(This novel will not be completed on this platformbecause it cannot be sold on this app. The full version is available as e-book on MEB and Amazon Kindle.Thank you for your support.)
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Alcohol. Liquor. Spirits.
Does anyone really know it?
As for me, I know it very well.
No matter what people call it, it is still an intoxicant, a vice, something harmful. Yet it has existed for a very long time, almost as long as humanity itself, and it has never truly disappeared.
If drinking ruins your health, if it changes a good person into a demon, a mad ghost, someone frightening and disgusting.
If it makes you reckless and fearless, if it makes you feverish and lustful, clothes slipping loose until you turn into a beast in heat.
If it is that terrible, then why do people drink?
When people think of engineering students, they think not only of future engineers from many fields. The signature of our kind is alcohol.
From the day I was born, through university, and even after graduating and starting work, I have never been able to leave the drinking scene. And it is not just me. My parents, my siblings, and my friends around me all drink.
So what? Is there a problem with drinking?
So much money disappears because of it, so much that every month there is barely enough left to live on. Near the end of the month it feels like I am about to die, mixed with the withdrawal when there is no money and no alcohol. My body aches, restless and uneasy.
It has been like this for four years now, from my first year at university until one year after starting work.
Do not you ever think about changing anything?
L.
"I just got paid. Where should we go drink, L?"
One of L's alcoholic friends asked as they walked out together from the automobile parts assembly factory in the Laem Chabang Industrial Estate.
It was the usual routine on payday for the three former mechanical engineering students from Laem Chabang, veteran heavy drinkers who gathered for drinks almost every day, either at someone's house in the group.
But on payday they would go out to a bar instead, drinking like seasoned regulars. Sometimes cool, sometimes loud, sometimes rowdy, sometimes teasing women. But never to the point of killing anyone or dragging someone off to gang-rape them. At the very least, the teachings of their parents and their school were still deep enough in their minds to leave them with a sense of conscience.
They don't go to karaoke bars because they don't want to waste money paying women to sit and drink, especially when they would have to buy the drinks for them too.
They don't buy services from the many prostitutes who appear along the beach late at night either. It costs too much. Better to spend the money on alcohol.
They don't go to loud, thumping clubs. The drinks are terrible, dancing is exhausting, and the girls are always waiting for someone to buy them drinks.
No way. Too expensive.
"Let's pick a place along Pattaya Beach. I'm going all out today. I've been craving a drink all week. I'm about to go into withdrawal."
The young man named L, about the same size as his two friends, replied with a cheerful grin. Before leaving, he transferred five thousand baht to his mother. The rest he would try to stretch for as long as possible, though it never once lasted until the next month. Even though his salary was higher than many others, it was never enough.
The three automotive assembly technicians walked out of their department and got into one of their friend's cars. They were heading off to shower and change clothes, preparing to celebrate payday with their usual lively excitement.
L
Alize Duangkamol
(Alizé, a fruit liqueur mixed with vodka)
The ringleader of the group of alcoholics, a devoted fan of Disney princesses, was a tall young man with parted hair, twenty-three years old. A Pattaya native by birth, his home was in a back-alley community lined with pubs, bars, karaoke joints, go-go bars, gambling dens, and sex service places stretching all the way down the street. His parents were drinkers too, cheerful and party-loving, but they never neglected their work. It was a family that never thought too deeply about complicated things. Even though their only son had been born and raised in the middle of drinking circles…
Being a middle-class family without much money, the only happiness they could really afford was gathering together to drink.
His father and mother had both worked factory jobs all their lives and were already forty-five. The tangible things they owned were this house on a thirty-five-square-wah plot of land, a white Honda sedan, and his mother's pink scooter used for going out to buy groceries.
This family loved alcohol.
Alcohol existed in every stage of L's life. Whether joy or sorrow, birth, aging, sickness, or death, they drank it like water that could never be missing.
The first time he drank was after heartbreak in his first year of engineering school. It only grew heavier from there as he kept getting his heart broken every year for three years in a row.
Those three girls were people L had loved deeply and devoted himself to, because they matched his ideal type, like princesses from Disney.
The first one, during his first year, was pure and fair, innocent like Princess Snow White.
The second was elegant, intelligent, bright, generous, talkative, and full of dreams, like Princess Belle.
The third was optimistic, seeing the world beautifully, with a lovely smile despite coming from a very poor family, like Princess Cinderella.
But princesses choose princes who look kind, handsome, and rich, not a troublemaker with a mischievous face like him. So he was dumped every single time.
By the fourth year, L chose to stay with alcohol and his friends, no longer caring about anyone else. It hurt, and it wasted too much time.
With alcohol, he was already familiar. And he had grown up in a society that loved fun, loved drinking, loved nightlife, and didn't think much about the future. Life was lived paycheck to paycheck.
It was exciting.
He had grown used to the broke-before-payday life since the days he had to ask his parents for money. Even after graduating and earning a salary, nothing really changed.
