Let's Give It Up for Gimme Lao!

by Sebastian Sim

  Gimme Lao noticed that Elizabeth began to spend more and more time with his mother. She would let herself in through the door shortly after dinner, and Gimme Lao’s father would want to bring Gimme Lao for a stroll around the night market. Upon their return, they sometimes heard tiny sobs emerging from the bedroom. It would be close to midnight when Elizabeth emerged, her eyes often puffy and swollen.

  At one point, Gimme Lao’s father bought a roll-up mattress and told Gimme Lao that the two of them would have to sleep in the living room for a while. Elizabeth would be returning from the hospital and recuperating in the bedroom. When Gimme Lao asked if Elizabeth was ill, Gimme Lao’s father said no. She had simply made a mistake and needed the doctor at the hospital to help remove the mistake. That was also the reason Elizabeth wasn’t sleeping next door. Grandma Toh was furious with her, and the two should not see too much of each other for the time being.

  Even Gimme Lao could tell that Grandma Toh was in a consistently foul mood. He did not quite understand the tirade Grandma Toh launched in the presence of Elizabeth, nor her bemoaning in the company of Aunty Seah. He kept hearing the term ‘Red-Haired Ape’ mentioned repeatedly and so learnt to mumble it under his breath until he mastered the intonation and started spitting it out vehemently in the manner of Grandma Toh. Aunty Seah shushed him fiercely. When he did not stop, Grandma Toh grabbed him by the arm and pinched him hard with the sharp end of her nails. Through the confusion of his howling and weeping, he thought he heard Grandma Toh threaten to drown him in the water barrel along with the blue-eyed baby Elizabeth was carrying.

  THREE

  WHEN GIMME LAO was six, he fell in love with his kindergarten teacher. Her name was Foo Swee Peng, and she told the entire class she thought Gimme was the best student she had ever taught. Before the year was over, Miss Foo secretly wished she hadn’t.

  It all started when a nursing officer from the Ministry of Health came down to the kindergarten to conduct an outreach programme. The children were made to sit on the straw mat in front of a chalkboard, and all were allowed to pick a toothbrush of their choice from a mug that was being passed around. Gimme Lao picked an orange one.

  “Children, a show of hands please. How many of you brush your teeth at home on a daily basis?”

  Of the 26 students in the class, six hands sprouted upwards. Gimme Lao was one of the six.

  “Very good,” the nursing officer said. “I shall now invite these six children to do a demonstration.”

  Miss Foo and the nursing officer lined up the six children in a row and swivelled them to face the crowd. Of the six, a girl in a ponytail found the 20 pairs of eyes staring up at her too intimidating and grimaced as though she was about to cry. Miss Foo quickly approached to allay her fear. In her effort to hold back her tears, the girl lost control of her bladder and her pee streamed down her legs. The cleaning lady had to be summoned to bring the bundle of frayed nerves to the toilet to salvage what remained of her pride.

  “Next, I am going to pass this tube of Colgate toothpaste around and you will show your friends how to squeeze a little bit of it onto your toothbrush. Can you do that for me?”

  As it turned out, two of the five could not. Apparently their mothers took charge of the squeezing procedure back home. The pair of discredited demonstrators were asked to join the 20 uninitiated children on the straw mat.

  “Now we shall watch how the three of them get ready to brush their teeth.” The nursing officer beamed.

  Both Gimme Lao and the girl next to him managed to dispense the requisite glob of toothpaste onto the bristles. The last boy, however, squeezed too hard and the toothpaste streamed down onto the floor. The audience broke out into a paroxysm of giggles.

  “I use Darkie toothpaste at home,” the boy proclaimed loudly, in defence of his botched demonstration.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the nursing officer said. “You need to control your strength so that you do not squeeze too hard. Look how the other two did it.”

  The Darkie user felt insulted and crossed his arms to adopt a sulking posture. Unfortunately, the tube of Colgate toothpaste was pinned between his arm and his chest and the content squirted out onto his shirt. Half of the audience spotted it and broke out into riotous laughter. The other half was infected and laughed too, despite not knowing what exactly it was that they were laughing about. Miss Foo had to summon the cleaning lady again to execute damage containment.

  “Tell the class your names,” the nursing officer prompted the two who remained standing. Gimme Lao thus came to be introduced to Janice Ong, his only worthy opponent in the class of dentally challenged children.

  “Now Janice and Gimme will demonstrate the correct method of brushing their teeth,” the nursing officer announced.

  Gimme Lao kept his eyes on Janice, while Janice kept her eyes on the audience. Both of them started brushing on the front-facing surface. When Gimme Lao moved on to the back of the teeth, Janice was still rotating her bristles in the front. By the time Gimme Lao was brushing horizontally across the chewing surface of his molars, he knew he was teeth-brushing champion. Janice Ong never moved beyond the front.

  The nursing officer made the pair rinse their mouths and promoted Gimme Lao to class monitor for the upcoming public health programme. The children were issued a plastic mug each, and the brushing of teeth would become a daily class routine. Janice Ong was tasked to assist Gimme Lao as his deputy.

