(1)
Around 7 o’clock in the evening, two men and a woman boarded my taxi on Orchard Road. One of the men sat in the front seat and told me in Chinese to go to Geylang Lor xx. The woman pinpointed their destination with more specifics. “You know the frog porridge coffee shop there? That’s the place.” I said okay.
They were in their thirties and their accents indicated that they came from China. The two in the back had been engaged in small talks since they came in and the way they spoke to each other left no room for doubt that they were intimately related. The man sitting next to me was quiet and aloof, and kept his eyes gazed vacantly into a distance in front of him.
A phone rang. The lady answered the call. She umm-ed to the caller several times and then said in Mandarin that she will call back in a few minutes. She flipped the phone closed and told the man beside her that the game is on. But, instead of 20/40, which was initially suggested by her, the other party wanted to raise it to 30/60.
“If they like to play big,” the man grew annoyed, “tell them let’s just cut to the chase and do 50/100!”
“No. That’s not a good idea.” The woman said in an undertone. “We don’t know them well. Let’s do it their way today. 30/60. Plus, you know, it hasn’t really been great for us lately. Our men brought in $2000 the day before yesterday but lost more than three thousands last night.”
“I told you they must be replaced every two hours!” The man said with a raised voice.
“I know. I did that. I always do what you say.” The woman had no difficulty upholding her calmness and grace.
The man loosened up a little, and asked in a softer tone, “How much you got with you?”
“$600 only.”
“I will have xxx to bring $10,000 to you later.” The man, apparently, had just set his seal of approval on the game plan.
The lady made the call and confirmed the game at 10 o’clock.
That was when we reached the coffee shop.
(2)
Around 2am, passed by McCallum/Telok Ayer area and saw the 80 year old lady again. Although I came here every day around this time to look for her since I met her a week ago, this was the only time we crossed our paths. I was glad to see her in a much better shape this time. She must have had some good rest just now since she looked quite energetic. She was pushing the trolley down the Amoy Street, with a full load of empty tin containers on it.
When I pulled over by her side, she recognized me and said joyously, “Hey, boss.” I knew about her hearing problem but nonetheless said to her, “How are you?”
She pointed to the stuff on her trolley and said, “I collect these today. Tomorrow I will do 纸皮 (cardboard boxes) again.” I glanced at her harvest. They were all cooking oil containers, which she must have found from the dump site of the Telok Ayer Food Center nearby. But she didn’t seem to want to spend much time on talking with me today. She had work to do. Without another word, she started to look through a row of garbage cans, which had been left on the roadside by the shopkeepers.
I stopped my car behind her. I had bought a bag of apples and oranges for her from a wet market two days ago but couldn’t find her in the previous two nights. I had kept the bag in the trunk. I went to check. They were still good, as shiny as the day I bought them. I took out the bag and went to her. She said she likes apples but one is enough. I said take them all. They could stay fresh for another couple of days. I put the bag on her trolley and said goodbye to her, and left.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
May 26, 2009. Tuesday: An eighty year old lady
It had been an hour and half since the clock struck midnight. My ambition to land at least one job with midnight surcharge before going home was now in full retreat. I had been cruising nonstop around CBD, passing through all the major nightspots. No luck. Tuesdays are always the slowest of the week. I decided to call it a day.
On my way home, I stopped at a 7/11 store on McCallum St to get some cigarettes. Next to the store’s entrance, in the shadow of the sidewalk, I noticed an old woman lying on the ground under the shelter of the arcade. She was resting on some empty, partially flattened cardboard boxes, and looked sound asleep. Scattered around her were some more empty boxes in various sizes, along with a small, rundown flatbed trolley. I paused for a moment in my tracks, wondering if she was ill or in need of help. I was hesitant to disturb her, however.
After I came out of the store, I saw two young ladies standing in front of the old woman and talking to her, who was now awake and sitting up against a pile of boxes. One of the girls was holding a blanket in her hand. They were talking to the old woman gingerly, apparently trying to give her the blanket. The old lady, however, seemed too tired to respond with any movement, other than mumbling something in a weak voice.
I came closer and stood next to the girls, and heard the old woman saying in Chinese, “I was too tired. I fell asleep without knowing it. I will be going very soon.” She said it apologetically, as if she was confessing something she had done very wrong.
“Can you speak Chinese?” One of the girls turned to me and asked. I said yes. She then asked me to tell the woman that this blanket was for her. So I did. But she didn’t seem to have heard me. She responded, “I am tired and have to have a rest before I can get up and going again.”
I said to the girls that she appeared to have a hearing problem, and she had probably mistaken us for someone who wanted to chase her out of here. One of the girls stepped close to the woman and laid the blanket gently on her legs and said, “This is for you.” After that, they left.
Both girls were locals and looked to be in their mid twenties. The blanket they left to the old woman was brand new. They must have bought it just now and right here in the 7/11 store after they saw the lady sleeping on the ground. Their generosity and caring spirits made me feel a little guilty in comparison.
After the girls left, I decided to stay a while longer to see if I could convince the woman into letting me drive her home, as she said she was too tired to move just now.
She was in her seventies at least, wearing a grey shirt and a pair of pants in a darker color. Both were badly wrinkled and dusted with dirt. Though she looked slightly better than a few moments ago, and her voice was a bit louder and clearer, she obviously remained weak and fragile. Her hearing was seriously impaired and despite my repeated attempts to speak to her, she did not respond as if she had understood me.
She, however, was in a mood of doing one way talking. She first lifted up the blanket from her leg and said to me, “They are so kind. I don’t need this. It will get dirty here.” She placed it carefully on top of a carton box. Then she motioned me to sit down near her, and pulled up her pants to expose her lower part of the legs from ankle to knee. The appearance of her legs astonished me. They were like thin, dead tree trunks: rugged surface and in black color. While pressing her legs with a finger at random spots, she carried on nonchalantly, “My legs no good anymore. I get tired easily. My legs used to be red, you know, like chilly pepper. After the doctors did operations on me, they became totally black.
“I was in hospital three times. One time I stayed in bed for three weeks and never came down. My hands, too, you see. Three of the fingers in each hand are frozen. Can not use anymore. Only this two (thumb and index) can move. I can not comb my hair. Can not use chopsticks also.”
At this moment, a man emerged from a narrow alley next to the 7/11 store. He was between 35 and 40 years of age, and had a bicycle with him. He was obviously here for the lady. He shot me an inquisitive look, as he spoke something to the lady in a raised voice. The lady opened a styrofoam box next to her and took out a plastic bag containing a few bottles and some other containers, all appeared to be empty, and handed to him.
I was glad to see the man as I had not been able to communicate with the woman. I first put him at ease by saying that I was just a taxi driver and was trying to see if the lady needed any help. Then I told him that I wanted to give her a ride home but could not get her to understand me. He said she could not hear properly. And she wouldn’t be going home tonight, because she needed to go to some place nearby tomorrow morning to collect discarded boxes. I asked if he was related to her and he said he was not. But he added that he had been helping her for the last 15 years. “Does she have any children?” I asked.
“Yes. She has two sons and a daughter.” He answered. “I have met them.”
“Do they take care of their mother?”
He shook his head and said nothing. He then told me that every day in the past fifteen years, he comes to the lady twice a day. Once in the middle of night to check on her and collect the bag and comes again before 8 in the morning to bring her food and water, and help her cut the boxes, load them on the trolley and bring them to the recycling center to exchange for money. 50 kg for $2. She used to carry 50kg herself. But not anymore. She is over 80 years old and her legs have got some lymphatic vessel problems. “Now is almost 2, so I only sleep a few hours a day. I have my own job to do in Bt Merah during the day. I have to go now.” He put the plastic bag inside a basket mounted on his bicycle and said goodbye to me, and left.
After he was gone, the lady patted the styrofoam box at her side and said, “My ice are all gone now. I have to drink cold water. I get fire in my chest if I don’t. Burning hot. Drives me crazy. I have to drink ice cold water to stay alive. Every day he fills the bottles with water and brings to me with some ice. I keep them in this box. Now, no more.”
“You give me a minute.” I said. I went to 7/11 and came back with a bottle of ice cold fruit drink. The lady took it and held it to her chest, and thanked me. She then said, “Some people think I am too fussy, you know, having to drink cold water. They don’t know I have no choice. It’s burning inside here.”
I took out $10 and put it on her legs, and said, “Here is some more money. You can buy more cold drinks after you finish this one.” She didn’t hear what I said but she understood it. She took the money and said thank you again.
I left after that. It was passed two already. I made a mental note that I will come back here tomorrow to check on the woman again.
I went home by New Bridge Road. The street was empty, with only a few cars and taxis parked along the curb in front of a couple restaurants that open all night long. I picked up speed.
Suddenly, before the cantonment road junction, a man leaped out of the darkness of the roadside and ran into the middle of the road with his arm extended, and made me stop abruptly. It was a white man. He was in his forties and told me to go to Pandan Valley by Grange Road.
I gritted my teeth and drove silently towards Pandan Valley by the way he wanted. Privately, I was very annoyed with him for jumping on the road like that. I almost hit him! But then again, had he stayed off the road, I would have probably missed him.
When we reached his place, the meter fare was $8. With the midnight surcharge, the total was $12 exact.
Rather than feeling pleased that I had finally accomplished my goal, I felt somewhat eerie. This was exactly what I had given to the old lady just a moment ago!
On my way home, I stopped at a 7/11 store on McCallum St to get some cigarettes. Next to the store’s entrance, in the shadow of the sidewalk, I noticed an old woman lying on the ground under the shelter of the arcade. She was resting on some empty, partially flattened cardboard boxes, and looked sound asleep. Scattered around her were some more empty boxes in various sizes, along with a small, rundown flatbed trolley. I paused for a moment in my tracks, wondering if she was ill or in need of help. I was hesitant to disturb her, however.
