Signs of thawing

Dream is thawing out slowly, but still hasn’t brought himself to speak.

Instead, he comes out for a look at me, every night when I turn up after work.

He will appear at his mother’s drinking table outside their place, and sit for a few minutes. If I take a toilet break inside his house, he has gone to bed by the time I return.

It’s like this every night. The moment I turn away, he has vanished.

This farang still enjoys springing the occasional surprise, even though I am supposed to be on best behaviour.

I gave everyone a small start the other night when I invited my best friend and erstwhile 'son', Mr Ball, to join the table.

Ball lives in a slum next to my condo. Dream and his family live five minutes away, in a different slum setting on the other side of a railway line.

I had told Ball the story of my new family, and how Mr Dream, since our argument a couple of months ago, refuses to talk to me.

Ball never turns down an opportunity for a drink, so arrived promptly on his motorcycle on the night I called.

My young friend is working as a motorcycle hire guy at the local market, though presented himself without his regulation orange vest on, I was pleased to see.

‘I went home to see Nong Min first,’ he said, referring to his daughter.

Ball parked his motorcycle in front of Dream’s place. I poured him a drink, and introduced him to Laem, a messenger in the area.

Ball, who has worked as a messenger previously, asked Laem about his job.

As he spoke, I applied mosquito repellent to Ball’s bare legs. Ball, aware adults at the table were watching, politely brushed my hand away.

Half an hour later, Dream turned up after his football game. He noticed I had brought along a guest, and, when he wasn’t strutting bare-chested around our little group, gave Ball sidelong stares.

Ball was just as curious, as he wanted to know about this young man who has entered his farang friend’s life.

‘You have helped me with many things since we met more than three years ago,’ Ball said.

‘Dream doesn’t want financial help, but does appear to want me in his life,’ I replied.

I told Ball about the day I had sent Dream a text message asking for a new start – and Dream promptly shut the door in my face.

‘He has no right to do that to you,’ Ball said. ‘His reaction is extreme.’

Neither Ball nor Dream spoke to the other, and 90 minutes later, Ball excused himself and went home.

Ball, who is a responsible dad, returned to help his girlfriend Jay look after their daughter and the other three kids of the household.

I doubt he was interested in staying anyway. The adult conversation was dull, as it usually is. When a young girl ran past us, Ball said she reminded him of Min.

Dream himself stayed with us about half an hour, then went up to his bedroom.

He can spend hours up there, where he is often joined by his friend Ott, a polite lad with a happy smile who lives down the alleyway.

Ott sees much more of Dream than I do, though there are no surprises there…we don’t talk.

His girlfriend, who I have yet to meet, pays an occasional visit. Otherwise his life appears to consist of little other than work, football, and sleep.

Dream confides regularly in Aunty Lek, his mother’s best friend. She in turn tells me what the boy is saying. 

Thanks to Lek and Dream’s mother, Orng, I am getting to know my young friend...and all without speaking a word.

When Ball showed up at the table, Aunty Lek, who sits next to me, gave me a pained look, as if to say, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Dream has been playing with my head for weeks, refusing to talk and playing hard to get. I brought Ball along to show him that I do have other people in my life, and I am not solely dependent on him for company,’ I said.

‘I want to show him that two can play his game. If he serves a ball at me, occasionally I will return it.’

Lek smiled and said he understood. ‘I don’t know what Dream will think about it, though,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry about him. If he’s old enough to play games with me, he’s old enough to get it,’ I said.

A night earlier, as he mulled ending the big freeze he has imposed on our relationship, Dream told Lek he was worried about rejection should he take up with me again.

‘Farang Mali must meet many people in his life. One day he will find someone new and forget about me,’ he said.

Lek assured him that I stand by the ones I love.

‘He wants to love you as a dad, not a boyfriend,’ she said.

Dream barely knows his real father, who left the family shortly after Dream was born. They do not keep in touch.

Lek and Orng have shared details of young Dream’s family history. Orng has showed me her wedding pictures, and images of Dream as a child.

For my part, I opened up about young Ball, and the journey we have passed over the past three years since we met at a rundown ya dong stand close to my home.

Just as I am busy harvesting information, so is Dream keen to know how I feel about him.

A day after I invited Ball to join us, Dream asked Lek who my friend was – couched in unflatteringly direct teen speak.

