Let's Give It Up for Gimme Lao!

by Sebastian Sim

  That first night in the forest, leaning against a tree trunk studying the darkened landscape, Pay Ming Kuang was simultaneously thrilled, enthralled and terrified. He took a deep breath and followed a random trail. Five minutes into the woods, he began to spot furtive movement in the shadows. Whenever he halted and listened, he could discern, beyond the sharp snaps of twigs stepped upon, heavy breathing and faint moaning. His heart began to palpitate wildly. Soon, he passed by shadowy figures leaning against tree trunks. One or two reached out to touch him. He allowed them to move closer and feel him up. After several seconds, he gently pulled away and moved on. They were not likely to figure out what he wanted.

  After more than an hour meandering in the forest, Pay Ming Kuang was despondent. Back in London, there were theme clubs one could go to for very specific needs. Roles were made explicit via codified attire and accessories. There was no need to second-guess. But here in the forest, the players were undifferentiated and unsophisticated. He found it utterly frustrating.

  At one point, Pay Ming Kuang decided he had to make his preference explicit. He picked a burly man and snuggled up close. Once he ascertained that the man was receptive, he guided the man’s hand to his head, grabbed hold of a considerable tuft and yanked hard. To his delight, the man quickly caught on and proceeded to rough him up. By the end of the session, his left sleeve was torn at the seams, and there were scratch marks on his back. Pay Ming Kuang was ecstatic. This was the first time he had been properly manhandled since he came back to Singapore.

  Over the months, Pay Ming Kuang developed various tactics to advertise his preference. He brought a handcuff and cuffed one of his wrists to a branch. He gagged himself and adopted a submissive position kneeling on the ground, as though he was about to be executed by his captor. He blindfolded himself. There were nights he would even bag his entire head in a sack. He found those moments when he was fighting to inhale in the sack while an unseen player ravaged him extremely arousing.

  In fact, that was the precise condition the police found him in when they descended upon the forest one night in an orchestrated sweep—breathing hard and oblivious to the commotion as the player ravaging him froze in terror.

  A total of 12 men were rounded up in the midnight operation. It was anyone’s guess how many more had managed to flee the forest. When the police issued their first public statement to invited media, they withheld names. They simply claimed that the operation to clamp down on a stretch of forest known to be a gathering spot for gay men who cruised and engaged in outdoor sex was successful. All 12 offenders would be charged in court.

  Two days later, the withheld list of names was leaked. The front-page headline in the morning papers read ‘Pay Ming Kuang, youngest son of Pay Conglomerate tycoon Pay Wee Khoon, nabbed in the police sweep of the notorious gay cruising ground’.

  The entire Tan Tock Seng Hospital staff was in shock. The executive director held a closed-door contingency meeting to deal with the publicity disaster. Professor Eleanor Moh was to grant Pay Ming Kuang an indefinite leave of absence and reject any media request for comments. The executive director would leave it to the Public Relations Department to implement damage control. It was uncertain if the Advisory Board of Tan Tock Seng Hospital would require Mr Pay Wee Khoon to step down. Till the tornado blew over, everyone was to be on their toes and say and do nothing that would land themselves or the hospital in trouble.

  When Pay Ming Kuang eventually tendered his resignation, Gimme Lao was not surprised that Professor Eleanor Moh tasked him to conduct the exit interview. It would be too awkward for her. After all, she knew his mother on a first name basis. Gimme Lao himself felt no such pressure. He scheduled it on a Sunday morning, the quietest slot at the Communicable Disease Division, so that Pay Ming Kuang was least likely to bump into administrative and nursing staff. That was the least he could do for the poor fellow.

  Gimme Lao had mentally rehearsed for various scenarios. He could be sensitive and empathetic if the man needed sympathy, or courteous and matter-of-fact if the man would rather pretend the entire matter was nothing extraordinary. Yet he found himself caught by surprise when Pay Ming Kuang turned up for the exit interview beaming. It was as though the man had a tip off that he would be promoted.

  “So what are your future plans?” Gimme Lao felt obligated to ask after the interview was over.

  “Go home,” Pay Ming Kuang smiled warmly. “To where I belong.”

