by Alex Gunn
The same maintenance guy who unplugged the stage lights turns off all the lights in the school. Everything is dark and still.
We are amongst the last to leave. I get the truck.
As I pull away I look back in the rear view mirror and can make out the shadowy plump image of the School Director waving everyone back, like the captain of the Titanic telling everyone that everything is okay, as the ship slips ever deeper in to the icy sea.
As we drive home the boys talk animatedly about the horror film proportions of the event. About how so and so had a termite in her ear and how the geography teacher was swearing. I look at my wife and she smiles at me. I smile back at her as I have cunningly managed to smuggle out four burgers wrapped in a napkin in my jacket pocket.
I have never felt so much part of the life of any school.
Chapter 14
The Rhythms of Life
October: Rain beginning to thin out and starting to get slightly cooler at night. The gardener (got hold of one eventually) discovered a Hill Tribe living undisturbed at the end of our garden.
“If your truck could talk... it would say “scrap me.” Thom
I’m fed up. Incredibly fed up. Brassed off. Got the hump. I decide that something must be done.
“Well, if the truck won’t start again, you’ll have to take it to another mechanic,” suggests my wife.
I love our old sky blue 28 year old truck, but it does play up, as old trucks do. This time though I have had it. All three things that usually go wrong with it have all gone wrong at the same time; the radiator is leaking, the battery isn’t charging and the air con has packed up again.
The rather bizarre thing is that all these things break and get fixed on a regular basis. I get them fixed, and then the following week or even sooner they break again. It’s like an incurable heroin addict going in and out of rehab, full of empty promises, fresh starts and false hopes, but admittedly not as dramatic.
My previous experience of cars and mechanics back in England was a bit different. I was used to the luxury of a BMW main dealership. I would make a call, book the car in and turn up at the allotted time and a nice freshly scrubbed boy in his first suit, straight from school would hand me the keys to a courtesy car, usually a brand new, top of the range BMW 3 Series. My car would be whisked away to an area that is as spotless as a hospital operating theatre and has more diagnostic computers and hardware than NASA.
All this did come at a price, but I did get a complimentary cup of coffee. More importantly though, stuff did get fixed, and didn’t break again. This is the pattern that I am used to; car breaks, the mechanics fix it, I pay a lot of money and I drive away. End of story.
By stark contrast, what I am having to get used to now is this; truck breaks, I take it to a mechanic who mends it, I pay practically nothing, I drive away, it breaks again, I take it back, they fix it again, I pay even less money, I drive away, it breaks again, I take it back, they fix it again, I drive away, it breaks again, I take it back, they fix it, it breaks again…ad infinitum, as they say.
The last time my truck was fixed was by this old wiry guy with one brown front tooth and clothes which looked like they were hand me downs from the homeless drop in centre. His clothes were so ripped and filthy it would have been an improvement if he had just been nude. It would also be a show stopper of a marketing campaign: “The Naked Mechanic…what you see is what you get.”
He was operating out of a tiny yard which a friend of Khun Sonthaya had recommended to me. The mechanic who we usually went to, Khun Piyac, was ill in hospital with diabetes (“…but coca cola tastes so good”).
Every inch of space in this filthy little yard was taken up with dirty bits of metal and greasy engine parts. The walls were covered with old inner tubes, tyres, steering wheels, fan belts, drive belts, wheels, more wheels, basically anything which had a hole in and could be hung up on a nail rather than just thrown on the floor. Everything else that didn’t have a hole was in fact just thrown on the floor. It’s a great system that I’m thinking of adopting.
Everything was black and greasy. Even the grease looked dirty.
It was difficult to see where his work area began and the street ended. There was just a steady increase in clutter and engine parts the further back into his yard you went. It was like an entrance to a prehistoric Neanderthal cave but littered with bits of dirty metal rather than dinosaur bones.
Amongst the oily debris, small scrawny sick looking chickens pecked about. I wondered what they could be eating and wondered whether he had trained them specially to live on engine grease. There were also cats wandering around, one of which was suckling four tiny kittens, one kitten clearly much smaller and weaker than the rest. It kept trying to suckle and getting pushed out of the way by the other three. It was so tiny. It tried to get up and had trouble standing. Eventually it stood, tottering slightly like a drunk vicars wife at a cocktail party. Eventually it tottered around the other side and tried to nuzzle in without much success.
Above my head and covering half his yard were bits of blue plastic sheeting which were tied to nails that had been banged into the wall, which gave shade from the sun and protection from the rain. It also made the whole place dark and gloomy. The only exception to this was his tiny shrine which was attached to the far wall and amounted to nothing more than a small ornamental mantle piece with two miniature prayer wheels and a small statue of Ganesh, the Elephant God wrapped in fairy lights which continually blinked on and off. Needless to say that it was all covered in a layer of thick grease and looked like a miniature fair ground oasis in a dessert of black filth.