After I came out of the store, I saw two young ladies standing in front of the old woman and talking to her, who was now awake and sitting up against a pile of boxes. One of the girls was holding a blanket in her hand. They were talking to the old woman gingerly, apparently trying to give her the blanket. The old lady, however, seemed too tired to respond with any movement, other than mumbling something in a weak voice.
I came closer and stood next to the girls, and heard the old woman saying in Chinese, “I was too tired. I fell asleep without knowing it. I will be going very soon.” She said it apologetically, as if she was confessing something she had done very wrong.
“Can you speak Chinese?” One of the girls turned to me and asked. I said yes. She then asked me to tell the woman that this blanket was for her. So I did. But she didn’t seem to have heard me. She responded, “I am tired and have to have a rest before I can get up and going again.”
I said to the girls that she appeared to have a hearing problem, and she had probably mistaken us for someone who wanted to chase her out of here. One of the girls stepped close to the woman and laid the blanket gently on her legs and said, “This is for you.” After that, they left.
Both girls were locals and looked to be in their mid twenties. The blanket they left to the old woman was brand new. They must have bought it just now and right here in the 7/11 store after they saw the lady sleeping on the ground. Their generosity and caring spirits made me feel a little guilty in comparison.
After the girls left, I decided to stay a while longer to see if I could convince the woman into letting me drive her home, as she said she was too tired to move just now.
She was in her seventies at least, wearing a grey shirt and a pair of pants in a darker color. Both were badly wrinkled and dusted with dirt. Though she looked slightly better than a few moments ago, and her voice was a bit louder and clearer, she obviously remained weak and fragile. Her hearing was seriously impaired and despite my repeated attempts to speak to her, she did not respond as if she had understood me.
She, however, was in a mood of doing one way talking. She first lifted up the blanket from her leg and said to me, “They are so kind. I don’t need this. It will get dirty here.” She placed it carefully on top of a carton box. Then she motioned me to sit down near her, and pulled up her pants to expose her lower part of the legs from ankle to knee. The appearance of her legs astonished me. They were like thin, dead tree trunks: rugged surface and in black color. While pressing her legs with a finger at random spots, she carried on nonchalantly, “My legs no good anymore. I get tired easily. My legs used to be red, you know, like chilly pepper. After the doctors did operations on me, they became totally black.
“I was in hospital three times. One time I stayed in bed for three weeks and never came down. My hands, too, you see. Three of the fingers in each hand are frozen. Can not use anymore. Only this two (thumb and index) can move. I can not comb my hair. Can not use chopsticks also.”
At this moment, a man emerged from a narrow alley next to the 7/11 store. He was between 35 and 40 years of age, and had a bicycle with him. He was obviously here for the lady. He shot me an inquisitive look, as he spoke something to the lady in a raised voice. The lady opened a styrofoam box next to her and took out a plastic bag containing a few bottles and some other containers, all appeared to be empty, and handed to him.
I was glad to see the man as I had not been able to communicate with the woman. I first put him at ease by saying that I was just a taxi driver and was trying to see if the lady needed any help. Then I told him that I wanted to give her a ride home but could not get her to understand me. He said she could not hear properly. And she wouldn’t be going home tonight, because she needed to go to some place nearby tomorrow morning to collect discarded boxes. I asked if he was related to her and he said he was not. But he added that he had been helping her for the last 15 years. “Does she have any children?” I asked.
“Yes. She has two sons and a daughter.” He answered. “I have met them.”
“Do they take care of their mother?”
He shook his head and said nothing. He then told me that every day in the past fifteen years, he comes to the lady twice a day. Once in the middle of night to check on her and collect the bag and comes again before 8 in the morning to bring her food and water, and help her cut the boxes, load them on the trolley and bring them to the recycling center to exchange for money. 50 kg for $2. She used to carry 50kg herself. But not anymore. She is over 80 years old and her legs have got some lymphatic vessel problems. “Now is almost 2, so I only sleep a few hours a day. I have my own job to do in Bt Merah during the day. I have to go now.” He put the plastic bag inside a basket mounted on his bicycle and said goodbye to me, and left.
After he was gone, the lady patted the styrofoam box at her side and said, “My ice are all gone now. I have to drink cold water. I get fire in my chest if I don’t. Burning hot. Drives me crazy. I have to drink ice cold water to stay alive. Every day he fills the bottles with water and brings to me with some ice. I keep them in this box. Now, no more.”
“You give me a minute.” I said. I went to 7/11 and came back with a bottle of ice cold fruit drink. The lady took it and held it to her chest, and thanked me. She then said, “Some people think I am too fussy, you know, having to drink cold water. They don’t know I have no choice. It’s burning inside here.”
I took out $10 and put it on her legs, and said, “Here is some more money. You can buy more cold drinks after you finish this one.” She didn’t hear what I said but she understood it. She took the money and said thank you again.
I left after that. It was passed two already. I made a mental note that I will come back here tomorrow to check on the woman again.
I went home by New Bridge Road. The street was empty, with only a few cars and taxis parked along the curb in front of a couple restaurants that open all night long. I picked up speed.
Suddenly, before the cantonment road junction, a man leaped out of the darkness of the roadside and ran into the middle of the road with his arm extended, and made me stop abruptly. It was a white man. He was in his forties and told me to go to Pandan Valley by Grange Road.
I gritted my teeth and drove silently towards Pandan Valley by the way he wanted. Privately, I was very annoyed with him for jumping on the road like that. I almost hit him! But then again, had he stayed off the road, I would have probably missed him.
When we reached his place, the meter fare was $8. With the midnight surcharge, the total was $12 exact.
Rather than feeling pleased that I had finally accomplished my goal, I felt somewhat eerie. This was exactly what I had given to the old lady just a moment ago!
Friday, November 6, 2009
May 17, 2009. Sunday: Undercover cops?
When the day ends in Central Business District, it only just begins in Geylang. Crowds start to build around the dinner time and last all the way till the small hours of the night. When I passed through the place on my way to the city around 10pm, it was right in the middle of its peak hours. The street was crowded with cars, taxis, and pedestrians. Noisy, chaotic, razzle-dazzle, and seductive. Definitely the most vibrant nighttime playground in town, where the heart of the city beats briskly as the rest of it is asleep.
Somewhere near Lor20, I was going nose-to-nose with a blue Comfort taxi. It was one of those new, flashy, automatic Sonatas to which I had on several occasions lost my customers, due to their fast speed, swift maneuverability, and the daring drivers who never hesitate to put their own shiny butts at risk to offer a road test for the quality of the brake work of my company’s workshop by cutting in abruptly right in front of me. Because of these unpleasant experiences, I am not exactly overly fond of them. When I see one of these on the road, I don’t usually waste my second glance on it. But there was something peculiar about this one that had persuaded me to take another look.
It looked newer than most other Sonatas. In fact, I believe it was brand new. Bathed in jazzy, brilliant neon lights, every part of it shone sparklingly as if the full body was coated in mirror glass. What really caught my attention, though, were the men sitting inside.
The taxi had a “busy” light on at its rooftop, because there was a passenger sitting in the front seat next to the driver. From the way the two men carried themselves, I realized this was no ordinary taxi. This was most likely a police patrol car in a taxi’s costume.
It was really obvious to me.
First, both men looked young, probably between 20 and 30 years of age. Too young to be a taxi driver in Singapore for one of them. Secondly, they wore similar, possibly identical, type of clothes. Not the formal police uniform, but in the same navy blue color nonetheless. Thirdly, and most conspicuously, they wore same type of caps in the car! Also in a navy blue color, the cap was same as the baseball cap, with a long, curved brim. But caps like this are also commonly used by army and police personnel around the world. They are customarily referred to as “low profile caps”. I haven’t seen many ordinary people wearing them in Singapore, but I guess some will, particularly outdoor in the middle of a hot sunny day. But at night? In a car? Both a taxi driver and a passenger? Come on, that’s just impossible unless you were looking at a pair of undercover cops.
You could still argue, of course, that maybe the economy is so bad that more young people have been forced to drive taxis to make a living. Maybe this young taxi driver happens to have a brother, or a male friend, who likes to dress up the same, dull-looking way as him. And maybe they both have the same type of cap that they like so much they wear it wherever they go, even at night. But I found that too far-fetched to be plausible.
I bet a full month of my taxi rental that these men were undercover vice cops. They were on an assignment right now to sniff around for illegal prostitution activities in this area, which had become quite rampant in recent times. They didn’t seem to realize, however, that they were so ludicrously obvious. Their proud “low profile cap” had in fact given them a very high profile, and blown their cover wide open.
In agreement with my theory, the men were scanning the street from one side to another with their apparently alert and vigilant eyes hidden under the cover of their caps, while moving slowly at my side. After going like this for a while, the Sonata suddenly picked up speed, made several swift maneuvers to push itself through the heavy traffic, and soon disappeared without a trace.
Since all government-owned vehicles in Singapore, including police cars, bear special classes of license plate, the police in Singapore, unlike other countries, may not have their own unmarked vehicles for stakeout or undercover assignments. In a country where the buzzwords are “low crime doesn’t mean no crime”, I guess occasional undercover police operations are still required. Using a taxi for this purpose is therefore a logical as well as smart idea. Assuming the taxi was rented from Comfort, which is also owned by the government, does the policeman who drives it have a taxi driver’s license? Is it legal for them to drive a taxi if they don’t?
At any rate, if I was right, then these young policemen were too amateur. They should at least take off their caps, which they should know will render them seriously under-covered. With all these lavish camouflage, the brand new taxi and all, I couldn’t help but to wonder what was the point.