  Gimme Lao had to pause for a second. “You mean London.”

  “Yes, I mean London. Where everybody gets to breathe,” Pay Ming Kuang said. “Here in Singapore, breathing space is almost entirely reserved for the mainstream. You are guaranteed breathing space only if you are straight, educated, career-centric, married or planning to and willing to toe the line. Someone like you, Gimme. You are practically the poster boy for the nation. You get to have all the breathing space you want.”

  Gimme Lao would have thought he meant it sarcastically but Pay Ming Kuang had the look of sincerity.

  “Your space gets drastically compressed once you deviate. Take me, for instance. Anyone who reads about my case in the Straits Times gets the impression that I am a sexual deviant. And there is simply no space here in Singapore for people like me. Never mind that I am a competent physician and an activist for animal rights and domestic violence. As long as I don’t do sex in the generally approved manner, I don’t get to breathe here.”

  “I didn’t know you were a social activist,” Gimme Lao remarked, more to veil his discomfort than to satisfy any genuine curiosity.

  “Yes, I am,” Pay Ming Kuang nodded emphatically. “Back in London, I joined advocacy groups and took part in nonviolent direct action to champion causes close to my heart. That is a facet of me, as much as my sexual preference for men and sadomasochism. I need to live in a city where I get breathing space to live out my entire spectrum as a complete human being. Singapore is not the place for me. In a perverted way, I am lucky to undergo this public humiliation. I needed the shaming and the push to get out from this miserable place. I deserve better.”

  After the man left the office, his words lingered. Gimme Lao had always attributed his personal achievements to his resolution, capability and effort. Could luck have played a central role? Was he simply lucky that who he was, what he wanted and where he was headed happened to be aligned with the mainstream? How much more difficult would it be if his values and endeavours deviated from the majority?

  Gimme Lao was still lost in his thoughts when he rolled into Pacific Mansion. Skye hopped off the curb and sprinted to the vehicle. “Quick, or I am going to be late!” The boy yelped once he squeezed in to the passenger seat. “Coach Moose is very strict about punctuality. Anyone who is late has to do two circuits of duck walk around the pool as a punishment. It is embarrassing!”

  The swimming coach was really a young Malay man by the name of Mustafa, but the kids coined the nickname Coach Moose. Gimme Lao knew this because Skye could not stop talking about him at the dinner table. Coach Moose trained as a commando in the army and could do single palm push-ups with his feet elevated on a bench. Coach Moose measured 40 inches across the chest, 28 across the waist and attained a perfect six-pack abdomen with a body fat percentage of seven. Coach Moose had dived with hammerhead sharks in Sipadan and trekked the Gondogoro range in Pakistan. As far as Skye was concerned, Coach Moose was the most awesome guy to walk on the face of the planet.

  Gimme Lao understood the situation. The boy was 10, and Coach Moose was his hero. Gimme Lao used to be his hero. When Gimme Lao bought him a remote control helicopter for his sixth birthday and taught him how to fly it at the park, Skye thought he had the most awesome dad in the world. When Skye was eight and Gimme Lao brought him on a whale-watching trip to Kaikoura, New Zealand, Skye thought he had the most awesome dad across the seven seas. But ever since Skye started swimming lessons six months ago, Gimme Lao’s throne of awesomeness had been usurped. Not that he minded. Between the growing demands of
the hospital and the Youth Executive Committee, Gimme Lao did not have much time for the family. He was glad Coach Moose was shouldering part of his portfolio.

  “When is Mum coming back?” Skye asked. “What do you think she will surprise me with this time round?”

  “She’s flying in on Tuesday,” Gimme Lao said. “Did you ask her for anything in particular?”

  Skye shrugged. “I don’t even know what they have in Vietnam.”

  “Well, I am guessing Mum will either buy you the newest speedo swimwear or find you a beautiful young bride from Vietnam.”

  “Don’t! That is disgusting!” Skye cupped his ears and grimaced.

  Gimme Lao laughed. He knew Skye had yet to come to terms with his mother’s newest venture. “You still think what Mum now does is disgusting?”

  “Grandma seems to think so.”