Amongst this madness sat the Lord of Misrule himself on the tiniest little wooden stool you have ever seen in your life, smoking a cigarette and watching Thai soap operas on a fuzzy black and white portable TV. It had just got to the bit again where the uncle starts to reveal some terrible home truths to an assembled family crowd. As he speaks the family members act in a restrained but emotional way. A woman screams and storms off. A man throws down his phone and also storms off, a teenage couple embrace and at the back of the room a ghost rises from the floor and everybody screams and the credits roll. Usual stuff.
The old toothless man notices me. I am already having second doubts about all this. I show him my truck. I lift the bonnet and there is steaming water shooting in an impressive little arc from the top of my radiator. The old guy recoils and laughs as though it’s the funniest thing he has ever seen. I smile but I don’t think it’s that funny.
I wonder why I have not got a big new truck that works. Why at the grand old age of forty five I have a truck which is even older and a lot more broken down than the first car I ever had (Ford Escort with furry dice hanging from the rear view mirror) and why I seem to be the only foreigner in Chiang Mai who doesn’t have a huge brand new pick up truck, like Thom has.
Thai people are obsessed with buying impressively huge and shiny trucks, even if they live in a tiny little shack. Even the most modest houses will have a massive truck parked outside. An expensive new truck is a sign of success, power and prosperity. In Chiang Mai right now it is a must have. What an earth must local people think of me? A figure of pity, of failure? Unable even to afford the affordable loan deal on a new truck. No wonder old toothless laughs his head off.
He dug into his mountain of rotting iron, waved his filthy oil encrusted hand aggressively at a chicken and pulled out the end of a small welding machine. Within five minutes he had welded up the top of my radiator and charged me an infinitesimally small amount of money for his troubles.
True to form his workmanship lasted an infinitesimally small amount of time in direct proportion to his fee structure. By the time I got home there was a little dribble of water gurgling from where he had mended it.
Not only that, the air con had packed up again on the way home, the engine stalled at the lights on the Hang Dong Road outside T
esco’s and the battery that I bought just six months ago had just enough power to turn over what is left of the starting motor.
I was fed up.
I rued the day when I climbed into the sidecar of an angel who sped me through the back streets of Chiang Mai to where his uncle was selling this truck. Why didn’t I just spend more money and get a better one, but then I remembered that we didn’t have any money. You get what you pay for. Buy cheap and you buy twice as my Nan would say.
I day dreamed about the BMW dealership where I used to go; the complimentary coffee, the smart young men in a new suits, the mechanics who knew what they were doing, the absence of chickens and cats. I decided that I had to find myself a main dealership. I was prepared to pay extra as long as they fixed my bloody truck, once and for all.
“I will find a new mechanic,” I said to my wife, “I do believe in fairies” I added for extra effect.
“What?” she yelled back from the kitchen.
“Peter Pan,” I said.
She didn’t reply.
No more driving around Chiang Mai’s back streets letting Old Toothless have a go trying to fix things that are beyond fixing. I was going to a dealership, the central hub of overpriced car repair, I had definitely reached that stage where you are happy to pay whatever it takes as long as it is fixed.
In a trice I was sitting in the huge white clean airy reception area of the Chiang Mai Toyota main dealership. It was a million miles away from Old Toothless. There was a row of 25 uniformed young men and women sitting behind computer screens talking to customers. Occasionally the sales staff would swivel their screens around with a confident flourish to point out to dazed looking customers why it was that it would cost a lot more than they had originally thought.
Before I got a chance to sit down I was swept off my feet by a beautiful young Thai lady who emerged gracefully from behind a pre reception reception desk grandly entitled Toyota Ambassador. She saluted in the traditional Thai way with both hands together as if in serious prayer, and also bowed.
I was in the hands of an Ambassador. The second one I had met this year! I didn’t even know Toyota was a country, but, judging by the grandiosity of this set up, it was not just any old country, but a super state.
“Please you follow me.” She led me to an empty chair opposite a young man in an immaculate Toyota uniform, a bit like a flight attendant on a super swish modern airline. Every hair on his head was perfect. It looked like he had come straight from the hairdressers. I wondered whether, in the new, promised land, known as Toyota, they have their own in-house hairdresser and beautician. I realized that all the staff looked perfect, immaculately dressed and well groomed.
As soon as my bottom hit the seat of my chair a glass of chilled water was placed in front of me on a little plastic coaster with the word Toyota etched into it, just in case I had forgotten whose country I was in and who was responsible for creating the illusion of such wondrous opulence.
“May I speak English?” I said in English.
“I will translate for you,” said my ambassador. She slipped behind the desk and stood over the young man with perfect hair.
“I have a very old truck. Nearly 30 years old. Toyota Hi Lux Mighty X. There are many things wrong.” You get used to speaking in headlines to make translation easier.
There was now a lot of Thai being talked backwards and forwards as I sat and sipped my water. I assumed that they were discussing how a foreigner, who by definition has more money than they know what to do with, is driving a 30 year old truck. The conversation finished.
“You have a very old truck,” the ambassador confirmed with me.
“Yes, and there are many things broken.”
“I will write them down” said the ambassador as she took a new sheet of paper from the desk.
“The radiator is leaking, and dangerous. I need a new radiator.”
“Okay,” she nodded gravely and scribbled in Thai.