‘Are they seeing each other?’ he asked.

Lek assured him this was not the case.

‘Farang Mali once looked after Ball as a son. Now Ball has grown up, and has his own girlfriend, job and family. He no longer needs Mali as a dad. They have entered a new phase of their relationship, and are best friends,’ Lek said.

‘I don’t care who he brings,’ Dream sniffed, clearly put out, as I knew he would be, that I had invited someone he regards as a rival for my affections. 

And so the game plays on.

Dream likes having me around. The first inkling I had of a change in my young man’s attitude was the week before.

‘Has anyone invited Mali to the wedding?’ he asked Lek one night. A neighbour, Sun, has invited us to her daughter’s wedding next month.

‘They have, and he’s coming,’ Lek replied.

‘Is he coming tonight?’ he asked.

‘He comes every night,’ Lek said.

Don’t think, however, that Dream is an innocent in this relationship stage play of ours. He is just as skillful at playing games as I am.

‘Is Mali deceiving you, drawing close so he can get access to me, or is he here as a genuine friend?’ he asked his mother.

While Dream has been in no talkies mode, I have struck up friendships with many of the others in his family’s circle.

Unlike most of the locals who gather there every night – many of whom talk a lot, but do not really enjoy a close relationship with Orng or Lek, the emotional mainstays of the gathering – I am now regarded as an insider.

Dream, wearing his cynical young person’s head, wanted to know if I had merely ingratiated myself with his family and friends simply to claim him as my boyfriend.

‘I take people as I find them, and Mali seems fine to me,’ Orng replied calmly.

Thank you. While Dream might be attractive, and my desire to enter his life strong, I have no longing in that direction.

‘I imagine I will know Dream for years,’ I told Aunty Lek. 

‘Our relationship will pass through many phases, just as Ball and I have done," I told her. 

If I get to know this young man better, it will only be because Lek and his mother approve. It will be a friendship conducted in public, or at least under the gaze of those who matter most in his life.

This is why my efforts to redeem myself during this early phase are so important. I have to show Orng, Lek and Dream that I am still a worthy candidate. If I pass their character test, they can clear me for the next stage in our adventure.

‘Mali has made efforts to correct his behaviour,’ Orng's elder brother, a senior policeman, told Dream one night.

‘Everyone at the table is rooting for you and Dream to get together again,’ Lek told me later. We seldom talk about it at the table, but everyone knows we are estranged.

‘Does he know how I feel about him?’ I asked Lek, in what is perhaps my most important question since this saga began.

‘He knows you love him, but is still trying to get over his anger,’ she said. ‘You swore at him, and it hurt him deeply.’

So, bring it on, I say. If you want me to be daddy, step up; or if it's an older friend you want, I can do that too. 

I have rehearsed conversations in my head with Dream, ready for the day he wants to speak again.

Given the many head dramas and sleepless nights this family has put me through in recent times, it will have to do for now. I hardly have energy for anything else.

Castles in the air

Dream and a friend turned up at home after their weekly football game.

I might be imagining these things, but I thought I detected a wave of hostility when he spotted me next to his mother.

We were seated at a wooden table which also serves as a local gathering point outside her home.

His teen anger rises before my eyes like a vapour cloud, but disappears just as rapidly, or so I like to think.

All teens like an audience, and we hadn’t seen each other a couple of days. I follow him around with my eyes. While he is careful to avoid my gaze, he knows I like to watch, and appears to get used to my presence.

Dream’s mother Orng, and her best friend, Aunty Lek, are attentive hosts. They ask me to sit next to them, as they know I have nothing in common with the rougher men folk.

I rarely talk to the others, unless they throw a comment in my direction. Lately I take a book or magazine with me to kill time.

I prefer the company of the women folk, and the younger ones – Dream, his cousin Dear, messenger Laem.

The others are middle-aged, and talk about typical male stuff…gambling, football, encounters with a mutual friend at the local 7-11.

The women folk joke about a lot. Disappointingly, they rarely talk about the things I normally associate with the fairer sex, such as family. or feelings. Money is prominent in most conversations, probably because no one seems to have any.

When I turned up the other night, Uncle Mee, a driver, was building a wooden stall for Orng.

