ThailandStories.com - Rain

Pa Laeng woke up with a start as the young man came running into the shop. Although he napped throughout most of the day, sprawled in a tattered deck chair that seemed always about to collapse under his gaunt frame, Pa Laeng never failed to wake up when somebody crossed the threshold of his little store. The young man stopped just under the awning at the front of the shop, his knit cap and the shoulders of his torn T-shirt wet and glistening in the sunlight which was still shining through the rain. He stood uncertainly, peering into the dimness of the shop, a plastic bag containing a fresh fish and some vegetables in one hand.

The shop was half-way between the Jong Thong Thani housing development and the big intersection with Chao Fah Road, so Pa Laeng was used ot the construction workers from the development stopping into his place when they were caught by rain on their way back from the weekly fresh market. "If you want to wait out the rain, you have to buy something," said Pa Laeng from his chair.

The young man brushed at the damp patches on his shirt and glanced back outside. The rain was picking up and he made an obvious decision. "I'll take a Lipo," he said as he sat down on one of the concrete benches on the porch. He chose the bench near the open shop-front, as if coming any farther into the shop would commit him to a bigger purchase.

Pa Laeng had been easing himself up from his chair, but when he heard the young man speak he sank back down and said, "The cooler's over there, pay me first."

The young man's face remained impassive, but he looked at Pa Laeng with hard eyes as he rose and dug some coins form the pocket of his tattered Levi's. He crossed the porch and placed the coins on the battered old child's school desk which served as Pa Laeng's checkout counter, then he took a bottle from behind the cracked glass of the cooler and sat back down. This time he sat on the innermost bench, with his back to Pa Laeng.

The rain increased quickly until it was pounding on the tin roof of the porch. The sunlight diminished until it was almost as dark as night and water jetted off of the corners of the patched canvas awning. The old man pulled a faded sarong from the back of his chair and wrapped it around his skinny shoulders. Minutes went by and the rain continued to crash down around the store. The young man pulled his knees up and sank his chin onto his chest; there was a stiff breeze crossing the porch but Pa Laeng had not invited him inside the shop.

The rain began to slacken after about 10 minutes. Finally it was a drizzle, the sun came back out and steam began to rise from the mud around the shop. The young man had left an inch of liquid in the bottom of his bottle, as if he was sure Pa Laeng would chase him away as soon as he finished his drink, but now he gulped it and picked up his plastic bag. He rose and began to leave.

"How many of you are there now, up at the Thani?" asked Pa Laeng from his seat. "What?" said the young man, stopping at the edge of the porch. "How many of you are working up there now? I hear they're way behind schedule, and the bank's not releasing any more money." A dry chuckled rose from Pa Laeng's bony chest. "I imagine that any day now they'll call Immigration and have you all trucked off. That's what they do, you know, rather than pay you the last time. They just send you all back across the border."

The young man was looking at Pa Laeng with undisguised anger. "What's it to you, old man?" he said. Pa Laeng was draping his sarong over the back of his chair, and he froze. He glared at the young man from under bushy eyebrows that droopped down almost to his cheekbones. "Hey, boy, you be careful what you say, or I'll call Immigration myself."

A glimmer of reflected light behind Pa Laeng caught the young man's eye, and he looked past the old man to the back wall of the store, to a big shrine with effigies of the Nine Emperor Gods. A framed picture next to the shrine showed Pa Laeng, as a much younger man, dressed in a white smock spattered with blood, walking in a procession with steel rods inserted through his cheeks.

The young man smiled for the first time. He advanced and stood over Pa Laeng's chair. "Do that, you old bastard," he said. "and see what it gets you. They are behind, and they have to finish the project in two months or lose all their money. If Immigration takes me, they have to take us all, and the boss isn't going to like losing all his workers. He'll want to know who made the phone call."

The young man reached out to where a rusty bottle and can opener hung from a bit of plastic string next to the cooler, and with a jerk he pulled it down. He ran the sharp point of it over his thumb and said, "Did it hurt, old jek, when you stuck those pins in your face?"

Pa Laeng had sunk down in his chair and his voice shook as he said "Get out! Get out of my shop!" The young man said, "I'm going." Suddenly he reached down and scraped the can opener along the top of the old school desk. It made a horrible ripping sound and Pa Laeng covered his face with his hands.

"You shouldn't talk so much, old man. Wasn't so long ago, you were right where I am now. I know about you jek. We have jek where I come from too."

The young man took his bags and walked off down Thanon Khwang, through the clouds of oily steam rising from the wet pavement, toward the huge half finished gates of Jong Thong Thani. Even though it was still early, Pa Laeng closed the iron grill in front of his shop, and the neighbors could hear his prayers late into the night, even through the sound of the rain.

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If you enjoyed 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.

Thai Vignettes: http://www.bangkokbooks.com/php/product/product.php?product_id=000025&sub_cate_name=&sub_cate_id=

Expat Days: http://www.bangkokbooks.com/php/product/product.php?product_id=000032&sub_cate_name=&sub_cate_id=

steve rosse
June 15, 2008, 23:00

Thank you very much for your kind words. After my kids were born my ex-wife forbade me from smoking in the house, so I had this porch where only I went, and only to sit and smoke. Even the maid didn't go out there. The porch was only about six feet long by four wide, it was off the second floor and surrounded by bamboo so snakes were always a worry, but the bamboo also meant that when I was on the porch I could see everything going on in the neighborhood but nobody else could see me.

