Then came the next fad. Kampol, with the big blob of modeling clay still protruding from the pocket of his shorts, watched as the older kids practiced with their yo-yos, winding the string, thrusting it out, and reeling it back. This time, he felt oddly fed up by the whole rigmarole and didn’t hurry right over to Auntie Nian’s store to buy a yo-yo, but he also didn’t pull out his modeling clay for a game. That whole day, Kampol watched the others playing, some with yo-yos, some with modeling clay, but he didn’t have the slightest desire to join in. He was sick and tired of all of it.
That Saturday, outside Chong’s shop, Oan and Jua were in the middle of a modeling clay battle. Kampol, sullen, watched from afar. He flipped his palm over and glanced at the hunk in his hand, but that was all he did. Chong, who’d been reading, put his book down on the table and walked over to him.
“What’s the matter, Boy? Why aren’t you playing with your friends?”
“They’ll get bored of it in no time. Give it two more days, Hia Chong, and nobody’s going to be playing with modeling clay anymore.”
“What makes you say that? All I see all day is you kids going crazy hurling that stuff around. Why do you think everybody’s going to give it up all of a sudden?”
“Before we got into modeling clay, do you remember what we were into?”
“Hmm…I can’t remember anymore.”
“It was bouncy balls. Don’t you remember that time one of my balls bounced into your water glass?”
“Oh, right. Bouncy balls were everywhere!”
“Yeah. And before bouncy balls, it was rubber bands. Before that it was something else—and on and on. We got bored of them and move on to something else.”
“Well, who’s to blame for that? You all are the ones who lose interest.”
“I don’t lose interest. I never got bored by any of it. When we were playing with the rubber bands, I’d just gotten myself a good one. Then all of a sudden, everybody else switched to playing with bouncy balls. And then when I almost had a ball with every pattern, they moved on to modeling clay. And now that I’m good with my shots, they’re about to move on to something else again. You just watch, Hia Chong, in two days no one’s going to be playing with it anymore. They’re already starting to practice with yo-yos. I’m sick of it. I don’t want to learn how to yo-yo like the rest of them fools.”
“Hmm…interesting. So, does this mean you haven’t lost interest in modeling clay or that you’ve lost interest in everything?”
“It’s just how everybody starts playing something, and then they get tired of it and quit. Even when I’m not bored of it yet, I have to quit along with them, too. I’m bored by them—that’s what it is.”
“Who’s ‘them’? If you’re not bored by the game, why do you have to follow what they do and stop? Can’t you do your own thing and just keep playing? Who are these ‘them’ anyway?”
“‘Them’ is everybody—at school and here, too. If they’re not playing what I want to play anymore, then who am I supposed to play with?”
“And you can’t play by yourself…hmm. And the yo-yos, you really aren’t tempted to get one like the others are doing?”
“It’s not that. It’s just that I know they’ll end up getting tired of the yo-yos in no time, too.”
Chong chuckled. “All right, I have an idea. I’ve been in this situation before. Really, when I was your age, I once refused to do things the way everybody else did them. I got really fed up and found myself a toy I could play with alone.”
“What was your toy? What did you play?”
“My toy…my toy was books. Books can be fun and you don’t need anybody to play.”
“Boy, your papa’s here! Hurry! He brought the big water truck, too!” Oan and Jua screamed.
Kampol ran out. The truck was parked in front of the grocery. Wasu opened the door to let his son climb up and put Boy on his lap. Kampol shouted toward the store, “I’m going to go play with my papa. I’ll see you tomorrow, Hia Chong.”
Chong sighed. Picking up his book, he went back to playing alone.
Backup Strategy
Kampol and Jua were learning to play checkers. In front of the grocery was a terrazzo game table. The two of them arranged their bottle caps—Kampol’s were face down and Jua’s were face up—and wasted no time making their moves. They each charged ahead, only caring about capturing their opponent’s checkers and paying absolutely no attention to defending their own. But, as reckless as they were, neither was managing to make a single jump, not even when their pieces were all mixed together across the board.
Eventually—and around the same time—both Kampol and Jua reached the opposite side of the board with a piece and was crowned king, and neither had lost a single piece to the other. They kept on playing, earning several more kings each, but still they hadn’t taken out a single one of the other’s checkers. Jua grew frustrated; Kampol sensed that something was off.
“Hia Chong,” Kampol yelled, “can you come have a look? What do we have to do to jump each other’s pieces?”
Chong was in the middle of grabbing something for a customer. “Well, you’ve just got to try,” he hollered from inside. “Or else you have to be willing to trade—sacrifice one of yours first in order to get one in return.”
Kampol and Jua both stared at their checkers, trying to plot out a trade. It was Kampol’s turn, but he still couldn’t figure out a way to let Jua jump one of his.
“Hia Chong,” Kampol yelled again, “I don’t even see how to give up one of mine. Can you please come look? How do I do it?”
“Do it with any of them. Move one of your pieces right up to one of his and just let him jump you. And if there’s one where if he makes a jump, you can do it back, then that’s the best,” Chong yelled from behind his desk in the back of the store.
