Signal Lessons

Beefy denying tiredness, a good sleep under his belt, he maintained. Last night the Sec. pal down the road had a cash job and Beef had been seconded. This suited the man: a quiet corner, aircon laid on, favour for a pal. There was no monetary recompense; the chap provided tehs and ciggies The other didn’t know through the night Beef had switched off the lights, the man wasn’t so good with switches and buttons. Beef crossed his brow with his forefinger: chap a bit slow, ex-Con working without a certificate usually cleaning; muttered to himself and hands trembling, fingers like playing an instrument. Ex-User, a bit gone. Beef had not much patience with that sort of thing, became rather irritated by it. The Malays ought be better than that, he thought. Fellow didn’t know himself—Beefy unexpectedly using the old Appollonian dictum, a rough-house, unschooled lad like him. One needed to get back to the square. Back to the square, back to the square, Beef taught the mantra to those who wanted to listen, his favourite nephew among them. Atas; bawah. Up and down. It needed to be understood. In old Montenegro precisely the same principle had been elucidated: Gore visoko; dolje tvrdo. Up was high; below hard. There was no out. “Simple as that,” said Beef. The man granted he was taught the lesson inside at the end of Changi Road where the “square” might have been the cell too and also compound. Foundation years stretched further back again one would wager.