  “Do take your grandma’s opinion with a pinch of salt. She is feeling sore that neither your mum nor I gave permission for your baptism at church. That was why she and your mum had a falling out sometime ago.”

  “I thought that was because grandma fired Uncle Too Sexy?”

  “And that too.”

  Gimme Lao recalled that period of brewing maelstrom in the family none too fondly. It was probably the first time Wei Wen stood up against Mary Lao. Business at Pearls of Love had been spiralling downwards badly since a plague of copycat bubble tea outlets sprouted up in the neighbourhoods like wild fungi on rotting wood. Mary Lao had to close down two of the five outlets and trim manpower. Wei Wen was shocked when Mary Lao quickly decided that all the special needs staff, including her brother Too Sexy, would be the first to let go. Apparently, the profit margin was too thin for Mary Lao to continue doing God’s work.

  When Wei Wen came to Gimme Lao to discuss setting up her own business, not only was he supportive, he went so far as to suggest that they should think about getting a place of their own. He had noticed how Mary Lao insisted on bringing Skye to church every Sunday and had no doubt she was feeding the boy Christian values and moulding his outlook on life based on the Bible. As an atheist, Gimme Lao felt extremely uncomfortable about that.

  Mary Lao was caught by surprise when Wei Wen made known her intention to leave Pearls of Love to set up her own business. The family was having dinner at home, and a moment of awkward silence followed the announcement.

  “Considering that Pearls of Love is going through a tough period, I am surprised you choose to bail out at this critical juncture. That is not what family does to one another, Wei Wen,” Mary Lao finally remarked, her tone a delicate balance between reprimand and sarcasm.

  “Please don’t make me feel guilty, Mum. As it is, I feel guilty enough that I can’t help my brother retain his job at Pearls of Love,” Wei Wen replied, secretly hoping that the underlying sarcasm would sear through her mother-in-law’s façade of righteousness.

  Mary Lao detected the enmity beneath the civility and quickly decided it would be unwise to try to retain Wei Wen. “All right then, maybe it is time you venture out on your own. Have you decided what to do?”

  “Yes, I have registered my new company. Find Love in Vietnam,” Wei Wen said. “It is a matchmaking outfit.”

  “What is a matchmaking outfit?” Skye interjected, curious.

  “Well, some men in Singapore are unable to find wives. So I bring them to Vietnam to look for wives.” Wei Wen pretended not to see the look of disapproval on Mary Lao’s face and focused on explaining her new business model to Skye instead. “Many young Vietnamese women live a life of poverty in remote villages and shanty towns. They have to toil in the fields and use dug-out toilets and carry water from the wells every day. It is a hard life. Some of them want out. To get married to a Singapore man and move over here for a better life is a dream come true for them. That is what my business does. Help make their dreams come true.”

  “But why can’t the Singapore men find wives here in Singapore?” Skye wanted to know.

  “Women here generally prefer to marry men who are financially stable, so those with a good career, who have money, will not have a problem finding a wife,” Wei Wen elaborated. “But there are men who do not earn a lot, or are much older or handicapped, and women don’t want to marry them. That is where the Vietnamese women come in.”

  “But why are the Vietnamese women willing to marry these men when they don’t earn a lot?” Skye persisted.

  “Because there is running water and air-conditioning in Singapore,” Gimme Lao jumped in with a wicked grin. “They don’t have those in the villages, and those are very important to Vietnamese women.”

  “Shut up.” Wei Wen pinched Gimme Lao in the arm, laughing.

  “I hope you have done sufficient research,” Mary Lao remarked coldly. “Don’t be careless and get into trouble with the authorities for suspicions of vice operations or human trafficking.”

  “I will heed your advice, Mum.” Wei Wen smiled warmly before launching her next projectile. “By the way, Gimme and I are looking at some apartments. You and Dad will have more space once we move out.”

  As Mary Lao and her husband looked up in astonishment, Skye yelped in delight and reminded Wei Wen they ought to move into a condominium with a swimming pool because he would be taking swimming lessons soon. Wei Wen smiled and obliged, secretly pleased to spot the look of displeasure on her mother-in-law’s face.

  “Dad, do you think Mum will help uncle Too Sexy find a Vietnamese wife as well?”

