We've seen better days (part 1)

Down by the pier in Pin Khlao

A trip to my old drinking haunt in Pin Khlao, my first in 11 years, was a little sad.

Mum's shop as I knew it looks just as it did in the updated Google street view pics I posted here about six months ago, only more rundown, if that's possible. Out of deference to fonder memories of times past, I did not take any new pics. Too depressing; locals would wonder why I bothered.

I appear to be bidding farewell to my Bangkok life, perhaps in anticipation of retiring to the provinces, which we hope to do when I come of age in the next three years or so. But I know the move won't be that tidy; nothing ever is.

I took a motorcycle taxi from our place in Yannawa, which cost 160 baht and took 20 minutes.

I went to Mum's little shop in Pin Khlao, at the turnoff to Wat Daowadueng, as I wanted to see what had happened to it since I saw it last.

I did not expect to meet Mum, as the last time we spoke many years ago, she had parted ways with her husband. She ran a food card in the area, and he was running their shop during the day.

Now Mum's shop itself, as I knew it, only opens now at night. When I dropped by, it was closed.

I chatted to a couple of staff from the eatery next door to Mum's old shop, which Mum and her husband also once owned, in fact, but which presumably is now in someone else's hands.

I remember Bom, one of the staff there, from my old days in Pin Khlao. He brought me up to date with Mum's news.

Mum herself has moved back to Kalasin, and her husband now works in the Phra Ram 8 area along with their son, he said.

Mum's shop, where I spent many hours at the peak of my nighttime frolics in Thon Buri some 15 years ago, was shuttered, with no signs of life. It is run in the evenings by Mum's younger sister, who in this blog I called Isra.

Isra, at the shop (LINE)

Back in those days she was going out with a foreigner, a young painter from the north of England who I knew and called in this blog farang J. 

He visited Thailand every few months when he would spend a few weeks with Isra's family in Kalasin and the rest of his time in Pin Khlao (for a selection of our tales together, see here, here, here and here).

Mum and her husband, a former army man, settled in Bangkok years before to run the shop and raise their son, who I once taught English but has now left school.

Isra helped them run the shop when they were still together, and occasionally, during school breaks, bring her kids with her to Bangkok (her own son has since left us, sadly: see here).

Today, she is still there, Mum and her husband having moved on to other things. However, farang J is out of the picture, and Isra, once so keen on foreigners, is now seeing a Thai.

"She and her partner sell food, though the place only opens after 5.30pm," Bom said.

I left my phone number with Bom. He offered to pass it on to Isra, whom I did not get a chance to meet as I had come too early in the day.

Isra and I chatted on Line later that night, and I have since found her on FB, along with the shop itself, which now has a name (เคาร์เตอร์บาร์ ปิ่นเกล้า), and admittedly looks better after dark:

New look for Mum's shop (FB)

now, see here

Dream spell breaks (5, final)

Reprise: Teenage Dream left, and Lek, far right

Finally, more than four weeks later, I biked down Dream's soi on my way home. Since our bizarre conversation that night, I had chosen to avoid them by taking the long way back via the main road skirting their soi.

Dream was setting up a drinks table to welcome friends to another gathering. The ever-present Lek, sitting nearby, called me over. I dutifully stopped for a chat, and she immediately called out: "Dream, Mali's here!"

If the script played out correctly, he would come over and greet me before returning to his friends, and I would sit down with Lek and shout her a beer.

Lek was making explicit the link between her opening the door to Dream's renewed friendship, and my need to pay for her booze habit by way of thanks.

"I need a drink. Shout me a beer," she said.

Once happy to shell out for alcohol or even help the regulars there with various expenses (including Dream's tuition costs, unbeknown to him), I recoiled inwardly as I contemplated helping such a hard-boiled user.

Not content with the misery our first manufactured coupling caused, when she paired us as "father and son", more than eight years later she was trying to reboot it, in "estranged friends reunite" mode, again to her cynical advantage. 

Dream was party to this arrangement on both occasions, though first time round, I suspect, he was too young to understand. And where was his mother? As ever, a mute witness.

"No thanks, I am heading home," I said.

With that I peddled off and left her, before she or Dream could say another word.

She wore a sickly, disbelieving smile as this old bird perhaps realised that I am no longer in thrall to her cynical manipulations, or bewitched by the Dream spell.

He failed to deliver on his sales pitch, despite his marketing smarts, as she was left with nothing but her empty plastic drinking cup.