As I watched the box-shaped structure taking shape – complete with its own recess on the top in which a cooking wok will sit – I marvelled at how easily men can make things out of nothing.

The waist-high structure looked simple enough, but I know I could never put a hammer, nail and wood together to create anything with such apparent ease. I admire them for it.

Uncle Mee is unusual in that he can combine practical skills such as carpentry with creative skills such as cooking. He is the resident cook every night, churning out one Thai dish after another.

One woman who I don’t recognise took over cooking duties last night, transforming a fresh fish and Thai herbs which Mee bought at the local market into a delicious dish of tom yum pla (fish soup) in less than half an hour.

Dream’s mother is just as clever at whipping up great Thai food. Again, how do they do it?

But men will be men. They might be good with their hands, but when it comes to the finer art of conversation…

I have tried listening, I really have. It seldom works. The result of the latest Man U clash is about as interesting to me as a cup of sick. Yet it is the abiding passion of most men folk at the table.

Dream disappeared inside to take off his football shirt. He took a seat at the table a moment later to commence the earnest business of laying a football bet. He consults his cellphone and a list of the big games of the day.

He and the other guys have entered a gambling pool. They predict the scores of various games, shell out their money, and send off one of the youngsters on a motorcycle to place their bets.

I am often asked if I follow English football. ‘I played team sports when I was young; now I just jog and swim,’ I tell them. 

Most appear happy with that answer. They can see I have grey hair, so can hardly be expected to run around a playing field.

I withdraw from the male-driven activity at the table to indulge my own fantasies, such as when angry Dream might finally agree to be civil.

The men have an annoying habit of shouting when they could speak in moderate tones and still be understood. What is it, the excitement of the moment?

Their conversation is so dull that it leaves the field wide open for the women of the household to indulge their feminine side, or so you would think.

They could take advantage of a small pause in a conversation about the closing moments of last week’s riveting Man U game to talk about their latest makeup purchase from the supermarket, or some cooking discovery they have made.

But no. No one bothers with the make-up here, still less the scent. Often I wonder if the women are trying to compete with the men for the mantle of rugged Thai.

Perhaps they are too busy trying to keep their families together. While men indulge their interest in booze, gambling and women, their other halves are left carrying the baby, so to speak.

‘I give P' Noi B200 a day,’ Orng told me, referring to her husband, who runs an ice factory and delivers bags of ice for a living.

‘If he gets carried away at the table, he will spend the lot on gambling or booze. The next day, all his money has gone, and he has to go without meals,’ she said.

‘Men are like that,’ I said, trying to console her.

‘Dream isn’t!’ she retorted, as quick as a flash. Dream has a reputation for salting money away. He might put out B20 baht on a bet, but he knows he still has B80 left in his pocket to put away for a rainy day.

I feel sorry for Dream, having to grow up in such rough surroundings. But I know he doesn’t need my pity, still less my conversation.

Today, Orng heads off by bus to a city market to buy cooking supplies.

She wants to sell khao kaa moo (pork shank with rice) as a sideline to her regular kuay thieo (thai noodles) offering.

Uncle Mee built the stall for her so she could start her new venture. ‘No one on our side of the market sells it,’ she said.

‘I like salted fish,’ I said, apropos of nothing.

Orng offered to buy me some at the market, and told me to come and get it later today.

That might give me another chance to see my young man before I go to work tonight. On the other hand, why obsess? These are just regular, everyday encounters.

Orng appears happy to have me around, declaring before the table last night that we were ‘close’.

The matronly women at the table know I would like to do some clucking myself, over young Dream. It doesn’t appear to bother them, as they have decided I pose no threat.

As for the wild young man himself, I might be able to get through to him one day. 

His birthday is coming up, and before that, we have a family wedding to which I have been invited. For now, I just keep my distance, and watch.

Skirting around Dream dramas

A kathoey in the local 7-11 gave me a tiny heart sticker to mark Valentine’s Day.

I promptly attached it to my chest, the same place I saw him wearing his.

The kathoey looks identical to another youngster I remember at the 7-11 a few months ago.

I thought he had left to turn himself into a woman, and come back again, but no.

The kathoey is actually the other lad’s twin.

The first lad, a young man who liked to wear his hair pulled back on his head, but is nonetheless straight, left the 7-11, and has since returned to the provinces.