Somewhere near Lor20, I was going nose-to-nose with a blue Comfort taxi. It was one of those new, flashy, automatic Sonatas to which I had on several occasions lost my customers, due to their fast speed, swift maneuverability, and the daring drivers who never hesitate to put their own shiny butts at risk to offer a road test for the quality of the brake work of my company’s workshop by cutting in abruptly right in front of me. Because of these unpleasant experiences, I am not exactly overly fond of them. When I see one of these on the road, I don’t usually waste my second glance on it. But there was something peculiar about this one that had persuaded me to take another look.
It looked newer than most other Sonatas. In fact, I believe it was brand new. Bathed in jazzy, brilliant neon lights, every part of it shone sparklingly as if the full body was coated in mirror glass. What really caught my attention, though, were the men sitting inside.
The taxi had a “busy” light on at its rooftop, because there was a passenger sitting in the front seat next to the driver. From the way the two men carried themselves, I realized this was no ordinary taxi. This was most likely a police patrol car in a taxi’s costume.
It was really obvious to me.
First, both men looked young, probably between 20 and 30 years of age. Too young to be a taxi driver in Singapore for one of them. Secondly, they wore similar, possibly identical, type of clothes. Not the formal police uniform, but in the same navy blue color nonetheless. Thirdly, and most conspicuously, they wore same type of caps in the car! Also in a navy blue color, the cap was same as the baseball cap, with a long, curved brim. But caps like this are also commonly used by army and police personnel around the world. They are customarily referred to as “low profile caps”. I haven’t seen many ordinary people wearing them in Singapore, but I guess some will, particularly outdoor in the middle of a hot sunny day. But at night? In a car? Both a taxi driver and a passenger? Come on, that’s just impossible unless you were looking at a pair of undercover cops.
You could still argue, of course, that maybe the economy is so bad that more young people have been forced to drive taxis to make a living. Maybe this young taxi driver happens to have a brother, or a male friend, who likes to dress up the same, dull-looking way as him. And maybe they both have the same type of cap that they like so much they wear it wherever they go, even at night. But I found that too far-fetched to be plausible.
I bet a full month of my taxi rental that these men were undercover vice cops. They were on an assignment right now to sniff around for illegal prostitution activities in this area, which had become quite rampant in recent times. They didn’t seem to realize, however, that they were so ludicrously obvious. Their proud “low profile cap” had in fact given them a very high profile, and blown their cover wide open.
In agreement with my theory, the men were scanning the street from one side to another with their apparently alert and vigilant eyes hidden under the cover of their caps, while moving slowly at my side. After going like this for a while, the Sonata suddenly picked up speed, made several swift maneuvers to push itself through the heavy traffic, and soon disappeared without a trace.
Since all government-owned vehicles in Singapore, including police cars, bear special classes of license plate, the police in Singapore, unlike other countries, may not have their own unmarked vehicles for stakeout or undercover assignments. In a country where the buzzwords are “low crime doesn’t mean no crime”, I guess occasional undercover police operations are still required. Using a taxi for this purpose is therefore a logical as well as smart idea. Assuming the taxi was rented from Comfort, which is also owned by the government, does the policeman who drives it have a taxi driver’s license? Is it legal for them to drive a taxi if they don’t?
At any rate, if I was right, then these young policemen were too amateur. They should at least take off their caps, which they should know will render them seriously under-covered. With all these lavish camouflage, the brand new taxi and all, I couldn’t help but to wonder what was the point.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
May 16, 2009. Saturday: The faces of bullies
This afternoon, I got stranded in a traffic standstill at Suntec City.
Traffic is always messy at Suntec City. First, there is this big roundabout that loops around the “fountain of wreath”, where cars, taxis and buses coming and going in all directions are converged, each pushing its own way through in the absence of traffic control signals. Second, this area is practically a “traffic trap”: easy to come in but dreadful to get out. Two highways, ECP and Nicoll Highway, provide fast and convenient access for incoming traffic. The outgoing traffic, however, has to depend largely on the narrow Temasek Ave which takes motorists for a lengthy detour before reaching the main roads. I always think that this place is a traffic planners’ big blunder.
And this was certainly not helped by someone’s brilliant idea of shutting down one of the lanes of Temasek Ave with some roadside constructions.
With only one lane left passable on Temasek Ave, the traffic in this whole area had effectively come to a standstill. Cars moved in inches between long intervals of complete stoppage. The greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of the idling vehicles were mixed with the air of anxiety, desperation, and discomfort radiated from the people sitting inside them, filling the sky of Saturday afternoon.
At a time like this, everybody’s patience is hanging by a thin thread.
It took me a while just to traverse half of the roundabout circle to reach Temasek Ave. While making the turn, I steered to take the lane on the right side, which was not blocked by the construction site some distance ahead. Since the space was not enough for me to place the car straight in the lane, my taxi was momentarily stuck in a diagonal position across two lanes. For that, I was rewarded with a long, angry beep from the car right behind, a black Honda Civic that looked old enough to have lived since the last millennium. It made me nervous but I tried to ignore it. As soon as space permitted, I straightened my car.
I turned on the radio to kill time. There was “LTA traffic news” being broadcast. The man in the radio said there was an accident somewhere on a highway and advised motorists to “avoid lane 1”, and there was roadwork going on somewhere else, so “please avoid lane 2”, etc. I could never figure out why they have to give advice as such. “Please avoid lane 1?” Isn’t that totally obvious and unnecessary? Whenever I hear or see something like that, (another example being ERP operating over traffic jams that I mentioned a little while ago,) I feel frustrated at not being able to grasp the rationale or the logic of it. Nonetheless, it didn’t escape my notice that there was no mentioning on the radio of the traffic mess at Suntec City, the one we were painfully experiencing right now.
The car on my tail, the Civic, honked again. This time, it was for getting my attention. I peeked in the mirror and caught the driver showing me his middle finger. Staring in my direction, his eyeballs looked ready to pop out. “What is your problem?” I murmured. Again, I looked away. But I felt a knot form in my stomach.
We were still not moving. And then, another honk. I turned my head around. The Honda driver was making hand signals to me and the message was crystal clear:
“Come out of your car and let’s fight a duel!”
I quickly turned my head back around while waved my hand in dismissal. “Crazy guy.” I heard myself saying. I decided to ignore him completely, and hoped that he would soon wear himself out and leave me alone.
To my astonishment, however, the man got out of his car and walked towards me!
I swore loudly. A confrontation was now inevitable.
He came to my side and glared at me with his body trembling in anger. He looked like an enraged black bear on the attack, bent on eating me alive.
He was bigger than I thought. Probably in his early thirties, he was of medium height but a strong build, wearing a pair of faded jeans and a black T shirt, which seemed about to be burst open by his muscular body any minute. His hands were clenched in tight fists and his upper arms were covered with tattoos of what seemed to be characters from Japanese comic books. His face was dotted with acne scars, and his eyes burning with fire. He was a fierce man on all counts.
The danger was hundred percent real. Unlike the lunatic who bullied me last night, this man was a “silver blade made of steel”.
A tamahagane steel!
While my mind raced madly for possible ways to avert what could amount to a life-threatening situation, my hand involuntarily lowered the window in a slow motion. I sensed he was going to smash it with his fist if I didn’t. I was expecting a hit on my face now. I took down my spectacles, and held his stare and waited.
He hesitated, and stood there staring at me with his fists open and shut several times. Then he said through his teeth, “I feel like punch you in the face.”
On that, I saw a slim chance of getting out of this grave danger in one piece. I knew the only way to do that was to talk him out of his anger, to be civil with him.
“Why?” I said as calmly as I could. “I didn’t do anything to you.”
“I just feel like punch you.” The man said again, with his eyes still deadly fixed on mine. The flame in his eyes, however, seemed to be shrinking a bit. Or, maybe it was my imagination.
“I don’t know why you are angry with me.” I said sincerely. “I am just driving my taxi and that’s all. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
At this time, another man walked over from their car. He came out from the passenger side. He was short and thin, and a few years younger. He wore a T shirt with a picture of a ferocious transformer robot on it, something that compensated his superficial frailty to some extent.
He, however, proved to be much fiercer than he looked. If the other guy was like a bear, this one a certifiable hyena. He wedged himself between the muscle man and me, leaned to get close to my face, and shouted. “You shit! You piece of shit! The way you drive, we all saw it! Take two lanes same time! You shit!”
He was showering his saliva on my face. He also made a posture as if he was going to hit me as well.
“This is a traffic jam.” Again, I had no choice but to be calm and civil. “You can’t go anywhere anyway. So try to be patient, okay?”
“I don’t have patience!” The small man shouted again. But he stopped waving his fist in my face. He stood straight up and put his hands on his hips, looking like a replica of the robot on his shirt, equally furious and equally comical.
Up to this point, the traffic had remained standstill all along. But now it began to move slightly. When they saw the car in front of me had gone a distance of two car’s length, they were itchy to go back to theirs.
“This is your lucky day.” The big man said as he nudged his companion towards their car. “Your fxxking lucky day.”
During all this while as the drama being unfolded, people in the surrounding cars were watching us with intense interest. I guess some of them might even feel a little disappointed at that it finally ended undramatically. Unaware to them, however, they served as my defense line that may very likely have helped prevent a dramatic result from occurring.
As the Chinese saying goes, 祸不单行。(Bad things always come in multiples.) Last night, I had the misfortune of meeting a maniac who proved his superiority by exhausting himself yelling abusive words at me, and I let him get away, due largely to lack of a witness. Today, I just escaped by a hair’s breadth from what could have been a nasty, nightmarish experience. Apart from my “civil defense” strategy, an important factor in the turnaround in today’s event is the presence of witnesses, which would have made the husky man think twice before he swung his fist at me. Even if they did harm me, at least they wouldn’t get away with it. With witnesses present, I could count on our system to protect me, to uphold justice for me. This is the difference between the events of today and yesterday.
