Fr. Maier - flower girls story
Vagabond
Bangkok Post 16. June 2004
A story of two of the original Pat Pong flower girls who 'lived for
years as wounded fawns ... yet they still remain beautiful and without
hate, even to this day'
By FATHER JOE MAIER
This one begins rough. And the middle part is rough, too. And the
ending? Well, I guess you swallow hard through the tears and you shut
your eyes tight to squeeze out tears so that you can look up and maybe
see a rainbow, and then maybe you cry a bit again, because somehow, for
so many of us, way deep down deep, we want, we demand, more than a
rainbow. And that isn't how life works.
This one's about two heroines: Miss Gook Gik and Miss Nong Lek. Their
scumbag moms were always lurking in the shadows. The money was never
enough for their moms, no matter how much their children scored. Mom's
rules were blunt: you girls con money from bar bums so we can play
cards. The money, of course, was never enough. Money goes fast in a card
game.
It's the same here as anywhere else. They let you win the first few
hands.
Only in a game of "Let's Pretend" can you find cute, happy heroines. We
are taught that proper behaviour for seven-year-olds is playing with
dolls, hopscotch, jump rope, that they're all whispers and giggles. Not
heroine stuff. Life doesn't work that way, either.
Gook Kik, thin and willowy, her Aids temporarily in remission, remarked
a while ago, "I earned 500 baht each night since I was five and my mom
never thanked me once."
Her friend, Nong Lek, born with a short leg, an accompanying limp, but
never got Aids, earned less money as a child than her sex worker
friends. Her mom used to tell her, "You hustle, girl _ errands and drugs
if you won't do the other stuff."
And so she ran errands every night. Growing up, Nong Lek took countless
long walks home alone in the early morning hours back to her Klong Toey
shack on the nights she hadn't earned her keep. Now, over 15 years
later, she still breaks down in tears when she tells you that these
walks were agony, but back then she only cried when no one could see or
hear her alone limping home.
No one back then really bothered her, just laughed at her occasionally,
called her "gimp". And she walked a lot because, it's true, she was a
hustler, but always brought in less cash than the sex workers. Mom and
dad used to take turns beating Nong Lek for her low earnings, but she
never gave in. Gook Gik, on the other hand _ well, that's how she
eventually got Aids.
Now, the girls are young women. Mom visits Gook Gik every other day or
so in our Aids Hospice. You might call it a kind-of-sort-of thank you.
But all the visits in the world don't count unless Gook Gik accepts. The
forgiveness comes from the offended victim, doesn't it?
That's the only way it works _ the innocent forgiving the guilty. And
that actually seemed to happen this recent Thai New Year when Gook Gik
knelt together with good ol'mom to make merit _ offering alms to the
monks. The daughter, seeking a traditional blessing on this sacred day,
poured blessed temple water over her mother's hands and feet.
Nong Lek, who is Gook Gik's only true, thick-and-thin friend, knelt
beside her. Her own mom was busy that day. (One thing you never do is
interrupt a card game _ not even for a sacred rite.) So Nong Lek came
limping alone on Thai New Year to make merit and seek a blessing.
ALWAYS RED ROSES
I watched _ ashamed for my tears. Slum life here in Klong Toey created
these two beautiful young women, and sometimes I see in them and their
friendship the heart and soul of Klong Toey.
These two ladies were among the original Pat Pong flower girls, selling
red roses _ always red roses _ first outside the bars, on the street,
then inside. That went on for years. Born a few days apart, both their
moms fled the hospital, refusing to pay the bills and the accompanying
fee for a birth certificate; and without such a document, the girls
could not enter school. So they worked for their moms.
Gook Gik's mom eventually went to prison for procurement _ a highly
publicised event. And while she was in prison, Gook Gik and her two
sisters went to work in a bar in Phuket while her brother was being
pimped in Chiang Mai. Mom had started them on a path.
