by Ming Cher
Chai took one more day to locate Yeow. “Yeow, can you advance fifty dollars for three months? I pay you back at the interest rate.”
“I don’t make money from friends.” Yeow took out his wallet and asked, “Is this enough?”
“That is very give face already.” Chai opened his eyes wide. “I won’t forget this favour.”
“Just keep the date on time.” Yeow said with a benign smile.
With the borrowed money, Chai did reasonably well with his spider business outside the village, but he was still beaten by Kwang every time he tried to recoup his earlier losses. His team had abandoned him almost completely.
One evening, Yeow sat on a stool inside the comic book rental store next to Ho San coffeeshop, turning the pages of a comic book about Ji Gong, a monk who loved to eat dog meat and yet could become a saint. He smiled occasionally as he read. Big Mole and Sachee were also at the same store. Sachee was reading a Mickey Mouse comic book, sitting on a stool next to Big Mole. Watching the bustling activity in front of her, Big Mole noticed Chai appearing.
“Sachee, Sachee.” She slapped his arm, a worried look on her face. “Big Head Chai!”
“Where?”
“There!” She jerked her chin meaningfully.
Sachee walked a few steps towards Yeow, who liked to sit alone when he was reading. “Yeow.” He kicked quietly at Yeow’s leg, “That big-head boy is here.” Sachee returned to his stool.
“Hey! Yeow!” Chai waved and chained his bike around a post.
“Don’t worry about locking it in this area!” Yeow shouted and smiled at the way Chai decorated his bike with groovy pictures.
“Keeping my word, came to pay you back the money first.” Chai combed his hair and gave Big Mole and Sachee a mean stare. They pretended not to see him. He slipped his comb back into his pocket, took out a packet of cigarettes and walked over to Sachee. “Nah! Have a smoke?” It was meant to set Sachee up, who knew Yeow didn’t like him to smoke.
Sachee sniffed at Chai after casting a glance at Yeow, then bent his spiky head to continue reading his Mickey Mouse.
Yeow walked up with a comic in his hand and smacked Sachee’s head. “Big man! When did you start to smoke?” Sachee stared at his comic book stubbornly. Big Mole pulled her stool nearer to him and bit her fingernail.
“Chai, how is luck?” Yeow patted his expanding shoulder. “Don’t ask.” Chai shook his head and smoked. “Win everywhere, but lose to the same boy in my village.” He now had a robust voice that was beginning to sound like his father’s and was bigger in size than the average man.
“That shark-head boy with the stupid haircut?” Yeow grinned.
“You know him!” Chai exclaimed.
“Few times,” Yeow replied casually and gestured with his head. “Come, let’s sit inside the coffeeshop, I pay.”
Inside the coffeeshop, people talked as if in a marketplace. Chai, who knew of Yeow since he arrived from Penang, threw his packet of smoke on the table and took out his wallet. “Yeow,” he grimaced. “My money is still tight, any opening?” He counted the money and pushed the notes across the table.
Yeow stared briefly at the money in front of him and rested his hands on the table. “Drink first… hot or cold?”
“Kopi-O, strong.” Black coffee with sugar. Chai leaned forward to pull out his comb, and combed his hair again.
“Two, kopi for me.” Yeow wanted coffee with condensed milk. He raised two fingers at the coffeeshop boy who stood by, ready to serve, the very moment he saw Yeow. “Chai,” Yeow pushed back the money on the table to him. “Don’t be shy with me, take your time and pay me back when you are ready, okay?”
Chai pocketed the cash and said, “I won’t forget this favour. Did you see my brothers?”
“No, not for a few months. They do their own thing, you?”
“Only my second brother briefly last month, at home once.”
“How much did you lose to that shark-head boy?”
“Don’t want to count,” Chai frowned. “I am losing face in my own village.”
Yeow, who was always talent scouting, tested the waters. “You want me to sort him out for you?”
“No,” Chai shook his head and smoked. “It’s a one-to-one thing between him and me… very hard to explain.”
“A lot of things are very hard to explain.” Yeow stirred his coffee. “Heard a lot about Bukit Ho Swee, I feel like going to your place to see a new world for a change.”