Now comes the cruel part. The very system that we rely on for safety, justice, and many other aspects of our lives, can sometimes become the biggest bully of all.
Have you ever been beaten up by the system? I have.
In fact, the system has done worse than beating me up. It bulldozed away everything I had worked so hard for in my life. It threw me and my family in trauma and distress that hurt and prolonged hundred times more than being physically beaten up. And it did so unjustly.
When IMCB of ASTAR terminated my employment, they never explained to me why. They only bothered themselves to the point of telling me that they will no longer support my lab in the institute because they think I am no good to them. I was never given any specific explanation, oral or written, what made them think I was no good after 16 years of hard work in IMCB. Even today, it is still a mystery to me.
It could not have been about science, because we have done very well in our research. My lab pioneered a number of important discoveries and made significant contribution to the field of actin and endocytosis, especially in the aspect of regulation by phosphorylation. Our contribution is well recognized internationally.
It could not have been about student training, because it is safe to say that few PIs in IMCB devoted more time and energy to training and taking care of students than myself. There were more students graduated from my lab with a PhD degree than most of the labs in IMCB and ASTAR. Furthermore, as the chairman of Graduate Admission Committee of IMCB for almost ten years, I, along with my colleagues of the Committee, was personally responsible for screening, interviewing, evaluating, and recruiting every single student in IMCB for the whole decade. These students, more than a hundred of them, have been the main work force behind the scientific accomplishments that IMCB was able to make in these years. In addition, I also regularly participated in the screen and interview process of ASTAR scholarship applicants.
It could not have been about spending, because my lab had always been the least expensive one in IMCB to operate. Every year, we spent only a tiny fraction of what the other big spenders of the institute consumed.
Many people have lost their jobs, of course, and it happens all the time. But, when you lose your job because they say you are no good, you would want to know what they mean by that, right? I bet in most cases, you will be given a warning letter first with the reason specified on it. In case you are kicked out without a warning, you will still be given a reason, even just an excuse, as to why they think you deserve this. Be it lack of skill, lack of knowledge, lack of teamwork, or lack of mental strength, whatever. At least something. Something comprehensible so you can mull over it after you run out of your Kodak-moment memories to flash back to in the middle of the night when you can not sleep. Something specific so you can apply for government grants to attend skill enhancement courses to improve on it before you end up having to dish out $280 from your own shallow pocket for a taxi driver’s training class.
But they never gave me anything specific. How could I defend myself when I didn’t even know what I was charged with? I was simply deemed guilty without trial. They can do that because they represent the system. They are the pooh-bahs of the government agency controlling billions of dollars of the country’s annual budget. They are so important that our country just cannot live without.
When you get picked on by the system, you are truly out of luck, because you have no chance to defend yourself, civil or otherwise.
Traffic is always messy at Suntec City. First, there is this big roundabout that loops around the “fountain of wreath”, where cars, taxis and buses coming and going in all directions are converged, each pushing its own way through in the absence of traffic control signals. Second, this area is practically a “traffic trap”: easy to come in but dreadful to get out. Two highways, ECP and Nicoll Highway, provide fast and convenient access for incoming traffic. The outgoing traffic, however, has to depend largely on the narrow Temasek Ave which takes motorists for a lengthy detour before reaching the main roads. I always think that this place is a traffic planners’ big blunder.
And this was certainly not helped by someone’s brilliant idea of shutting down one of the lanes of Temasek Ave with some roadside constructions.
With only one lane left passable on Temasek Ave, the traffic in this whole area had effectively come to a standstill. Cars moved in inches between long intervals of complete stoppage. The greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of the idling vehicles were mixed with the air of anxiety, desperation, and discomfort radiated from the people sitting inside them, filling the sky of Saturday afternoon.
At a time like this, everybody’s patience is hanging by a thin thread.
It took me a while just to traverse half of the roundabout circle to reach Temasek Ave. While making the turn, I steered to take the lane on the right side, which was not blocked by the construction site some distance ahead. Since the space was not enough for me to place the car straight in the lane, my taxi was momentarily stuck in a diagonal position across two lanes. For that, I was rewarded with a long, angry beep from the car right behind, a black Honda Civic that looked old enough to have lived since the last millennium. It made me nervous but I tried to ignore it. As soon as space permitted, I straightened my car.
I turned on the radio to kill time. There was “LTA traffic news” being broadcast. The man in the radio said there was an accident somewhere on a highway and advised motorists to “avoid lane 1”, and there was roadwork going on somewhere else, so “please avoid lane 2”, etc. I could never figure out why they have to give advice as such. “Please avoid lane 1?” Isn’t that totally obvious and unnecessary? Whenever I hear or see something like that, (another example being ERP operating over traffic jams that I mentioned a little while ago,) I feel frustrated at not being able to grasp the rationale or the logic of it. Nonetheless, it didn’t escape my notice that there was no mentioning on the radio of the traffic mess at Suntec City, the one we were painfully experiencing right now.
The car on my tail, the Civic, honked again. This time, it was for getting my attention. I peeked in the mirror and caught the driver showing me his middle finger. Staring in my direction, his eyeballs looked ready to pop out. “What is your problem?” I murmured. Again, I looked away. But I felt a knot form in my stomach.
We were still not moving. And then, another honk. I turned my head around. The Honda driver was making hand signals to me and the message was crystal clear:
“Come out of your car and let’s fight a duel!”
I quickly turned my head back around while waved my hand in dismissal. “Crazy guy.” I heard myself saying. I decided to ignore him completely, and hoped that he would soon wear himself out and leave me alone.
To my astonishment, however, the man got out of his car and walked towards me!
I swore loudly. A confrontation was now inevitable.
He came to my side and glared at me with his body trembling in anger. He looked like an enraged black bear on the attack, bent on eating me alive.
He was bigger than I thought. Probably in his early thirties, he was of medium height but a strong build, wearing a pair of faded jeans and a black T shirt, which seemed about to be burst open by his muscular body any minute. His hands were clenched in tight fists and his upper arms were covered with tattoos of what seemed to be characters from Japanese comic books. His face was dotted with acne scars, and his eyes burning with fire. He was a fierce man on all counts.
The danger was hundred percent real. Unlike the lunatic who bullied me last night, this man was a “silver blade made of steel”.
A tamahagane steel!
While my mind raced madly for possible ways to avert what could amount to a life-threatening situation, my hand involuntarily lowered the window in a slow motion. I sensed he was going to smash it with his fist if I didn’t. I was expecting a hit on my face now. I took down my spectacles, and held his stare and waited.
He hesitated, and stood there staring at me with his fists open and shut several times. Then he said through his teeth, “I feel like punch you in the face.”
On that, I saw a slim chance of getting out of this grave danger in one piece. I knew the only way to do that was to talk him out of his anger, to be civil with him.
“Why?” I said as calmly as I could. “I didn’t do anything to you.”
“I just feel like punch you.” The man said again, with his eyes still deadly fixed on mine. The flame in his eyes, however, seemed to be shrinking a bit. Or, maybe it was my imagination.
“I don’t know why you are angry with me.” I said sincerely. “I am just driving my taxi and that’s all. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
At this time, another man walked over from their car. He came out from the passenger side. He was short and thin, and a few years younger. He wore a T shirt with a picture of a ferocious transformer robot on it, something that compensated his superficial frailty to some extent.
He, however, proved to be much fiercer than he looked. If the other guy was like a bear, this one a certifiable hyena. He wedged himself between the muscle man and me, leaned to get close to my face, and shouted. “You shit! You piece of shit! The way you drive, we all saw it! Take two lanes same time! You shit!”
He was showering his saliva on my face. He also made a posture as if he was going to hit me as well.
“This is a traffic jam.” Again, I had no choice but to be calm and civil. “You can’t go anywhere anyway. So try to be patient, okay?”
“I don’t have patience!” The small man shouted again. But he stopped waving his fist in my face. He stood straight up and put his hands on his hips, looking like a replica of the robot on his shirt, equally furious and equally comical.
Up to this point, the traffic had remained standstill all along. But now it began to move slightly. When they saw the car in front of me had gone a distance of two car’s length, they were itchy to go back to theirs.
“This is your lucky day.” The big man said as he nudged his companion towards their car. “Your fxxking lucky day.”
During all this while as the drama being unfolded, people in the surrounding cars were watching us with intense interest. I guess some of them might even feel a little disappointed at that it finally ended undramatically. Unaware to them, however, they served as my defense line that may very likely have helped prevent a dramatic result from occurring.
As the Chinese saying goes, 祸不单行。(Bad things always come in multiples.) Last night, I had the misfortune of meeting a maniac who proved his superiority by exhausting himself yelling abusive words at me, and I let him get away, due largely to lack of a witness. Today, I just escaped by a hair’s breadth from what could have been a nasty, nightmarish experience. Apart from my “civil defense” strategy, an important factor in the turnaround in today’s event is the presence of witnesses, which would have made the husky man think twice before he swung his fist at me. Even if they did harm me, at least they wouldn’t get away with it. With witnesses present, I could count on our system to protect me, to uphold justice for me. This is the difference between the events of today and yesterday.
Now comes the cruel part. The very system that we rely on for safety, justice, and many other aspects of our lives, can sometimes become the biggest bully of all.
Have you ever been beaten up by the system? I have.
In fact, the system has done worse than beating me up. It bulldozed away everything I had worked so hard for in my life. It threw me and my family in trauma and distress that hurt and prolonged hundred times more than being physically beaten up. And it did so unjustly.
When IMCB of ASTAR terminated my employment, they never explained to me why. They only bothered themselves to the point of telling me that they will no longer support my lab in the institute because they think I am no good to them. I was never given any specific explanation, oral or written, what made them think I was no good after 16 years of hard work in IMCB. Even today, it is still a mystery to me.