His twin, the kathoey, has turned up in his place at the same 7-11 branch.

They look alike but are in fact different people. The kathoey, while trying to change his sex, still looks more man than woman.

Sitting outside Nong Dream’s home the other night, the adults at the drinking table told me the story of the kathoey and his twin. Don’t ask me how they know, but they do.

‘The straight one argued with Ae Dream,’ said Dream's mother, Orng.

'Ae' is a designation which Thais place in front of names to show they are familiar with the owner, and perhaps know him too well.

So 'Ae Dream' is no stranger to arguments.

That’s good to hear. I always suspected he was a hot head.

Since Dream and I argued on the phone more than a month ago, he has yet to talk to me.

My heart jumps a beat when I hear him speak, though I can't tell you why.

We go through a tedious but intense ritual where we cross each other’s paths many times a night, but he to acknowledge my presence. He won’t even look at me.

I am tiring of the lack of progress on the Dream front, especially as I have struck up friendships with many others there. We are getting to know each other’s quirks and foibles, the way friends do.

Many of those who gather at the table are friends of Orng, Dream’s mother. Orng sells noodles at the front of the slum by day. She gets up at 5am to go to the market before she opens her stall.

When I ask why she bothers drinking every night when she could be in bed, she says: ‘My elder brother comes, so I feel we should entertain him.’

Orng is one of four children, she tells me. Her older brother works at police HQ, and seems well regarded. He also owns a nearby karaoke joint where Orng likes to sing.

A younger brother, Tong, lives just around the corner and drops in for food. He rarely bothers talking, just walks in, helps himself, and leaves again.

Tong and I exchange Line messages. He is always bare-chested, but is smarter than he looks.

I also exchange Line messages with Dream’s elder cousin, Dear, a graceful young man who is eager to learn farang ways. I talk to him in English and am keen for him to make progress.

Dear boasts of being a Casanova. I ask his sometime-resident girlfriend, Tom, why she puts up with it. ‘I like to play around myself. I was once talking to seven guys at the same time. They knew about each other, and didn’t mind.’

She and Dear have been going out a year. ‘That’s a long time, but I was getting sick of meeting new men only to find they didn’t have much going for them,’ she told me.

I have yet to meet Dream’s girlfriend Teuy, but doubt I’ll get that privilege in a hurry. She visits only occasionally, as she is busy in the provinces.

Another regular visitor is messenger Laem, a football fan who knows the words to whatever Thai song I happen to play on my smartphone, and encourages me to sing with him.

I have also met two or three friendly teens in the area, one of whom, Ott, took off his shirt the other night to show me his ornate body art.

On the adult front, I have taken Orng out to lunch at a city department store with two of her middle-aged woman friends. I intended to take Orng alone, to buy a birthday present for her husband, P' Noi.

When they heard I intended to take Orng out to lunch, two of her friends invited themselves along. That bumped up the bill to about B1,000, but never mind.

I managed to pull out of an excursion to her brother’s karaoke joint last week, as I didn’t fancy the idea of singing along to luk tung (Thai country) music with Ohm and her mates.

While I am fond of Orng, some of her friends are rough.

In short, despite the occasional misunderstanding, we get along well. I suspect I am so well known to them now that they gossip about me in my absence as they do everyone else.

'Ae Mali...' they will say.

The men at the table appear to think I am gay, though I try to steer conversation off the topic.

I get along best with the younger ones, as I always have. Things are going well with everyone except Dream.

Mr Frosty shows signs of softening. The adults at the table know we fell out and tease Dream about it.

 ‘Why don’t you talk to farang Mali?’ Uncle Pooh, a driver, asked.

That was forward of him. Most prefer to skirt around the awkward silences, if they mention them at all.

Pooh, a prankster, made sure he was running away from the table as he said it, as he didn’t want to be around in case moody Dream lost his temper.

‘Mali, we never know if you are happy when you are here, as you seldom say anything,’ another remarked, as Dream was picking over some food at the table.

 ‘I am forbidden from speaking,’ I said, referring to Dream. ‘But it’s no problem. I am happy to wait.’

Dream heard our exchange, but stayed silent as he always does. At least he doesn't openly complain about my presence.

  

If he had told his mother he doesn't like me there, it would have ended long before now.

