by Ming Cher
“I don’t know much about that smooth-looking guy,” he admitted as he ate with some of his men. “But what the fuck made him bluff he is not Smiling Boy?”
“Must be him,” one member insisted. “Can’t be wrong.”
Another asked, “Where is the smooth-looking guy now?”
“See those trishaw guys at Central,” suggested a big-size guy, chewing on a mouthful of rice and meat. “They will know.”
“Find him first, then we talk,” the chief gestured with his chopstick. He picked out the biggest chilli prawn for himself.
The trishaw patch outside the Central Police Station was part of Siew Jee Ho’s ‘give-face’ territory to the trishaw men, whom the society was friendly with. After a few inquiries, Big Guy found the driver. Both of them were gambling addicts and knew each other quite well.
After Big Guy had given his report, the Siew Jee Ho chief said, “He must be doing well to live in that expensive hotel. I guess it is Smiling Boy, must be him.”
Nobody disagreed.
Big Guy added, “That trishaw driver is on our side. He says there’s two ways to Cantonese cemetery hill.”
The chief said, “Let him pick his own way.” All the members felt bound to one another in their mission.
• • •
The next morning, the trishaw man arrived exactly on time. As Yeow took his seat, the clock nearby struck nine times very audibly—tong! tong! tong!...
“Hot today,” the man said, pretending to provide friendly service as he pulled the adjustable canvas cover over Yeow’s head for shade. “There’re two ways to Cantonese cemetery hill. Which way do you like?”
“That way.” Yeow pointed in the direction of the clock tower. He had a red shirt on for good luck, and he now put on his dark glasses.
The trishaw man pedalled slowly and wiped his sweat on an orange towel. Receiving the cue, Big Guy and two other men followed silently on their bicycles. They rode past secret society strongholds, familiar lanes and then all the way out of a busy market street that was filled with waiting trishaws.
Outside the city centre, as they were travelling along a quiet track bordered by big trees, the cyclists sped up to stop the trishaw. The trishaw man put up a false struggle. Yeow dashed out of his seat but Big Guy came up from behind and flung him to the ground. The next moment, Yeow was tied up and stuffed inside a big jute sack originally used for bagging charcoal. He was then dumped back onto the trishaw like a piece of cargo. The trishaw man calmly rode away on Big Guy’s bicycle.
Big Guy pedalled to an old two-storey wooden house inside a dying coconut plantation, which was waiting for redevelopment. Motorbikes and bicycles were parked outside the house. Two dogs chained to a rambutan tree barked at their arrival.
One society member came out of the house and yelled, “Got the pig?”
Big Guy lifted his left foot from the pedal and kicked the sack behind him. “Here!” he answered proudly and braked hard so that the sack was thrown forward onto the ground. He disembarked and dragged the bag into the house, where about a dozen society members were waiting. The space on the ground level used to be a worker’s canteen, and this was still occupied by long tables and benches. Upstairs were the sleeping quarters. Everyone had been anticipating this moment and they now crowded around as their chief untied the sack and released Yeow.
“Let’s see if he is Smiling Boy or not,” Big Guy said, and pulled out the rag that he had stuffed in Yeow’s mouth.
Yeow felt his soul had aborted. He knew they wanted blood. He recognised a few of the street boys—they had been close friends of the old-timer. When his rope was cut loose, the boys teased him. “Are you Smiling Boy? Recognise me? Recognise your uncle? Can you smile?”
“No! I am not!” Yeow denied vigorously in an attempt to create a cloud of doubt. “You’re all looking at the wrong person.”
“So many eyes can’t be wrong!” A hot-tempered guy jumped up and shook Yeow’s teacup ears. “Are you real? Are you real?”
“People can look the same,” Yeow tried to cast more doubt. “Who is Smiling Boy? Make sure you get the right person!” He stood up to strip off his Rolex and the thick gold chain around his neck, and also took out all his money, which amounted to more than one thousand dollars in hundred-dollar notes.
“Is that what you all want?” He put everything on the long table.
