.
The
day swallowed by it. On-line, the newspaper and then some foot-slog tried for
posters and informally quizzing the security guards at apartment blocks and the
like. (The latter often know the ins and outs of their towers and receive a
commission from owners in the event of landing a tenant.) Some urgency over the
matter arrived when the reclusive Mr. Tan—the Manager of the hotel still not
sighted twenty months later—brought the vacate date at Joo Chiat Hotel forward.
Twelve noon on the 30th. The Fuck would wouldn't he!
In near-by Carpmael Road the week before Mr. Tan—another one presumably —had been contacted. Naturally he remembered the voice. Sorry Mr. Tan I didn't get back to you. Urgent business in Malaysia. Everyone did some business over the Causeway, where labour and produce was cheap. People went over to fill their fuel tanks (now regulated), for lunch and haircuts. Twenty minutes, upped to twenty-five before he hung up, Mr. Tan would be waiting out front of the house. Clearly punctuality required. On the phone Mr. Tan sounded like a substantial businessman: well-to-do, middle-aged, busy with lots on; solid type. A few minutes needed to find the place still left time. There he was getting out of a new big-size Merc. Knickerbocker jeans, black tee, expensive slip-on athletic shoes. Jewelry not over-done. There were no tattoos on the former gangster. Some while ago now the money had been laundered. Triple storey house, newly renovated. Five rooms per floor each bringing in over a thousand a month. They were all friends at this establishment of Mr. Tan's, you could be assured. A couple of them who were home nodded agreement. Mr. Tan was a Chicken, a year younger. A boxer. No trouble believing that, no need to sight the gloves behind the driver's seat. You could see the hard-body before the chummy pats and squeezes.
The fella was a player without a shadow of doubt. A swap interested him. Malayu girls your preference? Mr. Tan had just the thing in his stable. Twenty-four, a good Pakistani girl, passionate alright. In exchange a Euro. You got one?....
Gee, Mr. T. You're putting me on the spot. Have to tell you, you wouldn't be their type. These are girls with brains.... Mr. T. would do tandem if you fancied. Clearly a fancy taken to his prospective tenant. Not a gay thing. Exuberance. Melissa was got on the line in a flash. Poor girl had no warning of course. Sounded like she had just woken, three in the afternoon. English on the phone difficult here at the best of times. When Mr. Tan phoned you perked up. At least Melissa did. Which Lorongs did your girls work buddy? Come on.... Wasn't telling. Where could he be found, where did he drink his kopi? In answer Mr. Tan gave his kitchen supply business up in Joo Chiat Road. How many wives you got Mr. Tan? Come on, come clean! No hesitation there: one wife; three darlings. Lots of latitude would be given by the wife. Kept in fine style, what more did she want?
The rooms fanned off a central foyer/sitting room where a large TV was mounted on the wall of the prospective room. Filipina on the couch with the sound up. Not a working girl. Lived in the adjacent room with her husband. Not all day did she sit there watching TV with the sound off the dial. In their room they had their own set. Mr. T. sensed the drift. We would be friends regardless of the tenancy. Doesn't matter. Eleven hundred a month was neither here nor there for Mr. T. Friendship was of course more important in any case. Call me. Call me.
Nice fella. Not many opponents had laid a glove on Mr. Tan. Face unmarked. For a moment it looked as if the tattoos had been removed from the shins. No, he was a clean-skin. Perhaps an athlete. Perhaps there was no trafficking. There were Mercs aplenty even in Geylang. Plenty. The girls could have come with the success; not earned the success. Nice dye job; nice thatch. A Monkey and Chicken: almost brothers. The hint for a bend in the price remained buried in the raucous exchange.
Max around in Joo Chiat Terrace apologized for being a half hour late. Jam. They were bad that time of afternoon, true enough. Max had talked his business partner into waiving the usual insistence on a twelve month contract. OK, OK, OK. Can. No-one outdid Singaporeans for the Can-do spirit. Even Mainlander Singaporeans who somehow won precious residency in the country. Max and his partner were renovating three adjoining triple storey terraces spitting distance from the hotel. Nothing to recommend them. Basic rooms, shared bathroom, as in the case of Mr. Tan. Twelve hundred here. Add forty, fifty a month utilities. A meter above each door. Mr. Tan in Carpmael wore the utilities. He had reached the top of the mountain; Max and his partner were still climbing from base-camp.