Oh, well. I am pleased I can get along with others in the neighbourhood, even if I can’t get along with the angry one.

Dream’s the only reason I ended up with that crowd, but now is fading into the fabric like everyone else. Some days I feel tenderly towards him, others I don't want even to look at his angry face.

The top of his body is growing at a slower rate than the bottom. He can rarely sit still, as his wild teen hormones drive him mad. On top of that, he is growing an angry moustache.

God, why? You look hostile enough as it is.

When I am with Orng and her friends, I seldom ask about Dream, as I believe a code of silence is best. If he thinks I am showing an interest, he might clam up again.

I am now a spectator to the many busy lives in that small slum soi. It can get uncomfortable, as Orng’s friends tease me for liking men.

They suspect I have gay tendencies, based on the way I speak, or my body language. No one asks, but what's the point?

‘Did you like the kathoey at the 7-11?’ Uncle Daeng asked when I told him the story about my Valentine's sticker.

A former teen rebel born to Muslim parents, Daeng, 50, lives down the way with three kids.

  

 Of course I did. They already know the answer, or they wouldn’t ask.

Orng is fond of me, as I spend more time chatting to her than anyone else.

I buy noodles from her stand every day before work. ‘Are they tasty?’ her friends ask when I drop in on my way home from work.

Of course they are. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t ask.

So our lives tick on. I am not sure where the journey is taking us, but being privy to each other’s day to day dramas is enjoyable enough while it lasts.

Punctured dreams

‘You spoke strong words with him, and Dream’s parents have not brought him up to hear such language.’

That was Aunty Lek, advising me on my estranged relationship with young Dream, who has barely spoken to me since I swore at him on the phone two weeks ago.

Dream, 18, an only child, lives in a basic slum home, watches football and boxing, whizzes about on a motorbike, and enjoys computer games.

He is a typical growly Thai youngster, you would think, and yet apparently not.

When I called that fateful morning, I didn’t know my closing words as our argument intensified –  ‘go fuck yourself!’ – would have such widespread repercussions.

Dream had started to draw close to this middle-aged foreigner in his family’s life, and was startled when I responded with such hostility –  at least, that's the way Aunty Lek tells the story.

He called me back to unleash a swear word or two of his own.

‘Ai hiya!’ he said, though as he uttered the words I thought he sounded uncertain or at least unconvincing, as if he doesn’t part with curses that often.

When I heard how much he really wanted to swear, but couldn’t, I felt sorry for him, and tried to apologise. Unfortunately, Dream was having none of it.

Aunty Lek, who recalls Dream’s shocked reaction, knows we are both upset about what happened.

 ‘You were making good progress, but when you swore at him, you went back to zero,’ she said.

Well, that’s sad, especially given the amount of effort I had put into our friendship. At the time, I was calling him daily, and sending him text messages of encouragement as he grappled with work, health and family problems.

I saw his mother much more often than I did Dream. She told me about his life, and I sent messages to let him know I was thinking of him.

Isn’t that what foster dads do?

Naturally, Dream grew sick of it, but rather than tell me, simply started ignoring my calls.

‘When you swore at him, Dream was stressed with work,' Lek said.

‘You shouldn’t try so hard. Just let these things take their course.’ 

I had joined the drinking circle which gathers outside their home almost every night. Aunty Lek, who has just lost her job as a cleaner across town, is a mainstay of the gatherings.

Dream’s mother, Orng, and Uncle Mee, a middle-aged driver who likes to cook, prepare one Thai dish after another on the family’s gas cooker.

Half a dozen adults gather at the table, mainly friends of Dream’s mother. We were joined by a boisterous young messenger, Laem, and Dream’s cousin, Dear, who has just started work at a shipping company in Silom.

Orng's husband, P' Noi, who celebrates his birthday tomorrow, slept on the couch by the front door.

The conversations outside have a dreamy quality, probably because I do not follow most of them, and contribute only when prompted.

Plenty of the chatter is funny, and I laugh when I can.

Lek, who casts glances in my direction to see if I am enjoying myself, can see I am troubled despite the outward show of happiness. She wants to help ease my mind.

I hadn’t mentioned Dream; I rarely do any more, as no one wants to hear it. In the early days, I would follow his every movement, ask him if he had eaten, tell him to wear more clothes, and fuss about him like an old hen.

