Let's Give It Up for Gimme Lao!

by Sebastian Sim

  The two set up a private dinner meeting with Gimme Lao and Wei Wen. They wanted to be assured that the divorce was going to be amicable and that there was no third party involved. Wei Wen said that there wasn’t. When they urged Wei Wen to delay divorce proceedings till after the election, they were relieved that she readily agreed. That meant they did not have to execute plan B. In her graciousness to be accommodating, Wei Wen had spared herself the character assassination the Party was prepared to launch. It could have gotten ugly.

  As for the issue of the gay son, Dr Liew Kim Keong explained to Gimme Lao privately that it was a double-edged sword. If the inconvenient truth surfaced, Gimme Lao could turn it to his advantage by taking a resolute, personal stance as the aggrieved father. The sympathy votes from the conservatives would far outnumber the votes lost from the minority camp who were proponents of LGBT recognition. Whatever his relationship with his gay son was in private, he must not be seen advocating for LGBT rights. That would go against the Party stance.

  As it turned out, the issue never surfaced. Dr Liew Kim Keong decided to fire the first volley when he found out one of the opposition candidates was highly active in the LGBT outfit, Oogachaga. He got hold of a video clip featuring a discussion forum held by Oogachaga, which captured the opposition candidate advocating for LGBT rights. After the candidacy was announced, he made sure the clip was leaked through social media. The furore that followed diverted media attention. Accusations that the opposition candidate was harbouring a gay agenda proved too hot to handle, and the man was dropped by his own party. No one looked in Gimme Lao’s direction.

  After the election in 2011, Dr Liew Kim Keong continued to groom Gimme Lao. Among the cohort of newly elected parliamentarians, Gimme Lao led the pack in approval ratings. The only one who came close was Sharon Shi. She became the darling of the media when she championed the fight to save the Red Brick Hospice at Stamford Road from demolition against an aggressive private developer eyeing the piece of prime land. The photograph of her giving a foot rub to an elderly resident dying of cancer went viral. But neither Dr Liew Kim Keong nor Gimme Lao was worried. No one could possibly top the SARS coup.

  Three days ago, the entire nation was dismayed when they read in the Straits Times that the founding prime minister of Singapore had been admitted to the ICU. It became apparent that the end was near for the nonagenarian. A working committee was set up to prepare for the impending state funeral. Dr Liew Kim Keong, who sat on the committee, fought for Gimme Lao to be one of the six parliamentary representatives in the funeral cortege procession. The spots should not be exclusively reserved for pioneer parliamentarians, Dr Liew argued. Someone had to represent new blood, and there was no better candidate than Gimme Lao.

  The glass of honey lemon having soothed his parched throat, Gimme Lao sighed with satisfaction. There was a briefing by the working committee scheduled for 10 in the morning. He ought to catch some sleep. Returning the glass to the nightstand, he caught sight of the soft blink on his mobile screen. There was a message from Dr Liew Kim Keong.

  “Skip 10am briefing. Sharon Shi will replace you.”

  Gimme Lao was stunned. He wondered what had gone wrong. Two days ago, he had arranged for an electric double boiler stew pot to be delivered along with a gift pack of premium bird’s nest to the family of the founding prime minister. He had received a texted message to thank him for his concern. Had he overstepped? Or had he not done enough? Gimme Lao racked his brain to re-examine his actions over the last two days. He had a media conference the day before and was mindful in deflecting media enquiries about the founding prime minister’s condition in the hospital. Had he been careless and let slip sensitive information?

  As much as he was tempted to text and ask Dr Liew Kim Keong for an explanation, Gimme Lao did not want to come across as being importunate. He decided that patience should be exercised. He would wait till the briefing was over.

  Now that sleep had all but eluded him, Gimme Lao fired up his laptop to clear his emails. A quick glance down the inbox caused his heart to skip a beat. There was a request for an interview by The Huffington Post! Gimme Lao could not for his life imagine how he ended up on the radar of the Pulitzer Prize winning online news portal. Eagerly, he tapped on the email and quickly browsed through. Just as quickly, his heart sank.