It could not have been about science, because we have done very well in our research. My lab pioneered a number of important discoveries and made significant contribution to the field of actin and endocytosis, especially in the aspect of regulation by phosphorylation. Our contribution is well recognized internationally.
It could not have been about student training, because it is safe to say that few PIs in IMCB devoted more time and energy to training and taking care of students than myself. There were more students graduated from my lab with a PhD degree than most of the labs in IMCB and ASTAR. Furthermore, as the chairman of Graduate Admission Committee of IMCB for almost ten years, I, along with my colleagues of the Committee, was personally responsible for screening, interviewing, evaluating, and recruiting every single student in IMCB for the whole decade. These students, more than a hundred of them, have been the main work force behind the scientific accomplishments that IMCB was able to make in these years. In addition, I also regularly participated in the screen and interview process of ASTAR scholarship applicants.
It could not have been about spending, because my lab had always been the least expensive one in IMCB to operate. Every year, we spent only a tiny fraction of what the other big spenders of the institute consumed.
Many people have lost their jobs, of course, and it happens all the time. But, when you lose your job because they say you are no good, you would want to know what they mean by that, right? I bet in most cases, you will be given a warning letter first with the reason specified on it. In case you are kicked out without a warning, you will still be given a reason, even just an excuse, as to why they think you deserve this. Be it lack of skill, lack of knowledge, lack of teamwork, or lack of mental strength, whatever. At least something. Something comprehensible so you can mull over it after you run out of your Kodak-moment memories to flash back to in the middle of the night when you can not sleep. Something specific so you can apply for government grants to attend skill enhancement courses to improve on it before you end up having to dish out $280 from your own shallow pocket for a taxi driver’s training class.
But they never gave me anything specific. How could I defend myself when I didn’t even know what I was charged with? I was simply deemed guilty without trial. They can do that because they represent the system. They are the pooh-bahs of the government agency controlling billions of dollars of the country’s annual budget. They are so important that our country just cannot live without.
When you get picked on by the system, you are truly out of luck, because you have no chance to defend yourself, civil or otherwise.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
May 15, 2009. Friday: Biting the bullet
After midnight, a Singaporean man boarded my taxi on Duxton Hill, one of the popular nighttime hangouts in town. He sat in the back seat and told me to go to “Kang Bahru”.
His words sounded strange so I sought confirmation, “Are you saying Tiong Bahru, Sir?” He said “Kang Bahru” once again, and affixed a “yes” in the end. So I started driving towards Tiong Bahru without giving a second thought to his weird pronunciation.
He was of medium height, in his late thirties or early forties, and wore a striped, short sleeved shirt, tucked in a dark colored pair of slacks. In the mirror, his face looked puffy and pale. His eyes were lifeless but not sleepy. He fixed his stares on the streets outside the window. There was a smell of alcohol in his breath, not stinky strong but unmistakable.
The route to Tiong Bahru via Cantonment was short and straightforward. After I passed Eu Tong Sen Street, however, the man said abruptly, “Hey, where are you going?”
I looked at him in the mirror and said, “You said you are going to Tiong Bahru. Right?”
“Kang Bahru is this way.” He pointed to the left.
“No. Tiong Bahru is this way.” I pointed straight ahead.
“I never said Tiong Bahru! I said Kang Bahru…, Kang…, Kampong Bahru!” He stuttered on the name of the street for a few seconds before he finally got it right. He had said it wrongly all along.
I braked to a stop and said, “Okay, this is not my fault. Kampong is a two syllable word and you didn’t say it that way in the beginning.” But I didn’t want to get on this guy’s nerves at this hour of the night. So I quickly added. “Never mind. It’s not a big deal. I will just make a U turn now.” I started to move to the right lane to make a U turn.
“Are you calling me a liar?” The man said belligerently, and stiffened his body away from the back of the seat, totally ignoring the goodwill I had shown him.
“I haven’t called you anything.” I tried to calm him down. “I am only saying if you have told me the street name correctly, we wouldn’t have to make this little detour.”
“Don’t you dare argue with me!” The man suddenly pitched his voice high. “When I talk to you, you face down!”
“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
I stopped the car, and turned to stare into his eyes, “What did you just say?”
Like a spear piercing through his forehead, my glare instantly stunned him, and sank him into the back seat.
He gawked at me soullessly, and murmured, “What?”
“You said ‘when I talk to you, you face down’.” I said through my teeth.
“No, I didn’t. I never said that.” The man mumbled. All the aggressiveness he showed a moment ago had drained dry. He now looked like a ten year old caught for shoplifting.
I suddenly felt sorry for him. I quickly turned round to the steering wheel, and said, “Forget it. You want to go to Kampong Bahru, right? I take you to Kampong Bahru. Let’s just get this over with.” I started the car again.
As if a dead fire came alive again, the man swiftly recovered from his momentary defeat after he realized that I wasn’t going to do anything to him. He sat up and started raising his voice again. “So what! Huh? Is ‘face down’ such a bad word? Is ‘face down’ such a bad thing to say? Yes. I said that! So what! Did I ever scold you? Did I ever say fxxk you? Huh? Stop the car! Answer me!” He was shouting and screaming hysterically now.
No matter how crazy and intimidating he made himself look like, I remained silent and continued driving. I decided not to be bothered by him anymore. I knew he was just a 银样腊枪头, (silver blade made of wax) as we call it in Chinese and I could easily scare the shit out of him again, if I wanted to. There is an abundance of this type of people around us, who are like those small puppies that bark at you ferociously when you pass by their homes. As soon as you turn to face them and give them a stern look, they sit back and shut their mouths. Of course, they will jump up and bark at you again after you turn your back to them. To people like this, I always want to turn my back and walk away as soon as I can. If I ever pause my footstep and turn around to spook off an annoying, empty threat, it will always be to a cute little puppy dog.
My unresponsiveness to his provocation, however, was only perceived by him as an exhibition of weakness. He pressed home his advantage by escalating the level of intimidation: Now on every screaming word, he slapped his hand forcefully on the top of the leather seat in front of him, making a loud, deafening sound like gunfire next to my ear.
I bit the bullet and kept the car moving.
When I made the turn at the junction, he saw the building of Cantonment police headquarter on the corner. He screamed his slapping-accented demands rhythmically and frantically. “Go to the police station! I have got time to deal with you. Go! Go! Turn into the carpark! I order you! Go!”
His hand surely hurt like hell by now.
At the entrance of the police carpark, a policeman was standing on duty. He was an Indian, wearing a turban on his head, and looked to be quite senior, at least in his forties. I pulled over next to him and lowered the window. He leaned down and asked me, “Want to come in?”
“He is drunk.” Finding comfort in the presence of a policeman, I said in a mild and well composed tone. “And making trouble for me. What should I do?”
“Do you want to file a report?” The policeman asked.
“No. I don’t have time for that.” I said.
“Officer.” The man in the back quickly intervened. “I am not drunk. This driver made a mistake and drove me on a wrong way. And he’s got a bad temper. He accused me of saying ‘face down’ to him. Officer, is ‘face down’ really a bad word?”
“Where do you want to go?” The policeman asked him, ignoring his question.
“Kampong Bahru.”
“Are you going to the pubs there?” He pointed to the cluster of colorfully lit shophouses about a hundred yards away.
“Yes.”
The policeman now turned to me and said. “Why don’t you drop him off there and give him some discount?”
I said I wasn’t the one who had problem with it, and moved on.
Ten or twenty seconds later, I stopped outside of a bar on Kampong Bahru. The meter fare was more than $8. I told him that he could just pay me $5. He took out a $5 note, but yanked it beyond my grasp when I reached for it. He stared at me and said, “Answer me. Is ‘face down’ such a bad word?”
“Why don’t you just keep your money and get out?” I said to him emotionlessly.
He threw the note on the front passenger seat and said, “Man, I tell you. You’ve got a bad attitude! Bad, bad attitude!” He didn’t seem to want to leave just yet, as if he still had unfinished business with me, but left finally after a brief moment of indecision.
However despicable and condemnable his behavior was, which may or may not be influenced by his blood alcohol concentration at the time, he got away with his criminal abuse of me triumphantly, partly because I let him. I didn’t file a police report on him. But even if I did, I doubt it would make any difference. It’s ultimately my words against his. He wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t crazy, and he wasn’t stupid, and he knew that if it comes to my words against his, he is in a sure-win position. The fact that he hysterically “ordered” me to go to the police station showed how confident he was that he would be favorably taken care of by the system, counting on his higher social status to give his words more credibility than that of a cabdriver in the eyes of police officers. The Sikh policeman, being as professional as any policeman can be, believed instantaneously in his words about my driving him in a wrong way and blatantly requested a discount on his behalf, even though in actual fact it was not at all my fault. It is taken for granted by the policeman, or the authorities in general for that matter, that if someone has to make a sacrifice in order to settle the problem at hand, it has to be one of those who have lower social rankings and therefore are less important to the economy, besides, of course, they are also so used to making sacrifices all along in their lives that just one more of it is always “affordable” to them.
I am sure this man has done to others many times in the past what he did to me, and he will do it again, even more uninhibitedly, as his confidence will be further boosted by the encounter tonight. To people like him, the pleasure, the ecstasy, the exhilaration, the nerve terminal stimulation they experienced from bullying and intimidating the “socially inferior” and getting away with it, is just too sweet to resist. It’s as addictive as cocaine and heroin. For those who live at the bottom of the society and labor hard from dawn to dusk to make their ends meet, what options do they have when they are faced with bullies like that? They have no choice but to bite the bullet, because the system is not on their side when it comes to words against words. This is the cold, hard fact of this mundane world we live in.
For me, besides biting the bullet, I document the encounter and post it on my blog.
