Half an hour later, from his gluttony, the box was empty. He drank some bottled water and fell asleep to more images of Laotian queens walking through cocoa fields with their little black birds. When Kazem came home with more shopping bags and saw the symbol of a more auspicious life that he wished to share with his brothers totally devoured by one alone, he wanted to vituperate him if not slap him around a few times. He restrained himself since, for other reasons, he did not want him to again run away. He saw that Suthep was not in the room for whatever reason and this absence triggered in him a desire to molest the youngest. It would be a punishing pleasure, a desperate hegira from one’s solitary domain to brief moments of coupling, banging onto empty walls, the release of stress, and the intimacy of “love”. And yet he again restrained himself by comparing it to the gloom after masturbation. To Kazem, a boy shoved off into manhood, sex with Jatupon was an innocuous pleasure like some marijuana or a brief roller coaster ride but the gloom was of being a puppet of wanton desire for something that was far from his ultimate wish. And gloom for a man of little self-respect was deleterious. It was fine for the brain to forfeit logical restraint for that relaxation of fleeting pleasure that couldn’t be sustained or for one to use whatever was before him, but someday he wanted a wife as much as he now wanted to think that he was living up to his ideal of the fraternal benefactor. He didn’t want his whole life obsessed by the inconsequential pleasures of his night sports.
Kazem disheveled Jatupon’s hair with his fingers and slapped him on the head.
“Where the hell were you all day, you bum?” he asked. “You thought we’d start work again so you took off.” He laughed and sat down on the sole wooden chair that was the furniture of the apartment.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Jatupon said.
“I bought you both some clothes. I don’t know if any of it will fit since neither one of you came with me. Also, I had to see a movie all by myself. Suthep could have had some type of a tom yam tasting popcorn. They called it Mexican.”
“Why didn’t you get a girlfriend and bring her with you? Isn’t that what they are supposed to do: go with you shopping and to movies?” Jatupon sneered.
Kazem felt an icy sword in his heart. “I wish I could take these clothes back. Neither of you deserve anything.”
“Why don’t you get a girlfriend and leave me the hell alone,” continued Jatupon as he turned over on his side and glared at him.
Kazem lit a cigarette, smoked, and blew it into his brother’s face. “Because you love it too much.” He paused. “You’re right about me getting a girlfriend. I should get a nice Chinawoman like your brother Kumpee and then run off with her leaving the two of you to eat worms from the sidewalk. What a good idea, Jatuporn.”
Jatupon turned away from him and feigned sleep.