  Gimme Lao was jolted out of his recollection by Skye’s unexpected question. He swung his vehicle into the sports complex driveway and came to a halt near the entrance. “You can throw your mum that question when she returns. Run along now. You don’t want Coach Moose to make you do the duck walk, do you?”

  Everyone was present when Gimme Lao stepped into the meeting room. He took one glance at the agenda and decided he would hand the reins over to the vice chairman. The only item worth expounding was the annual bursary award ceremony, and everyone was familiar with the standard operating procedure. Gimme Lao expected the meeting to be short.

  And then Sally Bong raised her hand. Everyone’s hearts sank.

  “I would like to revisit the hospice project.”

  “Yes, Sally?” Gimme Lao tried to keep the impatience out of his voice.

  “The project was such a success. Why did we stop?”

  “The project was scheduled to last only six weeks. We brought in two foot reflexologists who trained us to give foot rubs to the hospice residents. For our last session, we invited our constituency adviser Dr Liew Kim Keong to visit and watch us in action. That brought the project to a satisfactory close.”

  “So what we really wanted was the media coverage? Once we have our photos taken and splashed across the pages of the constituency newsletter, we stop? What about the hospice residents?” Sally Bong demanded to know.

  Gimme Lao sighed aloud. “Sally, you must understand that we are not volunteering our time as foot reflexologists. We volunteer ourselves as grassroots leaders. We set an example. Once there is coverage in the media, there will be youths who will be inspired to do the same. So we move on to other projects.”

  The vice chairman added, “Sally, if you feel strongly about this, you can always form your own team of volunteers and continue the Hospice project. Let the rest of us move on!”

  Gimme Lao wished the young lady wasn’t so obstinate. The irony did not escape him that the Youth Executive Committee needed more bleeding hearts like Sally Bong. Gimme Lao knew why some of the other key appointment holders were there. The vice chairman needed to serve two terms so that he could qualify for the Priority Queue scheme and secure his firstborn a spot in the premium primary school in Bukit Panjang Constituency. The general secretary was a property agent looking to expand his network of clients. The treasurer needed the free parking privilege disc for his delivery business. These were the ones who came in and took up leadership roles with an agenda. In contrast, bleeding hearts like Sally Bong were
glad to contribute their time and energy as members without the privileges. Although Gimme Lao was often impatient with her idealism, he knew in his heart that the organisation needed more people like her.

  After the meeting was over, Gimme Lao swung by the sports complex to pick Skye up. As usual, the boy was in high spirits after the swimming lesson. Coach Moose had given him a pat on the back for mastering the butterfly style ahead of the rest. Skye was determined to intensify his own training so he could attain the impressive abdominal external obliques, exactly like what Coach Moose had.

  “Can I start gym training?”

  “Ten is a little too young,” Gimme Lao remarked. “Maybe in another four or five years time.”

  “But that will be too late!” Skye whined.

  “Too late for what?” Gimme Lao laughed. “The girls can wait.”

  “Yucks! I am not even talking about girls. Chatty, petty nuisances.”

  “Just wait and see. Sooner or later a girl will appear and you will think of no one else but her,” Gimme Lao smirked.

  Skye did not like the direction the conversation was veering in. He extracted a comics magazine from his bag and began to flip through. That was his signal of disengagement. Whenever Skye did not like what was happening, he would dip into his world of comics.

  And it was not entirely true that Skye found all girls to be a nuisance. As much as he admired the machismo of the DC Comics heroes, it was Wonder Woman he most admired. Back when he picked up his first copy of a Justice League comic at the age of seven, he immediately became enthralled by the brooding magnetism of Batman. As the years went by, his allegiance underwent serial transfusion from the Dark Knight to Superman, Green Lantern and The Flash, until it finally settled down on Wonder Woman. He admired the way she embodied both the courage and strength of a hero and the beauty and femininity of a heroine. In his adrenaline-fuelled fantasies of superhero battles, Skye saw himself as Wonder Woman, warding off the combined attacks of Cheetah and Poison Ivy with his golden lasso and deflecting the laser beams of General Zod with his indestructible gauntlets. In a parallel universe where malevolent villains roamed, Skye fought for peace and justice as Wonder Woman.