His words sounded strange so I sought confirmation, “Are you saying Tiong Bahru, Sir?” He said “Kang Bahru” once again, and affixed a “yes” in the end. So I started driving towards Tiong Bahru without giving a second thought to his weird pronunciation.
He was of medium height, in his late thirties or early forties, and wore a striped, short sleeved shirt, tucked in a dark colored pair of slacks. In the mirror, his face looked puffy and pale. His eyes were lifeless but not sleepy. He fixed his stares on the streets outside the window. There was a smell of alcohol in his breath, not stinky strong but unmistakable.
The route to Tiong Bahru via Cantonment was short and straightforward. After I passed Eu Tong Sen Street, however, the man said abruptly, “Hey, where are you going?”
I looked at him in the mirror and said, “You said you are going to Tiong Bahru. Right?”
“Kang Bahru is this way.” He pointed to the left.
“No. Tiong Bahru is this way.” I pointed straight ahead.
“I never said Tiong Bahru! I said Kang Bahru…, Kang…, Kampong Bahru!” He stuttered on the name of the street for a few seconds before he finally got it right. He had said it wrongly all along.
I braked to a stop and said, “Okay, this is not my fault. Kampong is a two syllable word and you didn’t say it that way in the beginning.” But I didn’t want to get on this guy’s nerves at this hour of the night. So I quickly added. “Never mind. It’s not a big deal. I will just make a U turn now.” I started to move to the right lane to make a U turn.
“Are you calling me a liar?” The man said belligerently, and stiffened his body away from the back of the seat, totally ignoring the goodwill I had shown him.
“I haven’t called you anything.” I tried to calm him down. “I am only saying if you have told me the street name correctly, we wouldn’t have to make this little detour.”
“Don’t you dare argue with me!” The man suddenly pitched his voice high. “When I talk to you, you face down!”
“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
I stopped the car, and turned to stare into his eyes, “What did you just say?”
Like a spear piercing through his forehead, my glare instantly stunned him, and sank him into the back seat.
He gawked at me soullessly, and murmured, “What?”
“You said ‘when I talk to you, you face down’.” I said through my teeth.
“No, I didn’t. I never said that.” The man mumbled. All the aggressiveness he showed a moment ago had drained dry. He now looked like a ten year old caught for shoplifting.
I suddenly felt sorry for him. I quickly turned round to the steering wheel, and said, “Forget it. You want to go to Kampong Bahru, right? I take you to Kampong Bahru. Let’s just get this over with.” I started the car again.
As if a dead fire came alive again, the man swiftly recovered from his momentary defeat after he realized that I wasn’t going to do anything to him. He sat up and started raising his voice again. “So what! Huh? Is ‘face down’ such a bad word? Is ‘face down’ such a bad thing to say? Yes. I said that! So what! Did I ever scold you? Did I ever say fxxk you? Huh? Stop the car! Answer me!” He was shouting and screaming hysterically now.
No matter how crazy and intimidating he made himself look like, I remained silent and continued driving. I decided not to be bothered by him anymore. I knew he was just a 银样腊枪头, (silver blade made of wax) as we call it in Chinese and I could easily scare the shit out of him again, if I wanted to. There is an abundance of this type of people around us, who are like those small puppies that bark at you ferociously when you pass by their homes. As soon as you turn to face them and give them a stern look, they sit back and shut their mouths. Of course, they will jump up and bark at you again after you turn your back to them. To people like this, I always want to turn my back and walk away as soon as I can. If I ever pause my footstep and turn around to spook off an annoying, empty threat, it will always be to a cute little puppy dog.
My unresponsiveness to his provocation, however, was only perceived by him as an exhibition of weakness. He pressed home his advantage by escalating the level of intimidation: Now on every screaming word, he slapped his hand forcefully on the top of the leather seat in front of him, making a loud, deafening sound like gunfire next to my ear.
I bit the bullet and kept the car moving.
When I made the turn at the junction, he saw the building of Cantonment police headquarter on the corner. He screamed his slapping-accented demands rhythmically and frantically. “Go to the police station! I have got time to deal with you. Go! Go! Turn into the carpark! I order you! Go!”
His hand surely hurt like hell by now.
At the entrance of the police carpark, a policeman was standing on duty. He was an Indian, wearing a turban on his head, and looked to be quite senior, at least in his forties. I pulled over next to him and lowered the window. He leaned down and asked me, “Want to come in?”
“He is drunk.” Finding comfort in the presence of a policeman, I said in a mild and well composed tone. “And making trouble for me. What should I do?”
“Do you want to file a report?” The policeman asked.
“No. I don’t have time for that.” I said.
“Officer.” The man in the back quickly intervened. “I am not drunk. This driver made a mistake and drove me on a wrong way. And he’s got a bad temper. He accused me of saying ‘face down’ to him. Officer, is ‘face down’ really a bad word?”
“Where do you want to go?” The policeman asked him, ignoring his question.
“Kampong Bahru.”
“Are you going to the pubs there?” He pointed to the cluster of colorfully lit shophouses about a hundred yards away.
“Yes.”
The policeman now turned to me and said. “Why don’t you drop him off there and give him some discount?”
I said I wasn’t the one who had problem with it, and moved on.
Ten or twenty seconds later, I stopped outside of a bar on Kampong Bahru. The meter fare was more than $8. I told him that he could just pay me $5. He took out a $5 note, but yanked it beyond my grasp when I reached for it. He stared at me and said, “Answer me. Is ‘face down’ such a bad word?”
“Why don’t you just keep your money and get out?” I said to him emotionlessly.
He threw the note on the front passenger seat and said, “Man, I tell you. You’ve got a bad attitude! Bad, bad attitude!” He didn’t seem to want to leave just yet, as if he still had unfinished business with me, but left finally after a brief moment of indecision.
However despicable and condemnable his behavior was, which may or may not be influenced by his blood alcohol concentration at the time, he got away with his criminal abuse of me triumphantly, partly because I let him. I didn’t file a police report on him. But even if I did, I doubt it would make any difference. It’s ultimately my words against his. He wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t crazy, and he wasn’t stupid, and he knew that if it comes to my words against his, he is in a sure-win position. The fact that he hysterically “ordered” me to go to the police station showed how confident he was that he would be favorably taken care of by the system, counting on his higher social status to give his words more credibility than that of a cabdriver in the eyes of police officers. The Sikh policeman, being as professional as any policeman can be, believed instantaneously in his words about my driving him in a wrong way and blatantly requested a discount on his behalf, even though in actual fact it was not at all my fault. It is taken for granted by the policeman, or the authorities in general for that matter, that if someone has to make a sacrifice in order to settle the problem at hand, it has to be one of those who have lower social rankings and therefore are less important to the economy, besides, of course, they are also so used to making sacrifices all along in their lives that just one more of it is always “affordable” to them.
I am sure this man has done to others many times in the past what he did to me, and he will do it again, even more uninhibitedly, as his confidence will be further boosted by the encounter tonight. To people like him, the pleasure, the ecstasy, the exhilaration, the nerve terminal stimulation they experienced from bullying and intimidating the “socially inferior” and getting away with it, is just too sweet to resist. It’s as addictive as cocaine and heroin. For those who live at the bottom of the society and labor hard from dawn to dusk to make their ends meet, what options do they have when they are faced with bullies like that? They have no choice but to bite the bullet, because the system is not on their side when it comes to words against words. This is the cold, hard fact of this mundane world we live in.
For me, besides biting the bullet, I document the encounter and post it on my blog.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
May 14, 2009. Thursday: A forgotten box
A tall and slim white man in his mid thirties and a Chinese lady a few years his junior were chitchatting on the side of the Anson Road when I stopped in front of them shortly after 8pm. The lady got in first while the guy lifted a cardboard box from the ground and placed it in the trunk. He then came in and told me to go to two places both of which were on Upper Bukit Timah.
Dressed in impeccable business attire, they appeared to be colleagues from a same work place, some accounting firm. He was a European and she a Singaporean. Their conversation was about office politics and the woman did most of the talking. It was obvious to me that she tried her best to impress the guy by showing off what she must have thought was a sharp and witty perception of what was going on in their firm, viewed from her morally high but emotionally detached vantage point and presented in carefully decontaminated Singlish. The European guy, being a well bred gentleman, offered his spiritual support by occasionally saying “yes, I agree.” Or, “Yeah, that’s true.” Or words to that effect.
After I dropped them off one after the other, I decided to drive directly back to the city via Bt Timah Road. Lately, I have set a target of at least five CBD trips per evening for myself. By adhering to this strategy, my daily earnings have seen a noticeable improvement in recent days. As I stopped before the red light at the Bt Timah/Bencoolen junction, staring obliviously at a televised commercial on a giant screen, I was suddenly awakened to the cruel fact that the European man had forgotten to take his box with him when he alighted! I had to go back! I cursed loudly as I made a U-turn to head to where I just came from.
I stopped outside the gate of the condo where I dropped the white man off. I got out and approached the security guard. I asked him if he remembered a tall white man who strode in not long ago. “When’s that?” The guard, a Malay man in his fifties, asked as he rolled his eyes at me from a newspaper in front of him.
“About half an hour ago.” I said.
“I wasn’t here half an hour ago. I just got here no more than ten minutes.” He went back to his newspaper before he finished the sentence.
“Who is the guard before you?” I felt I was getting butterflies in my stomach.
“It’s a lady.” He answered without looking at me.
“Where is she?”
“She is away. She will be back later.”
I cursed again as I walked back to the car. I opened the trunk and took out the box. Gosh, it was heavy. I set it down on the cement ground below the window of the guardhouse and examined it closely.
