took a seat briefly at the table.

'Ball, do you remember what you said last night to Mum?' I asked him.

'Yes,' he said.

But if he did remember, his face showed not an ounce of guilt or remorse.

Apparently, everything had been forgotten.

The most vocal red shirt at our table of five or six men, all of whom live close to my place, was a former soldier, now in his late 40s, who sells fish for a living in a slum clearing.

Until he tried assaulting my ears with his red-shirt propaganda, I had thought that he was at least pleasant.

Now I regard him as a fool.

‘You’re a foreigner. I want to tell you about the red shirt cause so you can spread the word to other farang,’ he said.

‘No, thanks. I don’t want to know,’ I said.

He carried on regardless, and would not be stopped, no matter what anyone else tried to say.

His diatribe lasted 10 minutes. He came up for air briefly, and started again.

‘I am a local leader of the red shirt movement,’ he said, showing me a laminated entry pass.

So what?

The odd thing is, he sells good fish. So why can’t he stick to it?

Being part of the red shirts gives his life meaning which it lacked previously.

I know what that's like. Having Ball as part of my life supplements the meaning of my own dull existence.

Which cause is worthier? I suppose that depends on what we do with it.
-

Ball spent most of the next day away from home, probably with his staple friend of the moment, carer R.

Mum called me in early afternoon to say Ball was back, looking thirsty and restless. But by the time I arrived, he had gone out again, leaving his girlfriend at home looking miserable.

That morning, they had been out together on the family motorbike for a noodle.

‘Are you getting on better?’ I asked her.

‘I’m indifferent,’ she said.

The previous day, she spent an hour cleaning the uniform which Ball wears to work as a security guard in Silom. He wore it two nights last week after work, as he played Songkran with his friends.

It was still stained with powder which revellers smear on each other as part of the festivities. The marks were hard to get out.

Now, however, he had abandoned her to spend the day alone.

‘I am sure it will turn out okay,’ I said weakly. What else could I do?

Ball had dumped her at home, as he went out to indulge his best friend, the brown stuff.

Mum called me again early last night. Ball had arrived home about 5pm, and headed straight for bed, just as he had the night before.

He was under the weather, and could do nothing but sleep.

I don’t know how to break this cycle. Maybe I should suggest a visit to his local temple?

Jay is one of the best things going in Ball’s life, but if he’s not careful, he could lose her.

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.