“Plenty of space, stay at my place any time you like.”
“Tomorrow okay?”
“Sure! I take you on my bicycle from here. What about nine in the morning, too early?”
“No, early is good. I find a bicycle myself, we ride together.” He sipped his coffee and smiled. “More fun.”
“Okay, here tomorrow at nine.” Chai finished his coffee and walked out happily. Unlocking his bicycle, he found there was no air in both tyres. He pushed his bike to prowl around fruitlessly. Big Mole and Sachee watched him from around a corner.
Inside the coffeeshop, Yeow ordered another coffee, Chai and Kwang on his mind. He had been planning to extend his network beyond Chinatown. He had liked Kwang the first time they met, impressed by the way he beat one of his own boys, an act that had made Kwang famous among themselves. Although Yeow had a calm face and complete control over his expanding territories, he felt lonely as the age gap between himself and his boys was wide, and they treated him as a father figure, not as a friend. Having new ambitions and looking a few years older than his eighteen years, he wanted soul mates who were also leaders themselves.
6
No Nose Bridge
THE NEXT MORNING, an old man was testing his kites in gusty winds, surrounded by half a dozen man-size boys, as Chai and Yeow approached No Nose Bridge. It was the beginning of the dry, windy season. Suspended over the shallow river separating Bukit Ho Swee from the rest of the world, the two-metre-wide, forty-metre-long bamboo bridge was named after No Nose, the old kite-maker, whose nose had been sliced off by a Japanese officer when he had bowed and inadvertently sneezed. Over the years, rubbish dumped into the river had narrowed it and formed a basin that nobody stayed at. It flooded in the rainy season but dried up during kite season, becoming the playground of kite fighting activities. The boys called kite fighting ‘crossing swords in the sky’. Before the sword was ready to fly, long rolls of cotton string were sharpened by glazing, dipping into boiling ox-skin glue, and mixing with pounded powdery glass.
“Woh! Woh! Chai!” Yeow exclaimed, rubbing his nose. “Chai! Another world!” He stopped his bike and pushed it up the rickety bridge. Chai chuckled loudly as he braked behind Yeow. “You come at the right time, the most stinking time!”
“Most stinking time?” Yeow asked loudly above the wind.
“Always like that!” Chai’s voice seemed louder in the wind. “Kite season starting! River dry and fuck up at this time!” He stopped to talk to his father’s friend.
Yeow pushed his bike ahead slowly as he scanned the horizon of brown attap roofs covering the hilly village. He felt high up on the bridge. He glanced back to look at Chai. He was still chatting. Yeow went on ahead and began staring at No Nose’s sunken face and ragged small figure, amused.
No Nose hated outsiders’ stares. “Don’t know your father?” he growled, taking a few steps back to block Yeow’s way, pulling his kite line across Yeow’s body, just below his chin. The kite line was anchored to an oval tin on the ground, and the old man looked like he was using a bow and shooting his kite like an arrow into the sky.
Yeow controlled his rising temper, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the bike. He looked around at the other boys, who were of the same age as he. He smiled grimly at No Nose, who checked him out from head to toe. Yeow was of average build and symmetrically handsome. His shining black hair was neatly parted along a straight line and very well trimmed. As always, he was neatly dressed in white cotton long-sleeved shirt sleeves rolled up to his el
bow, expensive old-fashioned baggy trousers and leather shoes.
“Eeeh!” No Nose sniffed. “Where do you smell? Got the guts to admit it!” He spoke in a hollow tone that vibrated from the two holes in his face.
“I don’t waste my breath for nothing.” Yeow smiled again and turned his head to look for Chai.
No Nose let the kite line slip, and the glazed line sliced into Yeow’s chin. Jerking backwards, Yeow grabbed the line, but No Nose pulled on it and the line cut into Yeow’s hand, drawing blood. At once, No Nose’s fans shifted forward, aggression showing on their faces.
Yeow felt like smashing his bike at them but the burst of boiling fury inside stopped by itself. He pulled out a well-folded handkerchief, bit one end of it and bandaged his hand, ignoring the boys as well as the blood dripping down his chin and staining his white shirt. “I did not see blood before,” Yeow said icily, showing No Nose his bloodied bandage. “What is all this for? Do you have to do this to me?”
