of time and tide | atsiri thammachoat

22 Phorn turned quarrelsome when he drank, but he was in dread of his mother-in-law because, besides the overwhelming favours he owed her, there was Siu, Eekueng Canal’s hoodlum, who was her nephew.

‘Sure, you always take her side. When she insults my mother, what am I supposed to do? Kiss her ass?’

‘Ye shouldn’t talk back to her. How can ye lay a finger on her? What d’ye think she is? Some kinda cow? But then, when ye fought in the ring with those guys, I never saw ye win even once.’

‘Let sleeping dogs lie, okay?’

‘Ye bet I won’t. Ye’ll never come to no good. A failed boxer, and ye won’t even go to sea, though ye’ve got yer own boat.’

You could say Phorn had grown up on the concrete pier at the harbour where both of his parents hired themselves out trundling fish from boat to land. His life was like one of those rubber tires hung all along the pier that by accident falls into a boat. He became a hired hand on board trawlers and resented having to work hard day and night. He wasn’t cut out for sea jobs, yet endured them for a while. Then the fancy took him to have a go at boxing. The whole of Eekueng Canal went out to root for him but came back crestfallen. Phorn fought three times and each time a kick knocked him down for the count. So he had to go back to earning his living from the sea, instead of the ring he had dreamt of.

ATSIRI THAMMACHOAT | OF TIME AND TIDE