Another to view in the morning in the immediate neighbourhood. Same again: five rooms, free-standing in this case. Couple hundred cheaper, which means a Common room, tight, bathroom shared with three other rooms possibly. In the interim Four Chain View Hotel on the other side of Guillemard. A kilometre from Joo Chiat Hotel, but in fact a world away. Distinctly Chinese, no two ways about it. Nothing against the Chinese, don't get me wrong. Geylang Chinese are still the original kind. Not the running dogs of the British, as the Mainlanders refer to their uppity HK worshippers of the royal family and all things pale peach and carrot-topped. Nevertheless, it has been the Malays that have been the chief study these twenty months. It will mean a fifteen minute brisk walk to Mr. Teh Tarik and Labu Labi, the gravitational centre.
Prices at Four Chain View the same as Joo Chiat: sixty Singaporean per diem; about forty-six Australian. Shockingly expensive for an indigent author, even a moderately secure rentier back in Melbourne.
Perfect security assured at the desk at Four Chain. Belongings left in the room no problem; cameras throughout. Quiet at the back. A side door off Lorong 39 looked suspicious. No problem. Yes, there are working girls. But, rest assured, these are confined to floors one and two. Respectable customers are sequestered on three and four. Queen sized bed in this case (Joo Chiat reprised teenage years with a single), a bar fridge meaning cereal again. Magnifique! The manager still needs to be brought to the negotiating table on price. Like a lot of hotels in Geylang, Thursday - Sunday, play-up days, the rates rise. A hike of ten dollars.
Something for the interim. Further decisions ahead. Jakarta and Bandung once the floods recede perhaps. Continue the investigation of this Malay archipelago. A preparation for the longer term return to the remnant Montenegrin tribes. Somehow.
..... During the typing Mr. Yousef the retired policeman slinking past. Almost half twelve, the thought occurs where is Mr. Yousef putting up nowadays. Last year he was camping on a stretcher out by the Converts' building. That swag has not reappeared. This round it turns out the camp is here at Labu Labi itself. Between twelve and one the place closes. Arrange the plastic orange chairs, back to the traffic and under the veranda some kind of shut-eye available. Twenty-three years it has been like that for Mr. Yousef. Readers may recall, Singaporean policemen colleagues who had been posted to Christmas Island back in the sixties now lived in palatial houses in Perth with full Australian pensions. Mr. Yousef not so lucky, with family likewise. Early Feb he hopes to be back in Medan, Sumatra with his new wife and young children. You can't trust the government to forward the pension to Sumatra. Coming to collect personally you know what you're getting. This fretting about a room from another perspective.
In near-by Carpmael Road the week before Mr. Tan—another one presumably —had been contacted. Naturally he remembered the voice. Sorry Mr. Tan I didn't get back to you. Urgent business in Malaysia. Everyone did some business over the Causeway, where labour and produce was cheap. People went over to fill their fuel tanks (now regulated), for lunch and haircuts. Twenty minutes, upped to twenty-five before he hung up, Mr. Tan would be waiting out front of the house. Clearly punctuality required. On the phone Mr. Tan sounded like a substantial businessman: well-to-do, middle-aged, busy with lots on; solid type. A few minutes needed to find the place still left time. There he was getting out of a new big-size Merc. Knickerbocker jeans, black tee, expensive slip-on athletic shoes. Jewelry not over-done. There were no tattoos on the former gangster. Some while ago now the money had been laundered. Triple storey house, newly renovated. Five rooms per floor each bringing in over a thousand a month. They were all friends at this establishment of Mr. Tan's, you could be assured. A couple of them who were home nodded agreement. Mr. Tan was a Chicken, a year younger. A boxer. No trouble believing that, no need to sight the gloves behind the driver's seat. You could see the hard-body before the chummy pats and squeezes.
The fella was a player without a shadow of doubt. A swap interested him. Malayu girls your preference? Mr. Tan had just the thing in his stable. Twenty-four, a good Pakistani girl, passionate alright. In exchange a Euro. You got one?....
Gee, Mr. T. You're putting me on the spot. Have to tell you, you wouldn't be their type. These are girls with brains.... Mr. T. would do tandem if you fancied. Clearly a fancy taken to his prospective tenant. Not a gay thing. Exuberance. Melissa was got on the line in a flash. Poor girl had no warning of course. Sounded like she had just woken, three in the afternoon. English on the phone difficult here at the best of times. When Mr. Tan phoned you perked up. At least Melissa did. Which Lorongs did your girls work buddy? Come on.... Wasn't telling. Where could he be found, where did he drink his kopi? In answer Mr. Tan gave his kitchen supply business up in Joo Chiat Road. How many wives you got Mr. Tan? Come on, come clean! No hesitation there: one wife; three darlings. Lots of latitude would be given by the wife. Kept in fine style, what more did she want?