“The air con is broken, it needs more than new fluid. Need a new air con.”
“Okay.”
“The battery (pronounced in Thai; Bat-Air-Reeeee) is not charging. Broken alternator.”
“Okay, broken alti-nai-tor…. you also need Service?” she added brightly.
“Yes, why not,” I said feeling happy and care free. “Yes, a full service as well.”
“You bring truck here Friday morning at 8 o’clock… in the morning.”
“Okay,” I said.
I got home and re-arranged my week.
On Thursday afternoon I was called by the Toyota Ambassador.
“Khun Alex, you come here tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock in the morning, confirming your booking” was gabbled at me with the sharp precision gained from much practice.
At 6:00 in the morning I charged the battery with a battery charger that I bought last year which sees far too much action. At 7:15 I put the key in the ignition and prayed to the great truck god in the sky. I turned it to the first position and waited for the little orange light to go out, and then full twist and the whole great lumbering beast lurched into life once more. As the engine warmed up water spurted out from the radiator. We dripped our way across town at a stately old pace keeping my fingers crossed that the lights would change to green before the engine overheated. It was a fine balancing act.
I crawled along with the early morning traffic; the delivery people with motorbike sidecars rammed full of vegetables from the early morning markets, huge bundles of lemon grass, bags full of limes, bunches of bright green basil and coriander and baskets full of flame red chillis. I trundled alongside old ladies riding ancient motor scooters, and young boys off to Chiang Mai Technical College with their new Yamaha 125s, often three or four to a bike, and shop girls riding pillion side saddle putting on their lipstick and admiring their handiwork in their little compact mirrors. Amongst all this early morning SE Asian action sat a foreign man in an ancient truck which was dripping water, with his fingers crossed and staring at the red traffic light repeating the phrase “change green change green change green,” like some medieval wizard.
At 7.45 I pulled up right outside the reception, next to all the other customers pulling into the next available spaces. The old blue truck, streaming water from the front grill, just looked like a joke next to all the huge modern shiny trucks and brand new cars. It looked like something from another world, which I suppose is not too far from the truth.
I bowled into the reception, but was too early for the ambassador. I sat down and waited. Customers came and went. Reception staff arrived. Keys were handed over and signed for and still I waited patiently. I didn’t really mind waiting as in a matter of hours or days my truck would be as good as new. Eventually the ambassador arrived.
“Sawadee Kaa Khun Alex.” She saluted and bowed. I did the same.
Rather disconcertingly she wanted to know all over again what it was that I wanted them to fix on my truck. I went through it again, slowly and clearly.
“Radiator,” I said and she wrote it down as well as translating to another man who thundered it into his keyboard.
“Okay,” she said.
“Battery and alternator.”
“Okay.”
“Air con.”
“ …and you want service and car wash?”
“You bet,” I said and she smiled at me.
She looked up and I countersigned an official looking form.
“I will telephone you,” she said, and made the internationally recognized mime for making a telephone call.
“I will wait for your call,” I said, wondering how long it would be before I heard the estimated price for all the work.
I went outside to my truck and from the back lifted out my son’s old bike, the Super Sporty 22. It’s like a modern day version of Thunderbird 4 emerging from Thunderbird 2. Everyone stopped what they were
doing and stared at me, but it didn’t matter as I told myself that it would be worth it. After all it’s important to “make a go” of things, isn’t it. Rather self consciously I got on and wobbled off exiting through the entrance against the flow of incoming traffic and out onto the furiously busy dual carriageway.
As dangerous as it is, I like cycling in Chiang Mai, especially when I’m on the Super Sporty 22, but, cycling for transport purposes rather than for leisure is seen by Thai people as the lowest form of transport, reserved only for the seriously poor and the odd foreigner who talks about incomprehensible notions such as sustainability and the environment, which have yet to really reach this country. Why would you cycle if you could afford a motor scooter, and why would you use that if you could afford a nice air-conditioned car or truck? The humble bicycle is at the bottom of the transport chain, and a grown man on a Super Sporty 22 in the rush hour morning traffic is somehow even beneath that. People came out of their houses and stared at me.
I got to the office and waited for the call. By lunch time I had the feeling that they would call any time. I imagined a team of mechanics hard at work fixing my truck, phoning up suppliers and getting prices for shiny new radiators and cool looking air con units.
As early afternoon crept into mid afternoon I began to worry. What could they be doing, what was taking them so long? Why had they not phoned me?
At times like this its tempting for me to rationalize what could be happening in a wildly over optimistic way. I wondered, for example, whether they had found the replacement parts and just gone ahead and fixed it without seeking my approval for the final price. It was after all a very straight forward request. Perhaps the Ambassador was on her lunch break and they didn’t want to risk making a phone call themselves. I could understand that. Perhaps they just wanted to surprise me. Perhaps they realised the rarity of such an old but well presented truck and had decided to use it in a commercial about the longevity and reliability of the Toyota Company/ Kingdom. Perhaps they were just phoning their company marketing team back in Japan before they finalized the deal with me. Perhaps they were going to ask me, along with Pierce Brosnan, to be in the advert.