Gay Boy Thailand

- You did WHAT? asked Robert Miller on the phone.

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Duff left the Malaysia Hotel for a walk in the late afternoon. He was pondering his relationship with Noi.

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Duff was at Tesco Lotus, looking at music and movie players. Noi had said he wanted a portable one.

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Larson entered the building. He walked up the stairs to the offices and the teacher’s lounge. A couple of female teachers stood in the corridor talking to each other.
- Good morning, said Larson.
The two teachers stared at him.
- Good morning! said Larson again.
The women did not reply.

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- I am so full I can hardly move, said Peter.
- I am stuffed, said Duff.- I feel like a beached whale.
- It is your own fault, said Larson. - You should have said no when the German began talking about New Zealand lamb.

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Chalerm left for Anyburi and we agreed to meet there the day before school started.  

I went with Chalerm to the market in Anyburi and paid for his new clothes. He had a woman embroider his name on the shirts. When he put his new uniform on he looked smart. I felt a fatherly satisfaction, almost as if he was my kid on his first day at school.  
We stayed at the same hotel as last time. Chalerm didn’t want me to be in town too long.  

- Tomorrow when will you go to school, I asked him.

- 8am.

- What will you do there?

- Pay school and register.

- I will go with you then.

- No need. You can go Bangkok.

- Why?

- Many people look farang.

- And talk about you?

- Yes.  

I saw his point and didn’t want to embarrass him by showing up in the schoolyard. I could imagine how kids and teachers would stare if a farang, probably for the first time ever, came to enrol a student.  

I wasn’t worried about the stepmother. She was in Bangkok. Chalerm was capable of handling the rest on his own. When we were on the trip he had impressed me with his organising talent. Many Thai youths his age were easily lost or would mess up. But Chalerm was a bright and independent boy.  

The next morning I gave him the money for books and school and kissed him goodbye. Then I took the bus back to Bangkok.  
I wondered how I could keep in touch with him. His grandparents didn’t have a telephone. When I had asked him he had said I would not see him for a year. He could not call me and would not have time to go to Bangkok to visit me. I dismissed this as Thai drama and a test to see how I reacted. He liked to play these little games, partly to tease me, partly to hide his own feelings and partly to make me confirm that I cared about him by saying - Ooooh no! Too long. Broken heart. 

I was tired of staying at the Malaysia Hotel. And this hotel wasn’t the best place for Chalerm. I began walking the sois around Silom road, looking for apartments for rent. 

The boy was in school thanks only to his determination. He had no support from his family, who thought he should get a job instead. The only mildly supportive person was his grandmother, not so much for her belief in the value of education as for seeing how eagerly Chalerm wanted to continue in school with his friends.  
To pay for his school Chalerm had taken odd jobs. Work in the rice fields, the same as his grandmother did, was paid 100 baht a day. They got up at 5am and worked until sunset. One school holiday he had worked in a sweatshop. After two weeks of long hours he had made 1400 baht. But when neighbours, friends and relatives heard he had cash they all wanted it. To protect his school money Chalerm had to make himself unpopular by not sharing.  
This year Chalerm was supposed to pay for school with profits from the mat rental business. But his stepmother was in charge and not only was the money he had made in the park confiscated, so was the 2000 baht I had given him.  
The boy was crushed by what had happened and ill at ease about the unspoken request for more money.

- I am not angry with you, I said. But I am angry with your stepmother.

The boy didn’t say anything.

- But never mind. I will pay for your school. Now lets see what else you need.

Chalerm and I sat down on the bed. I got pen and paper.

- So school fee is 2000. How much for books?

- Maybe 1000 baht. Buy used. Is cheaper.

- How about school uniform?

- Have.

- Is it old? Do you need a new one?

- Is old. Five years.

The boy showed with his fingers on my shirt where his uniform was worn on the collar.

- A new uniform then.