I just wouldn‘t leave the poor kid alone.

That only underlined an impression at the table that I was chasing Dream. One or two elders passed jokes about how he would make a good wife for me, though I should be wary of his sharp tongue.

‘I hope you don’t want to take Dream as your husband,’ his mother said one day over New Year. We had known each other just a day or two.

Orng's question might have sounded sweeter if she had said ‘wife’, but she must have figured that in any such coupling, Dream would have to be the manly half of the relationship. She’s a proud mum after all!

Her concerns were underlined when, at a gathering on New Year's Eve, a drunken woman turned up and all but accused me of being gay.

‘There’s only one reason he’s here, and it’s because he’s interested in the young men,’ she slurred, referring to me.

I didn’t remember this woman, but she knew me. She wanted to speak to me in English and tell me what a ratbag I was.

‘You walked past me in the slum one day and I offered you a drink. You refused it,’ she snarled.

So what?

‘I was seeing a German who treats Thai women with disrespect. When my slum home was destroyed in a fire, he refused to help,' she said, referring to some foreigner she knew.

‘He told me he thinks we just want to sell ourselves and are not interested in real love.’

Okay, so how do I come into it?

‘When you refused my drink, I thought you were just like him. And when I saw you here with these young guys, I realised you don’t like Thai women at all,’ she said, challenging me to kiss her.

I shifted in my seat away from her aggressive, drunken advances. ‘See, there you are!’ she exclaimed. ‘He can’t do it. That proves it. He's g…g…’’

She wouldn’t utter the ‘gay’ word, as she didn’t want to embarrass the table.

I didn’t know how to cope with this woman, just as I didn’t know how to handle the Dream challenge.

I tried ignoring her. When that didn’t work, I snapped at her, and belittled her with high-level English I knew she wouldn’t understand. The conversation at the table came to a sudden, awkward halt.

In the end, I decided to be civil. She told me again why she was upset, and we parted friends. I managed to overcome my screaming gay genes to give her the public kiss and cuddle she craved. She apologised to Dream’s mother, and staggered home.

I haven’t seen her since, but Aunty Lek recalls our blistering conversation well.

‘People should come here as family, not looking for a partner,’ she said matter-of-factly.

Was that aimed at me?

‘Is that what people really think, that I want Dream to be my boyfriend?’ I asked.

I haven’t told anyone I live with a Thai guy, but some things require no explanation.

Do Thais care that much anyway?

As we spoke, young messenger Laem leapt up from the table to chase a kathoey he knows down the slum alleyway.

‘When he was at school, his name was Sonchai,’ he pronounced, denying he was trying to squeeze her breasts. Nimble Sonchai managed to escape his grasp.

Back to Aunty Lek and my little Dream drama.

‘I don’t think Dream’s mum thinks that way, but it's best if you treat everyone as family,’ she said.

‘Don’t buy him things, as money is not important. Dream has enough.’ 

I had offered Dream a watch, as I knew he broke his in a recent motorcycle accident.

Lek knew about the watch, and the day I asked if he wanted any new clothes.

Dream must tell his Mum, who passes this news on to Lek.

Those are the only two gifts I had offered him, but the message from Aunty Lek is that such generosity is unnecessary.

She also knew about a text message I had sent him a few days before in which I told Dream I missed him and wanted him back in my life.

‘Don’t tell him how much you want things. Take things easy. Buy gifts for his mother and P' Noi instead. When he sees how much you care for them, and you do, he will come around. It will take time to win his confidence…you can’t rush it,’ she said.

Earlier that day, Dream had shut the door in my face.

I was walking past his place on my way to work, and through the open door to their home saw him sitting in the living room with his mother. My young friend, at home for his lunch break, was playing with his smartphone.

‘Dream…Dream…,’ I said at the doorway, trying to get his attention.

Dream pretends he can’t hear, as our relationship is now officially dead. ‘Don’t you want to talk?’ I asked.

‘No, I don’t,’ he said, springing to his feet. ‘We’re over. Go!’ he said, shutting the door in my face.

His mother sat there saying nothing, as usual.

I went to work in a state of shock. My text message, which took two days to write, lay in tatters.

I contemplated giving up the fight, but decided against.

Later that night, I stubbornly turned up at Dream’s place, and took my seat at the table next to Lek.

