For these 'slapped around' street kids survival may be just a matter of months or weeks, but friends are forever, writes FATHER JOE MAIER

Gee and Kao don't look tough or mean, they just are. It's something you become when you grow up on the

They knocked down the door, then searched her house, and put handcuffs on her second son. Now Auntie Jan would have two of three in prison. Plus six brothers and sisters. More common in our fair land than you would want to think. 

The story of a deathly ill 'throwaway kid' who for simple reasons decided to make the struggle for his life. It's funny what it takes sometimes to turn a life around. For Cookie Crumb James

And they came on a no-license motorcycle - the Night Riders - two men on one bike, helmet visors down, the man on the back with a pistol in hand, special 9mm bullets, ready to shoot. Ready to scratch another name off their "list". It's blood and death when the Night Riders find their man. There's never any mercy. It's a job, a name, that's all. Just meeting their quota for the Biggie Bigs. And so they shot "Motorbike Kheng." Three shots in the head, close range. He was a good man, somebody you'd cheer for if you knew him, somebody who will be greatly missed by family and friends in the slaughterhouse here in Klong Toey. 

She'll never win the Bangkok Grandmother of the Year award, but she's definitely Granny of the Year in the Klong Toey slum. Yai Sing, or Granny Sing as she's known _ and I'll explain that in a minute _ rolls her own smokes and earns her own way from her motorcycle-propelled coffee cart. Sports a trademark ancient pair of second-hand 20-baht "shades'' her granddaughter Mot swapped from a "trader'' in a back part of the slum. Two plastic bags of Granny Sing's original blend of ice coffee for the shades. 

This one begins rough. And the middle part is rough, too. And the ending? Well, I guess you swallow hard through the tears and you shut your eyes tight to squeeze out tears so that you can look up and...