Professor Sombat took attendance in the first five minutes and then never looked up again.
That is the thing about a class with two hundred and ten people in it. Nobody can check. He read a name, something in the room said yes, he moved on. He was not being lazy about it. He had two hundred and ten names and 70 minutes and a microphone that only worked if you held it at an angle.
Jaokhun charged fifteen hundred baht a term to say yes for you.
"Kittipong."
"Yes ajarn."
"Waree."
"Yes ajarn!"
Waree was a girl. Jaokhun did not do a girl voice, he just said it quieter and let the air conditioning do the rest. The air conditioning in that hall was very loud and had been very loud since before any of them were born.
"Jaokhun."
"Yes ajarn."
That one was easy.
Fifteen hundred was the basic package. For two hundred more he would also ask a question in your name, so that Professor Sombat would remember you as somebody who cared about Business Communications. Only one person had ever bought this. Jaokhun asked about the assigned reading, Professor Sombat talked for eleven minutes without stopping, and after class two different people came up to Kittipong to ask if something was wrong at home.
Kittipong did not renew the add-on.
He kept the whole business in a notebook. Paper, with a pen. This was not a style choice. He had failed Introduction to Excel twice.
He had tried the service in Excel too, once, and got caught in nine minutes, because there were thirty people in that room and Professor Nuch knew all of them. She also knew Jaokhun, since he had been in her class three times.
The small classes were always where it went wrong.
Ploy caught him in the corridor after.
She was in the same lecture and she was the only person in it who had ever done arithmetic about him.
"Kittipong is in Hua Hin." she said.
"Kittipong is in a lot of places."
"He posted a photo forty minutes ago. He is on a jet ski."
"Then he has excellent time management."
Ploy did not smile. Ploy had never smiled at anything he had ever said, in two years, and he had said a lot of things.
"How much?" she said.
"For what?"
"For me. To not be here."
"Fifteen hundred a term. Two hundred more if you want to sound smart."
"Do people pay the two hundred?"
"One person."
"Was it worth it?"
"...No"
Ploy moved her bag to her other shoulder. "Mine is free."
"That's not how a price works."
"Or I tell ajarn about this."
Jaokhun looked at her. She looked back at him.
"You know that is blackmail." he said. "There is an actual law."
"Mm"
"You're a business student. You should be against this."
"Is your thing legal?"
"...It's a service industry."
"So mine is free."
"Fine! Free. You're my best client."
"I'm not coming to that class again anyway."
"Then what am I doing for you?"
"Saying my name." She was already walking. "It's the only thing you're good at."
"That's true though!" Jaokhun called after her. "That's a real skill!"
She did not turn around.
His phone buzzed on the stairs.
Bank notification. Your account balance is 47 baht.
He looked at it for a while. Forty-seven baht is one plate of pad krapow if you skip the egg. Jaokhun always got the egg.
He had collected four and a half thousand that morning. Three new clients, new term, cash, because nobody transfers money for something like this.
He had spent nineteen hundred the night before. Not on the shoes. On the first payment for the shoes. There were nine more payments and the app sent a reminder on the twenty-eighth of every month, which Jaokhun had decided to worry about on the twenty-eighth of every month.
They were the collaboration ones. Cream and burgundy, sold out in four minutes, and the resale price was already double. Five people had said something about them today. Two of them worked at the shop that sold them to him.
The phone buzzed again. Nont.
Where is the rent
Coming
You said coming last week
Last week it was further away
Jaokhun
It's a process
Nont stopped replying. That was the bad one. Nont replying meant Nont was still negotiating.
Jaokhun put the phone in his pocket and went down to the river.
The river was free. That was most of the appeal.
The riverside was busy the way it is always busy. Tourists photographing the bridge. A vendor turning skewers on a grill. A boat horn somewhere near the pier.
Jaokhun walked fast even though he had nowhere to be.
He passed a woman throwing bread into the water for the fish. She had a whole bag of it, the cheap dry and choky kind, and she was throwing it one piece at a time.
He thought about asking if she had extra.
He did not ask. He thought about it the rest of the way down.
His phone buzzed.
Serious question! Nont wrote. Do you have rent money or do I look for a new roommate?
Jaokhun stopped walking and started typing something extremely convincing.
Then a voice came out of the sky.
"THIS IS MY RIVER!"
He looked up. Sky. A cloud. Nothing.
He looked at the tourists. Nobody had reacted. The vendor kept turning the squid.
"Your river?" a second voice said, higher and very offended. "You have been saying that since Ayutthaya! Get new material!"
Jaokhun looked up again, and this time he saw them.
Two of them, above the water.
The first one was gold. Snake body, looks like something from the stairs at temples. A Naga. Jaokhun had seen Nagas his whole life in temples. Temples' stair Nagas do not move.
The second one had wings, red and gold, and armor that looked old and very clean. Half bird and half man. A Garuda.
"I am the guardian of these waters!" the Naga said.
"You are the guardian of a canal."
"I receive offerings."
"How many?"
"That is a private number."
"It is six. It was six last month also. Six bananas and some Moo Ping( Grilled Pork on a stick) , and the Moo Ping was for the cat."
"The cat and I have an arrangement."
Jaokhun did not move.
He looked around one more time. Two tourists were photographing a boat. A man was buying water. Nobody was looking up. Nobody was looking up at all.
"Okay." Jaokhun said out loud. "So either I'm having a stroke, or there's something in the coffee Nont made this morning."
"I am on the national emblem." the Garuda said. "Passport. Money. Government letterhead. I am on documents."
"Documents." the Naga said. "Nobody has ever loved a document."
"Nobody has ever loved you either. And you are not on the money."
"I am in literature!"
"You are in like 3 poems. From ages ago. They are not good poems!"
Jaokhun took out his phone.
He did not know who to call. Police felt wrong. A monk felt more correct, but he did not have a monk.
He called emergency services.
Two rings.
"Emergency services. What is your emergency?"
"Hi. I'm at the Chao Phraya near Saphan Taksin, and there are two giant mythological creatures in the sky arguing about who is more popular."
The line went quiet.
"Sir. Have you been drinking?"
"It's eleven in the morning."
"Sir."
"I'm sober! There is a Naga and there is a Garuda and the Garuda just insulted poems. He was right about the poems, but that is not the issue."
The line went quiet again. Longer.
"Sir. I am transferring you."
"To who? What is going on?"
"Please hold."
Hold music. It was very bad hold music, and it was too loud.
Above him it kept going.
"You need constant validation." the Garuda said.
"I am a divine serpent!"
"You count bananas and steal cat's food."
"That is called tracking! It is professional and the cat loves me!"
Jaokhun laughed.
It came out louder than he wanted.
They both stopped. They both turned.
The Naga lowered its head. It was a very large head.
"Him." the Naga said. "That one. He heard that."
"He heard all of it."
"Hey!" the Naga said. "You. Human."
Jaokhun pointed at himself. There was nobody else.
"Yes, you. Tell him. Tell him tracking is professional."
"I..."
The hold music stopped.
"Agent Pradit."
"The Naga and Garuda..."
"Yeah. I'll be there"
"You're not surprised?"
"It's Friday." Pradit slurped his coffee . "Where exactly?"
"Near the pier."
"Stay there. Don't talk to them."
"They talked to me first."
"That's worse."
"Who are you people?"
"We'll explain."
"Am I in trouble?"
Pradit thought about it long enough that Jaokhun could hear the traffic behind him.
"Welcome to the worst day of your life."
He hung up.
Jaokhun lowered the phone.
Above him, the Naga was still waiting.
"Well?" it said.