It was sealed in its nondescript, original packaging. There was no label to indicate what was inside. It seemed to fit perfectly to the circumstance of the “suspicious objects” that the lady in the loudspeakers of MRT trains/stations constantly reminds us of. But the name of the manufacturer printed on the box suggested that it was unlikely an explosive or a biological warfare agent. It should be some kind of electronic equipment. And probably an expensive one as well. I thought about leaving it to this security guard, but the idea was immediately overruled. This stuff looked too valuable to be entrusted to a guy who paid more attention to his newspapers than to an anxious cabdriver looking urgently for one of his residents. Besides, he couldn’t identify the man this box rightfully belonged to. I had no choice but to wait for the lady guard to return.
My patience grew thinner by the minute. Finally, I approached the male guard again. I asked if he could contact the lady guard by phone and he said he could not. I asked where she had gone to and he said she was in the garage supervising some repair works. I asked him to go get her for me and he said he could not leave his post. I said I would watch the gate for him while he was gone and he said he really couldn’t do that. I said if he didn’t get the lady guard here in one minute I would leave immediately and this resident would be so pissed that he would be sure as hell to do everything possible to have him fired. He raised his head to stare at me for a moment to make sure I meant what I said. Then he stood up, walked out of the guardhouse and disappeared into the basement parking garage.
A few minutes later, an Indian lady in a guard uniform hastened towards me from the basement driveway. She asked me what was the matter and I told her that I needed to find the white man who came in about 30 or 40 minutes ago because he had left his stuff in my taxi. “That angmo guy? He is always forgetful.” She laughed. “You wait here and I go to tell him.” She headed to the lift lobby.
In another ten or so minutes, the white man finally emerged. He was dressed in boxer shorts and a T shirt and was apparently just out of a shower with his hair still dripping water beads on his cheeks. He waltzed over and said to me in an apologetic tone, “Sorry, I totally forgot about it.” He smacked his forehead with an open hand, a gesture either to curtail his embarrassment or wipe off some water on his face, or both.
“Yeah. Well. I forgot about it, too.” I said as I glanced at his outfit.
He stood in front of me, and seemed to be struggling to hold something on the tip of his tongue. His eyes flickered away from me.
“Here is your box.” I said to him.
He thanked me, and was about to move over to it. I stalled him by saying, solemnly, “I know this is as much my fault as it is yours. Nevertheless, since I have come a long way to return it to you, it would be nice if you could….”
“Here, take this.” He interrupted me and opened his hand. There was a $10 note lying in the center of his sweaty palm, crumpled in a ball. He had it all along. He briefly straightened the damp note before he handed it to me.
I took the money and thanked him, and left.
Dressed in impeccable business attire, they appeared to be colleagues from a same work place, some accounting firm. He was a European and she a Singaporean. Their conversation was about office politics and the woman did most of the talking. It was obvious to me that she tried her best to impress the guy by showing off what she must have thought was a sharp and witty perception of what was going on in their firm, viewed from her morally high but emotionally detached vantage point and presented in carefully decontaminated Singlish. The European guy, being a well bred gentleman, offered his spiritual support by occasionally saying “yes, I agree.” Or, “Yeah, that’s true.” Or words to that effect.
After I dropped them off one after the other, I decided to drive directly back to the city via Bt Timah Road. Lately, I have set a target of at least five CBD trips per evening for myself. By adhering to this strategy, my daily earnings have seen a noticeable improvement in recent days. As I stopped before the red light at the Bt Timah/Bencoolen junction, staring obliviously at a televised commercial on a giant screen, I was suddenly awakened to the cruel fact that the European man had forgotten to take his box with him when he alighted! I had to go back! I cursed loudly as I made a U-turn to head to where I just came from.
I stopped outside the gate of the condo where I dropped the white man off. I got out and approached the security guard. I asked him if he remembered a tall white man who strode in not long ago. “When’s that?” The guard, a Malay man in his fifties, asked as he rolled his eyes at me from a newspaper in front of him.
“About half an hour ago.” I said.
“I wasn’t here half an hour ago. I just got here no more than ten minutes.” He went back to his newspaper before he finished the sentence.
“Who is the guard before you?” I felt I was getting butterflies in my stomach.
“It’s a lady.” He answered without looking at me.
“Where is she?”
“She is away. She will be back later.”
I cursed again as I walked back to the car. I opened the trunk and took out the box. Gosh, it was heavy. I set it down on the cement ground below the window of the guardhouse and examined it closely.
It was sealed in its nondescript, original packaging. There was no label to indicate what was inside. It seemed to fit perfectly to the circumstance of the “suspicious objects” that the lady in the loudspeakers of MRT trains/stations constantly reminds us of. But the name of the manufacturer printed on the box suggested that it was unlikely an explosive or a biological warfare agent. It should be some kind of electronic equipment. And probably an expensive one as well. I thought about leaving it to this security guard, but the idea was immediately overruled. This stuff looked too valuable to be entrusted to a guy who paid more attention to his newspapers than to an anxious cabdriver looking urgently for one of his residents. Besides, he couldn’t identify the man this box rightfully belonged to. I had no choice but to wait for the lady guard to return.
My patience grew thinner by the minute. Finally, I approached the male guard again. I asked if he could contact the lady guard by phone and he said he could not. I asked where she had gone to and he said she was in the garage supervising some repair works. I asked him to go get her for me and he said he could not leave his post. I said I would watch the gate for him while he was gone and he said he really couldn’t do that. I said if he didn’t get the lady guard here in one minute I would leave immediately and this resident would be so pissed that he would be sure as hell to do everything possible to have him fired. He raised his head to stare at me for a moment to make sure I meant what I said. Then he stood up, walked out of the guardhouse and disappeared into the basement parking garage.
A few minutes later, an Indian lady in a guard uniform hastened towards me from the basement driveway. She asked me what was the matter and I told her that I needed to find the white man who came in about 30 or 40 minutes ago because he had left his stuff in my taxi. “That angmo guy? He is always forgetful.” She laughed. “You wait here and I go to tell him.” She headed to the lift lobby.
In another ten or so minutes, the white man finally emerged. He was dressed in boxer shorts and a T shirt and was apparently just out of a shower with his hair still dripping water beads on his cheeks. He waltzed over and said to me in an apologetic tone, “Sorry, I totally forgot about it.” He smacked his forehead with an open hand, a gesture either to curtail his embarrassment or wipe off some water on his face, or both.
“Yeah. Well. I forgot about it, too.” I said as I glanced at his outfit.
He stood in front of me, and seemed to be struggling to hold something on the tip of his tongue. His eyes flickered away from me.
“Here is your box.” I said to him.
He thanked me, and was about to move over to it. I stalled him by saying, solemnly, “I know this is as much my fault as it is yours. Nevertheless, since I have come a long way to return it to you, it would be nice if you could….”
“Here, take this.” He interrupted me and opened his hand. There was a $10 note lying in the center of his sweaty palm, crumpled in a ball. He had it all along. He briefly straightened the damp note before he handed it to me.
I took the money and thanked him, and left.
Monday, October 12, 2009
May 12, 2009 Tuesday: Indecent proposal
Around midnight on Jalan Besar, I was flagged down by a young woman. She took the back seat and told me in Chinese to go to Hougang.
She was in her mid or late twenties, wearing a tight, light color, spaghetti string singlet and a pair of denim shorts that were so small they could pass for a pair of underwear. Although this was a pretty common outdoor getup among teenage ladies in Singapore, it was also a standard dress code for bar girls.
I knew because I had one time driven a KTV girl a round trip who was ordered by her boss to go home to change for something “appropriate”. She went in jeans and tank top and came back dressed in exactly the same way as this woman now sitting behind me.
Sure enough, the woman told me that she worked in a pub near where I picked her up. Today, she said, the business was very slow. The pub was almost empty for the whole evening. As she didn’t get any chance to sit with customers, she was asked to leave “early”.
I was not surprised. “What do you expect on a Tuesday night?” I said nonchalantly. “Worse still, Jalan Besar isn’t exactly a hotspot for night owls. Maybe you should switch to somewhere with a better location.”
She sighed but said nothing in return. I stole a glance at her in the mirror. She looked she had fallen into a sea of unhappy memories. I started to regret the tone I had just used.
After a few moments, she began to tell me that she came to Singapore a couple weeks ago from Fujian, China. She did not know anybody here except a few folks from her hometown. And she could not speak any English. She was able to find a job in this pub only because one of her hometown friends helped her. The job paid peanuts, relying mainly on the handout of the customers, and was very inconvenient to get to by public transport from her place, which she paid $300 a month for a bed in a room she shared with two other girls. She had no choice but to be stuck with both the working and living situations she was blessed with at the moment. She felt she wanted to tell me about it because I was “the first taxi driver from China” she had met, she said.
I knew too many stories like that. I knew how they came, how they got stuck, and how they were carried away by the murky undercurrent beneath the dazzling glory of this place. I heard them time and again so that I had grown immune to the tormenting feelings generated by them. “Yes, I know. I know.” I muttered to her as much as to myself.
As I stopped outside her residence, an old condo, the meter showed a fare of $12. She slowly opened her purse while asked me if I could give her some discount. “I didn’t get any tips today.” She said. “I come home empty-handed.”
I chewed on it for a moment and said, “Okay. $10 will do.”
She took out a $10 note from her bag and said, “This is all I have. I give you this I will go hungry tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t believe you.” I said. “It can’t be that bad.”
“You can see for yourself.” She opened her bag in front of my face and went through the stuff inside. There were keys, some makeup things, a small pack of tissue paper, a phone, and a wallet which contained nothing but some plastic cards. No money. She then patted her pockets, which were set so tightly on her hips that it was obvious there’s nothing in there.
She leaned forward and placed her elbows on the top of the front seats, and said in an undertone, “You are a nice man. I want to be a friend with you.”
