Central Scrutinizer Posted March 20, 2004 Report Share Posted March 20, 2004 Buddy, the Neighborhood Friend in Surin--part 3 Some Observations and Stories on Middle Class Thai Men -by Cent Once on the highway Buddy had turned onto we tried to communicate some more in our limited Thai and English. I was mostly trying to find out exactly where the hell he was now taking me, as we were now leaving Surin and heading in a direction I had never gone before in all my time here. I tried to ask him where he now planned on going, as it was obvious we were no longer going to any elephant show in the city. I managed to get out of him that he wanted to take me to see his brother, who had a shop/restaurant down the road a piece. This seemed okay, as he was telling me his bro had some delicious foods we could eat, and also we could grab another beer there to. It was at this point while he had been driving down the highway a few minutes while we were chatting that I noticed his driving was getting pretty goddamned erratic. I at first just attributed this to the fact that he was a pretty shitty driver. After a few really close calls with other traffic heading on the opposite side of the road that I realized the guy was fucking drunk as a skunk. Now, I don't know how this was so. As far as I knew he'd had the same amount of beer as myself, and I might have had a slight buzz from the Changs, but I was nowhere near being shitfaced. Have you ever had a friend who was drinking with you, and one minute he seems fine, but a few minutes later all of a sudden he's fucking legless and crosseyed? Like the last drink just pushed him over the edge between a buzz and being shitfaced drunk? This is what seemed to happen to my new buddy, Buddy! Buddy was now hammered. I was riding down the highway with a drunken Thai guy I barely knew, could barely speak to, and he was sitting there giggling like a fucking demented, wasted, fucking cartoon turtle without a shell everytime I'd tell him to "Look out you boob! Yer on the wrong side of the fucking line!" AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhFUCK!!!!!! I kept trying to guide him along as he weaved and wobbled the truck all over the highway. At first it was just a little bit, but as we drove along it kept getting worse and worse. I was white-knuckling the dashboard and door handle and getting ready to grab the friggin' steering wheel. What the fuck?!! "Hey Buddy, you okay man?" I queried him as he giggled like a loon while we seemed to head right toward a bus coming the other way toward us. He took his eyes off the road and looked at me, "Why you say, My Dtree?" My eyes widened in fear, and I told him,"Turt! Watch the goddamned road will ya?!! And get on the right side of the road! And slow down! Watch the damned bus!" He just giggled, "Okay, okay. No problem My Dtree. Jai yen. Jai yen." Jai yen my fucking ass! This guy was either just fucking with my head and trying to give the farang a little test like a participant of "Fear Factor" the reality television show, or he was driving drunk and I was along for the ride. Either way I was getting pissed off and truly a fearin' for my life here. This was finally ended as he told me we were at his parents city, the city where he was born and lived in, and where he also now worked as a government employee. (All true I later found out.) He tried to take a left onto a side soi and nearly went off the road. He then proceeded to show me his parents house, but didn't pull in or park. He just seemed to drive in circles in the neighborhood then finally got back onto the main drag, nearly getting hit by oncoming traffic he went across the street into a dirt and gravel parking lot, explaining this was his brother's shop. He jerkedly parked the 4x4. I thought he was gonna run over a couple little kids playing in the parking lot and run the truck into the fucking building. I've never been so glad to get out of a vehicle in my life. The guy was a fucking drunken menace, or he needed a serious ass kicking if he was just fucking with me. Buddy got out of the truck laughing and weaving unsteadily a bit. A guy came toward us and smiled at Turt speaking to him in Thai, a worried look on his puss for some reason. Great. What? Buddy is like the drunken black sheep troublemaker of the family? The man had on one of those ingratiating smiles you see on a dog that's been beaten too often, and a wary look in his darting black glistening eyes. He couldn't seem to look you in the eyes. Buddy introduced the guy to me as his younger brother. I can't remember his name now, so for the purposes of this tale I'll just call him Bro. Bro invited us into his open air shop and sat us at a prime table in the front after the intros were finished and the Sawasdee Krups finished. Buddy was playing the big shot it felt like to me, and I was his token farang pal he was showing off to his Bro. We sat down and the first thing Buddy did was order us some beer Changs. This is the last thing I thought Buddy needed. I wondered to myself if I could get a taxi from here back to Surin. It didn't