Chalerm had said the first day I met him that he had no mother. She had left when he was small and he didn’t remember her.
But his father was still around. He had not contributed much to Chalerm’s upbringing. Chalerm was bitter because his father had neglected him. The boy was raised by his grandparents and the father would rarely visit him or help him.
The father was a handsome and charming man and popular with the ladies. Chalerm knew of three women his father had children with and Chalerm could remember a series of stepmothers. The current stepmother was the sixth.
In particular Chalerm had been sad when the father came to Anyburi but stayed with one of his wives and never visited his son or the grandparents. Chalerm only heard rumours of the father being in town. I thought this was heartbreaking. I could imagine Chalerm as a child sitting there outside the house, waiting for a father who never came.
While he was with me in Bangkok Chalerm had a dream in which someone took him to meet his mother. Chalerm took the dream seriously and wanted to go and look for her and his only full blood sibling, a sister who was a couple of years older than him. The boy had never met the sister either.
I was sceptical. I was afraid that whatever happened if he found her it would be a disappointment. My friends agreed. Mr. X had adopted a son from Father Brennan’s Orphanage in Pattaya. Years later Mr. X took the son back to the orphanage for a visit and the kid went crazy with fear and aggression as soon as they entered the building.
Another friend of mine, Mr. Y., was adopted as a baby and had never tried to find his real parents.
- It is just a daydream, said Mr. Y. Reality is going to hurt him. If the mother gave him up and never visited him again there is a reason for it.
I told Chalerm this. I could tell he had thought about this because he didn’t protest.
- Why have you not tried to find her before, I asked.
- I too young. And no have money.
But now Chalerm had money - my money. We set up a budget for his plan. There was a woman in his village who had known the mother when she gave birth to Chalerm. This neighbour knew the place the mother was from, in another province. Chalerm would ask this woman to be his guide. He had to compensate her for taking time off work, as well as give her reasonable pay for her trouble. Then there were bus, hotel, food, transport to the mother’s village and a gift to his long lost parent.
I wanted to go with the boy. This expedition sounded hazardous. What if the mother rejected him? What is she was a nasty person? I hoped for the best but my gut feeling was that this would not end well. I wanted to be with Chalerm in case there were any unpleasant events. I wanted to be near him and comfort him.
- I go alone, said Chalerm.
- Better if I am with you.
- No. When mother see me is ok. If see farang also too much.
I could not persuade Chalerm to let me come with him. And with his stepmother in mind I had to agree maybe it was best I stayed out of sight.
Tags: gay boy, gay Thailand