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The morning of the old lady’s funeral we waited for a relative of ours to arrive from her town to accompany us to the village for the funeral. This aunt had been a good friend of the old woman’s and wanted to ride with us to the village so she could go to the tambon/funeral. She took a bus down to Surin and Sis met her at the bus station and then brought her to our house. My wife ironed some clothes of mine that I would wear to the funeral. Some tan chinos and a black shirt. Black is worn to funerals. It is the color of death here, and usually not worn except for funerals.

Each day of the week has a corresponding good luck color for a person to wear to gain good luck for the day. Like yellow for Tuesday, Red for Wednesday, green for Thursday, like this, but these are not the colors for these days. I’m just using them for an example. If anyone is interested I can ask and get the correct colors for the correct days. I always forget the matching colors and days. It’s a cool thing to do when visiting the village as it gets the villagers taking a shine to you, as you are showing you know their customs and shows you have some knowledge and have taken the time to learn a few customs. It brings a smile to their faces and is a pleasant surprise to most that you’d think of this and do this. I did it for a few days once in the village and it brought some comments and caused some conversations and smiles. It's a good way to break the ice with her family and friends during a few days visit to the village. Shows some knowledge and respect, and makes you seem less a farang, less of a stranger, a little bit Thai. It’s not a big deal; it just can show some thought.

As the funeral was to be held at two in the afternoon we left Surin around ten in the morning. It takes around fifty minutes to drive to the village from Surin proper. I was told it was okay to wear cooler clothing of shorts and sandals and t-shirt for the drive up and while we waited for the funeral to start. Later I could change into my funeral gear without it being all sweated up and wrinkled. No problem, as we would stay in our house, or actually Sis Mun’s Isaan Emporium and Lao Khao Shop, chatting, eating and drinking until the monks arrived and started their eulogy for the dead woman in the house across the street where her family was gathering.

The eulogy would start at noon, with one monk doing the prayers and eulogizing. We arrived around eleven after a quick stop for victuals for lunch, to be eaten in the village, along the way at the shops in a village a few miles up the road from our own village. We bought some banana leaf wrapped wads of sticky rice, a few charcoal roasted chicken halves between split bamboo sticks, some bananas and other fruits, some uncooked veggies for some som tam and to be eaten with the rice and chicken, cabbage and scallions and such raw stuff as is always normally eaten with the sticky rice and chicken. We’d parked in the grass lot beside our house and made a bee line for Sis Mun’s shop to scarf down our lunch and quench our thirst with a few beers once we arrived.

While we were chatting and eating the lone monk started his eulogy in a droning voice that made it hard to stay awake after a while. Luckily look thung music (love songs/torch ballads) was blaring at near concert hall levels from huge columns of speakers set up in the street almost in front of us. Paeons for the dead emitted over the speakers; loud enough to wake the dead in my mind. Mostly look thung music for the most part, old and newer, with some traditional songs of an eerie sound with traditional instruments that can sometimes set a farang’s nerves on edge. I don’t mind these songs myself. I find them charming and interesting, and nice to listen to. They set a mood in my head, and set me to wandering in my mind throughout ancient times it seems. These songs, this music, is so alien and strange from what I’m used to. I like alien and strange, so I don’t mind hearing these songs for hours at a time. Like I said, for me anyway, they seem to set my mood. I love the older traditional songs, and 'look thung' is some of my favorite Thai stuff to listen to.

The monk droned on, the loud music not a problem, as he was wired for sound himself with his own microphone and speakers. We sat under the tin sheet roof on a raised wooden platform, the wood it is made from is of an unknown age, worn smooth, as if it was carefully sanded and shellaced by a master craftsman, by the hands, feet, and asses of uncounted multitudes of villagers over who knows how many years. After an hour had passed of the monk droning on and on in his lightly sing-song voice I hit the wall, so to speak, and told my wife to come and get me about fifteen minutes before the tambon funeral march was to begin so I could grab a quick shower and throw on my funeral garments.

I had a book I’d brought along by a woman author I’d gotten hooked on recently and was trying to finish. “The Last Temptation” by Val McDermid. A wonderful crime novelist, from Scotland I believe I read, I’ve been enjoying recently. I’d picked up this book in Pattaya at a used book shop on Soi Buakhao, called Swan Book Shop. Good shop. If anyone wants the address let me know and I’ll forward it along. It’s where I get most of my reading material when in the area. Lots of good cheap English language second-hand books there. 

