Sleepless in Seattle

Danny sat on his porch, watching the gate and compulsively picking leaves from Phi Fah's carefully tended potted plants. He was dressed in a Seattle Seahawks football jersey and a peaked cap with the silhouette of a cargo ship and the words "Western Promise II" embroidered on the the brim. The cap was too big for him, and the shirt too small. Next to him on the top step of the porch was a baseball and a catcher's mitt.

Phi Fah came out of the house and looked at the pile of shredded greenery between Danny's feet. She loved her plants and it hurt her to see them damaged, but she would never scold him while he was sitting vigil on the porch. She asked Danny if he wanted lunch. Danny said no, without lifting his gaze from the gate. Phi Fah knew that he was hungry - at 10 years of age Danny was always hungry - he just didn't want to come inside. She brought his lunch out to him on a tray; he thanked her and attacked the food. Danny had spent every daylight hour on the porch since hearing that his father had been spotted on Patong Beach.

Danny didn't know much about America, but he did know that he and his father were Americans, and so whenever he waited on the porch he wore the American clothes that his father brought back from his trips abroad. Danny knew that he was also Thai, of course. He spoke with the accent of the southern provinces, as did Phi Fah; he loved curries and durian and could count the number of hamburgers he'd had in his life on the fingers of one hand. Although he brought out the ball and mitt every time his father came home, he was much more comfortable playing European-style football, which his father called "soccer" and could not play at all.

On the wall over Danny's bed was a poster of the Cascade mountains, and Danny knew that these were somewhere in a place called Washington. His father had told him that the Cascades were the last thing he saw of America each time his container ship left port, and the first thing he saw when he returned. They were the last thing Danny saw each night before he slept, and the first thing he saw when he awoke.

Sometimes he dreamed of the Cascades. He and his father were on the bridge of a huge ship, and they were the only two people on board. The ship would be moving in Danny's dream, but not over the sea. In his dreams Danny and his father sailed the ship through the Cascade Mountains, and as long as the mountains towered over the ship, they would be together.

One of the farang neighbors walked past the house and called out something to Danny. Danny smiled and waved, like he always did, without saying anything back. His teachers at the International School had labeled him as a "slow learner", but the truth was that Danny just didn't understand English very well. Phi Fah and the other maids in the he neighborhood knew him as a bright and witty child; when he was in exclusively Thai company you couldn't shut him up.

Phi Fah came out to collect the tray and smiled when she saw that Danny had eaten every single scrap of food she'd given him. Eight years ago, when Danny's mother left and Phi Fah came to work for Danny's father, she had assumed that farang kids, even half-farang kids, would be bigger than Thai kids and would require more food, so she had always served him adult-sized portions. Danny didn't remember what his mother looked like, hardly ever saw his father, and worshipped the ground that Phi Fah walked on. He would do anything to please her, and since she always seemed pleased when he finished his meals, he always ate everything he was served.

Danny watched the traffic go by the gate, and every time he heard a tuk-tuk coming up the soi he'd get tense. Danny never resented the fact that his father would spend a week or 10 days in the bars of Patong Beach before he came home each year. In fact Phi Fah had told him that going to bars was something that all men did. He looked forward to the day when his father would come home first and invite Danny to go to the bars with him.

Danny always imagined that when that day came, it would be the beginning of their real time together. Danny wanted his father to be proud of him, but the things his father cared about, baseball and going to bars, were things as yet beyond Danny's experience or abilities. The things Danny was good at, "soccer' and naming all the heroes and villains in the Dragonball comic books, were things his father didn't put much value on. Their time together was always an agony for Danny, and always the happiest time of his whole year.

Finally, one of the passing tuk-tuks turned into the gateway of the house, and Danny exploded form the porch with a cry of pure joy to meet it. From the back of the tuk-tuk stepped a tall farang, and after him a woman smoking a cigarette. Danny ran to his father and threw his arms around the man's waist, shouting "Por, Por ma laew!' His father lifted him off his feet and squeezed the breath out of the boy in a crushing embrace. "Hey, Danny! How are ya, Boy? This is Nongnoot, she's gonna stay with us for a few days. Jeez, yer gettin' fat, Boy. What's that woman feedin' ya?"

Danny didn't understand a word his father said, but it didn't matter, because in his heart a million tons of snow thundered down a mountainside, and his ears were filled with the sound of it.

© Steve Rosse. All rights reserved by the author.

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If you liked this short story by Steve Rosse you can read more of his work by purchasing his books, 'Thai Vignettes' and 'Expat Days' online at BangkokBooks.com. Here's the direct links to each for easy purchase.

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