within the slowness (a slowness that caused their minds to be more
lamenting), Kumpee, at that time, made their way out of the last lanes
and pulled into a town to get another beer. He had hardly entered the
town when he fell asleep for a second and swerving to escape hitting a
tuc tuc upon awakening (a tuc tuc being a big golf-cart taxi) or a
bicycle rickshaw, the car nearly hit a truck and then nicked a fruit
cart that was being pushed along the side of the road. Kumpee, burdened
and desiring for speed and escape, drove on. During that second of the
near miss with the truck, Jatupon felt that it was their destiny--their
karma-- to have the same fate that their parents had experienced weeks
earlier. He found himself disappointed to be alive but sensed that he
was alone in this. Even if such a thought flashed before his brothers,
they were older and quickly regained that cold detachment as if their
psyches were fully evolved as separate entities. They portrayed, in
legitimate or feigned smiles, that they no longer felt that the fate of
the parents was interlinked to that of the sons. Suthep, who was just a
year and a half older than Jatupon, had not been so convincing. When
he felt that he was unobserved he seemed troubled and twice looked out
the back window.
Kumpee, deciding to sleep, drove a little further in the same
direction to his friend's house. He was apologetic. After all,
Bangkok (or Krung Thep Maha Nakhon) was only 45 miles from Nakhon Si
Ayutthaya but to experience traffic problems in Thailand was like no
other, and to have sold the parents' possessions after burning the
bodies of the mother and father before the inevitable rot (a ubiquitous
ordeal so individually personal) was like no other. They were exhausted
and needed someplace to stay. The friend welcomed them in without the
least reservation. Kumpee and Kazem put rice mats on the floor. Then
they began to tie up the tent of the mosquito net by stringing it up
against light fixtures and unused nails that stuck out of walls.