Dream arrived home from work shortly after. We pretended not to see each other.

He took a wash, made a brief bare-chested appearance at the table to joke with some of the adults, and took off on his motorbike for a meal across the way.

When his mother started checking the motorcycles entering the lane after 10pm, I knew she was thinking about her son.

She called him. Dream said he was eating moo krata with friends, and assured his mum he wasn’t drinking.

Orng reported the news to the table. By the time I left half an hour later, my angry young friend still hadn’t returned.

‘You’ve done well tonight,’ Lek assured me. ‘You’re here as family. You’re not making a fuss. You can go home and sleep easy.’

Aunty Lek was right. For the first time in days, I slept without worrying about the harm I did to this young man’s simple hopes that we might be friends.

He doesn’t want anything from me, and I am not in a position to give it. We’re just family, apparently, and if that doesn’t work, we should go our own ways. Aunty Lek, perhaps acting on behalf of Dream’s mother, has tugged me back into line.

Lek suggested I buy a patterned shirt for Dream’s dad on his birthday tomorrow, which I will do.

His Mum, who has decided to give me another chance despite the drama over her son, sent me home with some of her home cooking. 

Two days before, I gave her and her husband some Christmas cake which my mother sent from overseas.

The last time I saw Lek, my feelings about Dream’s rejection were still raw. I told her to keep out of my problems. She, too, is giving me another chance, even though I know she must be worried about the loss of her job.

They think I can do better, despite my silly mistakes.

What an astonishing crowd. I hardly deserve it, but I will take the opportunity they are offering me, and see where we go.

The grease-stained love pit

Dream now has his upstairs bedroom back, after his girlfriend re-entered his life.

Dream’s mother told me the girlfriend was back when I dropped by last night for a quick drink.

I seldom see Dream except on weekends, as he is in bed by the time I finish work in mid-evening, or out playing computer games.

I had accepted that I would hardly see him, as he does not enjoy hanging around home, where his mother and father drink nightly with their noisy friends and neighbours.

However, I did not expect Dream would be quite so complacent about keeping in touch by phone.

The first couple of times I called, he answered, and filled me in with news about his day.

Dream works as a messenger for a local shipping company but has grand plans to enter importing. He has a marketing certificate, and plans to continue his studies this year.

In the past week or so, I have called and he didn’t answer.

I send text messages, often prompted by snippets of information his mother has given me about her son’s day-to-day goings on, only to get no response.

I tired of his lack of interest, and told him so when I tricked him into answering the phone one day. I called him on a number he does not recognise as mine, and he answered.

‘What do you think you are doing, ignoring my calls?’ I demanded, swearing at him.

 ‘When you are sick, I worry. When you have problems at work, I worry again. Your mother tells me these things about your life, but when I call, you ignore me.’

Yes, I wanted to know where I stand…was Dream really that keen on having me as a foster dad, as he claimed at New Year?

But really, I wanted to know if I should bother spending time with someone who clearly has bigger plans.

‘You have no right to talk to me like that. You are someone from my home life. When I am at work, I focus on answering work calls,’ he said.

'Many people enter my life. I am not dependent on you, and can pick and choose,' he said confidently.

What an odd thing to say. Thai men like to say they can pick and choose by way of a boast when they are discussing their appeal to the opposite sex.

‘I think basic manners would dictate that you tell me if you are busy, even if it’s just a text message,’ I retorted.

We parted on bad terms, with Dream throwing a few slummy swear words at me for good measure.

I called later to apologise, but Dream was having none of it. 'So I get only one chance...I make one mistake, and that's it?' I asked.

'I don't like people abusing me. I want to end our friendship. If you go past my place in future, don't bother saying hello,' he asked.

Later that morning, I dropped in to see his mother, Orng, who was selling noodles at her stall in a small market which fronts the slum.

‘You can’t talk to Dream that directly,’ she said. ‘He is hot-tempered, and refuses to listen.’

Dream was sitting with his mother when I called earlier that morning and we had words. He stormed off.

'I know better than to follow him when he's like that. In time, he comes back and we can have a rational discussion about whatever's troubling him,' she said.

‘I am relaxed about your being in his life,’ Orng said frankly. ‘However, he won’t accept any help or gifts from you,’ she added.

