As I walked through the temple to the kitchen area where the women were gathered preparing the food for the evening offering and meal on the third and final day of my mother-in-laws funeral rites, I noticed uncle Nim sat on the floor of the kitchen with two other men. One in his usual farming garb was Daeng from the house opposite my mother-in-laws, with his easy smile. The other I didn’t know. He wore cleaner and more expensive clothes and had several baht of gold, which was hanging around his neck. His nails were clean and he was clean shaven. They were half way through three big bottles of Leo beer.
Continue readingTag: Writing (Page 1 of 3)
1970s
Tony was someone I knew at school. He was not what you may describe as a friend; he was not what you may describe as an enemy or even worse a nonentity. He was someone who was maybe friends of others in the group in which I mixed. He was someone who was always on the edges of what was going on. Tony was a quiet, and quite sensitive boy who mostly struggled in class and so meandered into the lower grades without being good at any of the sports the school concentrated on. He was also not one of the bullies or bullied, in fact he hated fights and violence. He was just Tony.
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I can’t remember if it was Hannington Point or…
Whatever. But I remember clearly the Vic had an all day licence and the spring weather, or was it summer or autumn or winter, was warm clear and fine. It was good to be sitting on the small grass verge outside the Vic drinking beer so early in the morning. And smoking.
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–Santa, the Man Mountain and a bottle of water called Virgin–
Today in the cold light of day, I saw Santa coming out of our building. I never knew he lived there. His white beard and white hair lining his ruddy face, but today unlike other days when I saw him in the coffee shop between the two vast condominium projects, his face shrunken and redder than ruddy, looking older and weather beaten, and it shrunk towards the centre in a way that plants shrivel if encountering hot water. But still his natural smiling face just visible within that vastly hungover look. Next to him his Thai wife looking fresh, or at least as fresh as anyone in her 50’s can look, with her down turned lip edges from a life of hard toil and stress, but today as always now, looking content with her lot.
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Andy and I sat around a small table close to the fire or fake fire in the large lounge of the George surrounded by people of all ages and backgrounds. We were quiet and enjoying the occasional memory of school or occasional exchange of work story or comment on the football. It was a warm inviting and relaxing environment fueled by the warmth of the fire and the background buzz of voices with the smell of cigarettes and the occasional cigar hanging in the air complete with the occasional blast of cold and wisp of mist when someone held the door open too long.
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Perpetual good or bad luck is something that seems to follow some people you meet on the traveler or expat circuit. It is not something all or even many possess, but a few seem to just be gifted or cursed with it.
Bernard was not a lucky man. Maybe not as unlucky as British Steve, but unlucky nevertheless. Nearly everything he did turned to disaster. Now some will say that luck – good or bad is something you make for yourself. And in Bernard’s case this may be true to some extent. Maybe it was his criminality that had an effect on this; maybe it was his belief in how smart he was that had an effect. It was true that Bernard thought he was smarter than most, and that he could always get one over on others. It was not, however, a trait that sprang to mind when others thought of Bernard whoever those others were. But one thing all would agree on, was that Bernard was unlucky.
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The freshly cut coriander roots smelt wonderful infusing the whole house with their virgin freshness as they awaited becoming some addition to a preplanned dish, and by doing so losing the extent of their odour, losing their power to totally overwhelm and becalm, losing their power to demand to be noticed but adding a more subtle hint of flavour, more of an afterthought, or reminder of something not fully known, but stirring in the back of the mind. A distant memory perhaps, or distant event, or maybe not distant, or something, just something that can’t be quite placed.
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It is almost two years now, and I suppose it is time to record the actual true events before they fade or my memory decides to exclude such things that don’t fit with preconceived and taught ideas typical of someone raised in the rational and heartless late 60’s and 70’s. It also seems fitting as I sit once more, where I did that day, on the raised dot mypai with a pencil and cheap paper notebook feeling the breeze from the small green fan as the heat of the summer rises once more past body temperature.
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… there she was again. Maybe thirty meters in front and about to round the corner.
Sudden surge forward. I couldn’t miss her this time. And yet there she was at the next corner about to take a right still thirty meters ahead. I was determined this time I would get level. A sprint and quick right, and where was she? Hold on, maybe to the left just the bottom of her long flowing coat. Another sprint and a left, and yes there thirty meters in front she was. I must be catching her as now; I could again see her. And another sprint but still after the next left, well twenty-five meters maybe. I was going to make it after all. Then she took a right. OK another sprint and this time only twenty meters away. I wanted to call out to her but…
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Gerry had issues; Gerry was haunted. Neither were going to ever go away. What actually caused the issues or haunting would never ever be known by anyone except Gerry. It is the natural way of some things.
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