Meanwhile, Nong Lek stayed in Klong Toey. While her mother gambled and
sold drugs, Nong Lek washed dishes in a street-side noodle shop, sold
garlands on street corners _ anything, except what Miss Gook Gik was
doing. Nong Lek herself finally went to prison in place of her mom for
drug possession/intent to sell.
That's how Nong Lek began her formal education _ in the juvenile home.
She will complete high school in just a few months and become the first
in her family ever to graduate. She says she will be a social worker and
help other girls.
Today, two years after an accident in Phuket, Gook Gik can walk, though
not too fast or far. She had been bruised up badly when riding side
saddle on a rented 250cc with a "John". She was spacey on ya baa and her
"John" was hammered. He went to heaven that way.
A hospital admitted her into its emergency room after her two sisters,
who also work in the same bar, pawned two gold chains for the initial
bill. When the hospital wanted to do more tests, the sisters
wheel-chaired her out the side door and loaded her onto the next bus
back to Bangkok. They bought her two seats and got a friend to shoot her
up with a combination of sleeping pills and heroin to make the 12-hour
bus trip back to Bangkok a bit more tolerable.
She phoned Nong Lek to meet her at the Southern Bus Terminal. Her
timing was right on.
Just a month to that day, Nong Lek had walked out of the juvenile
prison for children, five years reduced to three plus a few days.
Finally, a free woman. She had taken the rap for her mom. Sixty-eight
pills in full sight when the uniforms walked in. Literally a minute
before the cops' arrival, mom had spotted the uniforms (her dogs snarled
their dog alarm), giving her a few split seconds to stash the rest of
the stash and slip out the bedroom window. Nong Lek was sound asleep. As
a good daughter, she protected her mom. Said they were her pills.
Apparently, the day before the bust, her mom, whose tongue was sharp
even on good days, had broken the most basic of Klong Toey codes: Never
curse a neighbour, especially another seller, in front of a crowd. Thus,
the police were asked to take action.
Five years is pretty much max for a juvenile. An adult caught with that
amount would do double the time. That's for first time offenders, and
Nong Lek's mom is no stranger to police stations. So Nong Lek did time
for her mom.
FOLLOWING THE MONEY
It was always drugs for Nong Lek and procurement for Gook Gik.
At times, it seemed that Nong Lek's mom's rented shack was a veritable
Chemist's Shop with a full stock of selected brands on hand that the
uniforms like to make disappear. She had just come home from working all
night washing noodle bowls in a street-side shop and feeling exhausted,
fell right asleep. The uniforms came just moments later. And three years
later, Nong Lek got out.
So Nong Lek answered the call at the Southern Bus Terminal and
collected her oldest friend. The two of them _ Nong Lek still scratching
with prison scabies and Gook Gik in a full leg cast _ ended up on our
doorstep a few days later. That's when Gook Gik first discovered that
she had TB and Aids.
Now two years later, once a month, Gook Gik's mom loads her into a
taxi-rent four-wheel mini Daihatsu _ the poor man's taxi. Mom laughs
every time they get in, reminding Gook Gik how she was born on one of
these Daihatsu taxis on the way to the hospital. Mom was in a card game
and had a winning hand and also needed money for the taxi ride to the
hospital. The pain came, but she had to finish the hand. Mom laughs,
Gook Gik winces. She doesn't like to hear the story.
They travel to a nearby hospital for the 30-baht Aids anti-virals,
always using Gook Gik's younger sister's identity card. She doesn't look
much like the photo of her sister, but a couple months ago, when
questioned, mom screamed out at the top of her lungs: "Aids! She has
Aids! Give her the medicine or she'll bite you and infect you, too."
When Gook Gik was two, her dad died in the hold of a rice barge.
Something just happened, the cargo shifted, and he was buried in
100-kilogramme sacks of rice. At the Police Hospital, they said he died
instantly of a broken neck.
Gook Gik's mom asked the long ju _ the manager who looks after affairs
for the barge owner _ for her husband's pay on the day of the accident.
The long ju told her, "Sorry, he hadn't worked a full day, and besides,"
the long ju continued, "I myself paid the pick-up driver to take your
husband to the hospital."