Instant noodles before the end of the month became something familiar. Borrowing money to eat before payday was normal. Paying for almost everything in installments was simply called having credit. Waiting to withdraw money at the ATM in front of 7-Eleven at one minute past midnight had become an ordinary routine.
That was how life went on, even after he had been working for a year.
BM Bacardi Charoenying (Bacardi, a rum)
A slow-life kind of guy, a stoic young man standing one hundred eighty centimeters tall with a slim, pale build and a two-block haircut. His personality tended to be indifferent, ignoring most people around him. Others could do whatever they wanted. The only thing he cared about was his friends. Wherever they went or whatever they did, friends always came first.
They did not like exercising. They drank alcohol and played video games. Even when it came to football, they played it in games rather than on the field. The most athletic thing they could manage was playing a bit of ping-pong.
Their bodies looked thin and flat, their arms and legs lacking much muscle, carrying mostly soft fat instead. They were not overweight or pot-bellied, just without the clear muscle lines that other guys their age often had. The three of them were almost identical in height, weight, and build.
BM's parents worked transporting vegetables and fruit bought from different markets to small vendors around Pattaya, so they were rarely home. That left BM living mostly with his younger brother, a high school senior named MG Burgundy Charoenying (Burgundy, the name of a French wine) .
MG loved football, basketball, and almost every kind of sport. He was just as tall as his older brother but looked more mature, cooler, and far more charming. Handsome with a strong look, never shabby, he did not drink alcohol or smoke. He was also good at cooking and constantly made food for his older brother, as if their roles had somehow been reversed. In short, he was good at everything.
Did BM care?
Not really.
Playing games and drinking alcohol was far more fun. And it did not make him tired. He did not want to be cool. He just wanted an easy life.
Jon Johnny Lekhanikul (named after the whisky brand Johnnie Walker)
A Pattaya boy with big eyes and a sharp mouth. He styled his hair with a side sweep, trying to look cool, but he was actually the most delicate one in the group because he was a complete cat slave. His soft, cutesy voice, the kind he used when playing with cats, had somehow become his usual way of speaking.
He was extremely optimistic. His family made a living selling fish brought in from the harbor. He loved talking and teasing people everywhere, often acting as the one who accidentally invited trouble for the whole gang. He was not good with physical fights, even though when drunk his hands could get quite rough. What he was really skilled at was running his mouth.
"Hey, you guys wanna walk around the fishing pier near Soi Buakhao today? There's a new seaside bar that just opened. I saw their promotion online and it made me crave a drink. Payday just came in too, let's go."
L strolled out cheerfully from the QC department, patting the shoulders of his two friends who were packing up to head home.
"Did you pay back the money you borrowed from P' Fok last week yet? The interest is brutal. Twenty percent a week. What is he running, a loan for building skyscrapers or something?"
BM said lazily to his skinny friend. He had to remind him every month because L borrowed from that guy so often he had practically become a VIP customer.
"Ah, right. I almost forgot to transfer it back. If I run out of money before paying him, I'll get beaten up by that guy."
"You never remember anything and you're not afraid of shit except your creditors. Crazy bastard. Just one week and you're already broke again. And instead of borrowing from us, you go borrow from that bloodsucking loan shark and pay insane interest."
Jon complained while looking at his friend, who now sat there with half-lidded watery eyes, smiling at the sky and the sea like someone who was a little out of it.
"You actually have money left for him to borrow, Jon?"
"Huh? No. I just manage my money so it lasts the month. Not like him."
"Tch. Big talk coming from you. On the thirtieth I saw you eating instant noodles for all three meals."
"So what? It still works, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I just don't want to borrow from you guys. If it becomes a habit, it'll ruin our friendship if I ever fail to pay it back. I don't want that.
I already transferred the money to P' Fok. He texted back saying it's fine. Then I sent five thousand to my mom to help with household expenses.
Paid for the food for the birds, rats, pigs, and cats around the factory. Paid three thousand for my iPhone installment. Damn, why do I only have this much money left? How am I supposed to survive the whole month?"
"Damn it, L. It's only the first day of the month, not even past payday yet, and you're already saying shit like that!"
Jon looked at his teary-eyed friend with obvious annoyance, exhausted by his lack of thought.
"Well, I had to pay those things."
L rummaged through his pocket for some coins and dropped them into a claw machine, playing casually without feeling the weight of his current situation. In his mind, if things got bad he could always borrow money again, so there was nothing to worry about.
"Your life is seriously bleak with no future. So what now? Are we still going to that bar or not? You've got less than five thousand left for the entire month."
"You think I wouldn't go? Damn it. I'm this stressed, of course I need to relax. Otherwise my head's gonna explode. I should reward myself after working so hard all month. What about you guys? You still got plenty left, right?"
"I've got more left than you, L. I still have eight thousand."
"I've got seven."
"Whatever. Let's go shower so we can get out and drink. Today's the first. Payday. We have to celebrate!"
Celebrate!!!
"Take it easy with the drinking, L. We rode our motorcycles here, remember!"
…
Crash!!!