  The Huffington Post was in the process of publishing an interview with an up and coming medical researcher at Johns Hopkins, a Dr Zhang Lei. Dr Zhang had a recent breakthrough identifying three specific biomarkers, which accurately measured the severity of chikungunya fever. When the interviewer brought up his involvement in the SARS crisis while working for Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore back in 2003, Dr Zhang Lei was dismissive of the experience. He shared that he was pressured into surrendering his contribution to a political aspirant backed by the incumbent party. He was robbed of his rightful recognition. Now The Huffington Post wanted to seek Gimme Lao’s response.

  Gimme Lao slammed his laptop shut. That ungrateful bastard! The man had enjoyed the generosity of a research scholarship from the Singapore government when he was an unknown. Now that he was soaring, he had turned around and pecked at the hand that fed and groomed him. Was this the reason Dr Liew Kim Keong was dropping him in favour of Sharon Shi? But how could they have known? There were too many unanswered questions. Gimme Lao texted a message to Dr Liew Kim Keong’s personal assistant. He needed to set up a meeting in the afternoon. They had to coordinate their responses to The Huffington Post enquiry.

  Flustered, Gimme Lao lay sleepless for the next three hours. At daybreak, he showered and drove over to River Valley Road to buy Mary Lao’s favourite bak kut teh. Since he had the morning free, Gimme Lao decided to join his mother for breakfast.

  Mary Lao was reading the papers when he walked in. She held a magnifying glass in her hand as she pored over the tiny print. Her head of hair was uncombed, a wild fuzz of unruly white. Gimme Lao frowned. Retirement had not sat well with his mother. After she fell out with Pastor Kong two years ago and stopped attending church altogether, she became practically scruffy. It was as though she did not care anymore.

  “Pastor Kong is up to one of his tricks again. Did you read about it in the papers?” Mary Lao clicked her tongue dismissively.

  Gimme Lao could not help but smile. Where once Mary Lao used to be Pastor Kong’s most trusted church elder, she had now become his most vehement critic. The bad blood could be traced back to the library book saga that had divided the church committee. Elizabeth was the one who raised the alarm when she came across a particular library book for children. The story was about two male chinstrap penguins in New York Central Park Zoo who behaved as a courting couple and raised a baby chick by themselves. Horrified, Elizabeth brought it to the attention of the church executive committee.

  “Our children are reading about gay penguins!”she exclaimed. “Their minds will be poisoned. How can the National Library Board be so careless? We have to do something!”

  Pastor Kong agreed. He would raise the issue at Sunday service and urge everyone in the congregation to write in to the National Library Board to protest.

  “Aren’t churches in Singapore forbidden from interfering with policymaking in the secular sector?” Mary Lao frowned.

  “You have a point,” Pastor Kong nodded. He turned to the committee secretary and gave specific instructions that she should draft several samples of protest letters to be circulated via the mass email list. There should be no mention of the church or the Lord in the contents. Every letter should be signed off with the likes of ‘indignant parent’ or ‘concerned citizen’. The recipient must not be able to trace it back to the church.

  “That is not my point,” Mary Lao clarified. “The library is for everyone. How can we as a church impose our restrictions on non-church goers? Parents should be free to make their own decision on what their children can or cannot read.”

  The committee gasped. For decades, no one had questioned Pastor Kong’s judgment. />
  “Mary, God needs us to do his work, not only within the church walls, but outside these walls too,” Pastor Kong patiently explained. “It would be irresponsible of us to do nothing when the sexual deviants roll out their gay agenda to recruit the young. This storybook is a tool of sexual grooming. They are grooming our children to believe that gay marriage and gay lifestyle are acceptable. For us to remain silent is to be complicit.”

  Mary Lao remained unconvinced. “We can preach and enforce all we want within these walls, but there has to be a restriction on what we can preach and enforce outside the church. I have Buddhist friends who are vegetarians because they are against killing. Surely they cannot be allowed to write in and demand a stop to the import of meat? Would our congregation agree to that?”

