Pistol
Guy usually gave the big “Nigerian” Tamil prata-maker at Har Yasin a little rabbit-chopping massage when he came in for take-out. Two-three minute vigorous hammer made the fellow grimace, but easy to tell he was the better for it. Scrunched-up face blooming into a fine smile within the folds.
When the chap was found at the cashier one night some conversation ensued. No surprise hearing of the TCM, a professional in fact who had completed a course in earlier days. After some loan defaults involving friends the man had needed to move to the more lucrative construction industry. It was OK, no complaints.
You could tell the chap had a vocation for his field. Meditation had been a long-term practice.
Impromptu demonstration: arms out before him and squinting, man showed how he could make the blood rush to his hands through sheer concentration. Finger twisting at temples illustrated the workings.
Deeply colored; clearly discernible.
Feel that.
There was heat right enough; a boy’s hot palms.
Slapping the crown of his head forcefully with no ill-effects: another demonstration of something less well-defined, before he was asked to please desist.
The big party trick that followed promised something-something “cock” and “rock,” was that?…
Momentary starting at the uncertain development. A casual conversation had veered off somewhere not quite certain.
Cock most definitely half under his breath.… Did the old scarved Malay women hear? One hoped not.
Swiping over his phone. The English was passable without being perfect and the place noisy at dinner-time.
One recalled the old witticism from another locale about days of yore cracking walnuts on the train-line with the trusty weapon. This was something of that sort, you guessed.
Finally found what he was after the man, turning the screen out. A naked chap fiddling with himself?… Fellow in good shape, in his fifties, the TCM man suggested, though that did not look right.
Took a short while to realise an erection was indeed the actual object. An odd, difficult to make-out and rather unappealing mechanical and uninspired masturbatory scene.
Ah! This was not pleasant viewing. You certainly hoped the Malays could not see.
It needed some little while and only half-hard was good enough for what this screen-star was seeking.
The size was unexpected for a Chinaman. (In this neighborhood one heard common complaints from the locals at their stunting. It was unfair; impossible to compete with the white guy. Strangely the black was never much of a worry.)
The screen actor was now twisting some kind of scarf, a long length of mottled black and white. It was not at all clear what this was about either; very difficult to guess.
Again it took quite some time before the Stud was ready.
Camera zoom-out revealed a concrete block on the ground. Large rectangular construction item.
Thirty or forty kilograms were within capacity, the TCM man informed before the object here emerged.
Oh! My, my…. You began to comprehend…. This was rather an imposition. Uncalled for.
After knotting the cloth securely around his moderately engorged organ the actor tied the other end to the block.
A short while was needed to budge. Soon there was clearance from the ground. Clearly airborne.
Rocking slightly, the man swung the pendant with some little, minor effort.
You had to be concerned what the old Malays could make out from their tables. Chuckles came from the new young Malaysian-Tamil waiter passing.
A second exhibitionist hot on the heels of the first performed a similar feat inside a gymnasium, in this case perched on mounts of some kind so that once he was away the rock was made to fairly fly.
Slowly one understood this was not simple vain-glory either. Therapeutics involved; health and vitality. Retention of virility and stamina was a serious concern of health practitioners, at least in enlightened quarters of the globe.
A year or two training the TCM man suggested was needed for good attainment. You would not mess with this in the backyard otherwise.
Tubby and lumpy man; nonetheless you would not put such a feat past him. The man didn’t say explicitly, but the impression was conveyed.
Into one’s sixties, seventies and eighties too, TCM man promised.
After the screen display a free massage there and then like for the prata-man WAS DECLINED.
~
Curve Ball
Numbers gathered at the Saturday lunch queue in front of Mr. T. T. servery. A side counter around on the concourse had confused the proper order.
Patience of course was always required. After three Ramadans in Singapore a much better discipline had been established where food was concerned.
Chap who at first had been identified as a queue-jumper turned the corner and began hobbling over. More than hobble here in fact, this was a grotesque gait that immediately suggested pins, rods and screws beneath the cover of the skin.