I went into our house and turned on the floor fan at the end of our bed and laid down to read awhile. Much more comfortable than the wooden platform, for sure. It must have been the beers, or maybe a combination of the beer, the heat, reading the book, and the droning monk and oddly toned music, that sent me off to lullabye land within about ten minutes.

I cut some zzzz’s, and probably a few farts too, as I sawed some wood. The Beer Chang can have that effect sometimes.

I’d gotten myself into one of those nice deep sleeps you hate to be wakened from. You know what I mean. One of those deep sleeps where you are floating along, drooling on the pillow, dreaming of sexy ladies plying you with drinks and foods, all naked of course and sexy as hell, and all with flowing long hair, at least in my dreams they have this, as you float on an ornately carved and painted wooden ship on a blue lake as reflective and still as a mirror. A cool breeze flutters their flowing locks, revealing tantilizing bits and pieces of seductive flesh, and silken caramel skin smooth and inviting. You notice you have probably the largest hard on you’ve ever had in your long life, just a bobbin’ and weavin’ in the cool breeze. One of the most beautiful lasses, sitting right next to you of course, leans over, her satiny breasts rub enticingly on your chest as she feeds you a few plump, ripe, glistening and cool grapes. The word 'succulent' reverbrates in your mind for some reason you can’t fathom at the moment. It crosses your mind that maybe you should ask this gorgeous creature to maybe do something oral to your throbbing and bobbing member, as it looks lonely and neglected waving about so close to her. Mightn’t she see to its well being and happiness you ask her lazily, with a devilish grin, as juice from your last grape glistens on your lips suggestively. With an impish grin of her own on her beautiful face she agrees, and lowering her lashes as she lowers her head toward your ever so grateful member ... this is when your wife decides to wake you from sleep to go to a funeral.

“Wake up darling! Leou! leou! (Quick! quick!) Tambon parade start now. Ab nam! Ab nam! (Shower! shower!) Leou leou!”

Arrrrrrrrrrggggggg!

“Okay, okay! I’m awake, dammit!” I grumble to her. 

Right then and there is when you’d like to kill her, or throw her on the bed and make mad passionate monkey love, but there just isn’t time for her it seems. You roll off the bed, a bit grumpy, and she notices your monster is standing at full attention in your shorts.

“What you do darling? Why Godzilla awake?” she exclaims in wonder at your lightly throbbing protuberance. 

You grin, and being nobody’s fool, tell her, “I was having sexy dreams of you, darling.”

“Yeah? Sure?” she says with a smile.

“Jing jing (It's true) darling. Dreaming of you too much!” I say.

What? I'm going to tell her I was dreaming about strange exotic women I had never seen before? I'm not crazy! 

Laughing, she says, “Okay okay, now you go shower. Make cold water. Make Godzilla sleep. Have to go quick!”

I see, upon crossing the threshold into the living room from my bedroom, out my wall-length front windows, that the tambon march to the temple is about to start. People line the street in front of my house. Some monks, and assorted relatives of the dead woman, hold some woven branches of some sort of tree or plant as though they are a team of oxen about to pull a wagon, or are involved in the start of a 'Tug-of-war' game. Attached to the braided vegetation is a long wound-up length of white linen or silk, which others are holding. This is attached to an ornately carved and painted red and gold casket resting on the shoulders of many men. Music fills the air and they start to walk off up the street toward the temple.

Damn, it’s starting already!

I ask my wife why the hell she didn’t wake me fifteen minutes earlier, as I had requested she do, and she just shrugged her shoulders, and said, “I forget.” Likely story. She’s probably been drinking more beers with her sisters and cousins and yakking like a magpie while I was snoozing and dreaming dreams of the flesh. Damn her hide.

I rush into the hong nam (bathroom) and quickly rinse off the day’s sweat and grime, accumulated while I’d been drinking and eating, and sleeping, the past couple of hours. Quickly I towel off and throw on my funeral clothing, slipping my feet into my leather Bass sandal/clogs with the comfortable cushioned insoles and vibram rubber soles. I’m out the door in five minutes flat. Sis has the truck sitting at the curb in front of the house with the AC running full blast, thank God, and we drive down to the temple as the funeral marchers turn into the temple gates.

(To be continued.)

 

Cent

(The Central Scrutinizer)