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After I finished whacking the lawn as much as I could, and doing some other chores I had set for myself, I jumped into the shower and washed the day's work grime from my tired body. I changed into freshly laundered clothes, grabbed myself a cold drink of iced tea as I passed the refrigerator, (Yes, I do take other liquid refreshment besides beer. Hard to believe for some, I know.), and plunked my ass into a favored comfortable chair on the front veranda. It had been a day of hard labor, but it felt good to have accomplished all that I had that day. My back ached, but I had expected it would, and have come to ignore its bothersome painful chattering along my nervous system pathways, except when it screams for relief. It was time to relax and rest up for the coming night's conjugal visit.
A couple hours good massage from a professional masseuse would have done me well at the time, but alas there are none to be found in the village. They are all away in the big tourist cities plying their trade. I have to settle for the amateur massage therapists in my family to get myself fixed up at times. I've asked around, but there seems not to be any 'retired' massage ladies even in the village who wouldn't mind earning the occasional baht pummeling my sore back once in a while. I need to delve further into this lack of professional massage therapists in the village area. I mean, where do all the old retired massage ladies go anyway?
As I sat surveying my property and the surrounding village I felt content and happy to be alive. I sipped my cold tea and thought to myself that I would fairly kill for a real lemon wedge to plop in it. A guy who has a house across the street from the Surin rental house has a lemon tree in his yard. I want one in mine, so I can pick a fresh lemon to add to my drinks when the desire arises. I'll have to get some lemon seeds and try planting my own one day soon. I've never seen lemons in the markets here, and always wondered why, just as I've also always wondered why the Thais call limes, lemons. They're not even close to being the same fruit. I promised myself as I sat there that next time over I would bring a couple bottles of raspberry syrup along too in my suitcase. With all the cheap limes available here it would be great to show my wife and family the wonderful refreshing taste of a Raspberry Lime Rickey.
I had brought with me this trip some seed packets for Mama to try to grow in her garden. She has a true green thumb, and loves puttering around in her garden. She was thrilled when I presented these to her. I'd also brought seeds for 'Beefsteak' tomatoes to see if they'd grow well here. Those small plum tomatoes they grow here just don't have as much taste for making a tomato sauce for the noodles, plus I had brought some cucumber seeds. I wanted to see my wife's and family's faces when these grew out to a foot long or so. The Thai cucumbers are so small, and as they eat these with almost everything fried in the wok, I thought the larger hybrid ones might be more cost and work-time effective to grow. I also brought some large string bean seeds, claimed to be okay for growing in very hot climates, and some watermelon seeds, to see how big they'd grow here. The Thais grow the smaller round watermelons. I hoped to grow some of those big humungous ones we grow in the states.
I also brought some pumpkin seeds. I know how to make pumpkin pie from scratch and look forward to doing so one day in the village. Their pumpkins are a smaller green variety that seem to be more of a gourd than a true pumpkin. Not much meat inside. I'll be using theirs for Jack-o-lanterns one October for Halloween. Should be fun showing our daughter and her friends in the village the fine art of pumpkin carving. They don't celebrate Halloween in the LOS. Maybe I'll explain the basis behind this holiday for them one day when I have a better command of the language ... Lao. I'd think the Thais would take to Halloween, being a superstitious and spirit world believing lot.
Sipping my drink I looked over to where Mun's shop sat next door. The Golem Tree sat over her shop. It stood all bent and twisted and bare of bark. Its malevolent presence glowered at all who passed. A truly evil looking wreck of a tree this is. The sun was setting behind the Golem Tree as I watched, and its bare skeleton-like branches were silhouetted by huge black thunder clouds that were racing toward the village from the west to dump another deluge this coming night. The tops of the sodden charcoal clouds seemed to reach thousands of feet into the sky.
In the distance I could hear what sounded like the booming of cannon in battle, an incessant rolling thunder that reached for many miles to my ears. The gods were at war once again. An odd sickly yellow glow filled the sky around the thunder clouds, and as I watched lightning seemed to sprout from one particular cloud in all directions. I had seen this phenomenon before in Tennessee in my youth. Ball lightning. An eerie sight if you've ever seen one. The air crackled with ions released by the impending electrical storm. The soi (street) dogs were acting strange, running about growling and howling, or whimpering, as their particular temperaments dictated.
