by Ming Cher
Ah Seow frowned and emerged quickly. “What so big news?”
“Don’t talk much first!” Kwang gave the biggest grin Ah Seow had ever seen. “I show you all something first.” He opened up a spider box and everybody crowded around. “This is the king!” he declared.
“Waah! So big?” Ah Seow’s eyes popped and he immediately demanded, “Let me have a bounce!” He picked up the large spider and held it in his hand.
“This is the king!” Kwang said, his eyes gleaming. He returned the spider to the box, and kissed the lid.
“Where—did—you—catch—it?” Ah Seow asked, word by word.
“Same place.”
“How did you catch it?” Sachee cut in.
“Very strange.” Kwang swallowed as his mouth watered. “I stepped on a rusty nail. I sat down and pulled lallang grass to bandage my foot, then this king jumped on my lap and jumped off. So big, at first I thought is insect! So I didn’t care and bandaged my foot again…”
“And then?” Sachee interrupted.
“And then it jumped on my lap again…! Lucky it didn’t jump up, jump down! Jump up to hide inside the leaf. When I cupped the leaf to catch it, I still didn’t believe it.” He sat back and winced from the pain in his foot. “Got headache, I want to sleep first.” Kwang stood up and limped into his room.
Big Mole pushed Sachee. “Go and find him a stick to walk.”
• • •
The next day, Kwang’s foot had become more swollen, but still he limped about using the broken umbrella that Sachee had found him, training his new spider. He had lost his appetite. That night, he developed a high fever and could not sleep properly, talking aloud while having bad dreams, which had a lot to do with spiders and his mother. The following morning, he was awake before the rooster crowed, gasping as Kim fanned him with newspapers, “Hot, hot, very hot—!” he said. “Ah Seow, feed my king first… inside my pillow.”
“This Panther Tiger is a devil,” Kim said with a pained look as she massaged Tiger Balm onto Kwang’s forehead, nostrils, throat and chest without really knowing what to do.
“I go and ask Big Mole to come here first.” Ah Seow ran off to wake Big Mole and Sachee up.
Just after the rooster crowed, the three of them rushed back to examine Kwang. “Very hot!” Big Mole said, shocked, and withdrew her hand from his forehead. “Sachee,” she whispered. “Quick, find Yeow and ask Vegetable Auntie to help you buy some ginseng before you come back.” She dug into her secondhand flowery samfoo blouse and pulled out a plastic bundle with her life savings in it.
“Buy two dollars.” She fished out the money. “Come back quickly—!”
When Sachee had sped off, Ah Seow told the girls, “I go and tell San’s father first, he know a lot.”
After listening to Ah Seow’s report, Wong walked back and forth, smoking as he thought. “Aah—! Use pung tai woon!” he exclaimed to himself, then called out loudly to his wife, “Rice Woman! I am going out to save a life! Tell my customers I’m not free today!”
The clattering sound of the sewing machine in the next room stopped. “Are you coming back to eat?” San’s mother shouted back.
“Don’t wait for me!” Wong replied. He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a small metal box containing opium. “Follow me,” he commanded Ah Seow, with a wave befitting the ex-commander-in-chief of Hon Moon. He led the way to an uphill area that he knew he could find pung tai woon, a common herb with thumb-sized leaves. Also known as ‘shameful grass’, its leaves closed when touched.
“This is for his leg,” he said with a fistful of the mimosa. “You come and pick some more tomorrow. If all this don’t work—prepare to buy a coffin!”
• • •
The news spread rapidly. When Wong and Ah Seow arrived, the house was filled with spider boys. In Kwang’s room, more of them had gathered closely around him, like mourners surrounding a dying person. Wong had to usher them out to make room for fresh air.
“Very hot, hot, hot…” Kwang gasped and wriggled about, his hands tearing at his head. Kim and Big Mole fought to control his hands, while two spider boys held on to his kicking legs. Wong was shocked by what he saw. Quickly pounding the pung tai woon in a granite mortar, he added one teaspoon of salt and squeezed some of the bitter juice into a glass with a splash of water. When he tried to tip the mixture into Kwang’s mouth, however, Kwang’s eyes watered and he spewed it all out.