I had a hammock and a folding lawn chair and a bong and a cooler and an ash tray and it was my little slice of heaven. Inside the house my wife was always angry, the my son was either asleep or crying, and the maid was 14 and nourishing a crush on her boss. Outside on my porch everything was like it was when I first arrived on Phuket; I was alone and I was high. The sunlight was filtered through thousands of green leaves, and everything on the porch was striped like it was upholstered in zebra skin. When the traffic settled down after 5 o'clock I could hear roosters crowing and water buffalo bawling and that "thump" a coconut makes when it hits the ground after a 30-foot drop. I could smell what was being made for dinner in half a dozen kitchens. Across the street was a little nid-noi shop run by Ba Laeng, and I went over there every day to buy cigarettes and Lipo and Nesquick. We lived in that house for three years and before we left my son was calling Ba Laeng "Khun Tha."

Up the road was a big construction site, and about a thousand illegal Burmese laborors. Everybody knew who they were and they were usually pretty timid and unassuming. One false step and back they go to Burma. The women would cut their hair and dress like men because the rumor was Immigration would catch Burmese women to sell to brothels.

But one day I was sitting on my porch and Ba Laeng was asleep in the front of his shop and the rain came and this young man ran into the shop. I witnessed the scene exactly as I describe it above, except I witnessed it from across the street, through a screen of bamboo and rain, so for this writing I supplied the dialogue.

"Jek" is the Thai equivalent of "chink." The Hokkien Chinese have ruled Phuket for about 100 years, and when they parade through the streets of Phuket City at the annual Vegetarian Festival, with knives and needles and rifles and bicycles inserted through the fleshy parts of their bodies, it's as much a political event as a religious ceremony. Imagine the Orangemen marching through Ulster with iron bars stuck through their cheeks. They ruled the Thais because they controlled the tin mines, but now the real money is in tourism and construction and the Fourteen Founding Families and their tens of thousands of descendents don't like being middle class, or lower.

So there is conflict, in this case between the old immigrants who consider themselves now "Thai," and the new immigrants who want to share in the wealth but haven't paid enough dues. There's a place in Phuket called the "Burmese Cemetery," a tidal pool outside of Phuket City where mutilated murdered bodies are fished out every day. I used to know the Peace Corps volunteer for Phuket and she worked handing out AIDS literature printed in Burmese to the gangs who work the fishing fleets. They told her they were more afraid of being murdered by "jek" than they were of AIDS.

So there was the central conflict of the story. I happen to be a traditionalist so I think that every story needs conflict, and there is really not much variation in the kinds of conflicts humans indulge in, so the challenge is to tell a story about an old conflict in a way that makes it still interesting to a reader who's heard it all before. (Remember the episode of "Sanford and Son" where Fred meets his new Vietnamese neighbor?) In a perfect universe I would have rather kept the conflict, and the threat of violence, much more covert. I would have loved to try to build a nice, long scene full of tension that never quite boils up to the surface. But you have to work fast when you've only got 1,000 words so in most of my stories there's this sort of rush to the conclusion. Happily, in this story I did not try for the O. Henry twist at the end.

Cent
June 15, 2008, 12:21

Excellent, Steve. How do you come up with these stories? This feels like a story only an insider could write. SOmeone very close to the subject matter. If I may ask, where did you get the story? Heard it? Made it up? Cobbled it together from something you heard, some good insight and a good imagination? A very good read.

icarus
June 15, 2008, 16:54

Steve. This is particularly successful. There are no literary tricks, the narrative is economical and the absence of farang is refreshing. Its about the domestic stuff of asiatics isnt it? Though I dont know what a 'jek' is perhaps it hardly matters. A foreigner, a gay, a religious nut, a deadbeat immigrant labourer? The condition of the excluded other tends to universal.

I like the rain. Its a good motif; incessant, uncomfortable, baring divisions rather easily. Somerset Maugham wrote a short story about it in monsoon form unhinging mens' minds which I enjoyed years ago. The story of the film extra/ hoary prostitute by Roy Wilson, put up here, uses it inspirationally, ectstatically.

Missed you though. Did I already write how I notice it was you who lent the hero the 15,000 baht toward the end of 'The Artist".....

Only that I would like more ambiguity in the conflict between the protagonists. Discord is a good way to found a story but is rarely simple. We hate others insofar as we dont accept ourselves and we harbour secret sympathies, envy and fears toward the repugnant other.........though this way burnished cliche beckons too..

Dana
June 16, 2008, 06:43

The biographical comment by Mr. Rosse is a good example of the notion that it is easier to write after you have lived a little. I didn't start writing in volume until late in my life but by then I had lived a little. The words came out (and still do) in a torrent. I know there are young skilled writers (under age 30) but the idea is always a challenge to me. What are they writing about? They haven't done anything yet.

Rain

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