  Gimme Lao couldn’t wait to get to school every morning. After Miss Foo led them through the Singapore national anthem, he would station himself at the cabinet and distribute the mugs and toothbrushes to the children. Janice Ong then led them to the toilet in a wiggly line. After the first dozen took up their positions in front of the elongated trough, Gimme and Janice would start from opposite ends and assist to dispense the requisite glob of toothpaste onto the bristles of the multicoloured toothbrushes. Both would supervise the collective brushing and rinsing and then repeat the process with the second lineup of children. Only when everyone was done would Gimme and Janice brush their own teeth.

  Miss Foo was impressed with Gimme Lao. Unlike Janice Ong, who stood and watched and made no comments even when some of the children did it the wrong way, Gimme Lao was hawk-like in the standards of precision he demanded. If a child thought he could get away with one or two cursory swipes across the back of the teeth, Gimme Lao made him do it again. If a pair giggled and teased one another with their mouths full of foam, Gimme Lao shushed them harshly. If they ignored him, Gimme would reposition the two in the lineup so that they would be separated by other serious tooth brushers. Miss Foo did not have to lift a finger to discipline the rowdy children.

  When the same nursing officer came down two months later to promote a second health campaign, Miss Foo did not hesitate to reappoint Gimme Lao as the class monitor. She told the nursing officer, in front of all the children, that she thought Gimme Lao was the best student she had ever taught. That was the moment Gimme Lao fell in love with Miss Foo Swee Peng. It became clear to him that he was right when he demanded proper behaviour from the other children. He must not fail Miss Foo’s expectations.

  The nursing officer showed them several posters to illustrate where germs lurked. The children strained their necks and gaped. They had not known that purple and green discs with malicious eyes and evil grins danced on toilet flush handles and doorknobs. The nursing officer explained that if people who prepared food did not have the habit of washing their hands after using the toilet, these germs would hitch a convenient ride onto the food and into the victim’s stomach. That was how people fell ill.

  What the nursing officer wanted the children to do was to wash their hands regularly. Gimme Lao as the reappointed monitor, would assist Miss Foo and help the class cultivate the habit.

  His new duty required Gimme Lao to station himself at the washing trough after the collective toilet break to supervise the washing of hands. By the third day, he came up to Miss Foo wearing a look of serious concern
and declared that there appeared to be a problem.

  “When Janice flushed the toilet, the germs got onto her hands,” Gimme Lao explained to Miss Foo. “When she turned on the tap, some of the germs got onto the tap. After she washed the germs off her hands, she turned off the tap. Wouldn’t the germs on the tap then get onto her hands again?”

  Miss Foo stared at her star student with wonderment. She now believed there was no limit to how far this boy could go in life! She sat down with Gimme and devised a solution. It was eventually decided that Gimme would take on the added duty to turn off the taps for all the children. When it came time for Gimme himself to wash his hands, Miss Foo would do the honour of turning off the tap with her hand wrapped in her handkerchief. The problem was thus solved.

  Two months later, the nursing officer visited again. This time round, she brought along posters depicting a leaking tap and explained that it was important not to waste water. Singapore did not have enough water for its people to drink and use. The country was dependent on its neighbour, Malaysia, to supply water. This was why it was launching a national campaign to save water. Every precious drop must be fully utilised.

  Miss Foo’s new instruction for the longest serving class monitor was to ensure that all taps at the washing trough were securely turned off. But Gimme Lao again surprised her. After studying the washing pattern for three days, Gimme Lao approached Miss Foo and proclaimed that they were wasting too much water. All the children must use only one tap.

  “But that would not change the volume of water used,” Miss Foo explained patiently. “It would simply mean the class would take much, much longer to finish washing their hands.”

  Gimme Lao shook his head and asked to do a demonstration. He made Janice Ong pretend to wash her hands under an imaginary tap. Gimme himself used an invisible bar of soap to lather his hands, then placed them directly under Janice’s pair of hands. He then nudged Janice out of the picture, moved his hands higher up, continued the washing motion and asked a third child to place his supposedly lathered hands underneath his. Miss Foo’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

  The following week, a reporter from the tabloids was invited to visit the kindergarten. Miss Foo was proud to showcase an innovative approach to saving water. The children lined up in three columns in front of the washing trough. They had one week to practise and were generally confident when they demonstrated the tiered method of sequential hand washing pioneered by Gimme Lao. The reporter was highly impressed.

  When the article appeared in the tabloids, Gimme Lao’s parents and their neighbours went wild. His father bought five copies of the tabloids, four of which he allowed the neighbours to circulate. The last copy he wrapped in plastic and sealed airtight using Scotch tape. He intended it to become part of the family treasure to pass on to future generations. Gimme Lao’s mother asked Aunty Seah for some discarded fabric from the factory she worked in. She copied the tagline from the campaign poster so that she could embroider the words ‘Water is precious. Save every drop’ onto a new cotton blanket she was going to sew for Gimme. Unfortunately, Gimme Lao’s mother did not speak or write English, and her scribbled letterings on a piece of paper left much to be desired. The initial embroidery read ‘Wateri spreious. Saveery drop’. Elizabeth from next door had to make her remove the stitches and do it again.