Money changed the situation. “You just earned a place to sit. Sit down,” said the deputy, who was lame in one leg. He gestured to the chief for a private discussion outside.
“Something worth thinking,” Lame Leg said, impressed by the large amount of cash. “The water on the table is not small. That smooth guy is easy with it.” He used the Cantonese idiom, ‘water’, for money.
“I know what you mean,” the chief replied. “But we don’t sell the rules. All our brothers have to get the facts straight.”
“Sure, but nothing will change. Better to bleed the water before we bleed his blood.”
The chief thought for a moment and agreed. “All right. How?”
“Lock him up first, give him time to think. Let him find his own answers. I am sure he will buy himself out. That smooth pig has a lot of oil!”
The suggestion made sense to everyone, so Yeow was locked up in a storeroom under the stairway that led to the first floor.
Lame Leg divided up the cash. Everybody was happy. It was money they didn’t expect.
The chief took the thick gold chain for himself. “We have a proper talk tonight. More of our brothers are coming.”
Inside his long, narrow cell, Yeow heard their motorbikes pumping away. He was glad to get away without being searched; they were all looking at the money, and the ten-centimetre knife and the lighter were still safe inside his pocket.
Wanting to find out how many people were on guard outside, he banged hard on the door. “Hey! Hey! Hey!” he shouted, like that half-mad man at the police station.
Three men, who had started to share a pineapple among themselves, jumped up and rushed over. One of them opened the door.
Yeow shouted to provoke reaction, “What am I here for!”
“Don’t fuck around with me.” The second guard took a long water pipe and pushed him back inside with it.
“One more sound, I slice your mouth with this,” the third guard warned, holding out a razor-sharp thirty-centimetre-long knife. He slammed the door shut and pushed the sliding lock back into place.
Back inside the storeroom, Yeow stacked up a pile of old newspapers that he found and stood on it so that he could examine the rotting plywood planks above him. He dug at a weak section with his knife until some light filtered through. He continued working carefully for about an hour until he was able to stuff some crumpled-up newspapers through the gap. He rested for a while, then set the newspapers above him on fire.
As he had expected, the flames surged upwards. Yeow lay at the opposite end of the narrow room, waiting until the smoke became thicker. The guards eventually became alerted to the fire and rushed upstairs to try to put it out. It was becoming hotter and more difficult to breathe in the storeroom. Yeow grabbed his pocketknife and kicked at the point of the door lock. The door burst open. Dashing out of the house, he saw a bicycle parked against a fence and ran towards it. The two dogs barked madly and the guard with the pineapple knife rushed at him.
Instinct took over. As Pineapple Man thrust his blade into Yeow’s belly, Yeow swung up his pocketknife into Pineapple’s armpit and pulled it out again. Pineapple staggered backwards, letting go of his knife. Instantaneously, Yeow doubled up to prevent the knife from causing more damage. It was still lodged in his stomach, several centimetres away from his belly button.
In that split second, Yeow noticed the other two guards running out of the old house, which was burning like dry leaves. He forced himself up with the strength of desperation, then mounted the bicycle and rode for his life. Once he hit the main road and saw people again, he fainted from the loss of blood.
• • •
At the hospital, Yeow told police he had been robbed by unknown attackers. He also telephoned Singapore and Cheong Pak flew over immediately, and took him back after a week in hospital. When the plane landed in Singapore, Yeow’s face was still pale from the narrow escape. His hands full with Yeow’s luggage, Cheong Pak said, “Your health comes first. I arranged a quiet place by Katong Beach for you to have a proper rest.”
“Just bad luck,” Yeow shook his head in disgust. “I don’t want anybody to know what happen to me in Penang, okay?”
In the rich neighbourhood of Katong, even the police looked polite. The tidy bungalow was fenced by thick shrubs and very private. Yeow loved it at first sight and recuperated quietly, mulling over his loss of face with regards his auntie’s bones. He also thought about Kim.
12
Hungry Ghosts Festival
THE MID-TERM school holidays had begun. The Hungry Ghosts Festival was coming soon. It would start on the first full moon of the seventh lunar month, and it meant that the departed souls would be freed by the King of Hell for one month and allowed to roam the earth.