Lek was indeed a good friend to me in reuniting Dream and me for our first heart-to-heart. Our conversation showed me that I was foolish to spend so much time worrying about the friendship which could have been, and which in the heat of the moment, many years ago, I had destroyed. 

He's just a lad; an unusual one, granted, but no one I need to know.

He's also happy to be used by this old boozer Lek, even if it means conning this farang. I wonder what hold she has over him. 

Regardless, to the extent he really did want to be friends, he left his run too late. While I am relieved we were finally able to bury the hatchet, and grateful he gave me the chance to talk, I lack the energy to get to know him or his friends again.

Dream gave me a steely-eyed look as I arrived as he, too, perhaps realised that the game was over. I have not been back.

Rock on!

Dream spell breaks (4)

Dream, left, and some of his mates

A few minutes later I made my own excuses and left. As I hopped on my bike, Lek made sure that I knew that she was responsible for Dream approaching me that night: "I am such a  good friend to you," she said unconvincingly.

Right.

The next day, I met Dream briefly as I was heading home. Now we had moved our relationship into "friends" mode, I felt relaxed when I stopped my bike and exchanged a few words of greeting.

If he was embarrassed about his drunken magnanimity the night before, he didn't show it.

Over the next few weeks, as I tried to absorb what happened, I avoided Dream's place. He had invited me to celebrate his birthday during the Songkran festival, to seal our rebooted friendship, but I did not go. I felt annoyed that Dream was so happy to monetise our friendship at Aunty Lek's urging.

What if I was to take advantage of my new status as his "friend" and turn up at odd hours asking to see him, or crash his drinking circle? Before long we would argue and go back to where we started. 

As always, my access to him would be under the controlled conditions of his choosing, and presumably conditional on my playing the game: if Lek is there, I can stop for a chat with Dream, but only if I help pay for her booze.

The drinking circle outside Orng's house as I once knew it more than eight years ago is a shadow of its old self, beaten about by the passage of time, Covid, and the sad state of the economy.

His mother, who previously sold noodles in the market but now works as a cleaner on Rama IX Road, goes through moody phases when she won't talk; nor does she drink outside her place much any more, but keeps to herself indoors.

Some of the regulars who gathered there back in 2014 have moved away (Pee Mee, a fabulous cook), fallen ill (a practical joker known as Pooh), or died (Orng's younger brother, Tong, who beat her up in my presence one night).

Lek is one of the few stalwarts left, turning up faithfully day after day and rattling about in search of paying friends. 

I have seen her pick through plates of old food left on a table in the fetid darkness of a typical Bangkok night after almost everyone had left for home. Why does she do it?

Aunty Lek tells me she lives with five relatives, including a young nephew of whom she is fond. Why not spend her nights with them?

now, see part 5

Dream spell breaks (3)

Nearby Talad Penang, in Klong Toey

A touching assessment of my worthiness as a life partner followed.

'You would make a good partner," he said, "but Dream has no style," he added, referring to himself diminutively in the third person. By "style", I gather he meant that he was straight, so not a good match.

"Bring your partner around to meet us some time," he offered expansively. "And if you ever need a new one, get in touch."

Some idle conversation about work followed, with Dream noting that his boss is a foreigner, like me.

"He likes me because I speak my mind," he said, asking if I had met many other Thais like him in my travels.

"No, Dream, you are a one-off," I said confidently.

Commenting on why we have remained virtual strangers all these years, he said:  "I see you biking past but never said anything. I wanted you to be the first to talk," he said, explaining the absence of any greeting. I felt the same way, needless to say, but apart from that, it never felt right.

Finally we reached perhaps the strangest point in the evening, when Dream started a sales pitch on the virtues of drinking. Lek, I gather, had told him that I had quit alcohol and seldom sat at their table for long when I drop by.

This, of course, had to change.

If I am not shelling out to help cover the cost of the next bottle of whisky, as I did regularly in the past, regulars like Lek are forced to go dry. 

I suspect this is what prompted her to approach him, though I don't know the precise nature of the plea. Perhaps it sounded like this: "If you tell the farang you want to be friends, he might come back and start drinking again."

Orng's place is in a quiet alcove at the end of the soi. In years gone past, she could draw 30 or more drinkers on good evenings, including her elder brother, a DSI policeman, who was treated with great respect. 

Some regulars further down the feeding chain still come even without an invitation, as Orng's  place adjoins a community centre overseen by the soi committee. Some of that space around the spirit house outside his front door is regarded as common land. 

Some of her regulars - messengers, labourers and the like - are noisy drunks. I spotted one guy in recent weeks urinating on the front path running up to their place, just metres from the front door.

