I turned round. Behind me was the
Caryota mitis-the Clumping Fishtail palm-I'd planted near the house. The Clumping Fishtail isn't a neat palm tree like the ones you see lining roads in Beverly Hills. This palm is more like a messy explosion in a frond factory. It's got dark green leaves that sprout from numerous subtrunks, and although I kept this particular Clumping Fishtail trimmed, it still had a thick collection of foliage, and mostly obscured the low wall behind it.
If this was an M. R. James story, there'd be some kind of smooth monkey face poking out of the foliage, probably with its eyes tightly shut. After a moment it would withdraw, quite possibly with a sinister rustle. If it was a Stephen King story, then maybe the monkey would step out from behind the palm and BITE MY FACE OFF!
But this is a true story. There was no monkey. Or rather… I couldn't see a monkey.
From that point on, the routine was that I would point out the monkey, and Harry would tell me I was wrong and tell me where the monkey really was. This was amusing for a while, and then Harry changed it again.
So there I am, different afternoon, a couple of months later. I'm on the verandah. I hear the door slam and the lines of shells above it tinkle-this means Harry is coming.
I wait for a moment, and soon enough I become aware of a solemn presence beside me. I look down, and there's Harry, blanket over one shoulder, half-drunk bottle of milk in one hand.
"What?" I ask, when Harry says nothing.
With immense dignity, Harry points to the Clumping Fishtail palm next to the verandah.
There is a short silence as I wait for Harry.
"Yes?" I say finally.
"Daddy, monkey," Harry says. "Monkey yu ni."
I blink. "What?"
Harry suddenly laughs, points to the palm tree, and says, "Daddy! Monkey yu ni! Monkey! Daddy, run!"
When I realize the cheeky little bugger has stolen my lines, I can't stop smiling. I rush after Harry, arms outstretched to tickle, and he shrieks in delight and runs indoors, waving his half-drunk bottle of milk above his head.
As I recall, I didn't actually look at the palm tree.
The very last change-right before the fecal matter hit the fan-was the most important. Some time after Harry had started pointing out the monkey to me, and suggesting that I run after it (little blighter), he had a nightmare.
My fault-he'd been watching a ghost movie, a rather nasty one, and now he was convinced that the headless ghost was coming for him. In fact, according to Harry, it was hiding behind the curtains above his bed, just waiting for me to leave so it could creep down and eat him. As it was a headless ghost, I attempted to point out the problems it would encounter in this endeavor (lack of teeth or mouth seeming to be the primary ones), but alas, Harry wasn't persuaded by my faultless logic.
I took him into our room (my wife's and mine), put out the small spare mattress and made a nest for him. He wouldn't settle though. (The ghost had apparently followed him in, the nasty little sneaker.) After twenty minutes or so of bleary-eyed comforting, I hit on what I thought was a brilliant solution: I told Harry that the monkey would protect him. Harry went very round-eyed at this. I asked him where the monkey was (it being well-established by now that only Harry knew the location of the monkey), and without hesitation Harry pointed to the door of the bathroom.
"Monkey yu non," he said. (The monkey's in there.)
I said I wouldn't go in the bathroom, as I knew the monkey was shy, and I didn't want to scare him away. Harry agreed that would be a good thing, and I said that the monkey could protect him from the ghost, couldn't it?
Harry nodded, then promptly went to sleep.
I lay awake for some time, listening for… something. I don't know what. I didn't go into the bathroom.
I sometimes wonder if things would have turned out differently (horribly) if I hadn't told Harry that.
The Bangkok Post, Saturday November 10, 2007
Samut Prakarn-Deputy Social Development and Human Security Minister Poldej Pinprateep called yesterday for a special task force to trace missing children by coordinating information from relevant agencies. He said that the authorities lack the resources to find missing children, many of whom are snatched by human traffickers and forced into working as beggars, laborers or sex workers.
Ekarak Lumchomkhae, head of the Mirror Foundation's information center, said that more than 650 cases of missing children have been reported to the center this year. The missing children have ranged from newborn infants to toddlers to children aged 9-12.
Mr. Poldej said a task force should be set up to supplement the activities of the National Missing Person's Bureau, which lacks sufficient staff to find missing people quickly. The task force must be able to find people quickly, he added, noting that the more time that passes, the slimmer the chances of finding missing people become. He was speaking during a visit to seven families of missing children in the Om Noi district of Samut Sakhon. Cholada Siriyamongkol is the mother of Sirikul, or Nong Yui, 5, who has been missing since July 8th. She says she has not lost hope, and believes her daughter is still safe.
Four months, and she says she hasn't lost hope. Now imagine it was your kid.
How long would it take you to lose hope?
My university shuts down from the first week in December until the first week in January. One week after my holiday started, Harry caught a cold. Fon and I talked about it, then decided to send him to school. It wasn't that bad a cold, just a sniffle.
A little after midday, when I was just settling down to my lunch (chopped papaya salad, minced catfish salad, steamed sticky rice, and a cold beer), I got a phone call from Fon. The school had phoned her saying that Harry was running a temperature and could she come pick him up? As Fon was having her hair done (again), I was volunteered to go and pick Harry up from the school. I pointed out that I was just sitting down to lunch. Alas, her hair proved to be of more importance than my lunch, and for the sake of continued domestic harmony, I ended up driving to the school.
I picked Harry up, drove back home, planted him in front of the TV with a bottle of milk and the DVD of
Monster House, and went back to my lunch, which was now rather soggy and dispirited.
My house has an open-plan ground floor. Sitting at the dining table, you can see into the lounge where the TV is. You can't see it all-the stairs get in the way, but there's a clear view of the end of the couch and the sliding doors leading onto the verandah. The way I'd put Harry onto the couch meant I couldn't see him. I could hear the TV, but I couldn't see Harry at all.
I sat down and ate my lunch. I drank two bottles of beer-the large ones. A large bottle of Heineken contains 750ml of beer, with an alcohol content of 5.6%. This comes to 8.4 units of alcohol, about the same as four pints of lager in a pub. (Real pints here, not your midget U.S. pints.) I'm not going to deny I'd been drinking, because I had. You can judge for yourself how much difference it made.
So the TV's on. The sound is going (
It mocks us with its… house-ness!), I'm reading war-porn from Baen, the mynah birds are squawking in the papaya tree outside the back door, and although I can see clouds building up over the roof of the house next door, all is generally good with the world. I have a distinct 8.4-units-of-alcohol-happy-buzz thing going on.
Except when I get up to go to the bathroom, Harry isn't on the couch.
I look on the verandah. No Harry. I step out onto the verandah and look in the front yard. No Harry. Feeling a little nervous now, I walk round the left side of the house, round the back yard with the washing machine and the sink, continue round the house and back to the front yard.