Pants, two shirts, socks, shoes and a belt came to 1500 baht. Grand total was 4500 baht.  
After making our shopping list we went to bed. Chalerm had not expected an outcome like this and was both exhausted and relived. He held me tight through the night.  
The next morning Chalerm went back to the park to work and I called my usual advisor to tell him about the latest development. His boy Golf had returned since his last disappearance without any explanation or apology.  
- I told you the money would not last till school started, said Farang D.

- I consider it well spent.

- Why? Now you have to pay twice.

- It was cheap for finding out who I can trust or not.

- Are you sure it is true?

- It is like her. What a low trick. I swear I won’t give her another satang.

- How can you know she doesn’t take the money yet again?

- This time I am not giving it to the boy or the mother or anyone else. I am going to Anyburi with Chalerm to pay the school myself. 

Chalerm and I returned to Bangkok by bus. He went to his family in Chatuchack, I went to Sphinx in soi 4 to have dinner with Farang D. Farang D sat alone at a table with a suffering look on his face. His boyfriend Golf, the sweet and boyish 20something with the university education, was not there.  
- Where is Golf? I asked.

- I don’t know.

- He disappeared?

- We had an argument.

- About what?

- About who could use the computer first.

- When Thai boys make a fuss it is always about important issues, I said.

- It had been building up for a while. The computer was an excuse to make a scene.

- Again?

- He is improving. It is a month since last incident. It used to be every week.

- How long this time?

- Usually he will be gone for two or three days.

- Where do you think he is?

- I have no idea. He doesn’t answer his mobile phone. But he will come back. He will walk in as if nothing happened and neither of us will mention it again.

- They always come back.

- The trouble is we can never be sure of that.  
Farang D sent the fish back to the kitchen while I started my lemon chicken. The queeny waiter made a good act out of squeezing the lemon.  
- Congratulations, said Farang D. I hear you own a Thai family now.

- I don’t know about that.

- You are going to support them?

- Only the boy.

- What about the grandparents?

- Someone must help the grandparents. They are getting too old to work. If not the boy has to quit school and get some factory job.

- You are making an investment with no promise of any return.

- I can afford it.

- Are you sure you will get to see him once school starts? He will be up there in Lopburi.

- I don’t know. But I hope so.  
The week before school was to begin Chalerm called me from a pay phone. He was upset but could not bring himself to say why. There was a long silence.

- Please tell me, I said. How can I help you if I don’t know what the problem is?

- If I say you angry me.

- No, I won’t be angry with you.

- You angry me.

- No. I promise.

More silence.

- Say it. Please please please.

- No money pay school.

- What?

- Money finished. No have.

- Did you spend it?

- No.

- So why don’t you have the money?

- No have.

- I don’t understand. I gave you 2000 baht. What did you do with it?

- Give mother.

- She kept the money for you?

- Yes. But no have.  
I looked at my watch. It was 10 pm.

- Come here to the hotel, I said. We have to talk about this.

Half an hour later, thanks to the light evening traffic, Chalerm rang my door bell. He was tense. 

Notice to readers: So far I have only called him “the boy” because I found it hard to call him by any other than his real name. But he needs a name so from now on his name in the blog will be Chalerm.  
The next four days Chalerm and I were sightseeing in his province. During this time I didn’t see any other foreigner in his home town.  
We went by train to a dam the government had built. In the West watching nature getting destroyed has gone out of fashion. But here the locals lined up to be taken on a trip along the edges of the dam while sitting in charts pulled by a tractor. I enjoyed the folk life. A man came with a digital camera and took pictures of everyone. I gave him an annoyed glance since he hadn’t asked or explained what he was doing. When we came back from the tractor pulled trip he sold plates with the pictures on. It wasn’t up to Buckingham palace standards but I just had to buy the one with me (looking grumpy) and the boy on it. I have since kept it on a shelf at home. 
There was a small museum where the posters informed us that 3000 people gratefully had moved out of the area in the name of progress. Dead trees lined the shores of the new artificial lake.  
We went to Lopburi city to see the temple monkeys. Chalerm pulled me back when I took pictures of them and warned me they were ill tempered. I could see that with other tourists, if the moneys smelled food they didn’t take no for an answer.  
Then we went to see the ruins and the museum. The archaeological exhibition was impressive.