Surely Dream had grown sick of this riff-raff by now? Well, no, at least not on this occasion.

"People still gather here to drink at night," he began.

I chipped in to finish his sentence: '...making a lot of noise."

Naively, I thought he was about to complain about the drunken regulars who gather outside his house, depriving his family of that middle class eccentricity known as privacy and perhaps also interrupting his sleep.

Silly me. "People still gather here, and alcohol loosens people up nicely," he added. "My mum and Aunty Lek don't have many friends, so you are welcome to come back and keep them company as you did before."

I had heard enough. I suggested my young friend head inside for a shower and sleep. He smelled musty after drinking outside for hours.

By this time he had hugged me half a dozen times, and even kissed my neck, for which he sought my permission.

"Aunty Lek, please look after Mali," Dream, ever the generous host, said as he bade farewell.

now, see part 4

Dream spell breaks (2)

Back to Dream's effusive conversation opener - "I know you like me, but I don't want you liking me like that"  - I can't say I was too impressed.

I barely look at him in "that way": having Dream as a friend or even a younger brother-like figure would be enough. 

His assumption that I am addicted to his physical beauty and barely holding myself in check after all these years of suppressed excitement was a bit much. But in the shock of the moment, I did not have the smarts to react.

As for his offer, repeated many times that night, that "I am ready now to be your friend" - far from welcoming, it sounds more like he had to talk himself into it.

More surprises were to follow. "I want to say sorry for the way I spoke to you that day. A younger person should not swear at someone more senior. If I had let it go, we could have moved on," he said, referring to our argument when we cursed each other and he told me not to return to his house again.

"But I swore at you first, remember? it's only natural that you should respond in kind," I replied.

"Well yes, you did," he smiled, while insisting he still needed to say sorry.

"When will you forgive yourself?" I said. "It's no big deal. In fact, I quietly admired you for it. I didn't know Thais could be so outspoken."

Score one for Mali!

An odd teen-style bonding ritual followed, in which at his invitation we swapped Line app details so I could contact him should I ever run into trouble in the Land of Smiles.

"I can vouch for the people in the soi, but nowhere else," he said grimly.

He believes that as a foreigner in Bangkok, I must tread warily to avoid dark threats lurking around every corner. Dream and others in his mother's drinking circle have warned me many times over the years not to trust Thais (other than themselves, of course), and also seem sceptical about my partner.

"You must stop going into the community near your place," he said protectively, referring to the slum soi next to my home. "But if you ever get into trouble, just contact me on Line, and my friends and I will be there."

Dream has many mates, it is true, but this sounded too much like the Thai teen gang ritual where youths seeking to avenge wrongs committed by rivals in the neighbourhood go on the rampage. 

My young friend and I had our heart-to-heart standing by his front door. I was on my feet for the occasion, as I needed to be, as Dream offered me one warm embrace after another, and even a kiss.

Dream's mother, normally a quiet one with little to say, was next to me, along with Lek. They were perched at a small table outside their place which has been witness to many gatherings over the years. Though they said little, I suspect they were no less stunned than I was by Dream's behaviour.

My erstwhile "son" seemed unflustered by their presence as he unburdened himself, and in fact I wonder how much of it was intended for their consumption. Lek had approached Dream before I arrived, I was to learn later, asking him to break the ice with me.

Dream, who works for a freight forwarding firm in Wattana, likes to play the genial host. He was nothing if not a showman, slapping his mates on the back and farewelling them noisily as they headed off on their bikes. 

He also has a night-school qualification in marketing, I told myself, so perhaps all this performative drama is par for the course. But it still sounded odd.

"I also want you to know I was never angry with you after our row," he said, claiming that his mother would have shunned me from the drinking circle if he had really been upset.  "She sides with me if I take a dislike to anyone," he said.

"Never angry?" I thought. What about the time he slammed the door in my face? 

One day I tried to hand him a painfully composed note apologising for the way I had treated him. He threw it to one side and flung the door closed with disgust even as I stood there. Boom!

Once again I said nothing, for the most part simply watching as Dream's Mr Geniality act rolled on.

"I am happy when you bring your family here," he added, referring to the time I brought one of my sisters and her family, visiting me in Bangkok in April 2014, to Orng's place for lunch. 

She puts on a big meal for locals in the soi every year to mark her mother's passing, and that year, my family were special guests. 

Dream and I were still in no-talkies mode back then, so he made sure to sit with his friends with their backs pointed to me and my family rather than acknowledge their presence or, God forbid, interact.

now, see part 3