seem likely. Once the beers were brought Buddy, being the perfect Thai host, poured out a glass for me, then one for him, and toasted our newfound "friendship" and we said good luck to each other. Chok Dee. I was beginning to feel I would be needing some luck to get out of what I was now beginning to feel was an awkward situation here. I truly didn't look forward to getting back in the 4x4 with Buddy behind the wheel. I didn't want to make him lose face, but I could give a shit less about someone's face when my life was involved. Being splattered on some Isaan highway by some drunken idiot of a Thai driver wasn't my idea of a good way to go. I've been looking forward to at least a couple more decades of sanuk in life before my next reincarnation as a dung beetle or whatever. How to get out of this prediciment? How to get Buddy, a natural born Thai man with a macho attitude toward drunken driving it seemed, with all the crap entailed with face and prestige and all that, and my neighbor to boot, who I'd be living and interacting with in the area of my house for the next four or five years, to let me drive the damned truck? Maybe his brother could help me out? The brother came back to the table a few minutes later with some barbequed pork and some spicy Moo Larp, or Larp Moo, whichever. I always reverse the words for some reason. Buddy seemed to have actually sobered up a bit while drinking the beer Chang, and was becoming a bit more alert, although he still had this weird lopsided grin pastered across his puss, was prone to giggling like a schoolgirl in heat, and was a bit louder vocally than would be deemed polite and necessary to being heard in normal conversation. I kept an eye on him while we ate the food and drank our beers. I do have to say the BBQ pork was fantastic! Best I ever had in Thailand so far. The larp was fucking spicy as all hell. Buddy said he was going to the hong nam, and as he walked away toward where ever it was behind the shop I scrutinized his gait for any wobbles and staggering. He seemed okay, but then I had thought that when first entering his friggin' truck to begin this nightmarish ride about the countryside. While he was away taking a leak I called his Bro over for a chat. His brother did have better English skills than Buddy did I'd noticed earlier. "Listen Bro, " I told him, "Turt seems to be mao mahk, huh?" He just smiled weakly and nodded slightly. "Well, I wonder if you could help me get him to let me drive the truck, as I'm afraid he's too drunk to be driving right now. Maybe you can help me to let him have me drive? He's really too mao to be driving." A look of horror came over his face once he comprehended what I was suggesting he do. I saw it in his face that he would have no part in this. "No, no." he stammered, "Turt okay. No problum. Turt drive good. My mao." Hmmmmm. Young brother ain't dissing older brother by intimating he's too drunk to drive it seems. Just wouldn't be cool this seems, no matter how drunk Turt was I don't think his brother would have the balls to ever voice this opinion. Shit. This ploy didn't work. I noticed Buddy coming back from the bathroom and decided I needed to take a piss myself. Maybe if I wasn't there his brother would find it easier to suggest I drive. (Yeah, right.) I got up and walked toward Buddy and asked him where the hong nam was. He directed me to the water closet and I walked away to relieve my bladder and wash up a bit. While in the bathroom I pondered a way to get me back home as quickly as possible, in one piece, and away from this fucker and the prediciment I was in. The less time spent with him in the driver's seat the more likely I was to survive another day. While in the hong nam I remembered I had my mobile with me. Hell, I'd forgotten that. The wife had given it to me to bring along in case I needed to call her, or her me, while I was out and about. I washed my hands, dried them on my shorts, as like most Thai bathrooms this one didn't have a towel or paper to dry one's hands with. Even the places that do have a towel handy the damned thing is usually so dirty and gross that it might as well not be there. I took out the mobile and dialed my house number to talk to the wife. She answered on the third ring. I explained to her my problem with Turt and his driving, and my desire to come back home immediately, and told her I'd like to drive myself rather than have Turt drive, as he was pretty mao. She seemed surprised at this and questioned as to how drunk he was. This kinda ticked me off and I gave her a ration of shit, and told her to call Turt on his mobile and talk with him, and at least tell him I needed to go back to the house, as I was a bit tired still from the long trip. She asked me where I was and I told her "At Turt's brother's shop in some town outside of Surin about twenty minutes drive away. She was a little puzzled at this, as she thought I was going to the elephant traing/show grounds with him, not somewhere out of the city. She agreed to talk with him and find out what the hell was going on, and to get him to bring