The streetlights came on in the darkening gloom. Night was fast approaching, helped along by the cloudy skies. The neighborhood bat came out and started his endless circling of the streetlight by my home. He must eat a half kilo of bugs every night. He's there every night from dusk until dawn, eating his fill and chirping away in his plaintive voice. I watch him dodge and weave as he circles the light and searches his prey, a mouse with wings. God is a funny creator, full of mischief.
A cooling breeze flows out over the land, pushed ahead of the coming storm. Leaves rustle in the palms. The vegetation comes alive and turns its face toward the heavens, awaiting the sweet fluids of life soon to be bestowed upon them. The greenery seems almost sentient, alive and brooding, their sub-sonic basso voice crying "Feed me!" like the man-eating plant from the play "Little Shop of Horrors".
I sit and revel in the breeze as it gently cools my sun burned skin, and continue to sip my drink while watching with interest and glee the awesome show nature is providing me, for free. No need for the nature cable TV channel here in the village.
My buddy, Mr. Toad, came hopping out from behind the potted plant where he sleeps the day away in the cool shade of a fissure in the concrete like Midas' son Anchurus. He hopped over by my feet and sat there with me and watched the spectacle of the storm rushing toward us with his glowing golden eyes, occasionally searching the floor around us for a fat cricket to break his fast with. I bid him an affectionate "Good evening Mr. Toad", to which he doesn't reply. I don't mind. Toads have a hard time utilizing human speech patterns. Too much tongue they have it seems, or so Mr.Toad explained to me once when we were having a few beers.
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"The clouds consign their treasures to the fields,
And softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,
In large effusion, o'er the freshen'd world."
James Thompson,
The Seasons
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Mr. Toad sat with me a while and helped me contemplate the universe; Thai women and their fiery chili eating habits, Tuk-tuk's and their universal appeal, until you've ridden in one, the vivid ugly colors applied to concrete tables and chairs found throughout this land, public hong nams (toilets) without toilet paper, nor paper towels with which to dry your hands after washing them, and other earth shattering, mind boggling, mystical, puzzling subjects one tends to ponder when their mind is finally free to roam willy-nilly after a hard day's work, while sitting on your butt, relaxing.
He's good company is Mr. Toad, never interrupting much one's train of thought, content to just squat and ruminate quietly with me, when there are no dogs or cats about at least. I prefer his company to some of the more incessantly talkative of human-kind. We rarely argue. When he speaks I tend to listen. I know how difficult this is for him. I appreciate his input and sage advice.
He once told me that cats are a useless vicious lot, prone to slow torture of their victims for the sheer pleasure of it all, and violent for no damned good reason toward most creatures, even when well fed, and the scourge of his people. I guessed he had had an unpleasant run-in with Sis Mun's cat from next door that morning. I had to agree for the most part with him, adding only that they, cats, felines, were good to have around if you had problems with mice and rats. To which he told me that many many centuries ago my kind had also hated them, the cats, when we were also the prey for their malicious tortures, when they were much larger than us, and almost as numerous. He also wondered why we no longer caught and ate the mice and rats ourselves, as we used to all that long time ago. I told him it was just so much easier to go buy some hamburger meat down to the market than to run around trying to catch rats and mice to feed on now-a-days, which got him ranting a bit about carnivores, until he spotted a nearby juicy bumbling cricket, which made him salivate and start his own bit of stalking.
Sometimes he can be a bit hypocritical in his views.
This night he just sat meditating there with me, until finally some foolish wandering insect brought his attentions to his stomach, and he hopped off. I continued to watch the thunder storm race toward the village.
I considered getting a beer from the fridge, but was too tired and sore to move really. My wife wasn't within easy hailing distance either. She'll usually, happily, bring me a brew when I request one, when I'm too lazy, or tired and sore, to go and get one myself. Rather unlike my first wife, who would rant on about her not being my mother, nor my slave, and to get off my lazy ass and get one myself. Hmmmm, how about doing it just out of love darling? Or expediency? You're up in the kitchen near the fridge, I'm not, and the game's on. I'd do the same for you, without bitching and moaning. I would dammit! No problem. It's one reason she's gone and I have a new wife. This new wife is much more pleasant and agreeable, better in bed too, and always smiling, instead of scowling. I think I'll keep her for the present, as long as she'll have me that is.