Kampol studied his checkers for a long time. “Hia Chong,” he called again, “there’s no way.”
“Just move whichever one, and soon enough something will get jumped!”
Kampol simply moved at random. Jua stared at the board for a long time, trying to find a way to sacrifice one of his in a trade, but no matter how long he stared, none of his checkers presented itself as a candidate.
“Hia Chong,” Jua called, “can you please come look? I don’t see how to make a jump happen no matter what I do.”
Chong closed his ledger, got up from his desk with a sigh, and came over to the terrazzo table. Arms crossed, he inspected the situation on the board. Then he laughed, shaking his head side to side, a bit exasperated.
“You two are really something—Jua, you’re using the white squares and Boy’s using the black ones. Play like that and it’s impossible for there to ever be a way to jump. No wonder you’ve been having such a hard time capturing each other’s pieces,” Chong said. Then he cleared the board and rearranged the pieces so the kids could start again. “Remember that you have to set them up this way. If you put them on the white squares, you both have to do white. Or if you put them on black, you both have to do black. All right…this time you’ll definitely get to make some jumps.”
Kampol and Jua returned to playing, and Chong went back to his desk. The two boys made their moves quietly; only every so often would a bit of their conversation be faintly audible. At first, they were hypervigilant, scared of losing one of their men. But then they ran into the same problem again. Unbelievably, despite the pieces being set up properly, they still couldn’t capture each other’s men.
“Hia Chong!” Jua hollered. “Can you come look? Boy won’t let me jump one of his.”
“Why don’t you sacrifice one of yours first?” Kampol asked.
“All right, all right. Don’t argue,” Chong yelled from his desk. “It’s good that you’re defending your pieces. When you have nowhere else to move, you’ll have no choice but to give one up anyway.”
The boys continued playing, both frowning.
“What are you dodging away for?” Kampol growled, but not too loudly
.
“Well what are you dodging away for?” Jua snapped right back, also keeping his voice down.
“Because you did first.”
“No, you did. A bunch of times now, too.”
“What’s going on?” Chong said, sounding annoyed. “Can’t you two just play in peace?”
“Come look, Hia Chong. Jua won’t let himself be jumped. He keeps dodging me!”
“He’s complaining about me, but he’s doing the same thing!”
Chong stood up, huffing loudly through his nose. He walked back over to the terrazzo table to investigate the situation. From the look of things, he didn’t see any issues. Both sides, face up and face down, were at dead ends. Each of them had only one possible move left, and once it was made, that checker was as good as captured. It was only a matter of whose turn was next.
“Go on, make a move. Let’s see if it’s really true that no one can jump,” Chong said. Kampol reached for the checker that Chong had his eye on.
“Wait! What are you doing?” Chong cried. “You can’t move backward! That’s why neither one of you has managed to capture a single piece.” He scratched his head, then sat down, ordering the opponents to start again.
At long last, the first game of checkers came to an end. Jua was whooping because he had won. Kampol, on the other hand, crinkled his brow and refused to play anymore.
“I’m not playing,” Kampol said petulantly. “Hia Chong, you only gave Jua tips—if I had known this was going to happen, I would have kept playing the old way.” His large eyes reddened and welled up.
Jua laughed and taunted him: “Loser! Crybaby!”
A blasé look on his face, Chong cast his eyes toward the sky, where gray clouds were rolling in from a distance.
The Wedding
Jua’s uncle Berm came over to consult Jua’s grandfather, Old Jai, about a terrible predicament he had found himself in.
“I really didn’t mean for this to happen, Papa, I swear,” Berm said, his face a picture of torment. “She and I are friends. The girl I like is actually a friend of hers. Papa, what do I do now? I didn’t mean for this to happen, really.”
“Well, don’t do anything. Just sit tight,” his father replied, rolling himself a cigarette, completely unperturbed.
“I can’t sit tight anymore, Papa. She’s already four months pregnant. She wants me to go ask her parents for her hand. Her parents are insisting on forty thousand baht, but then they’ll take care of the wedding, that’s what they said.”
“Are you sure it’s your kid? You’re positive you’re the only one she’s slept with?”
“I’m sure I’m not, but she says that I was the only one she got in bed with around that time.”
“You idiot! She didn’t get knocked up sleeping with other men, but she did with you? Why didn’t you use protection? With a stupid mistake like that, you deserve what happened.”
“Yeah, Papa, that…she intentionally trapped me. My friend told me she’s had her eye on me for ages, even though she knew I was going out with her friend. It was New Year’s Eve when it all went down. I got smashed early in the night. I couldn’t even tell you what time it was when I went into the bedroom to sleep. Sometime around midnight, all my friends decided to go to the temple and get blessed with holy water. Nobody woke me up. If they had none of this would’ve happened. Only when they were on their way back from the temple did they realize that she wasn’t with them. They looked and looked for her and still couldn’t find her. Close to dawn, one of my friends came into the room where I was to sleep. When he opened the door, there she was… So everybody found out, and there was no way to deny it. Papa, what do I do? I really don’t want to get married.”
