(Brian Boat’s periodic look at the life of… well… a graduate loser.)

Part 3

A word on Thai Joe

He is small: five feet two, three at a push if he really stretches. And despite his chicken habit Joe is skinny – almost incongruously so. He has a big round face, a broad smile, and ears that can, and I quote, ‘pick up sky TV mate. Like satellite. How I ever gonna get fit bird with ears like this?’ He is twenty-seven years old with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, and can do Boselecta impressions like no other. Shazzam.

Favourite TJ moment of last week’s losering:

Scene: Thai Joe in Lickin’ Chicken, a notoriously good fast food outlet in a notoriously dangerous area of B____. But importantly (and this is a real clincher for we graveyard shifters, who will stop at nothing to get a 4a.m. fix of chicken/ pigeon/ bird flu), it is open. Due to the perilous nature of the location I have sent TJ in with a tenner, and am sitting outside with the engine running. A crack whore mistakes this gesture for soliciting; I tell her sorry, we’re only here for the chicken, and she comes up with a quip about stuffing which is quite good for a crack whore at four in the morning and makes me laugh. A staggering Rastafarian picks up a discarded beer can from the pavement and puts it against his eye like a telescope. What he is looking for I have no idea. It is surely dark in there.

          Meanwhile, as I have been watching the tramp, who is now engaged in a conversation with the crack whore, two local slag girls have fallen into Lickin’ Chicken all tits and goosebumps and gonhorrea. TJ is in the middle of ordering a Chicken Feast, when I see his jaw quite literally drop at the sight of all this breast. One of the slag girls starts to talk to him, and I can see his blush from inside the car. His puffy cheeks have gone a shade of deep purple. He grabs his bag of chicken from the counter, flings across the tenner, and runs from Lickin’ Chicken  like he has just robbed the joint. I pull away from the kerb at speed, in part because he seems distressed, in part because I am a drama queen and show-off.

            TJ and I are in the car. He has not said a word yet. The car smells of cooked bird. Atomic Kitten are on the stereo (his choice, not mine, although I will admit to owning the CD).

            Thai Joe (almost at the end of Whole Again): Whoa, man, you see those two fit bird?

Me: Yes.

Thai Joe: Shamoan.

Me: Did you speak to them?

Thai Joe: No.

Me: Why not?

Thai Joe: Couldn’t.

Me: I never realised you were so shy.

Thai Joe: I not shy man. It wasn’t that.

Me: Then?

Thai Joe: I say nothing because the only thing in head was ‘Oh, baby, I wanna fuck you into middle of next ice age. In the morning you gonna be walking like John Wayne.’ But I can’t say that, you know, otherwise she slap me, so I just keep quiet. 

Thai Joe – God bless him for making me laugh the way he does. But I found out something else about him too the other day while I was typing out his CV instead of doing sums. He is – get this – the UK Under 18 Thai Quando Champion 1994. (How can it be that he has been in this country for so long and his grasp of basic grammar remains so poor?). He does not like to boast about it, but he can shatter an eight inch thick piece of wood with his bare hands. With his head, it is a mere six inches, but still impressive. So despite his ostensible faiblesse, Thai Joe is five feet two of pure killing machine. His hands are legally classified as lethal weapons (he is obliged to tell you this, apparently, if you ever try and stab him, before he kicks your ass). He has a deep scar all across his back, which I believed for quite some time was a result of fighting with Triads, before he confessed that he got it falling out of a mango tree when he was four. He is also a strict Buddhist and does not masturbate (‘my balls, man, it’s like I got dolphins in there or something’). He is currently researching something to do with metallurgy about the elasticity of certain metals with a view to selling his findings as a way to improving car safety. He spends a large chunk of his money every week in strip joints, which is much to the torment of the dolphins, but somehow manages to align itself with his principles of self-discipline.

Lesson one: There’s nowt so queer as folk.

Lesson two: In the company of certain people, it is possible to feel like less of a loser oneself.

Lesson three: If you ever come across someone fitting Thai Joe’s description in the street, be VERY POLITE to him. He is eight stones of pure steel. He can rip out your kidneys just by looking at them. If he says something about your sister, just smile and keep on walking……..