No Nose directed his gaze to his kite in the sky and took a backward step at the same time.
Yeow turned around and suddenly roared, “Chai!”
Chai threw down his bike and ran towards Yeow. He looked like a bulldog with his powerfully built long body and short arms and legs. “Yeow? What happened! Who did it?” he panted.
“Ask him, ask this little old prick for me. He asked me where I smell. Tell him… tell him I don’t play with any number. Ask him if he can afford to pay my damage. I am very expensive.”
No Nose did not flinch, but continued to anchor his kite in the same bow-and-arrow posture in a slightly squatting position, tugging at the kite line now and then, as if he were fishing.
“He is my friend, Uncle No Nose.” Chai growled furiously and jabbed the nearest boy on the face and pushed at another forcefully. They knew him and his family’s reputation. Some shied away to reconsider, while a few others did not look satisfied and moved forward.
Chai stood by to fight.
“Chai…” Yeow brushed Chai’s chest swiftly and lightly with his injured hand and smiled gently as the kite boys, who were waiting for a signal from No Nose. “Not their fault.”
No Nose jerked his head at the kite boys. They broke away and leaned against the railing to watch. Suddenly, No Nose’s blazing eyes changed like cold steel. “Chai!” he called out, pulling on the kite line. Chai looked at him. The points on the centre of their eyes met. Chai was transfixed.
“Hold the tin,” No Nose commanded.
Chai held the oval tin.
“Coil it.”
Chai coiled the line while No Nose brought down the kite, robustly pulling down the line in long strokes, his typical black Chinaman farmer’s jacket, unbuttoned, revealing two dragons tattooed on his bony chest. He looked at Yeow. The latter started to feel giddy and his whole body became icy. He sucked on his bandaged hand to feel pain for sensation and control, gasping for breath. As he sucked, he stared at No Nose.
No Nose was drawn to look back, and as he did so, he saw the image of a killer creature jump out of Yeow and lunge at him. Perhaps it was Yeow’s guardian angel or something from the unexplained.
No Nose twisted sideways to avoid direct contact with the creature and quickly dipped into his big pocket jacket for a tin of tobacco. He passed it to Yeow. “Nah! Use it to stop the blood first. It’s only a scratch! You are lucky I didn’t slice your throat like a chicken. Come and visit me any time you like.”
Yeow look tired. He took the tobacco halfheartedly and said, “I will come and scratch your back. Time and place?”
“This place! No time!” No Nose pointed at his own feet forcefully. “A thief can smell a thief better than a detective.” The old man returned to test his kite as if nothing had happened.
Yeow felt a thief sage had awakened him. He took the tobacco and staunched the bleeding. He nodded nicely at the boy Chai had punched and threw the empty tin to him. The latter caught it like it was a prize.
Chai said to Yeow, “Can you ride? Two more miles to go.”
“Of course I can!” Yeow said, frowning. He felt disturbed. “No, we walk, I like to walk; walk more, see more,” he insisted, and he was quiet all the way, trying to work out No Nose in his mind.
He finally asked, “Chai, do you know what happened to my hand, here?” He pressed the wounded hand against his cut chin.
“Of course,” Chai replied. “You had a scrap with my distant granduncle and the kite boys. I thought all settled already. You’re still not satisfied?”
“What do you mean, your distant granduncle?”
“Yah,” Chai nodded his big head, “On my grandmother side, why?”
Yeow paused and said, “Do you remember you punched a kite boy and pushed another boy… and coiled down the kite?”
“Kite? What kite?” Chai frowned and then exclaimed, “That No Nose hypnotised me!”
“Hypnotise?”
“Yes, everybody in the village knows he can do it.”
“You know any other thing about him?”
“No, not much. I don’t even talk much with my old man. A lot of people in our village said he was a thief many years ago, long time ago,” Chai said as they took shortcuts through the backyards of people’s houses and jogged past wells, kitchens and toilets. They finally emerged onto the main road, which was actually a dirt track created by war refugees retreating into Bukit Ho Swee years ago.
