"Trouble"

Two nights ago we ended up at a party that I am still not sure how we got invited to. We were hiding from the rain in a beach front bar and having said no more than three words to the owner, he told us to come to the BBQ he was having that night. He quoted a reasonable price, mentioned grilled corn, and we were sold. We came back around 9:00 since we had eaten a late lunch, and much to our surprise, the party was not an open-invitation event. When we walked in from the beach the intimacy of the party was obvious. Everyone was not only on a first name basis, but was sitting on the floor, eating from a communial platter of BBQ, and mixing Sang Som from a communial bottle of Brandy. The bottle was in such high demand that it never stopped moving. It was passed to the host just as he noticed us, and as he looked up, all eyes followed his. I was about to apologize for barging in, grab Brittany by the hand, and walk away, but a greeting from the host turned blank stares into warm smiles and with a tip of his glass we were welcomed. His open hand extended toward the grill as he grinned and said something about food and barracuda, but conversations had begun to clamor again and his words co-mingled with the party and reached my ear completely jumbled - still, we got the point. We grabbed a plate, pulled a barracuda filet from the grill, stacked on some corn and potato, and sat at a table a few feet from the circle. Lek, a man Brittany and I would soon call "trouble", saw no reason for us to isolate ourselves... In my mind, not speaking more than 10 words of Thai was perfect reason, but Lek was not having it. He pushed his buddies aside, slapped down two more pillows, and, before we knew it, cups crawled from the floor boards; ice, brandy, and soda jumped the circle; and mixed drinks formed inexplicably before us. From that point on we never saw the bottom of the glass. Not that we weren't drinking, it was just that every time we looked away our drinks somehow magically topped themselves off - Lek was coyly diligent.

Thai laughter is infectious, and when you mix in brandy the laughs come easily. Two minutes in, the language barrier was gone; broken down by sign language, laughter, and the occasional translation from our trouble maker host.