The Patch

In line for the first teh halia kurang manis in seven months, the Deaf suddenly leapt out of the queue. Hey! Back on the big bird?... Just landed?... The Deaf brought his cupped hand down to a kind of fighter-jet-landing-on-aircraft-carrier…. Good to lay on eyes man. Lookin good. Mr. Syed the honey trader immediately too. Could not ask whether he had managed to intro a second wife into his house at Bedok, not right off. And the heat failing to overwhelm; in fact hardly at all. Because of the charm all round it could only have been. The little Viet mite tissue-seller over for Halloo could be given a greeting in his own language now: — Anh gum thiew…. Gritting teeth for the last, but still taking a short while for the boy’s reception. Ah! Oh! Wah! Word came from one of the lads Beefy was still on the loose, no change, all well. He was at such-and-such a club watching the gee-gees. JOHN!... One looked around thinking the old call had been sounded. (Not from Beef: for some unknown reason his preferred was “Oscar.”) Not just yet. Opposite the so-called Malay cultural centre had risen three-four storeys. The Deaf had shown the upraised light bulb too. Seven days of it powering down and no relief in sight. Fanning his face; blowing cheeks. Phew!... Rain before that it may have been, or due perhaps. Mr. Hussein the bastard street peddler all his born days footing past. “Hussein Dodol,” from the chewy caramel-like Malacca sugar. As the night wore on and the heat began to press Beef rocked over large as life, big gut straining against the same white tee. Only just back himself from the wife and kids at Tanjung Pinang, where he had gifted his girl a two mil. moto, the third in the family now. Beef’s next acquisition would be one for himself, a black Ninja no less. Stuff sharing with the wife, Beef was heartily sick o’ that. Fella thought he could discern some muscle in his pal; a filling out all power. (Lugging ladders, timbers, painting, lumberjacking had left its mark.) Stay like that, counselled the Beef. Beefy's product was continuing to sell well, lottsa takers, deliveries all points of the compass and no heat any direction. Divy up $200 lots into fifties, nice earnings. It would not take long to acquire the Ninja. Report from the same source that the Singing Cowboy was no more. Demise. No mistake. (Two years ago the man had been prematurely consigned to the ground and spooking a fellow popping up one day suddenly.) Two AM in the back bathroom at AlWadi, cops, ambulance, the corpse dragged out. The whole thing dragged on until mid-morning.