never to be trusted. The favored people did not have everyday to roam
the streets like homeless but highly mobile mendicants, their every
movement enslaved and dictated by the pronouncement of street names
called out from the back seat. "Do young people like you have money to
go off wherever you wish?" The words pierced out of one who was
pierced. The ache tore open like a tenuous newly heeled scar with the
blade coming up to slit others. He knew that he had behaved contrary
to social instinct but he hadn't been able to stop himself.
"Don't you know who this is?" asked the whore with arrogant
vehemence.
The taxi driver looked in the rear view mirror at the brown-faced
Nawin or Jatupon and asked, "No, should I know you?"
"No you shouldn't. Neither one of us should know the other one.
Just drive!" said Nawin although again he winced from his darker alter
ego that only became him when he uttered its thoughts. He wasn't
totally devoid of societal programming of right and wrong no matter
what he claimed to Noppawan. Being respectful to one's elders and
giving the prayerful gesture of the "wei" (pronounced as "why") to
one's superiors did exist in him at certain times. He would always
stand up for the tribute paid to the king prior to a movie although
that was more from the idea of not offending the sensibilities of
others around him or, less altruistically, getting himself possibly
thrown out of the movie theatre. Furthermore, the Jatupon who had
brought cups of ice to customers when he was a boy, the uneducated
slave who had found himself spun up in noodles of sidewalk restaurants
until he was 15, often began to stretch like a 26 year old fetus locked
up in a heavily fortified placenta. He would feel how disparaged
Jatupon often felt. He would feel guilt when he disparaged others that
seeped into his veins while ghosts of yesteryear suddenly vexed him
making him feel numb and cold inside.