A facial muscle below Kazem’s left eye began to twitch immediately before they again started walking. Conscious of Kazem’s disposition, Jatupon became less disconcerted and more guarded, hurrying but maintaining a consistent space between himself and his brothers. How strange, Jatupon thought, that the fetid one did not have the same physical antagonism: it was strictly mental as if the thought of the youngest was so repugnant as to be beyond a physical response. He began to stumble with the bags until Kumpee’s girlfriend stopped their advancement to help him carry some of his load. Her smile was wide against her pale pigment; and her Chinese complexion looked at odds to Kumpee, the oldest and darkest of the fraternal misadventurers. Jatupon was jealous of her relationship with the fetid one but this gesture of pulling away from his brothers to take one of his bags ameliorated any negativity that the appearance had not counteracted.
The journey from the parking garage and down through the hectic whims of Bangkok traffic seemed inordinately long to him and silently he objected to being led this way forfeiting friends and consistency he had always known in Ayuttaya. The sidewalk and road went over a canal. A woman with baskets of fruit dangling from the ends of a bamboo pole that was on her shoulders must have made Kumpee’s girlfriend hungry since no sooner was she back with her beau than the exigency of eating had driven the herd to seek a bowl of tom yam soup with noodles. Under the canvas, eating and sinking morbidly into himself as he looked out over the cabin-shacks that were along the canal, he listened to Kumpee and Kazem.
“You’re the one who wanted to move here and so I said, ‘Yes, little brother. Let me fulfill your wishes and needs. It is my duty as an elder brother.”
“I never said that.”
“You were always saying that.”
“Back up. That was before the accident and it was just talk.”
“Man, you did not make any objections. We sold off their things and there wasn’t one objection from any of you.”
“I didn’t know then that you would be pocketing the money.”
“In other words, you wanted to move over here and now that we are over here you are raising objections as if now we should just get back into the car and go back. That is crazy.”
“I was in a daze. I admit it. I let you lead us around. We don’t even know anyone here.”