by Derek Armstrong
Nabat wears a black t-shirt stamped with a Brylcreemed, sideburned Elvis.
He leans on the railing of the Krung Thon bridge footway, watching the sun dip over Thonburi. The bridge’s latticed girders frame his bulky silhouette. Beneath his swollen legs, the Chaopraya river snakes its way through the sleepless city. Giant barges, brimming with rice, sand and twisted metal, glide slowly downstream towards Klong Toey port, out to the Andaman Sea. Passenger ferries, packed with weary commuters, ply the river between Pra Nakhon and Thonburi, steering wary paths between fine dining barges and erratic long-tail boats.
He drops a simple nylon line, weighted and baited, from the bridge. It plummets with a faint hiss, splashing into black waters, alive with hungry shadows. He ties the line securely to the handrail, then sits down on a brick-shaped cushion. His weight bursts its seams, oozing creamy white kapok puffs over its elaborately embroidered traditional pattern. He steadies himself, closes his eyes, then breathes deeply for several minutes.
Long enough for the restless sounds of the city to ebb and flow. For the early evening breeze to cool humid car-jammed lanes and chaotic sidewalks. Long enough for food hawkers and orange-vested motorcycle taxi riders to begin their evening trade. For distant lines of white lights to inch forward along illuminated tollways, carrying office workers home to the suburban sprawl.
He opens the lid of a faded pink plastic ice bucket and breaks off a handful of cubes, clatters them into a grubby white plastic tumbler, then uncaps and pours the contents of a small Coke bottle. Listening contentedly to the ice click and crackle in the fizzing sweet liquid, he savors a couple of gulps, before setting down the half-full tumbler beside him. From a canvas shoulder bag, he pulls out four clear plastic bags. One contains a fist-sized lump of sticky rice. He breaks off a bite-sized portion, rolls it into a ball and swallows. From another, he picks out a thin wooden skewer, spearing a strip of chicken satay. He dips it into a third smaller bag, a piquant sauce of peanut, ginger and chili and chews the meat hungrily. He pierces the contents of the final bag with the skewer – a jumble of finely chopped carrot, chilli, cucumber and red onion, soaked in rice vinegar. His mouth tingles with a riot of flavors.
He looks out across the city and the river flowing below. A dark, merciless expanse that stole a beloved nephew many years ago, chasing coins from floating lanterns. He closes his eyes and hums to himself – “And his mama cries…”. He holds the memory, then lets it go. The deep-set lines creasing his face relax. He removes his t-shirt slowly over his greying hair and broad shoulders. Elvis disappears, revealing a large blue-inked sacred tattoo on his back. He rests his hands on his knees and lets his body embrace the cool early evening breeze.
The line moves almost imperceptibly on the handrail. He grasps it quickly in one hand, reels it in with the other. The catch flaps, twists, struggles for life. He carefully guides a glistening fish over the handrail, removes the hook from its mouth and lets it plop gently into the melting ice of the plastic bucket.
He makes his way home, carrying his catch carefully down the stairs at the end of the walkway to the frontage road. Shuffling along the narrow uneven pavement, he passes a row of already shuttered shophouses. He steps around a badminton net strung across the lane and a group of neighbors playing foot volleyball. Treading cautiously between two Chinese mom and pop stores, whose irascible owners momentarily abandon their daily quarrel.
He ducks into an alley and almost trips over Pa-Pook, crouched on a low stool beside wide basins brimming with suds and sodden washing. “Lizard!”, she curses, throwing a wet sock in his direction. Nabat offers her a contrite “Please excuse me,” and lays the bucket down on the narrow path beyond that winds through a warren of packed wooden houses. Murmurs swell to shouts as a crowd of excitable children run and jostle to inspect Nabat’s catch. “Oh! Oh! That’s a big fish!” squeals six-year-old Bon, face lit with a snaggle-toothed smile. “I want to eat it!” shouts his best friend, Zack, throwing both hands in the air. “Don’t kill the poor fish!” pleads a sad-faced Jen. Nabat chuckles and consoles.
He plucks the bucket from the pack of excited children and guides it home through the maze of alleys, to a creaking two-storey teak house on Sung Hee Corner. Inside, he pours out the contents of the bucket onto the kitchen table. Water splashes from table to floor, leaving the fish flapping for its life. Grasping it by the tail, he thumps its head on the table once. Twice – the fatal blow. He slits it lengthwise, guts it, then skewers it from tail to gill. He lights an earthenware charcoal burner, then sets the fish on a metal grid, turning it regularly with tongs as it grills to a slow crisp. The aroma soon draws the children to his door. He places the fish on a blue-rimmed white plate and cuts it into bite sized pieces. He offers the plate to small grateful hands, one-by-one. Fish-filled mouths chew, swallow, then break out into appreciative smiles. Hearing their compliments – “So delicious!”, “Please give me more!”, – Nabat beams before shooing them gently away. He cleans up the kitchen and turns in for the night.
Next morning, Nabat sits outside his humble dwelling in mismatched shorts, polo shirt and baseball cap in front of a wall decorated with a peeling black and white collage of Elvis, in his various phases of fame. He looks after three-year-old Gy, a boy left in his care by working parents. Among a clutter of belongings, Nabat recites all forty-four Thai consonants and sixteen vowels with him. He shows Gy how to water plants without drowning them, feed two colourful fighting fish facing off in separate water-filled jars, and call out polite greetings to tourists passing through the lane to a nearby hotel.
They sit together under a makeshift awning when it rains, watching the sky until it clears. On hot days, Nabat looks down fondly as Gy naps peacefully on an old sofa. A rotating Philips fan ruffles his soft black hair. When Gy awakes, announcing softly that he is hungry and thirsty, they walk hand in hand to the convenience stores at the end of the lane. Nabat empties his pocket, holds out his ample hand and helps Gy count out enough coins to buy a cold drink from one, a snack from the other. Gy sips and nibbles, watching the traffic build up on Ratchawithi Road, looking for his father’s car, a white Toyota in a sea of white Toyotas.
Some days, Gy is fast asleep in Nabat’s arms when his father returns.
In the quiet darkness of Sung Hee Corner, Nabat drifts away to the sound of Elvis’ 40 Greatest Hits, winding on his timeworn cassette player. Every song punctuated by a painful rasp from the depths of his lungs.
Derek Armstrong is a Scottish writer based in Thailand. A graduate in Scottish Literature, he writes about community, family history and the ordinary events of everyday life.
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