Ah-ha-ha

Booked for Jakarta Saturday. As expected, a single week here after return feeling toey. On the walk up to Al Wadi Syed the fries lad had called out from behind. Ah! Hallo. Hallo. Bleary eyes after 10AM. Man was running late for his shift, not surprising coming off fourteen hours the day before. Was that Syed's usual? Certainly twelve was the standard shift. Overnight sleep had been hard for Syed with pain in his legs. You know, varicose veins? Stockings he had already bought and was wearing; another pair he would buy too, perhaps because the first were fraying. Leaving him at the stand and heading for the teh, Syed was explaining himself to the big Indian-Malay supervisor. Mental and also journal note: Nevermore complaints over the heat or anything else to Syed in answer to enquiries! Mr. Ah-ha-ha Chan tootled along to the table, flitting eyes ever-and-a-day. At that age the old former players were rarely as keen, nay, as possessed, as Mr. Chan. What was left in one's mid-seventies after a lifetime's recourse to the pleasures of the flesh? Mr. Chan had been all over the world. It had been perhaps Tahiti where he had found the most luxurious delights. That was a place where people only fished, ate and made love. Indonesian women continued to captivate Mr. Chan, still—something we shared in common. With the Haig Road market closed, Mr. Chan was to be found morning, noon and night at Al Wadi, head back-tilted, eyes flitting, laughing in his signature style. How long had it been since Mr. Ah-ha-ha had held a girl in his arms? Memories were clearly insufficient, but what chance now that former softening and ease? In Mr. Ah-ha-ha's case it truly did seem that there was nothing whatever to compare; no other focus or interest for this sensualist tipping old age. Would another three or four years make a crucial difference? Into his eighties Mr. Ah-ha-ha would continue in the same vein. (Was it seventy-four or six he had said?) Few knew Mr. Ah-ha-ha’s family name. It had been the Batam gals who had christened him with his moniker. For the past week swallowing had been something of a problem for Mr. Ah-ha. The food at Al Wadi was rather bland and unappetising, but also getting it down was proving difficult...The new Cultural Medallion winner announced in the morning's newspaper had been met at Mr. T. T. a couple of years before. Indonesian-born and growing up in Geylang Serai, the man had said at the time. (The newspaper omitted the first this morning.) At time of meeting Omar had pronounced the chap a minor author, nothing of much value in his oeuvre. In his person and talk the man had seemed more substantial than that. And on the walk back to the room crossing paths with Mr. Ee near the bus stop, smart, freshly laundered green striped shirt rather fetching. His recently widowed sister-in-law was taking good care of Mr. Ee. Still the shirt looked as if it had just been donned that moment: not a single crinkle or crease. Was it that the man had just emerged from his temple up Geylang Road, the quiet sit there resulting in that perfection of bearing?... Such collectedness and calm. Mr. Ee had stopped under a thin palm frond waving in the breeze. No. It had been the aircon at Tanjong Katong Complex across the way, up on the bench by the supermarket entrance. That was a common roost of Mr. Ee's and many others, in the afternoons usually.