I turned and gazed at her. She held my look with a slight smile. I looked away and said, “No matter what you say, you still have to pay for the fare.”
“I will be your girlfriend.” She said softly into my ear. “All you need to do is ju….”
“I am an old man and I don’t need a girlfriend.” I quickly cut her off.
“Wrong. Old men especially need girlfriends!” She said with laughter.
“No!” I turned to her again and said forcefully, “I said no! Okay? Just give me the money!”
“You don’t like me?” She was startled by my anger and hurriedly took out the $10 and handed it to me.
I took the money and gave her back a $5 and said, “This should be enough for your breakfast. Now go home.”
She accepted the money and gave me a long, steadfast look before she stepped out.
I felt I was carrying a terrible weight on my heart as I drove away.
….
She was in her mid or late twenties, wearing a tight, light color, spaghetti string singlet and a pair of denim shorts that were so small they could pass for a pair of underwear. Although this was a pretty common outdoor getup among teenage ladies in Singapore, it was also a standard dress code for bar girls.
I knew because I had one time driven a KTV girl a round trip who was ordered by her boss to go home to change for something “appropriate”. She went in jeans and tank top and came back dressed in exactly the same way as this woman now sitting behind me.
Sure enough, the woman told me that she worked in a pub near where I picked her up. Today, she said, the business was very slow. The pub was almost empty for the whole evening. As she didn’t get any chance to sit with customers, she was asked to leave “early”.
I was not surprised. “What do you expect on a Tuesday night?” I said nonchalantly. “Worse still, Jalan Besar isn’t exactly a hotspot for night owls. Maybe you should switch to somewhere with a better location.”
She sighed but said nothing in return. I stole a glance at her in the mirror. She looked she had fallen into a sea of unhappy memories. I started to regret the tone I had just used.
After a few moments, she began to tell me that she came to Singapore a couple weeks ago from Fujian, China. She did not know anybody here except a few folks from her hometown. And she could not speak any English. She was able to find a job in this pub only because one of her hometown friends helped her. The job paid peanuts, relying mainly on the handout of the customers, and was very inconvenient to get to by public transport from her place, which she paid $300 a month for a bed in a room she shared with two other girls. She had no choice but to be stuck with both the working and living situations she was blessed with at the moment. She felt she wanted to tell me about it because I was “the first taxi driver from China” she had met, she said.
I knew too many stories like that. I knew how they came, how they got stuck, and how they were carried away by the murky undercurrent beneath the dazzling glory of this place. I heard them time and again so that I had grown immune to the tormenting feelings generated by them. “Yes, I know. I know.” I muttered to her as much as to myself.
As I stopped outside her residence, an old condo, the meter showed a fare of $12. She slowly opened her purse while asked me if I could give her some discount. “I didn’t get any tips today.” She said. “I come home empty-handed.”
I chewed on it for a moment and said, “Okay. $10 will do.”
She took out a $10 note from her bag and said, “This is all I have. I give you this I will go hungry tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t believe you.” I said. “It can’t be that bad.”
“You can see for yourself.” She opened her bag in front of my face and went through the stuff inside. There were keys, some makeup things, a small pack of tissue paper, a phone, and a wallet which contained nothing but some plastic cards. No money. She then patted her pockets, which were set so tightly on her hips that it was obvious there’s nothing in there.
She leaned forward and placed her elbows on the top of the front seats, and said in an undertone, “You are a nice man. I want to be a friend with you.”
I turned and gazed at her. She held my look with a slight smile. I looked away and said, “No matter what you say, you still have to pay for the fare.”
“I will be your girlfriend.” She said softly into my ear. “All you need to do is ju….”
“I am an old man and I don’t need a girlfriend.” I quickly cut her off.
“Wrong. Old men especially need girlfriends!” She said with laughter.
“No!” I turned to her again and said forcefully, “I said no! Okay? Just give me the money!”
“You don’t like me?” She was startled by my anger and hurriedly took out the $10 and handed it to me.
I took the money and gave her back a $5 and said, “This should be enough for your breakfast. Now go home.”
She accepted the money and gave me a long, steadfast look before she stepped out.
I felt I was carrying a terrible weight on my heart as I drove away.
….
Friday, October 9, 2009
May 8, 2009. Friday: A drunk man
Two and half in the morning. On my way home, I saw a man wobbling along Cross Street in Chinatown. He stopped me when he saw me and threw himself on the back seat while murmured “Ang Mo Kio Ave 9”.
After I arrived at AMK Ave 9, I asked, “Where is your place?” But there was no answer. I turned to see that the man was sound asleep. I pitched my voice higher as I repeated the question. No use. He was as motionless as a hibernating bear. I pulled over at the curb and got out of my seat.
I opened the door to the back seat, and patted on his shoulder. “Wake up, man.” There was no response. I patted harder. And harder. Still couldn’t wake him up. I tried to set him upright but it proved to be a very arduous task. The man was about my height but he was much wider, and heavier. With all the energy I had left with me after a long day’s work, I finally put him in a sitting position. The man, with his head dropped forward, remained as sound asleep as a newborn baby.
I didn’t know what to do now. I looked around. The street was quiet and deserted. I stopped the meter first. It seemed awfully inappropriate to charge him for his sleeping time. Then I lit a cigarette and contemplated my options. After a while, another taxi appeared. I leaped forward to stop it. I told the driver of a Comfort taxi that I got a drunk customer in my car who couldn’t be awakened. I asked him what he would suggest me to do. “Call the police” was all he said before he sped off.
“Call the police.” That seems to be the solution to all the problems we taxi drivers have. As I was thinking about it, a phone rang. It’s the dead man’s phone. I hastily searched his pockets and found the phone, and quickly pressed the answer button.
“Hi,” it was a woman’s voice.
“Hello,” I said gratefully, “I am the taxi driver with your friend here. He is sleeping and I can’t wake him up. Do you know where his home is?”
The woman said she was so sorry about her husband and asked me to take him to a condo on Ave 9. “After you reach here, you come to block xx, and I will meet you at the entrance of the building.” She said.
The condo was actually nearby. I went directly to the block the lady had told me. And waited. Ten minutes passed and still no sight of the woman. I took out the phone from the man’s pocket and called her again.
“You are here already?” She sounded surprised. I realized I didn’t tell her that I was in the neighborhood last time we spoke. “I am coming down now.” She said.
A minute later, a woman in her late twenties emerged in shorts and T shirt. She didn’t look like she had been sleeping. She had probably been waiting for her husband for all night long.
She apologized to me and paid the fare first, and went to wake up the man in the car. She did everything she could, shaking, pulling, slapping, grabbing, shouting. It was, however, all in vain. The man was as lifeless as a trunk of wood, only now in a level position again.
Exhausted at last, the woman acknowledged to me that she would go upstairs to get their maid to help her. The maid, seemed to be a Filipino, was much more skillful than any of us. She bent down and squeezed the nose of the man and that did the trick. The man finally came back to the real world. He still couldn’t walk properly, though. Sandwiched between two ladies, he was half-carried to the elevator.
I looked at my watch. It was almost 5 o’clock. “What a waste.” I sighed, and drove away.
After I arrived at AMK Ave 9, I asked, “Where is your place?” But there was no answer. I turned to see that the man was sound asleep. I pitched my voice higher as I repeated the question. No use. He was as motionless as a hibernating bear. I pulled over at the curb and got out of my seat.
I opened the door to the back seat, and patted on his shoulder. “Wake up, man.” There was no response. I patted harder. And harder. Still couldn’t wake him up. I tried to set him upright but it proved to be a very arduous task. The man was about my height but he was much wider, and heavier. With all the energy I had left with me after a long day’s work, I finally put him in a sitting position. The man, with his head dropped forward, remained as sound asleep as a newborn baby.
I didn’t know what to do now. I looked around. The street was quiet and deserted. I stopped the meter first. It seemed awfully inappropriate to charge him for his sleeping time. Then I lit a cigarette and contemplated my options. After a while, another taxi appeared. I leaped forward to stop it. I told the driver of a Comfort taxi that I got a drunk customer in my car who couldn’t be awakened. I asked him what he would suggest me to do. “Call the police” was all he said before he sped off.
“Call the police.” That seems to be the solution to all the problems we taxi drivers have. As I was thinking about it, a phone rang. It’s the dead man’s phone. I hastily searched his pockets and found the phone, and quickly pressed the answer button.
“Hi,” it was a woman’s voice.
“Hello,” I said gratefully, “I am the taxi driver with your friend here. He is sleeping and I can’t wake him up. Do you know where his home is?”
The woman said she was so sorry about her husband and asked me to take him to a condo on Ave 9. “After you reach here, you come to block xx, and I will meet you at the entrance of the building.” She said.
The condo was actually nearby. I went directly to the block the lady had told me. And waited. Ten minutes passed and still no sight of the woman. I took out the phone from the man’s pocket and called her again.
“You are here already?” She sounded surprised. I realized I didn’t tell her that I was in the neighborhood last time we spoke. “I am coming down now.” She said.
A minute later, a woman in her late twenties emerged in shorts and T shirt. She didn’t look like she had been sleeping. She had probably been waiting for her husband for all night long.
She apologized to me and paid the fare first, and went to wake up the man in the car. She did everything she could, shaking, pulling, slapping, grabbing, shouting. It was, however, all in vain. The man was as lifeless as a trunk of wood, only now in a level position again.
Exhausted at last, the woman acknowledged to me that she would go upstairs to get their maid to help her. The maid, seemed to be a Filipino, was much more skillful than any of us. She bent down and squeezed the nose of the man and that did the trick. The man finally came back to the real world. He still couldn’t walk properly, though. Sandwiched between two ladies, he was half-carried to the elevator.
I looked at my watch. It was almost 5 o’clock. “What a waste.” I sighed, and drove away.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
