Goats and Monkeys!

The Year of the Goat is over; Year of the Monkey just begun.

Here in Johor Bahru, Malaysia a big procession is due tonight — every year on the 21^st of the first month of the Chinese calendar, locals advise. (28^th Feb. 2016.) Streets will be closed to traffic, large crowds expected. The last two days must have been practice runs, loud and boisterous young lads making the streets shake. Very colourful and much enjoyed by the spectators, who raised clasped hands over their heads and shook them.
Last year “Big Bridge” magazine in the U.S. published a sequence of mine titled “Year of the Goat”. Here it is.

     Year of the Goat 

     By Pavle Radonic

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Short two-hander from the street-or supermarket more strictly. Upstairs at the cereal stand some by-play. What's your special favourite you like with cream?... Who do you call when you need something from the top shelf? &etc. Downstairs there she was again in the queue. Work nearby?...Ya, finger pointing over the shoulder. Lorong something.... Lorong?... There were no numbered lorongs here at this end of Geylang, nothing nearby or over the shoulder.... Where, Joo Chiat?... No.Kambungan.... Ah. That explained it. That was a hike. Madam unlikely to provide for the bus no matter what she was lugging, no need ask. But why all this way from Kambungan?... Oh, the dog food. No have there.... Mmm. Ya.... Leaping ahead now, the usual question could not be suppressed: Tell me my dear, does your Madam ever walk the dog?... Some understandable confusion. Awkward, long, syntactically tricky sentence.... You walk dog. Madam ever walk?... Oya. Me. Me walk. Me. Madam never.... Morning and night I expect honey. Right?... Ya, morning and night two times.... Two times, morning and night was that?... You mean?... Careful clarification was required. Eventually: seven in the morning and then six and nine night. Clear and straight. To be sure no shitting in the corners up at the flat at Kambungan. Indian employer needs adding; Chinese nouveau riche are not the only miscreants here.

2

In the night, in the dark, the crying of little babies.... There is a pretty baby girl upstairs whose occasional cries and whimpers can be heard when she is brought down for her stroll. Nothing whatever to tell them apart. All these years one had never heard a cat cry. Only those who have lived with cats would know. In the middle of the night rarely does Auntie Helen answer the brief whimpering that comes in short little bursts as if a passage in a dream had brought disturbance. Only ever short stuttering and always quickly subsiding; odd and striking. Otherwise quiet throughout. Sometimes Auntie Helen's snoring. (Again a few days ago Auntie complained about her title: I am not married, she reminded. Don't call me Auntie.) The loving, the berating, the tender playfulness can now all be distinguished. In the midst of some unnecessary nuisance the other night clearly through the wall the schoolmarm, Excuse me!... Auntie quieted the offender quick-smart. It now seems clear too the privileged indoor crew is chosen for beauty. One handsome all sleeky black green-eyed tabby never slept in the alcove outdoors; another fuller bodied black-white likewise. Four or five out and perhaps the same within. Auntie complained the other day of her money draining away. She had gone in to check her CPF account. Whittling down, too much spent; another of her litter was in hospital. (The doctors were only interested in money of course.) A couple of weeks ago three bloody streaks down the length of Auntie's cheek, one particularly deep and raw. One of her indoor afflicted with heat rash that had produced livid welts will not allow Auntie's touch, Auntie Helen confessed the other day. So she let her be. (Small note of grievance and downcast eyes.) The others in the house were out of earshot; on the other side the Toh family must be another matter. Mr. Toh and his wife chat with Auntie Helen. What they think to themselves you can't say, but Auntie gets plenty of hearing there. Listening a couple of weeks at first one thought the different voices were visitors, or perhaps Auntie on the phone to her sisters. One or two of her local chapter sometimes come to her door evenings, standing talking through the screen. The old bent karung guni who collects the cardboard and aluminum in the neighbourhood and Auntie pities gets premium grade feed from her. More money draining. Auntie has vowed she will desist; the woman has been told. During an earlier illness in her room the radio came on every morning shortly after seven; settled back now to Auntie's rowing of her boat over the quiet waters even after eight like this morning. There are five or six of the women in the immediate neighbourhood; mostly in their sixties and beyond like Auntie. (One early twenties IT girl.) Chinese in all cases. Plausible theories on the reasons in this living in the forest of concrete towers. Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York will be the same. Now Moscow, Shanghai and the others. In the lower rung Second and Third World-certainly Malaysian and Indonesian cities-there was no evidence.

3

Gone 7 pm, dinner plate cleared and teh arrived. Soon after Mr. Sharif delivered the latter Miaow the cook came out for something in the man's ear. Interrupting the chat between customer and waiter, by way of explanation it seemed, Miaow reveals, - (He is) my step-father....
    Oh. Gee.... Well, certainly. One needed to bow to that, a tete-a-tete between father and daughter.
    What followed was unintelligible, short little speech to which Mr. Sharif bent an ear patiently....
    A well-kept secret then. Age would fit.... Was the catty little woman with the ears and whiskers pinned on her cap kidding though? There were many second and third marriages in this quarter, some of course simultaneous and legally sanctioned.
    Virtually all the staffs at all the eateries here-there would be nine or ten separate stalls in the short fifty meter stretch from Joo Chiat to Onan Roads-all the staffs got on exceptionally well. (Had there ever been the merest hint of ruction of any kind in these almost forty-four months?)
    Miaow standing close channeling at Mr. Sharif's height some particular matter she needed to convey. And on the turn before she could escape a light touch on her sleeve.
    Without anything needing to be voiced Miaow immediately responded: - Yes, my step-father.
    Whereupon brass and woodwind up a notch for the bass tenor Sharif coming over the top immediately in answer.
    ....In the first instant before the words had left the man's mouth the outcome hung in perfect balance. Yea and Nay either way....Point of fact the guess would have been confirmation, Mr. Shar about to cover the admission of a love-child of some description with a canny softening of his own devising. An impromptu and witty response carried off neatly. Not how the script goes.
    The old Indian-Malay removes his straw boater and leaping to click heels retorts instead:
    — No, no, no. I have only one wife. Upper range pitching Crosby as he makes toward the curtain....Polygamy is no good-creased leatherly smiling like those crooners as he angled away in the footsteps of his colleague. Polygamy no good. No good in L-I-F-E. (Howsoever the allowance on paper might have it in particular circumstances and with all the careful provisions, he meant of course.)
    In this quarter a clear majority view by the way, either gender. (We're not here concerned with garden variety straying and subterfuge.)

Geylang Serai, Singapore 2015