“It’s up to you. If you don’t want to get married, then don’t get married.”
“That’s not an option, Papa. They said that if I don’t do the right thing, they’re going to send someone to shoot me in the head.”
So Berm didn’t have any choice but to get married. But there was still haggling to be done over the price of the dowry. Ultimately, the bride’s family offered a compromise of twenty thousand, but they had to hand over the whole forty first, and the bride’s family would give back half after the wedding.
On the day of the nuptials, no one was more excited than Jua, the groom’s nephew. He put on a new shirt and a new pair of shorts; it was only a shame he didn’t have shoes. Kampol and Oan—though they had no business lining up with the family—were there, dressed in their school uniforms, which were their best clothes. Old Jai’s friends and family had gathered early in the morning to walk with the khan maak bowl over to the bride’s home, which was in town.
Among those in the khan maak procession, there was one other person without shoes, Old Gan, Jua’s grandpa’s dearest friend. Now elderly, the two of them had been buddies since they were young men and had never grown even an inch apart. Normally, both of them sported fisherman’s pants, secured with a simple tuck at the waist, and nothing else. They hadn’t worn shirts or shoes for years and years. But for this affair, they had to show Jai’s son’s auspicious occasion due respect. The two old pals, therefore, were dressed in brand-new long-sleeved shirts and long pants—their outfits matched in cut and color from head to toe, as if they were twins. The biggest challenge for them, though, was wearing shoes. They had both tried on several pairs in various styles. Ultimately, they’d settled on a pair of flip-flops for each of them. Even still, Jai was the only one who could endure keeping them on. Old Gan carried the shoes in his hand the entire time.
Outside of the bride’s home, they finished assembling the khan maak procession. With three long “Ho’s!” and three quick “Hew’s!” the wedding parade began marching. Jua, Kampol, and Oan walked on ahead of the groom. As they neared the foot of the stairs leading into the house, the scene turned chaotic. Berm stood there in his suit, looking pale and like his saliva was too thick to swallow. He leaned down and whispered to Kampol:
“Boy, go inside the house and ask for the bride. Tell her Berm is begging—would it be okay if there were only three of the gold and silver gates? I didn’t prepare enough envelopes. Hurry!”
Kampol sprinted off immediately. Before long, he reported back:
“The mother of the bride said you can just hand out the cash without putting it into the envelopes. Her relatives don’t mind.”
Berm, Old Jai, and Old Gan put their heads together for a moment. Then the khan maak procession went ahead. When they reached the first symbolic gate, blocked by a gold chain, Berm took out some envelopes. He made it through that first obstacle, then the second one, and then the third. Now he had run out of the six envelopes he had prepared, and his hands were empty in his pockets. Ahead, nearly ten more gates, barred by gold chains remained. The groom smiled nervously at the bride’s relatives, who were holding firm at their stations and keeping the chains taut.
“Ready?” you could hear Old Gan asking, to which Old Jai replied, “Let’s do it.” The entire procession plowed ahead hard, hoping to propel the groom through the gates one way or another. The bride’s relatives, not to be outdone, fought back, defending their stations as if their lives depended on it. The two sides pushed back and forth and back and forth for some time, but neither gave ground. Then a command came from Old Jai: “Wait! Retreat for now! Back!”
The khan maak unit retreated. The groom’s suit was crumpled all over. The children, who had jumped way out of the way, came back, sheepishly watching the situation.
“Let’s go home, Papa,” Berm said. “If they won’t let us through, we don’t have to go through.”
“No, no. That would be a disgrace, son,” Old Gan said. Then he threw his flip-flops on the ground. He stripped off his shirt, which was drenched in sweat, wrapped it around his head, snatched up his shoes again, and squeezed them, determined. “Round two. Let’s go.”
The groom’s team got into ranks and charged again. The children watched from the sidelines, their hearts pounding. This time, t
he tenacity of the groom’s side was intimidating to behold. Some brawny cousins of the bride who had been holding back felt themselves called to duty and rushed in to provide reinforcements. What ensued was a fierce struggle. Jua panicked as he saw his Uncle Berm being swallowed up in the crowd.
But soon enough his uncle was thrust up into the air, his body supported on a bed of hands. You could hear Old Jai counting, “One, two…” When he got to three, Berm glided over the wall of bodies formed by the bride’s relatives.
The ceremony was allowed to proceed. The bride and groom first paid respect to their elders, who gave them gifts of money. Then the guests lined up to pour water from the ceremonial conch shell over the couple’s hands. The reception was set to begin at noon. At the start of the program, the groom’s father and the bride’s mother exchanged a few dirty looks over the money gifted to the couple. The bride’s mother demanded to keep the money the couple had received from her relatives for herself. The groom’s father, on the other hand, said he thought all the money should go to the couple, but if the mother of the bride was going to take that position, then he would claim the money his relatives had given them should be given to him. They didn’t argue for long. It was agreed: the bride and groom would have to hand the money from the various relatives over to their parents.
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