by Ming Cher
Ah Seow squatted to take out two metal cigarette cases from his bag. “Sold at six for one-dollar-fifty, only the best two are left,” he reported and passed him one box.
Kwang pursed his lips. “Not this one! The one from last night.”
Ah Seow, who knew Kwang ‘inside out’, realised he was in a boastful mood. “Oh!” he slapped his forehead. “Forgot to bring that box!”
“Real or not?” Kwang frowned, looking hard at Seow from under his thick eyebrows. Kwang had an odd look. Other than his bulging forehead, flat nose and small, mean eyes, he had a strange haircut. His mother had cropped his thick black hair straight across, two inches above his ears. It made him look as if she had put a half coconut shell over his head and cut his hair roughly around it, so as to save money from going to the barber. When water was poured over his head at bath, it looked as if a mini waterfall were cascading before his eyes—and his nose would stay quite dry.
Ah Seow gave up the tease. Smiling broadly, he took out a box that he had hidden in the back of his elastic shorts, under his shirt. “Nah!” He held it out.
“Don’t talk cock and waste time lah!” Kwang snatched the box from Ah Seow and asked proudly, “Did you see it?”
Ah Seow jerked his shoulder upwards, palms opened to indicate innocence. “Dare not see, wait for you!”
Kwang opened the spider box. It had two box-size pandan leaves fitted inside, one upon the other, and the leaf on top had a hole in the centre. Kwang tapped on the leaf with a finger. A white-face spider crawled out from the hole, looking like it was yawning; its arms moved up and down, as if it was readying itself for the morning world.
“Come on, jump, jump.” Kwang urged, his brows moving up and down in anticipation. It didn’t take long for his spider to respond and jump onto his palm. Kwang held out his other hand to encourage the spider to jump again. He did this test repeatedly, each time increasing the distance between his two hands to see how far his new pet could manage in a single leap. After a few minutes, he allowed the thirsty creature to jump onto a big leaf to walk about and drink the morning dew. Kwang’s absorption in his observation was so complete, as it always was; his focus still puzzled Ah Seow.
Kwang snapped his fingers and held out his palm. “Ah Seow, Ah Seow, pass me my bedbugs.”
Ah Seow put a small Tiger Balm tin case on Kwang’s palm and stooped closer. “Rare purple!” he commented. “Did you try it out yet?”
“No need to lah!” Kwang said confidently. “Block the spider in your palm and see how heavy it is.”
While Ah Seow felt the new spider jumping between his hands, Kwang nipped out the fattest bedbug from the Tiger Balm case, which had been caught underneath the straw mats on his bed and fed on his own blood.
“Heavy?” Kwang asked. “I feed it first.” Swiftly scooping the spider back, he blew at it so that it would remain motionless on its box while he dropped the bedbug onto the same surface. He stopped blowing and the spider pounced. Breakfast now in its mouth, it looked up at Kwang as if to say: “I want a dark place to enjoy my meal.” Kwang guided his new pet into the box and snapped the lid shut. He beamed at Ah Seow. “The snapping bite on the bug’s neck is so fast and accurate. See anything about the head?”
“Yah, yah,” Ah Seow nodded. “The head is much broader than usual. Where did you catch it?”
“At the end of Number Ten STC bus terminal, behind the row of hawker stalls at the large rubbish pit,” said Kwang, his piercing black eyes growing larger from the recollection. Those eyes showed anger and fear, from crying for freedom, “Freedom from mother’s rule!” Ah Seow stood back, a little confused, “But that place... that place was burnt down by a big fire two years ago?”
“It is green again! Different leaves, too. Pandan and lallang now cover up the whole place. There’re a lot of mosquitoes and flying red fleas, bred from the wet rubbish dump.” Talking faster, Kwang scratched his body again. “They like the red fleas, that’s why their colour is so dark purple.” Ah Seow suddenly caught on. “There must be a lot more!”
“I spent nearly one hour, then I caught this one, but another one escaped! Remember? Remember what the Blind Man always says in his story? After a fire, if anything lives again, it’s very strong. I can tell by the look of this Panther Tiger.”