When I went to see Orng an hour or so after Dream hung up in my ear, I turned up at her home first, only to find she was not there.

Dream’s cousin, Dear, was asleep with his girlfriend in the coveted upstairs bedroom, and answered the door.

‘Mali!' he said, looking surprised. 'Dream’s mum is selling noodles at her stand,’ he said.

I walked out to the small market on Phra Ram III Road and found Orng with a friend, serving customers. When she was free, I asked if we could talk.

It was the first time Orng and I have discussed my relationship with Dream, but probably comes too late to save our relationship, as I am sick of his casual and rather ruthless attitude.

I squeezed out a tear to show I care about her son. The spell worked. If Orng has doubts about whether her 18 year-old son should be seeing a middle-aged farang man, she managed to conquer them temporarily.

‘I will talk to him for you,’ she offered.

By the time I dropped in late last night, Orng had told Dream about my concerns.

He said he understood my point of view, and accepted my apology.

‘However, he spoke to me impolitely,’ he complained.

Better news, from my point of view, is that Dream’s girlfriend is now back, after mysteriously dropping out of his life three weeks ago.

‘Don’t try to contact me over New Year, as I’m visiting the provinces with friends,’ she told Dream.

When he called, her phone was switched off, which made him suspicious she was seeing someone else.

They have been together six months. When I met Dream, he was missing his girlfriend and wanted someone to fuss over him, and I fitted the bill. In turn, he met my need to care for someone outside home.

In the first couple of weeks, he took my calls, and was even eager to talk. He unloaded about work problems, and spoke about matters of the heart.

By week three, he had reached a hard-nosed turning point. 'My motorcycle is back from repairs after an accident,' he said.

Now he had his wheels back, he could be a fully fledged teen again.

That was also the last time we spoke by phone.

When I turned up last night on my humble bicycle, I found Dream’s mother and half a dozen friends, including Aunty Lek, drinking at the wooden table outside their home.

‘Dream is upstairs,’ Mum said, pointing to the lit window above.

Dream’s mother and her husband P' Noi sleep in one room, and Dream, alternating with his cousin Dear, in the other.

When I last wrote, Dear had commandeered the boys' bedroom, and booted Dream downstairs to sleep in the sitting room.

Dear’s own home is nearby, but he has a stormy relationship with his mother, Orng's elder sister. He prefers to live with Orng, even if sleeping space is at a premium.

Now I realise the bedroom actually serves as a grease-stained love pit, depending on who has a girlfriend with him at the time.

When Dear is in residence with his girlfriend, he gets the bedroom, and Dream sleeps downstairs. When Dream’s girlfriend turns up, they swap – or perhaps Dear goes home to his Mum’s.

No doubt they share the same pillows and duvet. God knows what their girlfriends think.

I looked grimly at the window above. The light was on. I couldn’t hear the sound of two people making love, but I could imagine it.

‘When Dream was in hospital after his motorcycle accident, his girlfriend sat by his bedside for a week,’ his mother volunteered.

I am not sure if she offered this information to assure me he is well looked after when the girlfriend is around, or to let me know I have no hope of competing with such an expert carer.

Dream wears a small steel rod in his wrist as a legacy of that accident. He will need an operation one day to have it removed.

‘She sells goods in town and visits him here at home three times a week,’ Aunty Lek chipped in.

What am I supposed to make of that…that the other four nights with Dream are mine?

No, thanks.

Lek is not a real ‘aunt’ at all, but has known Dream since he was a child.

A cleaner by day and permanent drinking fixture outside their slum home at night, I blame this emotionally manipulative woman more than anyone for suggesting this foolish idea that I should be Dream’s foster dad.

‘In future if you are passing by and I call you over for a drink, we can sit here just the two of us,’ Aunty Lek said, trying to console me.

What, at the loser’s table?

Again, no thanks.

‘I hope you are not ser-ee-ious,’ she said affectedly, borrowing the English. What she meant was, she hoped I was not thinking about my little Dream problem too much.

‘If I am ser-ee-ious about anything, it’s between Dream, his mother and me,’ I snapped.

'Okay, okay,' she said, finally getting the message that her painful meddling wasn’t welcome.

‘I am happy Dream's girlfriend is back,’ I told Orng, thanking her for intervening on my behalf.

Two minutes later, knowing my job there was done, I left.