Last night big Beefy disturbed and engaged the author in equal part. Neither the pineapple tray nor the peeled mandarins managed to put a sock in it. One thing after another from the side-lines like dripping water on rock.
— Di di da da da, ba ba ti da, until the man finally produced the twitch he was seeking.
….Nothing like coherent enough.
What say you Beefy? What was that?
Once more the man repeated again in that strange construction.
Beefy had not learned all his English inside during self-improvement lessons; Robert Ludlum had not come into the hands of an illiterate in the cells. Yet formal schooling had been mighty light-on for Beef. Who would have thought him any kind of reader at all?
Leaning back in his chair. Often the man slotted one chair upon the other at the pavement tables for very good reason.
Leaning, belly leading, face up-tilted. Shortly before Beef's attention had been drawn to the crescent moon up over his head at the zenith. What was it, three day old now? Trusty old bright lamp of gold.
Bulan sabit.
Bulan was moon. Sabit they called the thing you used in the jungle abutting the kampung for razoring the greenery. Beef didn't know that much English.
The hand scythe, Beef. The sickle…. Yeah, yeah. We used the same in my kampung, believe-you-me.
That was shortly before. Now, leaning, belly leading, said Beefy the following, more or less word for word.
— My heart say why have no rain.
The gist most certainly correct; ten to one the syntax likewise. (Beefy was a man of the track.)
Just like that, poetical without trying or straining. Sounds like made-up palaver, the author certainly understands.
Beefy heard his heart speak of itself. Only the man could attempt to answer how the beating organ could be heard like that from within. From the other side of the table there had been nothing audible.
Next thing, in the same stride, Beefy has placed his hand on his chest as he repeated the words, coyote-like, head back-tilted.
— My heart say why have no rain.
Almost the Red Indian chief out on a hill-top minus his feathers toward the clear dark sky. (Moon behind high.) Beefy contemplative and heart-sore.
It should be known Beefy does not possess a crop sown in the recent past; nor was there fruit on the branch awaiting a sign from the heavens. In the luscious richness of the Equator farming was never of the sort we are accustomed to in temperate zones. In all his born days Beefy had never bent over a garden-hoe; the crescent scythe or sickle he may know, but only from a distant acquaintance.
The usual, conventional, honest day's toil wasn’t ever Beef's line. Running opium in kero tins last days of late-late Empire; snatch-and-grab was more like. Inside the man read Robert Ludlum and now actually fancied himself something of a literary critic, advocating smoothness, sweetness, above all return to the square.
Back to the square—round-arm action usually accompanying the sketch.
Back to the square.
First base.
Where you started.
Where you were at.
The prison compound exercise-yard originally, maybe.
Simple truth; essence; something of that kind Beef appeared to mean.
Remarkable the blubber actually talked a good bit of sense usually.
Grieving heart small wonder. Three weeks now and more this misnomer of a monsoon athwart the Equator in Singapore, without a drop of rain. The Nor-Easter was always the heaviest wet of the year—teeming, pouring, flooding the island. Nada this year. Zilch. Grievous and difficult to credit.
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