On the Job

 

Making A Clean Difference even rocking from side to side like that, as if in some humorous skit for the former stage. The right hand trailed one of the larger payung with flat end that commonly doubled as a walking-stick. Man might have seen the weather forecast for afternoon showers the rest of April. Two front teeth left a gap in the smiling pass by the front of the table. Go back... Never sighted previously, yet the man wants you to know his intentions at that hour, a few minutes short 8PM. (Surely his shift was not the 12hr stretch on broom & pan.) Mid- late-70s if not fetched beyond, though in all respects the gap seemed more like 2 - 3 decades. (It remained impossible to comprehend how far it was you yourself had gone off now.) Hopefully there was a helpmate of some description waiting at home with a welcoming plate of food; the short sit at Saddam could not have allowed more than a teh. Almost always this folk invited you into their world—there were no walls in their theatre of the everyday. Aged rheumy eyes like his would not distinguish skin tone and a batik top only scrambled impressions. Of course the familiars always offered greetings of some kind, but strange whites too could not be summarily dismissed. Out of the blue sometimes telling life episodes emerged too that almost wrote themselves into the annals.

 

 

 

Bashtik (April26)

 

 

Three or four days after the festival we hiked up to the village. It had been 28 years since the last time we had gone up together. We hiked casually along the new roadway about 3 hours, with bread & cheese in our kit. The descent on the Morinj side four days later would take 2½ hours, the rain that arrived making the descent quite treacherous. Up behind our house a massif named Bashtik stood 1500m above sea level—about 600m above the village itself. With age encroaching, of course, the climb was unlikely ever to be repeated. From the peak the prospect buffeted the brain, like the sudden wind did the body, knees ready to buckle and an odd fear of being lifted from the ground. On a clear day the Italian coast might be visible, they said. The old folk said when the wind was right the bells at San Pietro could be heard from the peak of Bashtik. Towns along the water were laid out as if na dlan, on the palm of the hand. Surprisingly, the village itself was completely out of view; instead the airport at Tivat uncannily appeared from the North. Wild swine was common now up at the heights. A few years previous a wolf had wrestled a rifle from one of our villagers, leaving tooth-marks on the barrel for proof. With the assistance of the vet from town, earlier at this man’s house we helped pull a calf from a cow. Thankfully, the largest animal sighted on Bashtik had been a mouse on the forest floor. The rocky folds of the land and then the levitation on the summit would knock in the brain like the good sense the schoolteachers of old had threatened.

 

 

 

                    Boka Kotorska, Montenegro

‘09 / April ‘26

Lids

 

The  members of the Chairman’s round-table in front of the servery beneath the fan at Wadi had altered over the months. Earlier in the year two previous stalwart couples had peeled off, likely in concert. More than likely financial disagreements had been involved concerning the Chairman's tours; it couldn’t have been anything else. (The two pairs had been met independently in passing around the traps, discretion forbidding questioning.)

The faithful stalwart was the cleaner/ex-con and his wife. They were a more recent couple from memory, though the lady had waited for the chap during the last term inside at least, from memory. Couple decades all up the guy had served, substances his undoing. A long stretch he had been clean; outta the woods now, hopefully. No doubt the lady had a lot to do with the success, Chairman Aziz helping too, likely. On the evenings Aziz & his wife were absent these two also failed to appear.

You could tell the guy liked that chair opposite the Chairman. Rarely did he say much himself, but when the Chair held forth the focus was always fixed. Man knew them all, Syed, Beefy, Man the ciggie guy & his sidekick. Nice fellow. The legal fags did for him now, 2 - 3 over the evening under the trees. Always neat, dyed, fine warm smile. Prayers were not joined in his case when Aziz and one or two of the others set off. (It would be enquired; like many of the men, ex-inmates in particular, direct questioning was usually answered directly.)

Aziz kept to the prayer schedule; the strictness was indispensable to the man. In some period prior to Ramadan – it may have been the Prophet’s birthday stretch – Aziz had led prayers at the table with a mic turned up. The man had no sense of his jarring voice and took cheeky comment as playfulness.

The Chair’s table accommodated 7 - 8 sitting close and sometimes the overflow needed a couple tables joined, which didn’t always make for smooth exchange. Sometimes the witticisms fired left & right, to-and-fro through the course, would leave the Chairman second best, acknowledged by the man with smiles & bowing of head.

            In recent weeks a particular fellow had become a regular at Aziz’s table, an ordinary Joe who was privately aware of his ordinariness. Usually the man sat on Aziz’s left, either adjacent or facing. Little tubby guy in the common street wear, who in this case had awarded himself an outstanding crown, the like of which had never been seen in the neighbourhood. It was possible even friends,  certainly acquaintances, would fail to recognise the man without.

            When Aziz was questioned the Chairman seemed to think the curiosity misdirected.

            I have one too, he informed. 52 inches tall.

            Ordinarily, Aziz wore a clean, white, regular songkok. The colour signified a man who had completed the hajj. In Aziz’s line, that performance had been undertaken times without number.

            The initial size for his songkok turned out an error. It had been centimetres. The confusion had arisen after the other’s songkok had been estimated from two tables away at a full 11- 12 inches.

It was difficult to take one’s eyes off this particular songkok. Over the foot it may possibly have been too. Placed on the guy’s actual foot, a kind of flipper would have resulted.

            Jet black, still stiff & shapely. A recent purchase after a Toto win, perhaps. This too would be enquired, when an opportunity presented.

