Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Last night Bennie's Mom, a 42-year-old Thai woman, watched "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" all alone, and when the movie was over she lay in bed and cried for an hour.

Bennie's Mom married Bennie's Dad in Los Angeles while she was a graduate student at UCLA. Bennie's Dad had emigrated to the US after serving with the Royal Thai Army in Vietnam. He was much older than Bennie's Mom, and barely educated at all. But he was a good-hearted man, much in love with her, and she was old enough to know that she was not considered attractive by most other men and would have few more chances.

They married at the temple in Encino, California, on a Sunday afternoon because that was Bennie's Dad's day off, with only five guests attending the wedding. Bennie's Mom moved into her new husband's house and, at his request, set about getting pregnant as quickly as possible. Bennie's Dad earned a very comfortable living importing Thai canned goods to Asian markets in Orange County, and while Bennie's Mom missed the latest books and magazines from Thailand, she never went hungry for fish sauce or sataw.

Bennie was born at Kaiser Memorial Hospital, and from the first day of his life he was the apple of his father's eye. Bennie's Dad was proud of being Thai, but he was proud to be a naturalized American citizen as well, and proud of the success that he had achieved in the land of opportunity. As Bennie grew up his Mom taught him the Thai alphabet and how to worship the Buddha, and his Dad taught him the names of the seven dwarves and how to play baseball.

But because he was already 50 years old when Bennie was born, Bennie's Dad did not often have the energy for a game of catch when he came home from making his deliveries each day. So, by the time Bennie was five years old, he and his Dad had fallen into the habit of spending their quality time together in front of the TV. That was the year that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles took America by storm, and from the bookcase packed with Disney classics and hours of Sesame Street, Bennie would always choose to watch the "Heroes in the Halfshell".

They watched so often that both knew every line in the movie by heart, and Bennie's Mom grew used to hearing their conversation peppered with phrases like "Cowabunga!' and "Awesome, Dude!"

Then one day the police called and said that Bennie's Dad had been shot during a robbery at one of the Asian markets. He had surprised the robbers by walking into the shop carrying a case of canned watercress, and they had probably shot him out of sheer panic. Bennie's Mom sat by his bedside at Kaiser Memorial for six horrible days, just one floor above the room where Bennie had been born, while Bennie's Dad was kept alive by a wall full of machinery. The doctors finally convinced her to pull the plug on the seventh day, and then they put her into a heavily medicated sleep.

Through that whole week Bennie stayed home and was cared for by the wife of the owner of the shop where his Dad was shot. Bennie was only five years old but he knew something was very wrong with his Dad. He spent the time watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and listlessly but compulsively pushing a plastic car back and forth on the floor. By the end of the week the combined noise of the car's squeaky wheels and the "valley talk" of the movie had driven the woman who was caring for him nearly mad.

After Bennie's Mom delivered her husband's ashes to his family in U-Tong she brought her son to live with her family on Phuket, where she took work as a secretary in her father's tin smelting firm. Since his Dad died at work, Bennie will be eligible for $500.00 US every month from the US Social Security Administration until he's 18, so they don't need the money so much. She just needed to keep busy.

Bennie wasn't happy to leave LA, but his cousins took him under their wings at school, and once he learned to speak Thai, he fit right in. Today he's a handsome 14-year-old and star goalkeeper on the school football team. His early American diet has made him slightly bigger than the other kids. Once every three months his Mom takes his American passport to the Immigration office and gets him another tourist visa. The officers consider it quite funny that a boy named Banjong, son of Thai parents, has been a tourist on Phuket for eight years.

Last night would have been Bennie's parents' fifteenfth wedding anniversary. After dinner Bennie and his Mom sat together in front of the TV. Bennie was enthralled by a comedy on Channel 7, but his Mom was distracted and kept getting up to wander around the house. Finally she dug out the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tape and asked Bennie if he would like to watch it with her.

"We can watch," he said, but she could see his heart was not in it.

"Don't you like the turtles anymore?" she asked him. He looked at his feet and answered, "They talk farang language, I don't understand." His face lit up when she told him he could go back to the comedy, but after Bennie went to bed his Mom sat up watching the Turtles alone.

She went to bed feeling just awful, but after she cried herself to sleep she dreamed that she was watching the comedy on channel 7, and with her were Bennie and Bennie's Dad. Nobody said anything in the dream. They all just sat there and watched the TV, but they were all laughing, and they were a family again. In the morning she threw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles away, and she never called Banjong Bennie again.

© Steve Rosse. All rights reserved by the author.

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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.

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