I'm loathe to bring her to the states really. My daughter, nieces, and sisters are dying to get their hands on her, to explain their twisted and distorted feminist views for her education and edification, and to my chauvinist detriment, of course, cursed male that I am. Evil jealous creatures they are, wanting to cause me trouble by getting my lovely lass to join their nasty cult of male-bashing wags. Over my dead body! I'm avoiding this cultural edification of my wife by the western family harpies as much as possible. I'd hate to have to break in a new Thai wife. I like this one, and am getting too old to repeat the process once again. There will be visits to the states, but I'll never have her live there with me for any long period of time, and will never leave her alone for any length of time with the 'liberated' women of my family. Besides, she loves being in Thailand with her own family and foods and culture, as do I. I'm joking of course, well, somewhat.
While I was pondering these and other random chauvinistic thoughts the rains finally started for the evening. My wife and Sis ran over from Sis Mun's shop, where they had been sitting chattering away with the other ladies, and helping make yet another lethal version of Papaya Bok Bok for their thrice daily intake of freshly pounded chilies, guaranteed to make even Lucifer scream in agony, if he was foolish enough to partake of this so-called local delicacy. I no longer try to prove my manliness by indulging in this nuclear waste of a dish. I've learned only too well the scorching absurdity of its cleansing burning rush through my bowels of a morning. I have yet to meet a Thai person complaining of hemorrhoids. I believe this to be their secret in avoiding such infirmities, this and those damned squat toilets.
My wife ran onto the veranda laughing, trying to avoid the now pouring waters from another, the latest, angel keg party. She stomped about shaking the rain from her now glistening arms, and came giggling up to me to spray me with the droplets in her dew-dropped sparkling hair. Her brilliant smile once again reminding me what originally had attracted me to her, besides her beautiful, full, waist length ebony hair, sweet round tush, and pleasant happy personality. My heart skipped a beat in her shining, smiling, radiant presence, as she bent over to favor me with a quick unbidden smooch, and a quick concerned query as to what I'd like to eat for dinner this evening. I'd kill for this woman! All she has to do is point to who she would like me to slay, and I'll gladly rip their heart out with my teeth if need be.
I tell her what I desire for nourishment, asking her to hold the chili down to a reasonable level for her poor farang (foreign) husband, please, and off she goes, still smiling broadly, to see to my needs. I struggle mightily and get my groaning ass out of the chair on the veranda, and hobble inside through the house to the kitchen out back. I love sitting around the table reading the papers, or a book, with a drink of one potency or another in hand most times, while the women putter around the campfire preparing a meal. Watching them do their own chores relaxes and calms me to no end. It soothes my soul, and lets me know that everything is right in the world, my world anyway.
Plus I can watch my lady bending over and admire her gorgeous ass from time to time, sexist pig that I am, and they feed me morsels and pamper me outrageously most times. I try to stay out from underfoot though, and never give advice on how to cook something, unless asked. You have to play it smart.
I grabbed another iced tea on my way through the house, and as I sat at the table I saw another toad hop in through the grating surrounding my open kitchen, or maybe it was Mr. Toad himself. Hard to tell really. He, or she, I have no idea how to distinguish the sex of toads really, sat in the corner and occasionally blinked its golden eye at me.
Goosebumps ran down my spine for some reason under the toad's unwavering reptilian gaze, and I remembered my old Irish grandmother's saying, whenever she got a chill, "Someone just stepped on my grave." Which always gives me another chill.
These superstitious Isaan Thais have nothing on my Irish grannies. I was raised on ghost stories, tales of banshees, and the devil comin' to steal your new born soul, (He knowing that one day you'd become a priest and do great things in God's name.) banging on the flimsy wooden door to the Irish country hilltop cottage, leaving burnt goat hoof-prints on the outside of the door and the lingering smell of sulphur and brimstone in the dark of a winter's night. Beelzebub trying to climb down the oold huge stone fireplace chimney when he wasn't let in, until young great great uncle so and so, (actually Michael was his name I think) the one who later became a priest and was subsequently eaten while a missionary by cannibals on some godforsaken island, took the family shotgun and fired it up the chimney to drive 'ol Satan away from the God-fearing innocent Gaelic souls within.
Gawd, I loved hearing those grand old stories while sitting on Grandma's knee when a wee lad. Scared the livin' crap out of me they did. Gave me nightmares for years!
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"Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman."
William Shakespeare,
King Lear
"To know
That which before us lies in daily life
Is the prime wisdom."
John Milton,
Paradise Lost
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(To be continued.)
Cent
(The Central Scrutinizer)
This story was written in 2003. All rights reserved by the author.
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