“Ancestor worship is a must,” the blind man reminded devotees at the Kuan Yin Temple. “Better for them, better for us.”
There was an air of anticipation in the village. Pigs and chickens squealed as they were slaughtered for the occasion. Everybody in the community was busy preparing for the festival. Food had to be cooked, prayer materials prepared, and joss paper folded into the likeness of small boats with a coin in the middle of each boat, to be burned for the ghosts’ use in the underworld and thus appease them.
Chinese temples in every part of Singapore were also busy, organising their annual opera performances for the month-long festival. Everybody ‘gave face’ when Wong, who managed the annual shows for the Kuan Yin Temple, passed the hat around. Donations from all quarters poured in for the three-day, three-night opera show, which would be held on a stage erected at the playground. Blind Man and his wife also welcomed hired nuns and tang kee, or Chinese mediums, to the temple to perform rituals.
On the first morning of the festival, the whole village was vibrant with activity. Giant incense sticks that took three men to carry arrived. The opera stage was set up. Opera actors, actresses, musicians and makeup artists arrived, as did itinerant food hawkers.
For the spider boys, the annual champion-of-champions spider competition was also commencing. Hard-core spider boys from other districts of Singapore combed the neighbourhood to discover the best places for coin scrambling, so that they would have more money to bet on the approaching Spider Olympic Games. Spider fever was everywhere. Legendary tales of how spiders fought in the past were exchanged again and again under the huge banyan tree. Somebody was overheard recalling an old winner nicknamed ‘Dirty Trick’. “Did you hear about a small La Sap Pow who did not war dance, but just pounced and bit off the arms of other big spiders to become king?”
“Like you!” A small boy, remembering the watermelon incident, pointed at Sachee.
The other boys turned around to look at Ah Seow. Still feeling the sting from the old insult, he bitterly retreated. He felt very lonely. San, his best friend, was busy helping his father with the show.
• • •
It was the late afternoon. Inside Kuan Yin Temple, amidst smoky incense and glowing oil lamps, and sounds of bells, cymbals, drums and gongs, the chanting by the nuns began and the fantastically dressed mediums spun round and round, faster and faster, going into a deep trance before the main altar. This was where the life-size Goddess of Mercy and her half-dozen, half-life-size demigods, cast in bronze, presided.
The sounds of gongs and cymbals got louder and louder as the early evening approached. A thick crowd of people had gathered outside and spider boys jostled among them for the best position for the coin throwing, which would start as soon as the prayers ended.
Ah Seow was there but Chai was somewhere in the town. Kwang, who loved the fun, pushed his way to the front together with Sachee. “Get ready!” he shouted. “Tang kee coming out soon! See how much you can make!”
“I won’t lose face,” Sachee boasted, prancing about and making a face at Ah Seow.
A final burst of gongs, cymbals and drums preceded the appearance of the eight semi-naked tang kee, still in trance, led by the nuns. With faces painted, daggers in their tongues and spears pierced through their cheeks, the mediums were followed by pallbearers bearing small shrines of seated demigods. It was the demigods that the mediums represented. The waiting worshippers followed behind the procession. They dipped their hands into the coin buckets held by attendants, randomly sprinkling the coins onto the streets.
Boys scrambled crazily for the money. Sachee fought hard too, but each time he pounced, he was pushed over by the bigger boys and got nowhere.
When the ceremony in front of the temple was over, the mediums and helpers went across the road to the stage area to bless the place.
“Made any food money?” Kwang grinned at Sachee. “You tumbled like a watermelon!”
“Few cents only!” Sachee said, jiggling the coins in his hand.
“You feel here. Here!” Kwang tapped at his pocket, which was full. He scooped out a handful of copper and silver coins and showed them to Sachee.
“Waah!” Sachee exclaimed. “Five cents and ten cents too...”