A couple months later, Gook Gik's mom convinced Nong Lek's mom that the
two of them should get the long ju drunk. Once they got him hammered,
they got in several good licks. Twenty-seven stitches in all. (He never
reported the incident to the police.)
Nong Lek's dad is 12 years older than her mom and still works heavy
manual labour at the port. He's quiet, he doesn't drink, but he has a
terrible temper. Though he's been known to beat his wife, he has
absolutely nothing of his own. He gives every baht he earns to his wife.
It's true, a wrong and a right don't make two rights, but at least,
there's something there.
From the very beginning, it's always been about following the money.
When the kids were still young, the moms took their children to con the
bar bums. Started them out selling flowers _ always red roses. Guess
they had cut some kind of deal: drugs and child sex for wholesale prices
on roses _ stuff that you really don't want to know about. The kids
started selling outside the bars, then inside the bars, and for Gook
Gik, eventually inside a hotel.
At the hotel, there were always two rooms: in one, a customer and one
of her children (or for a huge price, two or three of her children and
their friends together). In the other room, always pre-paid, sat mom,
who was usually watching TV soaps or game shows.
TEMPLE BY THE BRIDGE
So that's the basic story of Nong Lek and Gook Gik and their moms. For
Gook Gik, her final rainbow isn't far away. It will fade at the Temple
by the Bridge. Twenty-three years old now, she will never see
twenty-five _ the age in Thai custom that decides where the rest of your
life will lead. It's called ben-ja-pate.
Bruised, black and blue and tear-stained heroines, these young women
are still no less than heroines _ heroines perhaps on the backside of
its definition. They have lived for years as wounded fawns; they have
toughed it through every pawing stranger; and yet they still remain
beautiful and without hate, even to this day.
Gook Gik is the elder of the two, and that's important among Thai
friends. But she had her ben-ja-pate long ago. Nong Lek probably will
live to a ripe old age. She's the survivor.
They were together just last week at Mercy Centre. Nong Lek had just
dyed her hair red. Gook Gik had dressed up a bit into something more
special than her just hanging around clothes. She is in better health
these days and out of bed most of the day with only an afternoon nap.
And she helps with the other patients when she's in the mood.
On the day of her last visit, Nong Lek had come by to take Gook Gik to
the nearby Lotus store. Sitting on a bench at Mercy Center, the two
friends whispered and giggled together, just as they had so many times
and many years earlier. I sat down and joined in.
One of our nurses warned Gook Gik not to overdo it _ that she was still
weak. She nodded her understanding and the two continued to whisper and
giggle.
When the conversation turned to the future, I asked Nong Lek if she
would take Gook Gik's place when her dear friend goes away and be her
spirit here _ in school and everything else in life. She promised _ said
that she would graduate for both herself and Gook Gik, and that she
would live the years that Gook Gik will never have and that she will be
Gook Gik's tomorrow and have children and name her first girl Gook Gik
and give her all the love both of them never had.
And when Gook Gik goes, Nong Lek will take her to Wat Sapan, the Temple
by the Bridge here in Klong Toey. Gook Gik won't be going away quiet
yet. She's not strong, can't work hard, but she's getting rambunctious
and has a boyfriend in our Aids hospice. (He buys her cigarettes.)
She feels she will be strong enough in a couple of weeks to make the
bus trip to Phuket, where she'll stay a while with her sisters, hang
around the bar, enjoy a last hurrah. She will come back to us after a
few weeks or months in Phuket and then stay with us a while longer.
There is a certain kind of honour in being cremated in Wat Sapan. If I
were Buddhist, that's where I would want to go. They say the spirits of
this temple are very slum friendly. Sitting on the bench that day, Gook
Gik asked us to spread her ashes in the Chao Phyra River _ and we agreed
because, really, "Death is a river flowing into an ocean".
- Father Joe Maier is the founder and director of The Human Development
Foundation in Klong Toey, Bangkok. More information can be obtained from
www.MercyCentre.org. E-mail: in...@MercyCentre.org