and part benevolently within the space of a week if not sooner. This
was just his assessment of males in general. He saw males in action on
a daily basis in their debates on various bills. These were rich men
and yet their lust for sinking their teeth into prey was great.
He did care up to a point. He felt that he had aggrieved them by
not attending their parents' funeral. He hadn't wanted the discomfort
that his ex-wife would feel standing beside him again. Being human, he
hadn't wanted it for himself. It would have made him feel
uncomfortable and more out of place being there. It hadn't occurred to
him, then, that she wouldn't attend. Furthermore, from what little he
believed in Kazem's answers to his questions, he felt that he should
have protected these three from having their parents' assets sucked up
into some unrevealed bank account. They had been clinging onto the
idea that ultimately Kumpee would act the part of the oldest brother.
They had watched him go away without accountability and did this with
hardly a whimper. The senator could have taken it upon himself to hire
an auctioneer and then could have put the money into his own account.
He would have given out the money when wisely warranted. He hadn't
acted responsibly and he regretted it.

Jatupon stood by, inert and despondent, as these purchases so
abstract and foreign to his hopes were loaded off onto a mover's truck.
Despite his wish to survive being fulfilled, it was the aristocratic
life he yearned for. Only leisure was life. A laborer was just
movement and reflexes. A laborer did not run barefoot through the
weeds and allow the smells to be one with him, transfer the beauty to a
complex style on canvas when the beauty passed through his complicated
mind, or attempt to understand why the pollen attacked him like a
sickness. He wanted someone to grant him the honors of placing him in
an orange robe, which he felt he was entitled to have--that special