            Sitting so low to the table-top the Tubby, adding the tower meant he could mix it with any takers. Black, but lustrous; fabric as new, perfectly smooth. Oddly, no one seemed to pay this songkok any regard. There was never a look in its direction; hardly ever any kind of look cast on that side. On the rare occasion this man spoke, in some brief exchange with Aziz, none of the others seemed to give ear.

            After advising of his own possession of a much taller article still, Aziz swiped through his photos. It was there somewhere. A travel agent had many, many pics on his phone. Aziz had never sorted them into albums. Finally, Aziz at a table at the Pasar, balancing a towering felt cone rather nervously on his head.

It could not be worn for prayers. It would fall off, Aziz explained.

It was Aziz who informed during the course here that the forehead needed to be uncovered in the prostrations; the bare forehead touching the carpet. Head-cover otherwise was not obligatory, but you would bet Aziz and the tubby kept to the local custom. (A reminder: like for women in Orthodox churches & synagogues, women in the mussolahs were required cover.)

Certainly Aziz’s party songkok could not have served in the mosque, and it seemed the same with the Tubby’s more handsome, shorter item. When the latter returned the other night from the maghrib, the handsome songkok had been swapped; exchanged for another article that was almost equally splendid.

No disrespect, but this tubby did remind of the guys in the old Laurel & Hardy B&W silents, who would get numerous kicks up the back-side. Casually administered kicks, in passing for these extras, for no apparent reason. At the cattle yards, on street corners, at any opportunity, someone gave the boot; it may not have been the leads. It seemed simply because of the figure the hapless fellows presented; to keep no-goods like that on their toes, make sure they didn’t get themselves any ideas.

That stock figure appeared in those skits for added laughs, and sometimes possibly more than one chap was involved. Low life average Joes, getting something to go on with. Back in the day kids of a similar sort were immediately identified at school; quiet, shy types who knew to keep outta the path of the big guys, the jocks & sharps. Look out, shut-up and maybe you wouldn’t get a swift boot up the kyber.  

Well, times had changed. The sans culottes had bettered themselves appreciably. It could only have been the lottery in this man’s case at Wadi. There was still no minimum wage in Sing. Over the last decade the government had addressed the huge disparities in income with giveaways 2 - 3 times a year. Aziz estimated the 11- 12 incher might have cost Tubby $50 - 60. Still, at the lower end, this was dough. The older penny-pinchers would often draw attention to 20 - 30c differences in the prices of tehs.

In the exchanges with Aziz care had needed to be taken. To begin, Aziz had been asked whether perchance the handsome Songkok might have been a mufti or imam.

Az enjoyed fielding enquiries. Any matter, any time. Anything on religion he could enlighten. Nice man. Forty-five year wedding anniversary recently, was it? Six or more adult kids and big number next gen.

After the maghrib the other night when Aziz and shortly after the Songkok returned, the latter reappeared minus the signature lid. Now it was that other colourful item that one sometimes saw in the newspapers, or in wedding parties. Lustrous again, but rich, dazzling lime green here. Originally the article was a wrap that needed to be carefully and tightly folded around the top of the scone, an intricate operation which could only be properly performed by retainers. In his explanations following, Aziz mentioned Malaysian & Indo royalty.

Like the other, never seen before in the G. Serai quarter. Once or twice the karaoke crew who would return to Wadi after their day out had a lady adorned with something like a tanjut. In the street parades in Yogyakarta, young, heavily-made up girls marched in formation down the middle of Malioboro with something of the kind.

This little guy had brought it out at Wadi the other night. TANJUT. Again, Aziz claimed back some of the thunder with his own similar in the wardrobe. Again, photographic corroboration. One of Az’s promos for the Korban, eventually found on the phone, featured a tanjut that somehow sat less elegantly on an admittedly more handsome head.

The hapless fall guy in the Laurel & H. seemed like he hadn’t had a wash in many a day. Drab, unkempt & grubby. Rather like the Tubby recently admitted to Aziz’s table.

Darts man Jamaal would know of any recent wins in the community. The following morning he had rocked up to Mr. T. T. with another triumph. The ticket was drawn out from Jam’s wallet. Unusually, both Saturday & Sunday Jam had used the same numbers, winners both times.

At a guess, Tubby might have scored a grand or more.

 

 

 

 

               Geylang Serai, Singapore 2011-26

 

 

Success

 

This new, improved poison was doing the trick. On Crane Road coming out for supper, a bird with slightly ruffled feathers was not resting or pecking at crumbs. On the next corner at the former Joo Chiat Hotel, another, this time on its back. A Saturday evening between shifts perhaps responsible there; it was unlikely the enviro guys were not going 24/7 with this more concerted campaign. How was the hotel supposed to cope like that, or the shopkeepers on Crane. At the kopi shop on Crane corner numerous diners sat at the tables. Both the hotel and the kopi had re-vamped and renovated over the last few years, in the case of the hotel, extensively. Rates at the latter might be $200 plus now, richer than Tristar around on Onan. Reception would need to send their cleaners out before too long. Oddly, some kind of upscale meat products, deeply veined, hung in the second window of A Hotel now. Two days ago Darts Man Jamaal had pointed out the dead bird in the gutter of Mr T. T.’s front veranda. (Always first with death notices in the community, Jamaal – on one notable occasion erroneously. Jam could not let even a birdie pass him by.) Despite sitting mornings directly beneath there over the teh & newspaper, the pigeon had completely passed notice. This morning was now four days unattended. Without someone’s report, the bird might stay there many more days still. Drawing attention to it, Jam had also commented on the old Malay who cycled over daily and illegally fed the birds. No good talking to suchlike, Jamaal suggested.