The boy kept fingering the old statues.

- The sign says don’t touch anything, I said.

- But I am Thai people, said the boy.

- It doesn’t matter, I said. You can’t touch that.

But he did and when a museum guard came and gave him a stern look Chalerm produced that guilty Thai smile.  
I was taken by Phaulkon Constance’s house. It felt like I was one of the first Westerners to come to these parts but the Greek had been here 300 years earlier, serving as the first minister of king Narai. The farang had been the second most powerful man in Siam, at least until the king died and his successor threw Constance to the tigers. Constance had conspired to make Siam a French colony.  
I enjoyed being with Chalerm. We had our little arguments and the language problem was frustrating. I had expected it could be tiring to spend five days with one person but it wasn’t. I had a sense of belonging when I was with Chalerm and I was thinking of us as a couple now.  
I decided to buy him a gift to show my gratitude for the trip. I saw he had no watch so I took him to Big C in Lopburi to get him one. But when we came to the watch and clock section in the mall he wasn’t interested in any of the Seiko or Casio watches on offer. They were from 3000 to 5000 baht.

- Expensive too much, Chalerm said.

- Never mind, I said. It is a gift from me to you.

I was willing to pay for a quality brand watch. But Chalerm didn’t want any of them until we came to a small stall downstairs. There he found a 300 baht plastic watch.

- That’s a girl’s watch, I said.

- I like, said Chalerm.

He put it on and since his wrist was small it looked right on him. 

- Where is grandmother, I asked the boy.

- Go work.

- What does she do?

- Not know.

- How old is she?

- 69.

- And grandfather?

- 75.

- What is the dog’s name?

- Dog.

- That’s easy to remember.

The grandfather gave me fruit from the garden.

- Aroy. Tastes good, I said.

- It is hot today, said the grandfather. He was shirtless and had what looked like a large fly swapper he used to slap himself on the back with. I guessed that had a cooling effect.

- Very hot, I said.

This was the limit of my conversation with the grandfather. He spoke no English and neither did anyone else in the village.

The boy came out of the house with a small photo album. There were pictures of him when he had ordained as a monk at age fourteen. He looked funny with a shaved head. The boy had spent four weeks in the temple. But in another picture from around the same time he was wearing makeup and holding a colourful umbrella against the sun. He was with two girls. This was from Rayong, where he had been on a school trip.

I asked to see the house. It was a typical village house, with the foundation and the wall that faced the road made of concrete painted white. The rest of the house was made of unpainted wood. They had electricity and tap water, and the “facilities” was a small house in a corner of the garden. They had a fridge and a twelve inch television set. The beds were mats on the floor.

- Where are the fields, I asked.

- Not here. The boy explained that the land they owned was quite far from the village. Sometimes the grandfather slept in the fields and didn’t come back for a week.

I liked the grandfather. He seemed to have a pleasant personality. When I told the boy this he looked happy. Grandfather have good heart, the boy agreed.

The boy was restless as the bus back to town might come soon. There was only one bus in the afternoon and none in the evening, and we had to catch it. The village had no tuk-tuks or other public transport. I wai’ed the grandfather goodbye and we walked the fifty meters to the bus stop. It was a square set of benches with a roof over them, similar to the hut outside the grandfather’s house but bigger and newer.

- When will the bus be here?

- Not know.

- Can you ask someone?

- They not know.

I rested on my back while the boy was busy greeting and chatting to people that passed by. Some walked, some shouted out the window of a well-worn pickup truck and many drove motorbikes. There were many young men of my friend’s age. Some of them worked in a car garage across the road and waved and made noises when they saw us. People were friendly and all of them asked about this foreigner that the boy had brought home.

Next to the garage was a small shop. They had bottled water and the only pay phone in the neighbourhood. I bought a water bottle and hurried back across the road in case the bus came. But there was no need for haste. After an hour no bus had arrived. After two hours still no bus. I became hopeful when I heard diesel engines but it was trucks with farm workers going home.