Ah Seow asked quickly, “Do you want to fight with Chai?”
“This time I will win back all the money I lost to Chai,” Kwang proclaimed, the yellow spider box in his hand. He squatted. “Ah Seow, how much money all together?”
Ah Seow squatted in front of Kwang and took out two spider boxes and the money from his bag. “Nah!” he said. “One dollar sixty—if I sell the two best ones at forty cents each, all together two-forty. Nah, one-sixty.” Ah Seow threw the coins onto the ground, which was bare of vegetation on account of their regular visits.
Kwang stooped to pocket the money and tossed twenty cents back onto the ground. “Nah! Your commission.” With his bare foot, Kwang pushed the two spider boxes towards Ah Seow. “Sell for me, I need the capital to go back and catch more before anybody finds the new place. Feed the old spiders with fly heads, save the other bedbugs for my new spider to eat.”
Ah Seow put the boxes into his bag and rubbed the twenty-cent coin on his hand. “How much do you think Chai has?”
“What about you, how much can you lend me?”
“One dollar the most,” said Ah Seow, looking at the ground as he thought.
“Not enough! I need three dollars!” Kwang exploded. “I want to skip school for a few more days to catch more.”
“Why don’t you ask my sister? She has all the marketing money from mama and papa.”
“Cannot! I already owe her five dollars. Kim is not talking to me anymore. If you don’t trust me just say so!”
“The most is two dollars,” Ah Seow made his offer firmly. “No more.”
As Kwang walked away, he said, “I want the money today.”
More roosters were now crowing. As they walked down from the farming area, Ah Seow advised Kwang, “The place is so far away. Bus fare and eating outside in that expensive area will cost you at least eighty cents a day even if you don’t use Tiger Balm to stop mosquito bites. Remember the last time? You won until Chai lost his temper and nearly started a fight with you again. The next day we lost everything in that big match.”
Kwang punched his palm. “We lost in the sixth round!” He recalled something else, and punched harder into his palm. “Get caught by my mother the next day too. That time my luck was really bad. Fuck!” He thoughtfully examined some old, hard-to-heal cane marks.
“Everybody is still talking about it at the banyan tree.”
“This time, this time is going to be different.” He shot a look at Ah Seow and started counting with his fingers.
“This Saturday and Sunday my mother is working on night shift, I cannot come out... have to wait for maybe something like ten days.”
Ah Seow reminded him as they plotted, “I can guarantee everybody will save up for a return match between you and Chai, but what about our capital?”
“I see what I can catch first. If good, I will try it out with the Chinatown shoeshine boys first, make capital first.”
“You mean those street boys?” Ah Seow warned. “Don’t touch them, too risky! They use knives. Can’t fight with them, they get in a group and throw red pepper in your face, not gentleman!”
“I know. I am not that stupid, I meet their chief.”
“You mean Chinatown Yeow? That king of street boys!” Yeow was legendary even among the adult gangs in Chinatown.
“Yah lah!” Kwang replied modestly. “I talked to him about me in his territory over a cup of coffee. He agreed everybody should be gentleman, win or lose.”
Ah Seow, who hero-worshipped tough boys, got excited. “How did you meet him? What do you think of him?”
“When we do well, I’ll introduce him to you,” he jabbed his assistant’s arm and motioned with a tilt of his head. �
��Let’s run!”
• • •
Climbing back into his bed, Ah Seow didn’t wait long before he heard Kwang shouting to his brothers, four and five years younger than him, “Wake up! Wake up!” They went for a wash at the well. “One! Two! Three!” Kwang shouted as he threw a bucket in. “One! Two! Three!” his brothers sang in response, as he hauled the bucket out of the well. Using empty cans, the boys scooped up the water, threw it at each other, laughing and giggling merrily. After their bath, they raced home to eat whatever was available for breakfast. Their mother was still asleep; she had done a late shift at a labouring job on a ship. Food was usually plain rice with soy sauce; anything more than that was a feast. Kwang had said many times to Kim and Ah Seow, “If my mother treats me like Chai’s father, no need to go to school. I can make more money than my mother.” He had secretly been supplying extra food for his kid brothers from spider money. An average spider could fetch up to twenty cents, which could buy two bowls of rich curry laksa soup—very delicious with plain rice—or two salted eggs, or three fresh eggs.