Kwang lifted his shorts to tie a rubber band around the inside of his pocket so that his coins would not fall out in the next scramble. He advised Sachee,“Next time watch the eyes of the coin thrower, not their hands! They throw where their eyes see. Stamp your feet on the silver first, don’t pounce down with your hands, you get pushed over! That is why you tumble like a watermelon, get nothing!”
Sachee laughed at the image of the watermelon. Some boys were still looking for coins nearby. Ah Seow pretended to look around too, so he could hear what they were saying.
“Getting dark,” Sachee said to Kwang. “Where to go now?”
Ah Seow thought quickly and decided to speak up. “Chai’s grandmother is throwing a lot of coins at their gambling house, more than Fatty’s Family’s place.”
“I know,” Kwang nodded. “Don’t waste time, follow me.”
“No!” Sachee cried. “No, I don’t want to go to Chai’s house, I want to go and find Big Mole at your house.”
“Up to you, see you later,” Kwang said and jogged away.
Sachee wondered what he should do. The village by night was especially unfamiliar to him, and he was unused to being by himself. He shot a hostile look at Ah Seow.
“Only my father is at home,” Ah Seow pretended to be friendly as he lied. “My sister and Big Mole are out with Shark Head’s little brothers. Where do you want to go?”
“You know where they are?” Sachee asked reluctantly, looking a little guilty as he remembered the biting incident.
“Can be anywhere in one of my sister’s friend’s places. Want to go together? Come on!” Ah Seow waved in a brotherly fashion.
Having no choice, Sachee started to follow Ah Seow half-heartedly.
Ah Seow felt for the coffin nail in his pocket, his protection against evil spirits, as he started to lead the way out of the village to the farming areas at mid-hill. They approached a narrow path between the attap houses.
Worried, Sachee stopped in his tracks and asked, “Where are you going?”
“Going uphill,” Ah Seow smiled. “I show you a new place for pet fish breeding first. Look for Big Mole and everyone later. They are sure to go to the Bao Gong show at eight o’clock. Want to come?”
“How far to go?”
“Halfway there already.”
“I want to find Big Mole first.”
“Who is Big Mole?” Ah Seow poked at Sachee as they continued walking uphill. “She is not your sister, not your mother, too big to be your girlfriend. Why do you always follow her?”
The cunning insult touched a weak spot in Sachee that he could not grasp an
d had not been conscious of before. His vibrant and bold personality suddenly weakened from the new pain. He shied away from Ah Seow’s cynical stare and stomped on ahead. The moon was now bright overhead.
Ah Seow was thrilled to see Sachee suffer. “Sachee!” he shouted from behind. “Turn left! Turn left!”
Beyond a few more uphill twists and turns, the boys came onto an isolated track that reached a dead end. They stood at a rotting wooden gate that was almost invisible next to the long lallang grass and tall cempaka trees. Sachee stopped and turned around warily.
“Do you know where you are?” Ah Seow asked quickly. “There is a pond and a house with nobody inside, good place to breed fighting fish.”
Sachee’s survival instinct was powerful. He felt Ah Seow was up to something. He stole a glance at Ah Seow’s sensitive parts and then sideways at their shadows on the ground.
Ah Seow spoke again. “You’re scared? If scared we go back now!”
Sachee’s pride took over. “What to be scared about! Inside here?” He squeezed through the half-open gate.
“Yah! The pond is inside there.” Ah Seow pointed ahead.
Sachee tried to brush the lallang aside, but it was impossibly taller than he was. “Can’t see!” he said. “You’re taller than me, you go inside first.”
Reluctantly, Ah Seow led the way to the edge of the small pond. The area around the pond was too wet for lallang, so the boys had a clear view across the pond. With the reflection of the moon on its surface and water lilies carpeting half of it, the pond looked calm and beautiful.
Beauty dissolved vengeance; Ah Seow suddenly felt uncertain. He started to look at Sachee in a new light and pointed at a run-down hut under a jambu tree. “Shark Head catch a big spider there long ago.”
“Check it out later,” Sachee decided, and turned his attention back to the pond, dreaming about breeding pet fish. A light breeze sent a silvery ripple across the water surface. The two boys felt united in front of the nighttime scene.