- Maybe you can ask someone who owns a pickup truck to take us back to the town, I said.

- Can not.

- I will pay them.

- No need.

- Are you sure this bus will come?

- Sure.

After three hours a bus came. It had open windows and looked ancient. It was the oldest and nosiest bus I had been in. A husband and wife team ran the bus, the man driving and the woman selling tickets.

By now it was nearly sunset. The warm light reflected from water in ponds and fields. The landscape was greener than it had been under the harsh midday sun. This is a beautiful place, I thought. I felt I knew the boy better now that I had seen his home.

Weeks ahead the boy had asked me if I was free on the 11th of May. I wasn’t used to Thais planning ahead so I didn’t pay much attention to it. But he kept referring to this date and said I had to come to the park at 8am. Then we were going home to his village.  
When the day arrived I came to the park with my bag, half expecting him not to be there. But the boy was impatiently waiting for me. He had new shoes. They were 300 baht, he said with pride. The park gardeners were out working in the misty morning air and they made comments about the farang and the boy. We ignored them and went to Mor Chit bus station, which was nearby.  
I tried to ask the boy about the details of the trip. Was there a hotel? Did the bus go all the way to the village? How big was the nearby town? How was the family house? The boy told me not to worry. He would take care of me.  
The ticket was 99 baht for each of us. I was the only foreigner in the packed bus as it entered the highway to Auythaya. This is an adventure, I thought. I had heard of the visit-the-village trip from others. It was a ritual in any relationship with a Thai boy. Now it was my turn.  
The bus stopped in Saraburi and more people came on. Standing room was full too. My seat was small and the air condition wasn’t effective. I was sweating and the children looked curiously at me.  
After Saraburi the landscape changed and the flat plains gave way to hills and open valleys. After four hours we arrived in Anyburi, the boy’s home town. It was a provincial town with one main street, a railway station, a market and one 7-Eleven. The boy arranged for a tuk-tuk to take us to the hotel. Maybe a motel would be a better name for it, or a brothel perhaps, it was a one storey building with karaoke ladies sitting in front and parking space in the back. Rooms with air condition were 270 baht.  
- How do we get to the village, I asked.

- Go bus, said the boy.

Having checked into our hotel room and taken a shower we went back to the main street to look for the bus. There was an old bus parked by the market but it wasn’t going anywhere.

- We walk, said the boy.

- How far is it?

- Fifteen kilomet.

- I don’t think so! 
The boy found another tuk-tuk and we climbed in. The tuk-tuk drove out of town on a road that was surprisingly broad and in good order. We drove along rice fields, herds of cattle and fields with sugar cane. The area was a river valley surrounded by low mountains. After a while the driver turned left to a more bumpy road which led across a railway line and up a hill. I took note of a yellow water tower, the local landmark. At the top of the hill the road split and the tuk-tuk stopped in front of a gate made of wood and wire. There were bushes and trees and I could hardly see the house.  
The boy opened the gate. A dog rose and barked at me. Outside the house was an old man sitting under a bamboo roof that gave shade. Under the roof were benches, large planks that one could sit on. The benches ran all four sides of the open structure, which had a fireplace in the middle. Smoke was coming out of the ground, they were cooking something that was buried with burning coal. Wheels from an old ox chart were stored in a corner and under a large basket turned upside down a rooster was peeking out at us.  
I had asked the boy who would be home. He said grandmother and grandfather. This had to be the grandfather. If the grandfather was surprised to see me he didn’t show it. He smiled calmly as if strangers from the other side of the world came walking in every day. He had short grey hair and few teeth left. Following the boy’s instructions I wai’ed and greeted him. The grandfather wai’ed me back as if I were royalty. 

When I told him I felt deceived about the brother-in-hospital incident the boy gave me a sheepish smile. I had looked up the word “lie” in the his dictionary and showed him the Thai translation.

- Lied a little, the boy admitted.