  Pastor Kong was displeased when he spotted two other executive committee members nodding in agreement. Over the next 30 minutes, the two of them continued to debate the issue. When it became clear that Mary Lao would not give in, Pastor Kong decided to get personal. “Mary, it is bad enough that you have failed the Lord and not made any effort to save the soul of your own grandchild. Please don’t stop us from saving ours.”

  Infuriated, Mary Lao stood up and left the meeting. The next day, she tendered her letter of resignation to the executive committee. She vowed never to step in to Pastor Kong’s church again and kept her word.

  “What is Pastor Kong up to now?” Gimme Lao enquired as he laid out the soup spoons and chopsticks and dished out the packet of bak kut teh.

  “He is applying for a permit to hold a Family Day Festival and picked the Padang as his preferred venue, on the very same day that Pink Dot is to be held at Hong Lim Park one street away. He wants everyone attending to wear red. This is nothing if not a war cry.” Mary Lao flicked her finger at the newspaper. “Of course the authorities would reject his application. I would! Now he is crying foul!

  Gimme Lao nodded. “I am aware. There is worse, though it hasn’t made it to the media yet.”

  “What is it?” Mary Lao raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

  “There is this fiery ustaz who is spearheading a Wear White Campaign among the Muslim community on the same date. Pink Dot happens to clash with the first day of Ramadan this year, so it is going to be a volatile situation.”

  Mary Lao whistled. “Pink versus red versus white; things are getting interesting! If your father were still around, he would find all these intimidating. In a way, Pastor Kong’s church was good for him. It removed the need for him to think. All he ever wanted was to obey and follow instructions.”

  Gimme Lao studied his mother as she chewed on a succulent piece of pork rib. He remembered how well she took it when his father unexpectedly succumbed to a heart attack the year he was elected into parliament. Mary Lao carried on with her daily routine as a new widow as though she had been preparing for it. Gimme Lao suspected that his father had ceased to be an important part of his mother’s life many years prior to his death.

  “I almost forgot. I found something interesting among your father’s belongings. I think you should have it.”

  Mary Lao disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a tote bag. She extracted a copy of yellowing newspapers wrapped in plastic and handed it over. The date at the corner read 1971.

  “You don’t remember it, do you?” There was a twinkle of mischief in her eyes as she caught his frown of confusion. “Unwrap it.”

  Gimme Lao chortled when he flipped through and spotted a picture of himself on page 17. He was six. His kindergarten teacher had alerted the tabloids that her star student had come up with an ingenious method to save water. Over 20 classmates queued up in front of the trough to demonstrate the tiered method of washing their hands. The article praised the wonder boy and predicted he would grow up to be a star citizen.

  “I can’t believe Dad kept this,” Gimme Lao laughed.

  “Yes, he did. He was really happy when the article got published. He said you missed your chance six years earlier, when you could have been featured as the first baby born in independent Singapore. It’s too bad that a baby girl beat you by one miserable minute.”

  “I remember. He even told Professor Eleanor Moh that story when he came to my convocation. It was embarrassing!”

  “Your father loved you,” Mary Lao said quietly. “He may have been intimidated by me and my achievements, but he was very proud of you and yours.”

  Gimme Lao was surprised to find himself moved. Mary Lao had always been his role model, the parent he looked up to for inspiration. In contrast, his father lurked in the shadows. The man did not aspire nor amount to much in life. But now Gimme Lao realised that the lack of personal achievement had not detracted from his capacity to love his son. All these years Gimme Lao had been cruel when he judged his father to be underachieving.

  He must have been aware that his son looked down on him. Nevertheless, it did not stop him from loving his son.

  “Skye dropped by for dinner two nights ago, together with Kuan Eng,” Mary Lao suddenly announced.

  Gimme Lao was taken aback. He had not met Skye for over a year now.

  “When was the last time you had a sit-down dinner with Skye?”

  Gimme Lao shrugged. “You know the story, Mom. The boy insists that he will not meet me for dinner unless I invite Kuan Eng too. But I can’t be seen having dinner with my son and his gay partner. Someone could take a picture and hit me with it at a media conference.”

  “First of all, Skye is 29 years old, hardly a boy,” Mary Lao said. “He has been with Kuan Eng for close to a decade now. Can you blame him for insisting that his own father recognise his partner?”