Wong shook Kwang repeatedly and slapped his cheeks in rapid succession. “Look at me! Look at me!” he shouted. “Can you recognise me?”
Kwang nodded uncertainly, his tongue sticking out.
“Good!” Wong barked. “Drink it!”
Kwang drank a little of the herbal mixture. Kim took some of the pulp of the cooling herb and squeezed it into his mouth. The sight of Kim’s face encouraged him to ingest more.
“Good!” Wong grinned, his tobacco-stained teeth showing. “Now close your eyes and breathe in and out slowly. I will put some on your head, you will be all right in no time.”
Wong spread the remaining herbal mixture on Kwang’s forehead, throat and chest. The pung tai woon drew out the heat from Kwang’s body and grew warm itself. Kwang drifted away into sleep.
Wong shook his head in relief and scanned the anxious faces of spider boys waiting around the doorway of the room. He said warmly to them, “When he wakes up, he will feel better. You all go home first and let him have a rest, come and see him tomorrow.” The boys dispersed quietly.
As Kwang slept, Wong examined his swollen leg and ordered clean rags and hot water. He pounded more mimosa and some opium together in a basin, then soaked the sore foot in it.
“Watch him,” he instructed Ah Seow. “Don’t let him kick the bucket over when he moves. If the water cools down, let me know.” The old man took off his glasses to massage his tired eyes and asked Kim, “Any coffee around?”
“Prepared already,” Big Mole answered on Kim’s behalf. “Waiting for you on the table outside.”
“I did not see you before.” Wong straightened his glasses for a closer look. “You look like a Malay girl.”
“I am…” Big Mole bit on her fingernail shyly.
“Under the heaven, one family.” Wong said reassuringly, pointing his finger upwards. He went to the balcony for his coffee and some Fatty Family’s cakes. Adding opium to his black, sugarless coffee, he said to the girls, “Pung tai woon must drink fresh with a few pinches of salt. He should be able to drink from a bowl by himself when he wakes up. It is very cooling, too much will make the muscles in the leg weak. Half a bowl tonight, half a bowl in the morning, use what is left over to cover his forehead, throat and chest.” Wong chuckled, sipping his opiumed coffee. “Tomorrow he will spend the whole day visiting the toilet.”
Big Mole said, “I ask Sachee to buy some ginseng.”
“No, don’t give ginseng to him yet! It is dangerous, it will clash. Both have cooling properties, it will upset the balance. Ginseng is good to increase vitality. Give it to him a week later.”
“What about his leg? So swollen!” Kim asked, a hurt expression on her face, as if she were injured herself.
“Heat causes the poison to swell,” Wong said. “When his temperature cools down, the swelling will subside. The shameful grass works like magic to draw out the remaining poison.” He bit into the cake and his eyes glazed as he started to drift into a trance alone with his drugged thoughts.
Big Mole dragged Kim aside and whispered, “Don’t forget to give that man an angpow later.”
“I am no good at all this motherly thing—how much to give?”
“One dollar is all right, it’s for good luck too,” Big Mole insisted.
Kim approached the elderly man again and pressed a red packet containing a one-dollar note into his hand. “Uncle Wong,” she said shyly. “A little token.”
“Don’t be stupid!” Wong pushed the angpow aside. “I am closer to him than you, I owe his father my soul. To save a life is
better than be vegetarian for a lifetime.” He stepped out of the balcony.
Watching until the lanky Wong stooped out of sight, Big Mole suggested, “Give him some opium for the present. A present he won’t know how to refuse.”
• • •
In the early afternoon, Sachee returned with Yeow and Chai. They had made Sachee carry a big watermelon about half his size and he wobbled up like a pregnant woman with two hands around the waist.
“Phew! Very heavy!” Sachee complained as he dumped the fruit on the balcony. He clapped the dust off his hands and deliberately all over Chai.
“How is he?” Yeow asked hurriedly.
“Nearly died, lucky San’s father came to save him.” Ah Seow talked quickly and related the sequence of events.
“Dead serious?” Chai asked Ah Seow with a quick glance at the girls. Big Mole turned her face the other way.
Kim nodded slowly. “Yes, he scared me.”
“Is he still sleeping?” Yeow pointed toward the room.