Another biker casualty. Catching a plane this man would cause pandemonium at Security.
Clearing the way for his passage the man answered a question that had not been uttered, — Fine, fine to now. Strong voice that made one start.
The fellow had been sighted at the eatery there before. It had been a long time and clearly the man had not properly revealed himself on the earlier occasion.
Tall Malay, thin and angular; nimble and supple in earlier days. Legs made a kind of crab-like motion, with the trunk listing 30 degrees. A hand had tagged the counter, and when the chap arrived at the register he unexpectedly straightened himself.
Street-wear: jeans, checked shirt beneath a windbreaker, bright blue baseball cap. In the States one would find the counterpart in a trailer, or sitting at a diner with lumberjack friends having a beer. Ray Carver territory.
It was difficult not to stare.
Initially the man’s order had been taken at the side. Around to the register he came then to collect his plate and pay, where the Tamil Cricketer was serving. The other Tamil with whom the Cricketer worked was away somewhere, which had lengthened the queue.
There had been some kind of exchange between this pair—the customer and the Tamil. But what could that have amounted to with the Tamil Cricketer?
The Cricketer had as much Malay as English. Eight or nine months direct from Chennai, perhaps a dozen words of each language over and above the necessary for the orders.
Nonetheless some particular communication had been passed with this crippled Malay. A gesture of some kind may have been missed; doffing of cap perhaps signed by the Tamil.
Like the rest of the Malay’s clothing, the baseball cap was spotless. If the remainder was somewhat tawdry, color-faded and washed-out, the cap worn by the Malay man was a different matter. It was a new purchase; very little tropical sun or rain had poured down upon this fabric.
Here in front of the register, following whatever had passed between the two men some brief moment earlier, a request of some form was now granted by the Malay.
Standing close against the counter before the Tamil the man obligingly removed his cap; doffing it like in the services before a superior officer.
In the exchange of money and food on the narrow ledge hard against the counter the two men had somehow achieved an intimate understanding.
The display needed a few moments to gather properly.
On the right side of the forehead, high on the crown and extending to a centimeter above the Malay man’s eyebrow, a baseball-sized hollow was revealed. On what would ordinarily have been a furrowed brow in a man of that age, the indentation of skin on the Malay showed egg-shell smooth.
A third of a baseball-sized object had entered this man’s cranium; any further or higher the brain casing could not possibly have given protection.
In this instance the Malay man had lived to tell the tale. Legs, hips, spine bore hidden damage; for the head there had been whiplashing.
Balding men in this community on the Equator carried caps that were screwed down tight and never removed.
In the display here there was no doubt the Malay was responding to an appeal of some kind from the other, the Tamil man; a straightforwardness involved in the matter which had not been taken in any way amiss. Not received as any kind of intrusiveness this Tamil’s curiosity. A reasonable, frank and understandable enquiry, received as such by the Malay man.
Unspoken pity must have been declared somehow here; a form that could not have been expressed in words by the Tamil.
It was this that was behind the request, and well understood by the victim of the horrendous accident.
The missile, the object that had made this impact with the Malay’s head, had been marginally larger than a baseball; an entry of a third of the circumference perhaps.
After the man, the Malay survivor, swung off with his food tray, a brief, silent communing was exchanged with the Tamil Cricketer; a Christian from that southern Indian state, who had once shown the picture of a mournful Jesus on his phone.
Shake of head and eye-brow raising as the Malay cribbed off. There were no words for further with the Tamil.
How had the man, the Tamil Cricketer, conducted such an exchange with perfect understanding and accord? (Tamils from the Malaysian Peninsular, sons and grandsons of the so-called indentured laborers, had good Bahasa Malay. Not this man recruited by his employer direct from Chennai.)
Revolving the matter later, the finely managed exchange between the men, wordless as it must have been, continued to defy understanding. Ultimately the circumstance was inexplicable.
People accustomed to hardship and the cruelty of fate managed matters in a direct and open way of their own.