- I don’t like lies, I said. Please don’t do anything like this again.  
I can’t be too hard on him, I thought. The scheme wasn’t his idea. He had been under pressure from his step-mother. And he hadn’t really said anything wrong, it was a lie by omission. But I resented it.  
The boy decided to sleep over in my room. He brought a little bag with his things. I had counted his clothes as he wore them, he owned three changes of t-shirts and shorts pants, one pair of jeans and a pair of worn out shoes. But his clothes were always clean.  
I was concerned about the hotel reception. Would they consider him too young and make a fuss? His identity card showed he had three weeks left to his eighteenth birthday. Close enough, I thought.  
The little guy in the reception said nothing. The boy wasn’t aware of why he was asked to leave his ID card in the reception so he wasn’t offended by it.  
The boy was shy and undressed in the bathroom. Then he came and joined me in bed wearing his monkey t-shirt.

- Nao, he complained, the Thai word for cold.

I turned off the air condition. Then the boy felt better but I started to sweat. The boy turned the air condition back on.

I switched off the light.

- Nao, the boy said again and cuddled up against me.  
I held him close to me. His skin was perfectly soft but his hands and feet were cold. He got cheeky and put his cold hands on my belly. That nearly had me jump out of bed. Next he put his cold feet against the side of my legs. That was hardly any better.  
The boy pinched my nose with his fingers.

- Now you dead, he said.

- No I am not.

- Doctor look.

I kept a small battery powered light on the bed table and the boy used it on my eyes.

- Dead, he said again.

- Not funny.

- Funny. 
- What this, said the boy, referring to our embrace.

- It is called a hug.

- I like hug.

I kissed his nose tip. 

The boy had never asked me for money. He touched me by giving me small presents and if I paid for something he came back and gave me the exact change. I knew how little he had and how hard he worked for it every day in the heat in the park.

The boy had asked me how much I earned. I didn’t tell him and he speculated naively that maybe I was making as much as ten thousand baht a month.

But one evening in the park he took me aside because he had something to tell me. He was hesitant and ill at ease when he said that he didn’t have enough money to pay for his school fee next semester. His step-mother, who was in charge of family finances, had told him this. The fee was 2000 baht.

There is more to it, I thought. But the boy is too innocent to see it. The step-mother has told him to make the farang pay. Maybe the step-mother has the money, the boy has certainly worked for it, but now she dumps the bill on me. I can’t blame her, I thought, she has enough mouths to feed. Now she thinks it is time that the farang takes care of the boy.

I opened my wallet and gave him 2000 baht. The boy didn’t take the bank notes, so I put them on the grass between us.

- Why you love me, said the boy.

I laughed. Was this proof of love?

But I stopped laughing when I saw his face. His eyes were serious, almost sad, and they said “I can’t believe someone is doing this for me”.

Did I love him? I had not thought of the L-word before. Would it be phoney of me to say I loved him? I had not fallen in love with him at first sight. It wasn’t the feverish (and usually unanswered) puppy crushes I had when I was younger. With the boy it was gradual. I kept bonding with him. I thought of once when he had been waiting for me in the park. He came running towards me between the trees, beaming with happiness.

- I love you because you have a good heart, I said.

- No have.

- And because you are beautiful.

- Not beautiful.

- I love you because I like you.

Now I was using Thai logic. The boy accepted the answer.

- A bad move, said Farang D when I told him about the money. Now they will only ask for more.

- We’ll see, I said.

- Why did you do this? You haven’t even been to bed with him.

- It is only 2000 baht. I can afford to lose it.

- School is a month away. Do you think he will still have the money?

- I am giving him a chance. You can consider it a test. If he proves himself worthy of the support, then fine. If not I am not going to give him the money twice.

- Why bother? You know this won’t work, said Farang D.

While we were sitting in the park the step-mother had been trying to tell me something. She spoke in rapid Thai and gestured, pointing to her left arm and upper body. I didn’t understand what she said, but I picked up the words “ill” and “hospital”. The boy translated her message, using his dictionary and drawings on a paper. An older brother had been in an accident in a factory. He suffered severe burns to his chest and left arm. The doctors hoped the left arm didn’t have to be amputated. Now the brother was in a hospital in Rangsit.