“Go inside and see him,” Big Mole meekly encouraged Yeow.
Yeow walked into the room at once. Everybody followed behind. Kwang was curled up in quiet slumber, still clutching the spider box against his chest. His lips were cracked and dry. His straw mattress was messy, scattered with used rags about and spilled herbal paste. The smell of the bitter herbs lingered in the air. Yeow sniffed thoughtfully and looked at Chai. “Can you smell opium?”
Big-headed Chai walked around the room, sniffing hard until he arrived at Kwang’s foot. “It’s here…!” he pointed at the bandaged limb.
“Mr. Wong’s recipe…” Big Mole’s eyes twinkled. “Kim gave him an angpow, he refused—maybe opium, to present him?”
Yeow smiled and gestured with his head for Big Mole to follow him out of the room. “Don’t make noise,” he said. “Keep your eyes open in Chinatown and here… I am going to Penang for a week or two, maybe longer. Personal, don’t ask.”
As Ah Seow walked out, Chai tapped his shoulder and pointed at Kwang’s spider box. “Big one there?”
Ah Seow found it difficult to withhold the information, as he was still so excited. “This big,” he gestured with a thumb. Sachee noticed the interaction, and shook his fist angrily at Ah Seow when Yeow and Chai left. “Don’t let Chai know anything!”
Kim and Big Mole also gave him a disgusted look. Ah Seow walked out silently, angered at the insult. When he was right, nobody remembered. When he was wrong, however, nobody would forget. He did not understand the power struggle between Chai, Big Mole and Sachee. “Chai,” he pondered. “Chai is not bad… He is always hungry for money, but he is a gentleman, keeps his word. Even my sister is against me! Even crazy little Sachee thinks he can push me around!”
Ah Seow stewed for some time, becoming angrier and finally eager to take action. He decided to go back and teach Sachee a lesson for barking at him.
He found Sachee eating the big watermelon with Kwang’s brothers and a group of little boys. Emboldened by his fury, Ah Seow went straight in and twisted Sachee’s ear. “Next time don’t try and act tough with me!”
Sachee, who was holding a slice of watermelon with both hands, dropped the fruit and grabbed Ah Seow’s ear in return, twisting hard. Next, he sank his teeth into Ah Seow’s forearm. Ah Seow shook his hand and screamed. The harder he shook, the harder Sachee bit, clenching harder still and curling up into a ball to hang on Ah Seow’s arm.
The screams brought Kim and Big Mole rushing out of the kitchen. One girl kept slapping Sachee’s jaw, the other tried to break his grip. Blood from Ah Seow’s forearm was flowing all over the floor. Sachee’s mouth was also filled with blood. It looked much redder than the watermelon juice staining the watching boys’ lips and mouths.
Humiliated, Ah Seow was now hot with rage. Sensing danger, Sachee picked up the umbrella handle cast aside by Kwang and stood his ground.
“You still want to fight!”
“Go home! Go home!” Big Mole dashed over and led Sachee away. Ah Seow used some of the remaining mimosa mixture on his bite wound. The news of the fight spread quickly and Ah Seow became a laughing stock. In the eyes of the younger boys, Sachee was now an even greater hero, and they followed him obediently. When Kwang fully recovered in less than a week, he, too, laughed about it.
From that day on, Ah Seow became more independent. His friendship with Kwang, with whom he had been through thick and thin together, began to wane, while San and he became closer friends. Heeding Wong’s advice, “It is much better to have brain than brawn”, he passed his midterm examination with flying colours.
10
Cowboy Jeans
THE AMBITIOUS YEOW was also superstitious. He postponed his Penang trip to the third lunar month to coincide with the grave-sweeping festival.
“Not a bad idea,” the cigarette woman said. She encouraged ancestor worship. “Your auntie’s bones are our bones. Don’t leave her alone in Penang for too long.”
The day before leaving to retrieve his aunt’s bones back for reburial in Singapore, Yeow could not stop thinking about the Siew Jee Ho secret society and the man he had killed in Kuala Lumpur for cheating him. It was a secret he kept to himself. He gave up his afternoon nap to look for Chai.
He found Chai coming out of a small gambling den near the funeral parlours at Sago Lane.