~
Siren
1.
This glorious Venus walks into your tea joint from the blind, right side of the cataract, swans past the fire hydrant that has damaged many a knee, right up onto the fries platform on the corner. The last part of the passage revealed the extent of her cascading tresses. Would not be surprised if just then the author, unconsciously, like a jockey on his mount, had risen up from his chair in order to take the vision properly…. Wow-wee! You seen it all now, Bud. How many men have looked upon the like? Never before this guy. The long lustrous strands ran like a burbling brook all the way down to behind the crook of the lady’s knees. The bees knees! Blow me down Joe! Double knocking in stride—once against the small of her back and the second time the other side of her mound, waving & flapping. Catching her would have been like trying to seize the breeze and rooted to the spot didn’t help any. Initially she had flitted past touching distance, but at that juncture you had no idea. Killing not so softly. While she was on the platform a man still stood a rough chance if he could gather himself—wits, clear purpose &etc. Problem was the pillar and the corner. If the angel had hung a left there she was away without any possible hope. Straight ahead you were not out of the running, maybe catch her up before the shops. The pang later was thought of the hotel entrance thirty metres down Onan past the Cheers. By crickey, she must have got herself along in there, disappeared up the stairs where the date waited. Nowhere to be seen; not a trace. Had she gone straight up toward the market she could not have escaped, there was no exit point along there. Caught in time she might have been shown the portrait gallery of her racial cousins, eventually enticed for a photo and a second in the room, where the snaking strands could have been coiled along her torso in the Titian or Manet pose—Venus & Olympia rolled into one. Down on your knees no shame nor hesitation; congress not required.
2.
How does one become the beneficiary of such largess? Guys ask for something of the kind no doubt and pay handsomely for the service. Over the seven years this lover had spun herself a number of times previously, suddenly going in her own direction without any notice. (Ladies here have asked one thing or another when diverging from the standard, like anywhere else; but with unusual circumspection here.) Once in the midst of extended love-making at Four Chain View it had been, after a term of absence, this same woman had abruptly demanded washing. Reason being she wanted to suckle, she had declared commandingly. Generals marshalling their troops in the field could not issue orders with more authority. Only immediate compliance could follow of course, like little Johnny sent to the bathroom by mummy. Another time the same lady in another hotel room, in Yogyakarta near the rail-line, had awoken in the middle of the night, thrown back the bed sheet, and, like some kind of parched traveller in the sandy desert, immediately bent to take in her mouth the succulent stalk. All without word before or after. Here again in Jakarta this time, after almost three weeks of lovemaking, late one morning the woman laid herself down as usual close against the stem and after raising the erection slowly began to loll the pisang over her face. Over her lips, her cheeks; like a housewife her rolling pin slowly and carefully; running the head across her brows and forehead and into her eye-sockets. Moaning and flexing a number of times in jerks of electric-like shocks. Recalling it one was unable to quite own the experience; in the midst of the event it had been similar. This was not the first time for such an exploration by this unaccountable lover of the ages. On this occasion however the rapture had been prolonged and numerous glimpses afforded from behind raised up on the pillow. Usually facing away due to perhaps a degree of modesty, the back of this mythic Eve’s head screened much of the action, leaving the precise handling a little uncertain. (Asking for turnaround of course risked bringing the house of cards tumbling down.) Not being a watcher of porn, it was unclear whether such scenes were depicted on the sites. More than likely, but could a Google search hope to find that particular delectation? Returning to the journal to pen the event it emerged that earlier that morning in the room in Jakarta the woman had been told of the purchased ticket back to Singapore. Possibly that had been the prompt.
Geylang Serai, Singapore 2011–20
~
Australian by birth and Montenegrin origin, Pavle Radonic’s eight years living and writing in SE Asia has provided unexpected stimulus. Previous work has appeared in a range of literary journals and magazines, including Ambit, Big Bridge, Citron & Antigonish Reviews. A mountainous blog holding mainly the Asian writing is here
http://axialmelbourne.blogspot.com/