Yeow was still thinking about No Nose. His photographic mind independently took in the passing slum scenes. The passing visions amused him, and he alternately smiled at naked children squatting to defecate while tickling a pig sunbathing in a muddy pool beside them, and grimaced when he saw other pigs eating scattered lumps of shit here and there.
He asked, still casually, “So you and that shark-head boy split up because of spider business, right?”
“Yah!” Chai raised his brows and added, “My old man and his crazy kung fu father came here on the same boat when they were about my age. Long time ago.”
They were approaching the centre of the village at the intersection of the main road, a semi-marketplace where people gossiped and children played free.
“No street kids?” Yeow teased for more information.
“No, all are country pigs, some of them did not see the town yet, especially the girls.”
“Nice people?”
“Hard to find, nobody knows how to dress properly.”
“Not like us, haaa?” Yeow broke into a charismatic smile.
“Don’t know how to make money,” Chai said. More people were stealing glances at Yeow’s bloodstained white shirt and leather shoes.
“Chai, I am starting to feel ticklish… Too many eyes swimming at me.”
“That is nothing, they are always like that with outsiders. There…!” Chai pointed toward the playground. “That is the place all the spider boys play. My house is the big one behind that very old banyan tree.”
Yeow caught Kim and a few other girls casting fleeting glances at him as they crossed the road. “Hey, Chai,” he whispered and winked. “Who is that girl with the short skirt and a big tee-shirt without bra, red handkerchief around her ponytail? The chicken-leg one, you see?” He smiled.
Although Chai’s head was disproportionately big, his eyes were as quick and sharp as his grandmother Ah Paw’s. “Yah. That one walks in and out like husband and wife with that shark-head boy, they grew up in the same house together.”
“She is tall like a woman, too much for him. How old?”
“A bit younger than him. About one year. Why? You fancy her?”
Yeow had never talked to anybody about girls. Chai’s sudden remark made him shy. “No, no, no,” he said.
“Let’s not talk about girls, I go to your house to wash first. Come again some other time. Today is not my day.”
7
Spider Mother
THE MONTHS PASSED. Kwang’s new spider fame spread to even farther corners of Singapore. Kwang caught more spiders. Everywhere
he went, he won and his income and followers multiplied. Without his mother’s presence, his house turned into a community centre for spider boys, who hung about courting friendship. Like those born during the Japanese Occupation, he was also growing taller into youthhood and resembled his father more strongly. His voice was also changing.
“Always win!” he boasted to Kim.
One day, on a burning hot afternoon when nobody was around, he saw Kim washing her clothes by the well. He wondered why she was alone, and went over to her after catching spiders. She splashed a handful of water at him.
He took off his shirt, flipped it over his shoulder and squatted in front of her. “Frog legs!” He rubbed her bare legs and asked, “Want to go out and see a movie at Railway? ‘Tarzan’ tonight.” As he spoke, he peeked under her skirt, which was becoming shorter as she grew and which now barely covered her properly. He stared harder and said in a startled voice, “Hey! What? What happened down there!”
She squeezed her thighs together, her normally bright eyes dull-looking. “I don’t know why,” she said quietly. “I have blood coming out, here.” She looked down and pointed between her legs.
He looked around them; there was nobody. He picked up a piece of her underwear from the bucket and examined it. “Hey, more blood here! Why?” His face tightened.
Kim bent her head to scrub a dirty panty against the washing board, wordlessly, for a while. “Don’t know what happened… it comes and goes, a few months ago.”
“Pain? Anybody knows?”
“No, nobody. Don’t want anybody to know for nothing and make a big story. Can you take me to see a doctor in town?” She scrubbed aimlessly.
“Of course!” he said, his eyes widening and the veins on his throat showing. “I take you today, don’t worry! Worry is the worst thing!”
“Don’t talk so loud!” she whispered urgently, sprinkling water on Kwang’s face. “You go inside and wait for me.”
He went straight into her bedroom and paced up and down. Ah Seow was still at school and his little brothers were playing at the banyan tree.