“Chai!” Yeow yelled. “How is luck?”
“Lousy,” Chai grumbled, shaking his head. “Lost a few red ones again…”
“You need this,” Yeow tossed him a packet of Lucky Strike. “Any problem?”
“No, all under control. Not even small problems. You?”
“Going back to Penang to sort out a few things… Come with me if you like, see a new world for a change.”
“That is damn give face, but who look out around here?”
“Good thinking,” the boss flattered him. “You think for me.”
Chai had no answers but he hazarded a guess. “You scared of somebody there or what? If so, let me know. I rub them off for you.”
“You think the wrong way,” Yeow said, denying his hidden concern about the Siew Jee Ho. “Where is your bicycle?” he asked, trying to distract Chai.
“I lent it to Shark Head, you’re looking for him?”
“No, he is hard to catch. As long as you are all friends, I am happy. Okay?” He patted the beefy boy on the shoulder. He hailed a trishaw for a slow ride to the Singapore Railway Station.
After sniffing around the bustling area, bittersweet memories of his first landing in Singapore surfacing, Yeow booked a first-class ticket on the Friday morning train to Penang. Feeling tense, he also bought a pair of dark glasses for the trip. Then he looked at the time on his Rolex watch and decided to go fishing at a quiet, shady spot under the Merdeka Bridge, at the mouth of the Kallang River.
Yeow loved fishing. The echo of the splashing waves under the biggest bridge in Singapore reminded him of his dreams of becoming successful. After further reflection about his past deed, he overcame his fear about going to Penang. “Fear not death, nothing to fear,” he said to himself and swung the line out farther, sucking on a cigarette while waiting. But still there was no bite.
He moved to another location and immediately there was a sharp tug on his line. It was a big-headed catfish with sharp spines behind its head and on the fins, which have venom, like a stingray. It reminded him of the fearless Chai, who had told all the Chinatown boys, “If anybody is looking for trouble, fight with me first!” It was an effective threat. No trouble had broken out yet. Yeow grabbed the spiky, vigorous fish by the tail and flung it back into the water.
As the tide got higher, the waves pounded harder against the riverbank. Yeow swung the line out farther, and lit another cigarette, his thoughts now shifting to Kwang. The latter had become like a hero in the spider community since his big spider was caught. Begun by Sachee, Kwang’s new nickname, ‘Big Brother’, stuck and even some of his own Chinatown boys used it.
After anot
her long wait, Yeow swung the line hard in a circular fashion above his head, like a helicopter propeller, to cast it towards a particular spot much farther out. He repeated this about ten times before he succeeded. This time he caught a colourful fish. It reminded him of Kim, who seemed like an angel to him. The beautiful fish flapped for its life below his feet, bringing Yeow back to the present. The hook was difficult to dislodge by hand, so Yeow quickly inserted a chopstick into the dangling fish’s throat, working it in a vigorous circular motion to release the hook. By the time the fish fell back into the sea, Yeow was not sure it would survive.
Perhaps thoughts had wings. On their way home from marketing in Chinatown, Kim was in a frivolous mood. She blew a bubble with her gum and asked Big Mole, “Do you like Yeow?”
“How many times do you ask me that? Hah?” Big Mole frowned. “I am not Yeow. You ask Yeow yourself!”
Kim retorted, “Why so angry at me like that!”
“You ask yourself,” Big Mole said, still irritated. “You talk about Yeow all the time, why?”
“Yeow says I look nice in cowboy jeans. You think so?”
“You’d better ask Kwang.”
“Kwang is not always at home.”
“But he always gives you money like water.”
“I am going to buy a pair of cowboy jeans.”
“You dare to wear!” Big Mole laughed, surprised at her suddenly trendy taste. “Why not? I do what I like,” Kim said, spitting out the gum. “Next time I wear high heels and put on lipstick.”
“Get the good ones,” Big Mole advised. “Go to High Street.”
“Chinatown also have, why go so far? Everybody gives face to Yeow, he says he can get it cheaper.”
“Chinatown all copy one!” Big Mole said to shut her friend up. Privately, she wondered when Yeow would go to Penang, how she would handle the pushy Chai, and her future place with Yeow.