  Gimme Lao remained silent. He had missed Skye as much as he had missed Wei Wen.

  “When you were busy with your career in the early years, Wei Wen was the one who kept your family intact. Now that you are divorced, you have to make an effort to keep in touch. Otherwise, you and Skye will end up strangers.”

  Gimme Lao frowned. “I am quite sure that wasn’t the advice you gave me back when Skye first came out to us.”

  “You are right,” Mary Lao nodded emphatically. “Back then I was looking out for your political career and my leadership role in church. I was being selfish. Now where did that lead us? Alone. You and me. With all our impeccable achievements to flaunt and no one dear to celebrate with us.”

  Gimme Lao flinched. He had not been willing to admit it, but he felt lonely. There were nights he laid awake and wondered if anybody would miss him if he were gone. Mary Lao must have felt the same way too. That was probably the reason she had stopped her personal grooming routine.

  “I will give Skye a call this afternoon,” Gimme Lao finally said. “We’ll work out an arrangement.”

  “Too late. Skye and Kuan Eng left for Vietnam yesterday. They are taking part in a 500km cycling challenge along the coast to raise funds for one of those gay causes they champion. I donated,” Mary Lao smiled, “as I am not beneath spending some money to keep in touch with my only grandchild.”

  Gimme Lao felt his heart sink. There was no denying the disconnection. He had no idea what was going on in his son’s life.

  Mary Lao reached out to stroke his arm. “Your son is not in town, but your ex-wife is. Go have lunch with her.”

  “I don’t know her schedule,” Gimme Lao said. “It’s rude to intrude without an appointment.”

  “Today is Thursday. Wei Wen will be at the Ren Ci Community Hospital from 10 till noon to help out with her brother’s physical therapy session,” Mary Lao said. “Go surprise her.”

  Mary Lao was right. When Gimme Lao turned up at 11, Wei Wen was seated in the therapy room guiding her brother through a series of exercise. “This is a nice surprise!” She seemed happy to see him.

  “How’s my Too Sexy?” Gimme Lao beamed as he patted Wei Wen’s brother on his shoulder. Focused on the task of fitting blocks with irregular shapes into the wooden frame, Too Sexy chose to ignore him.

  “Not too good,” W
ei Wen explained. “He is hard of hearing and has blurred vision. That makes him really irritable. The nurse told me that he is also losing his appetite and complaining of pain in the abdomen.”

  Gimme Lao sat down and examined Too Sexy. He was losing his head of hair and looked way older than his age. “Do you know what they feed him for breakfast?”

  “Cereal, I think.”

  “I am guessing it is coeliac disease, which is common among adults with Down’s syndrome,” Gimme Lao said. “The body cannot digest wheat gluten and the intestine linings get damaged. That will cause pain in the abdomen. I will ask the nurse to arrange for a blood test. If need be, a biopsy. We can put him on a wheat-free diet in the meantime.”

  Wei Wen kept her gaze on him for a moment before smiling, “The perks of being married to a doctor. Free medical consultation. Thank you for extending the freebies beyond the marriage.”

  Gimme Lao laughed. The two of them continued bantering as they watched over Too Sexy. The irony did not escape Gimme Lao that they had become almost the best of old friends now that they were amicably divorced. There was this wealth of memory he shared with her and no one else. He secretly wondered if it was possible for him to court Wei Wen again.

  “I am hoping that I won’t have to eat lunch alone,” Gimme Lao put on his best smile. “There’s this great Katong laksa stall down the road. Please join me.”

  “Oh, I wish I could,” Wei Wen lamented. “But I have a lunch appointment.”

  “Business lunch?”

  “Not quite,” Wei Wen hesitated a little. “One of my Vietnamese clients set me up on a date with her brother last week. It went well, thus the follow-up lunch date.”

  “I am so disappointed. You actually have a life after me.” Gimme Lao scrunched up his face and made a show of whining. He hoped his disappointment was veiled.

  “He is picking me up at noon. Do you want to meet him?” Wei Wen asked tentatively.