Porshe

Rocky Master opposite Evernew Book Store on North Bridge Road. Evernew sits between Singapore National Library and the Net place up on the veranda beneath the HDB housing block. Textbooks, fiction, bargain boxes, China paraphernalia—Mao and his crew kept behind glass, fetching quite high prices.
Rocky Master on Seah Street corner opposite. Paying rental commensurate for a site immediately adjacent to Raffles Hotel no doubt. It fits for a Raffles neighbour - a kind of French/NY patisserie, where, like the plants in the boxes over in the library forecourt, the leaves here likely to get a good regular wiping by the mobile Indian cleaning teams.
The trade name here is patented. The menu makes that clear. Otherwise there might be such Rockies mushrooming all over the island. Everyone getting into the act, disreputable operators along with the rest of the wannabe crowd. Rocky the classy brawler; and the Buddhist teacher Master joined in a powerful unifying symbol. An inspiration capable of drawing crowds from the pavement like that one doesn't come upon every day of the week.
Biz types lingering at the adjacent Rocky table after a late lunch. Spurts of conversation, contributed to from different points around the table. Enlarged voices rise when an additional venture is offered from a new quarter. Not easy to keep the ball rolling. The people at the gathering see too much of each other at work; or perhaps they don't know one another. They kick it along well enough, passing the ball between themselves, doing their best. The high point arrives after some lesser exchanges, some uninspired footwork and forced giggles. The thigh slapping, raucous laughter when it comes booms under the alcove here and overruns the noise of the buses and other traffic. Ho-Ho-Ho. Boom-Boom-Boom. That was a good one. What a blast.
None of the five—no, six; one woman hidden amongst them—feels able to offer anything further after a choice anecdote like that. A stinging silence following that accomplished hi-jinks. Almost counter-productive. A premature offering after such riotous fun defeats every last one of them.
It was the grey-haired white guy in the striped shirt who delivered it to the table. In his corner seat he sits helplessly with the rest of them afterward, craning his neck up toward the roof, unable to help them extricate themselves. It's not really his role now, but no one else can manage it.
Clearly the eldest in the group. The guest in fact. Was there an element of politeness in the raucous response? He didn't seem to be the boss/manager.
A porsche involved in his gag somehow; pronounced in the German way, although the man himself is English. Other lunches and drinks he has joined at Raffles next door, where an expertly delivered humourous story from his store has enlivened the gatherings. Last weekend the manager of an auto dealership here had taken out a Ferrari late night and smashed it up in the red-light district. All the guys would have seen reports about that, sure.
Excel came up subsequently. Sales of some problematic kind. Certain prevailing conditions make that a tough article to move right now. Something like that.
A middle-aged gathering, the Pom on a steeper slope than the rest. Families at home all of them. Cost of living so high in Singapore, especially given the level of expectation.
A great reservoir of warmth evident in the woman at the farewell not long after the Porsche story. After a series of little lulls, from one quarter of the table had come, Let's go—which instantly provided relief to all. The men much more perfunctory in their farewelling. In the case of the buck-toothed, horse-faced woman, a bright, rich charm flows out from her. The two beneficiaries receive her swelling, lingering adieus stooping a little, gathering her offering to themselves. The shaded corner at the edge of the awning over the pavement charged with her warm outflow. How much she draws up for them from her deep well of feeling.
Everywhere these people provide reminders of the ways of the past, biz. types included sometimes. Hard to believe I know. (Many of them from humble stock; that's the difference. Still new to the caper.)