The rooms fanned off a central foyer/sitting room where a large TV was mounted on the wall of the prospective room. Filipina on the couch with the sound up. Not a working girl. Lived in the adjacent room with her husband. Not all day did she sit there watching TV with the sound off the dial. In their room they had their own set. Mr. T. sensed the drift. We would be friends regardless of the tenancy. Doesn't matter. Eleven hundred a month was neither here nor there for Mr. T. Friendship was of course more important in any case. Call me. Call me.
Nice fella. Not many opponents had laid a glove on Mr. Tan. Face unmarked. For a moment it looked as if the tattoos had been removed from the shins. No, he was a clean-skin. Perhaps an athlete. Perhaps there was no trafficking. There were Mercs aplenty even in Geylang. Plenty. The girls could have come with the success; not earned the success. Nice dye job; nice thatch. A Monkey and Chicken: almost brothers. The hint for a bend in the price remained buried in the raucous exchange.
Max around in Joo Chiat Terrace apologized for being a half hour late. Jam. They were bad that time of afternoon, true enough. Max had talked his business partner into waiving the usual insistence on a twelve month contract. OK, OK, OK. Can. No-one outdid Singaporeans for the Can-do spirit. Even Mainlander Singaporeans who somehow won precious residency in the country. Max and his partner were renovating three adjoining triple storey terraces spitting distance from the hotel. Nothing to recommend them. Basic rooms, shared bathroom, as in the case of Mr. Tan. Twelve hundred here. Add forty, fifty a month utilities. A meter above each door. Mr. Tan in Carpmael wore the utilities. He had reached the top of the mountain; Max and his partner were still climbing from base-camp.
Another to view in the morning in the immediate neighbourhood. Same again: five rooms, free-standing in this case. Couple hundred cheaper, which means a Common room, tight, bathroom shared with three other rooms possibly. In the interim Four Chain View Hotel on the other side of Guillemard. A kilometre from Joo Chiat Hotel, but in fact a world away. Distinctly Chinese, no two ways about it. Nothing against the Chinese, don't get me wrong. Geylang Chinese are still the original kind. Not the running dogs of the British, as the Mainlanders refer to their uppity HK worshippers of the royal family and all things pale peach and carrot-topped. Nevertheless, it has been the Malays that have been the chief study these twenty months. It will mean a fifteen minute brisk walk to Mr. Teh Tarik and Labu Labi, the gravitational centre.
Prices at Four Chain View the same as Joo Chiat: sixty Singaporean per diem; about forty-six Australian. Shockingly expensive for an indigent author, even a moderately secure rentier back in Melbourne.
Perfect security assured at the desk at Four Chain. Belongings left in the room no problem; cameras throughout. Quiet at the back. A side door off Lorong 39 looked suspicious. No problem. Yes, there are working girls. But, rest assured, these are confined to floors one and two. Respectable customers are sequestered on three and four. Queen sized bed in this case (Joo Chiat reprised teenage years with a single), a bar fridge meaning cereal again. Magnifique! The manager still needs to be brought to the negotiating table on price. Like a lot of hotels in Geylang, Thursday - Sunday, play-up days, the rates rise. A hike of ten dollars.
Something for the interim. Further decisions ahead. Jakarta and Bandung once the floods recede perhaps. Continue the investigation of this Malay archipelago. A preparation for the longer term return to the remnant Montenegrin tribes. Somehow.
..... During the typing Mr. Yousef the retired policeman slinking past. Almost half twelve, the thought occurs where is Mr. Yousef putting up nowadays. Last year he was camping on a stretcher out by the Converts' building. That swag has not reappeared. This round it turns out the camp is here at Labu Labi itself. Between twelve and one the place closes. Arrange the plastic orange chairs, back to the traffic and under the veranda some kind of shut-eye available. Twenty-three years it has been like that for Mr. Yousef. Readers may recall, Singaporean policemen colleagues who had been posted to Christmas Island back in the sixties now lived in palatial houses in Perth with full Australian pensions. Mr. Yousef not so lucky, with family likewise. Early Feb he hopes to be back in Medan, Sumatra with his new wife and young children. You can't trust the government to forward the pension to Sumatra. Coming to collect personally you know what you're getting. This fretting about a room from another perspective.
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