Here we go, I thought. Should I believe this? Is she making it up to get money from the farang? Or is it for real and I am supposed to pay the hospital bill?

I just smiled and nodded when they told me the story and I pretended not to understand what the step-mother wanted. When the step-mother hinted I should go and visit the sick brother I ignored it. I asked the boy who he was and it turned out he wasn’t my boy’s brother. He wasn’t his step-brother either, he was the boyfriend of one of his step-sisters.

The unfortunate older brother wasn’t mentioned again for a while. I halfway forgot about him. Then the boy called late one evening and said I had to come and see him in the park at 9am the next morning. He didn’t say why. He was off the line before I could ask.

When I came to the park a party of four family members were ready to go to the hospital. They waited for me so we could get a taxi. I felt cheated. I had not agreed to this. But I didn’t want to make a scene that could hurt the boy. Play it Thai style, I told myself. Keep smiling, buy time and sort it out later.

Rangsit was in the north of Bangkok. The taxi ride to the hospital was 40 kilometres and cost me 300 baht. When we came to the hospital entrance I told the driver to wait. As the family got of the car out I surprised the boy by giving him a 500 baht note and saying it was to cover their return trip. Then I told the taxi driver to take me back to the Malaysia Hotel.

The boy called me on my mobile phone and asked what happened. He sounded confused. I said I wanted to go back to my room and work.

I felt angry and guilty at the same time. This was moral blackmail. If they took me in to see the poor burn victim I knew I could not refuse to help. But he was a stranger. He wasn’t even related to the boy. Of all the needy people in Thailand, why should I help this one? And what about the patient’s own family? Did they have money? It was a government hospital. Was he covered by public insurance? Shouldn’t the factory where the accident happened pay for it? And if the step-mother was so eager to help maybe she could start by selling her 5000 baht mobile phone, the one I had seen the boy with the first time I met him.

Still, I knew it could be true that they had problems paying for his care. It was a terrible situation but I had to draw a line. If I gave in now there could be no end to the worthy causes they would present me with. Since I didn’t know all the facts I had to trust my instinct. And it said I was being manipulated. I decided that next time the boy came to see me I would confront him about this trickery.

The boy sat with the hustlers for a few minutes. Then he came back to my table but he looked like nothing special had happened. I tried not to let my suspicions show.

- So what did your friends say?

- Not say.

- You know them?

- Not know.

- Who are they?

- I don’t know.

- Why did you go over to speak to them?

- Because they are Thai people.

I was relieved. The boy had practiced country hospitality and joined the rent boys because he saw them as potential friends, not because he was one of them. He didn’t yet know that sitting down uninvited at other people’s tables was uncommon in Bangkok.

We went to the reception to use my safety deposit box. The evening manager, the short round headed fellow, looked at my date and said:

- And the boy?

- The boy is going home. Right?

- Yes, said the boy.

We took a taxi back to Chatuchack, where his family had rented a room in the buildings behind the market. I never saw their home as I wasn’t invited in. It probably wasn’t much to see.

The next step was a daytime visit to my hotel room. The boy came by bus. He brought pink heart-shaped candy from the 7-Eleven and finger fed me sweets while we watched television. The Irish singer Ronan Keating came on. This boy sure likes farang, I thought as I watched the boy eagerly watch the pop star.

We were side by side on the bedspread. The boy rubbed up against me. He read his little yellow Thai-English dictionary.

- What does gay mean, he asked.

- Gay is when a man kisses a man, I said. Like this.

I leaned over and gave him a short, dry kiss on the lips. The boy was taken aback and stared at the ceiling, avoiding looking at me. But he didn’t seem to mind what I had done.

None of us said anything for a while. I decided to push the issue a bit.

- I am gay, I said.

- Oh.

- What are you?

- I am lady.

- Lady?

- Yes.

- What do you like? Man or woman?

- Man.

Silence.

- What you like, said the boy.

- I like you.

- Why?

- You have a good heart.

- No have.

- I think so.