2
Panther Tiger
KWANG SKIPPED SCHOOL and went back to the STC bus terminal. To save some money, he did not use Tiger Balm. After a few hours, he caught two spiders. “Fucking mosquitoes!” He cursed and scratched all the way out of the bushes and crossed the road. He sat on the bench at a cart stall that was parked by the roadside, under a tree. A burly Indian man sat behind two twenty-gallon copper drums of hot water, which were simmering over a charcoal fire.
“Teh!” He ordered a glass of tea in Malay, holding up an index finger. While waiting, Kwang helped himself to two curry buns—his favourite snack—sitting inside a glass jar on the counter. He gobbled them down quickly.
He peered at his new catch, which was jumping madly inside a flat metal box bedded with leaves, trying to escape. He kept blowing at it so that it would calm down and stay still for him to take a quick look. He snapped the lid shut quickly to prevent the agitated spider from getting executed on the edges of the box.
“Teh!” said the big Indian man, his voice deep like drum. He passed the cardamom tea to Kwang through the space between the two copper drums.
After a few quick sips of the hot tea, Kwang pointed at his wrist, “Baaboo?” The man winced at the nickname, but all the same he extended his hand between the drums so that Kwang could look at the time on his watch. Kwang thanked him with a quick salute, then handed the glass of tea back, his tongue lolling in and out to indicate that the drink was too hot.
Baaboo had a long moustache that was neatly curved upwards. “Aachaa!” he growled as he took Kwang’s glass and sat down to cool the hot tea by pouring it between two glasses with an expert hand.
Kwang took the opportunity to take off like a whip, without paying for his drink or bread, to catch the eleven-fifteen bus heading for Chinatown.
At Chinatown, he went straight to Lim Eng Bee Street, where it was quiet in the afternoons and there was a bustling night market in the evenings. He was a stranger in this territory. About a few dozen street kids from seven to fifteen years old habitually occupied the dead end of the street, gambling against one another. Squatting in patches, they played ting tong with two coins, matchstick guessing and cards and also compared their wrestling spiders. Kwang felt as if he were walking through a jungle, watched by all kinds of animals. Still, he wanted to make money by spider matching with these cash-rich Chinatown boys. At a short distance away, he took a deep breath to steady his nerves, one hand gripping the strap of his schoolbag, before he entered the makeshift gambling den.
“Shark Head!” One of the kids with short spiky hair and sitting on a shoeshine box yelled out with a random nickname for Kwang. “Shark Head!” he shouted again.
“Come over here!” The boy curled his finger inwards slowly, ridiculing him, as if he were a dog.
Kwang walked towards him with a forced smile. “Did you see Chinatown Yeow?” He mentioned their leader’s name as if it were a passport for entry.
The boy, who was in his early youth, scanned Kwang from head to toe with goldfish-like eyes. “Find Chinatown Yeow for what?” He pointed a thumb at himself. “Talk to me first!”
Watched by all the animal eyes, Kwang felt it was a test of raw guts. “Not your business,” he warned Goldfish, waving a finger at him. “I came to look for Yeow. Don’t disgrace me like a dog with your finger. Okay?” He turned around to face the others. “Anybody wants to have a clash with my Panther Tiger?” He imitated spiders wrestling using both his hands.
Goldfish did not want to lose face, so he lurched forward to grab at the strap of Kwang’s schoolbag and pulled. Kwang slipped the strap from his shoulder, braced himself and pulled back. Goldfish tugged harder, but Kwang now freed the strap, sending Goldfish falling backwards onto his bottom. Although Goldfish quickly stood up, Kwang lifted a knee to strike at his opponent’s groin.
“Aayaak!” Goldfish screamed as he doubled over in pain, his face instantly turning white.
Kwang tipped his eyes left and right at the animal eyes and warned Goldfish again with his finger. “Don’t try to big fish eat small fish. I am not good to eat.”
