He’s crawling towards me. Not so much crawling as slithering like a slovenly slug trying to make its way back into a Spanish onion patch. He’s moving so slowly it’s scarcely definable. It must take years to master the technique. But this guy has been at it for years and he’s turned it into fine art.
It’s a hot day so the pavement must be packing 32 degrees C. of heat. He has to be attracting ants, but not cockroaches or rats. Here in Bangkok, rats and cockroaches, ever present and the world’s fastest improving species, are so spoiled for choice they don’t even try to bite lumps out of unwashed human beings crawling along pavements.
With the rim of his plastic begging beaker clamped between his teeth he’s pug-ugly, not a pretty site even to an old admirer like me. Though he’s not as filthy as the matt-black man of Mumbai – see a previous blog – you wouldn’t invite him to tea. Well, not until you’d soaked him in a tub you didn’t intend to use again; scraped him with a sharp, wallpaper removing tool and had him disinfected with Agent Orange.
I recognise him instantly. “Nakhon Shakhon Straphon,” I cry (he was named after his fabled birthplace), “what in the name of an abandoned iconic image from Thailand’s North East are you doing begging on the streets of Bangkok?” The last time I saw him he was working a market in Ubon Rachathani while I was discovering the Emerald Triangle for posterity. He’s impressed that I remember him.
Without spilling a single baht from the beaker he gently rolls over and over until he’s close to the edge of the pavement. “Take the weight off your old legs,” he advises and extols me to sit with my feet in the gutter. As this is Ploenchit Road in downtown Bangkok and jammed to buggery with six lanes of traffic that the authorities shelter from the sun with a Skytrain, I decline. Plus 99% of Bangkok gutter space is occupied by tens of thousands of two-wheelers, and a good place to lose your toes. Is this his intent?
Bending down I pat him on his left arm, the one that doesn’t sport a malformed stump, and invite him to tell me where it started to go wrong. He knows exactly when he began suffering for his art.
“I was five years old when my dad decided that I was the one who would become afflicted with amputations. He was a retired agriculturalist and depression about the old country – we’re originally from Laos - turned him into a rum and amphetamine man. We always needed extra money. My uncle was forced to pawn our last buffalo to pay off debt collectors and we were desperate. He held me down while dad chopped off my lower arm. He did a damn fine job; clean as a whistle and I didn’t feel a thing until I regained consciousness. I remember it throbbing.
“I worked as a one-armed child beggar until I was eight. I was a good-looking kid with a very sad face. Mum used to sit with me in her arms just outside the bus station. For three years we did all right. Then, well, I suppose I lost my poor, innocent, deformed, suffering child-appeal and not enough baht dropped into her cup. We went home with it empty one night and dad lost his rag. This time he chopped off both my feet. Unfortunately he got carried away and I nearly lost my right leg up to my knee. But he'd put us back on track.” He pulled up his ragged trouser leg to show me. He had not exaggerated.
“So why Bangkok?” I asked. “It must have been nicer relaxing on the banks of, say, the Mun River in Ubon” (where we first met) “on your day off.”
“Er, yes it must have been. But as I got older things started to change in Thailand. I found out, for instance, that the government had created the Middle Class; that they were greedy, prone to achieve elite status, yet still had guilty consciences. Well, people like that only come along once in a begging lifetime.
“There was none of their ilk in Ubon so I travelled the Asian Highway looking for them. Eventually I hit the Burmese border at Mae Sot. It’s bad up there, by the way. Fleeing Karen tribesmen; battered and blood stained Burmese monks and poverty-stricken idealists trying to bring down the Burmese junta, all trying to keep as much distance as possible between themselves and the wrath of the Burmese army. Our politician-businessmen don’t help. They suspect that activists have information about illegal dealings with the Burmese authorities; about felling the few remaining hardwood trees and gem trading on behalf of the Thai army, for instance, plus the drugs.
“But there was no money about. Most people up there are worse off than me. So in my quest to find our elusive Middle Class I headed south. Bingo! They’re all here in Bangkok.”
“And here you are. How’s it going, Nakhon?”
“Really well. Take this Bangkok road. It’s not paved with gold but these pavements are a bonus. Pothole free and lovely to crawl along, they’re especially made for tourists visiting the shopping malls. When they see me they can’t believe their eyes. They think they’re back in India and usually cough up. But my theory was right and I get most of my money from the Thai Middle Class. Stuck in traffic jams for the weekend they hop out of their SUVs and throw their change into my beaker. It makes them feel much better about themselves. To my way of thinking I’m involved in a form of social work, which just happens to be very profitable.
“In order to make merit I expanded and now have a syndicate of crippled beggars. We’re a bit like your Protestants used to be. It’s all about the work ethic. We beg from dawn to about nine at night and our turnover runs into thousands of baht per day. Now that my folks have drunk themselves to death, 60% of all revenue is mine. I pay a tuk-tuk driver working the same shift to drop me off and pick we up and, if he has time, he brings me a bowl of fried rice with pork, garlic and Holy Basil. He’s religious and becoming Middle Class. He thinks this charity work-stuff helps him to make merit – you know about ‘merit’, the Buddhist thing?” I nodded, “By this time next year he’ll be doing it for free.
“Each morning I drop off an envelope at the local cop-shop and they never bother me or any other member of my syndicate. Got it sorted.” With that he gives me the famous Thai smile. If he had all his teeth it would look great set against his blackened and scabrous face. “Guess what? I’ve opened a bank account. Saving money at last. But I could use, I mean employ, more cripples.” As I edge further away from the gutter I say,
“Well done, Khun (Mr) Nakhon! What are you going to do with your new-found wealth? Buy some titanium prosthetic legs?”
“Not likely. I’m Middle Class now and can’t go back. I’ve got an iPhone, a flat-screen plasma telly in my hut and I’m saving for a Range Rover.” He sighs. “You may not understand this but solidarity with the syndicate is important. I can’t just walk away from them.”
“Will your Range Rover have tinted windows?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t be seen dead in a car without tinted windows. As soon as I take delivery I’ll drive straight to Nakhon Nowhere to prove to my old chums what a great country we Thais have created.”
Even though it’s against all my principles I drop a few baht in his cup before heading for the nearest bar.
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