me home. I stressed the fact that I would like to drive as he was too drunk, but she didn't seem to keen on this, or didn't seem to think it would be cool. Face, ya know. Fucking face. How many people in this fucking country have died because of fucking face? I hung up the mobile to give her a chance to talk to my "Buddy" herself and get my ass back home where I'd at least be safe from the hazards of the road. I pulled out my comb, ran it through my hair, splashed some cold water on my face and dried it on my shirt front with a few light dabs of the cotton. I looked in the mirror, just to see if my lightly graying hair had turned completely white from fright during my earlier experience on the highway with Buddy the drunken driver. Fuck. How'd I get myself into this shit?!! I chuckled to myself and shaking my head in disbelief I left the hong nam and made my way back to the table to Buddy. When I got back to my seat sure enough Buddy was on the phone with my wife. He was laughing and giggling, and reassuring her that he'd be bringing me home soon. I wasn't so reassured myself. I still had to drive home with the goofball. After a few minutes on the phone he handed his phone to me and said my wife wanted to talk to me. She told me that he was going to go back to Surin soon, and that he had told her he was okay for driving. No problem darling. Easy for her to say. We finished our beers, Turt suggesting we have another, which I nixed in the bud by suggesting we go back to my place and share a few more beers and some excellent farang whisky that I had stashed in the house in a closet for special occasions. "Number 1 farang whiskey!" I told him. That got his attention. As I proceeded to tell him the virtues of a nice couple decades old single malt Irish whiskey and it's superiority in taste, smoothness and quality over the crap J.W. Black the Thais seem to relish and desire and drink for the snob appeal this seems to bring them. I appealed to him again to let me drive, telling him I was okay, but that he seemed to be a bit drunk and/or maybe tired from work that day. (I did try to be diplomatic and save him face.) He assured me he was fine ("No problem!") and we payed up for our beers and foods and climbed back into the truck. His brother seemed relieved we were on our way, and smile a sincere smile for the first time since I'd met him. I told him I'd have my wife call him in a few days so she could get his recipe for his awesome and delicious pork BBQ and waved goodbye out my opened window and said a sawasdee krup. Meanwhile Buddy proceeded to fumble his keys, finally get the truck started, lurched forward toward the building once again as though he'd crash through the wall, almost hitting his younger brother, who managed to scramble aside quickly. He then threw the gearbox into reverse, hit the gas, and smashed the back bumper of his truck into a black and white striped painted concrete post, not once, but twice as he moved forward and reversed back into the same fucking pole again as though he'd forgotten it was there. I couldn't help myself. I looked over at him and started laughing. Jesus fucking Christ Almighty!! Buddy got out of the truck, saw the damaged bumper, (He'd put a real good crease in it. In two places.) and started to whine about how his wife was gonna kill him. I looked toward his brother, gave him an "I fuckin' told you so pal." look, as he shrugged his shoulders and managed to look like he wanted to be anywhere but there at the moment. I lit a smoke, prayed to Buddha I'd survive this wacky friggin' night, and got out to survey the damage, trying not to laugh hysterically when I saw what Turt, my new Thai Buddy, had done to his nearly new 4x4. Fucking sanuk sanuk. (to be continued) Cent (The Central Scrutinizer) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyborg Posted March 20, 2004 Report Share Posted March 20, 2004 "I looked toward his brother, gave him an "I fuckin' told you so pal." look," LOL !!! Thanks for taking the time to post these great storys Cent, been a long time since the last ones and I`ve been missing them. Looking forward to reading the rest. Cheers Cy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamui Posted March 20, 2004 Report Share Posted March 20, 2004 Great story. I am waiting for the next part! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Central Scrutinizer Posted March 20, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2004 Cyborg, Thanks. Glad you are liking it. I've finally got a laptop and am able to write on a steady basis now. So I may not be on the board as much, but will be having more stories to post as I pile them up in my folders. :-) Cent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Central Scrutinizer Posted March 20, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2004 Kamui, Just put up part four for ya. :-) Hope you enjoy it. It was a night to remember, iof just to remind me to never ride anywhere with him again! :-) Cent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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