Squatting, Goldfish still could not bear to have his honour written off with his mates watching. The moment the pain subsided, he jumped at Kwang with a straight punch. Kwang twisted his waist so that the punch flew past him harmlessly, then aimed a chop at the back of Goldfish’s right elbow in a lightning move taught by his father. The fight was over in seconds. Goldfish held his elbow, which was shooting with pain.
Kwang said with arms folded, “If I don’t give face to Yeow, I already break your hand.”
Kwang knew he would not be able run away if everyone mob-attacked. He also knew that they would attack like a pack of wolves if any one of them were authoritative enough to order a kill: “Saak!” At the moment, however, they crowded around him with sceptical looks and did not break for him to pass.
He introduced himself. “I am from Bukit Ho Swee, I am here to play spiders.”
The boys were leaderless and could not reply, so they started to loosen up and look at one another.
To prevent their going wild, Kwang then bluffed, “Where is Chinatown Yeow? I can’t find him in Santeng.” Hearing their boss’s name again, the group had second thoughts about advancing on Kwang.
Kwang walked out. Once outside the area, Kwang ran for one kilometre so that he could get to Pearl Bank School before the school bell rang at one-fifteen for the afternoon session. Scattered crowds of schoolboys were playing spiders. He asked a familiar face, “Win or lose?”
“Lost four matches.”
“Where?”
“There!” Familiar Face pointed to a small group of school kids.
“Use mine to make some food money. Want or not?”
“How? They’re all scared to bite with you.”
“Just don’t let them know.”
“No money already.”
“Money on me, make a hit yourself. Lose not your problem.”
“How much do you want to throw down?”
Kwang counted out his coins to the last cent. He eventually won a few dollars from Pearl Bank School. Next, he rushed to Pearl’s Hill School where he got Ah Seow to safe-keep his spiders. This was in case his mother got suspicious and searched him.
When he arrived home, he lied. “Mama, my teacher chose me to be a school prefect. Have to go for meeting. So tomorrow I come home late.”
• • •
The next day he snuck around to avoid Baaboo’s stall. He ate inside a coffeeshop. Using Tiger Balm this time, he caught five more spiders at the same place. Then he went to Chinatown Yeow to complain.
“Yeow, I mentioned your name. Your boys in Lim Eng Bee still don’t give face... What happened to what you say?”
“You don’t fight them, you don’t know them,” Chinatown Yeow smiled. “I just passed the word around. Check it out yourself.”
Early the next morning, on t
heir way to exercise the spiders again, Kwang pulled Ah Seow backwards by the collar. “Walk slowly,” he said, and flashed out a crisp red ten-dollar note. He waved it near Ah Seow’s nose with a pleased little smile.
“Waah!” Ah Seow exclaimed. “How many matches all together?”
“Didn’t count, won everywhere. Somebody offered me one dollar for this one.” Kwang tossed a round spider box into the air and caught it with a leap. “Let’s run...!”
On arrival at the yam leaves, Kwang pulled out a magnifying glass. “Do you know what this is for?”
“To look at spiders,” Ah Seow replied. “What is there to show off?” But he was surprised. He had never seen anybody using a magnifying glass to study spiders.
He poked further. “What for? Who do you copycat?”
“Don’t insult me... I don’t copycat anybody,” Kwang snapped as he traced his spiders’ movements on the leaves.
Ah Seow could not understand what his boss saw in spiders, but he knew Kwang would never stop dreaming of winning the grand prize in the annual wrestling spider championship, which the best of hard-core spider boys from the fifty-two districts of Singapore participated in.
After examining his spiders one by one, from the way they fed to the way they drank morning dew, Kwang picked out the best two and pushed the rest towards Ah Seow. “Nah! Fight five matches with Chai at one dollar a match tomorrow. Win or lose never mind, but remember the spiders and the rounds in every match.”
“What is the new trick?” Ah Seow asked as he put the spider boxes into his bag.
“You wait and see,” Kwang mumbled, his mood changing and his face looking worried. “I must go back to school and pay my school fees. If I get sacked from school, my mother will finish me.”
“How many days did you skip school already?”
“Three days straight... hard to explain to my pig-face teacher this time.”