Follow the Leader

Ring-side seats here after lunch better than a title fight. Those spectacles are for brutes. The old chaps in this crowd are lovers, not fighters. A sprinkling of youngsters across the tables this afternoon, because of the Saturday perhaps. And some younger gals too; a new group may have landed recently. The slip of a lass moseying down the incline just now still unused to her drawing power, carrying a bashful smile head down and hair screening. New local conditions in a foreign land too perhaps take some acclimatizing. If the chairs here at the tables aren't turned wholly on the angle facing the corner, then the men side side-saddle, none too shy about their observation. They are all gathered for the same reason—no bones about it. Tables of acquaintances in a couple of instances; but for the most part singles having to share tables because of the limited seats. For the new-comer, the foreign observer, watching the men trailing twenty or thirty metres behind the lass of their choice leading the way almost more entertaining than anything else. An old granddad a half hour ago understandable. No doubt he was on safe ground here, foreign territory with little chance of being spied by anyone known. Nevertheless, going upstairs with one of these lasses who is certainly younger than his youngest grandchild, calls for a certain circumspection. Early eighties the best guess, able, nimble on his feet, no stick nor glasses. A venerable type. Wife, children, grandchildren no doubt ill-equipped to understand—perhaps the wife understands best of all. Virtually all the fellows hang back for the walk down the slope. The first block behind on that side stands four storeys high, windows facing the street blackened. The attached awnings would have little effect against the afternoon sun. One lass now seemed to be making clear professions to a chap ostensibly sauntering off home. Button-holed him nice and proper. A kind of black low-cut evening dress, matching high heels—heels are common in these parts in what is otherwise a land of sandals and thongs. Narrow footpath makes it easy to press close, looking solicitously into the man's face. With the heels they are about the same size. Left hand lightly striking her sternum in her insistence that she is as she says, worth a try. Fidelity, frank dealing, no tricks, he can be sure. Slapping flat-handed just below the collar bone in her iteration. Slight raising of head to indicate, Just there, first turning. Little wonder the fellow—middle-aged this one, stocky, dark, hints of the Peranakan—acceded. Ten full seconds. In Iceland this one would sell to the Eskimos. One older fat chap seemed to be directing traffic up on the corner, rattling at one girl after another. No particular thinning immediately discernible. Can't have been an alert for the cops. When the cops raid around on the other side of the main road and the pimps give their warning, the illegal younger girls stream across the main road helter-skelter, little shrieks and bustling with the appearance of schoolgirl hi-jinks. The great majority here darkly and recently dyed, Indian and Chinese both. No Malays apparent this afternoon. Difficult to tell whether the teeth are likewise false. One fellow has chosen a rust-red spray to distinguish himself from the crowd. The older Malay — if she is Malay—kitchen-hand at the middle hawker stand has decided on an alternative fashion statement. Late forties seeming older, squat and heavy, cheap grimed tee and baseball cap. How the dozen prominent gold rings shine along the rim of her ear three quarts around. As the Malay drinks waitress passed she stuffed her front pouch with a handful of the vegetables she had just diced at the front chopping block. Lovely camaraderie—almost without exception the norm on this street from one end to the other among staff who would not earn more than three or four dollars an hour. (The beer-girls receive commission per item and line, which on a good day can boost it a bit.) No room for the chopping board within their stall. Tight passage and heavy traffic. Never a problem. The lasses fishing regularly pass through too, toying with the customers. Many take their lunch here, likely at a discount rate. This young chap in-step ten metres behind the Fidelity lass as if called up to the headmaster's office: eyes on the pavement, frowning, boyish floppy hair. A dimple when she smiled, turning briefly to see whether he was indeed following. Prior to granddad she had shown the dimple at an earlier success—perhaps another young chap, someone who might have circled around the back. How far might the aged, liver-spotted old men travel in the hands of these girls? How simply they accept the task. Nonetheless a younger man might be a feather in a cap. And here right on cue, a cockney flat-cap too! Leather or vinyl, far too heavy for this climate. The fellow might have reprised it from boyhood in the fifties. Studious dark younger man reading Dan Brown—No, Dawn French! The angle and size of the red-dot advertising on the cover making it difficult to discern. If he's interested in a real embrace, it'll be after the chapter that has had him captivated this three quarts of an hour. (Dawn has to do tame sex after romance surely?) The old Indian here dyes his moustache to match, no doubt about it. The slightly comic effect had been missed in earlier takes. Cheap hair-dressing in these parts, set-ups before the old run-down rooming houses late into the night, chairs, mirrors, lights on leads and queues. Two or three dollars max. Any city, no matter the affluence, the same. As elsewhere, the landlords making the money. No up-keep on these cheap and nasty flats behind..... A well-earned smoke at the chopping board. (Customers need to get off the footpath.) In fact the woman Chinese Singaporean, the Malay waitress confirms. Sisters regardless.