Would you let me buy you that coffee now?

My bicycle chain came off outside Wat Xieng Thong on a Thursday afternoon and my hands went black in two seconds. A man in a football shirt crouched next to me, put the chain back in under a minute and wiped his hands on his own shorts. He pointed at my hands and laughed, and then at his shorts, and laughed harder. I tried to buy him a coffee and he said, maybe next time. There has not been a next time. I have walked past that gate eleven times. I carry two coffees now. One of them is for him. It is always cold by the time I get home.