  Grandma Toh was especially proud of Gimme Lao. She hijacked one of four copies of the tabloids in circulation and toted it on her round of the neighbourhood gossip circuit. She told the provision shop owner that Gimme must have benefitted from all the afternoons keeping her company while she listened to radio soap operas. There was so much life wisdom for the picking in storytelling. She shared her suspicions with the fishmonger that early exposure as a toddler to the stimulation of toasted sambal chilli might even have triggered brain development in the child. It paralleled the theory that pregnant women listening to soft music awakened the cognitive intelligence of their unborn baby. By the time she reached the incense shop seven blocks away, Grandma Toh had elevated herself to become a talent developer extraordinaire of gifted children.

  Barber Bay asked to be given a copy of the tabloid so that he could cut it out and paste it onto the space between two of the mirrors in the barbershop. He positioned it directly underneath an old newspaper clipping of Pastor Clarence giving a sermon in church. In that article, Pastor Clarence was featured as an oddity because he was a Caucasian pastor who spoke good Hokkien. When a regular customer remarked that the eyesore of a yellowing clipping ought to be taken down and retired to the dustbin, Barber Bay smiled wryly but said nothing. Nobody else but Barber Bay could spot it, a tiny dot over the pastor’s right shoulder, the back view of Elizabeth playing the piano.

  Gimme Lao experienced the spoils of fame for the first time. At the night market, the toy hawker recognised him and allowed him to pick one of the matchbox collectibles for free. Gimme Lao felt the tingling of excitement as he examined the extensive range of tiny automobiles neatly packed in four-inch boxes and finally picked a red truck sitting on an imposing set of military tank wheels. Neither the toy hawker nor Gimme Lao’s parents could figure out the strange configuration. Gimme Lao’s father urged him to pick some other recognisable automobile, but Gimme Lao shook his head determinedly. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew he wanted it.

  The mystery was solved the following Sunday when Elizabeth brought him to the MPH bookstore along Stamford Road and guided him through a Children’s Encyclopaedia of Automobiles as thick as a fist. Gimme Lao had picked a Snow Trac for himself. For an entire hour, Gimme sat on the carpeted floor and flipped through the pages, enthralled. There were more than a hundred pictures depicting strange automobiles set against alien backdrops of snow, boulders and rivers. When Elizabeth returned from the Romance section to pick him up, Gimme was reluctant to go. Elizabeth decided to give them another half an hour to indulge. An hour soon passed. When Elizabeth eventually conceded that the child’s love for automobiles and their steely mechanics far exceeded her love for gorgeous men on book covers and their steely muscles, she decided to buy him a gift. Thus Gimme Lao returned home triumphant, with the Children’s Encyclopaedia of Automobiles that was to keep him entertained for many weeks to come.

  Back in the kindergarten, Gimme Lao encountered a problem. He had brought along his Snow Trac in his school bag and was itching to show it to his friends. Problem was, Gimme Lao had no friends. None of the children liked him. Kindergarten life was generally fun except for the segments Gimme Lao took charge of. On their scheduled toilet breaks, Gimme Lao desired a straight lineup marching to the washroom. Whenever the line wiggled, Gimme Lao barked at them. If the recalcitrant ignored him, Gimme Lao would rush forward and stomp on his shoes. At the washing trough, the mischievous among the children would giggle as they engaged in stealthy flicks of water to catch one another unaware. When that happened, Gimme Lao would step forward to switch off the tap, stare down the child’s dwindling grin and supervise as the child learned to take the washing of hands seriously. Gimme Lao had no patience for buffoonery.

  Miss Foo Swee Peng found herself caught in a dilemma. She was aware that her star student adored her and performed his monitor duties as a tribute to her. On her part, she had rewarded him with public commendations and private pats on the back. In retrospect, she realised that these acknowledgements had probably reinforced his drive to overdeliver. By the time the standards of discipline he demanded had calcified to a near-military benchmark, it was too late for her to interfere without hurting his feelings. Miss Foo simply averted her eyes and prayed that no child would get hurt.

  When Gimme Lao realised that none of the children would be interested to hear him discuss his Snow Trac, he approached Miss Foo instead. Once again, Miss Foo was impressed. It had never crossed her mind to implement a Show and Tell module, believing it was beyond the capacity of kindergarten children. But she was willing to give it a try for her star student.

  The next day, Gimme Lao was
ready to impress the class. He brought along his Children’s Encyclopaedia of Automobiles and his matchbox collectible Snow Trac. He explained how a very smart man in a snow country wanted to go fishing in winter and so designed and built a truck that ran on tracked wheels, like those of a tank. And because the tracked wheels ran so well over soft snow, it was made and sold to many other snow countries. Subsequently, it was discovered that the tracked wheels also ran well over sand, so it was made and sold to sand countries as well. Eventually, soldiers realised that Snow Tracs were lighter than tanks and they could operate a machine gun on top. So they also used it in war countries. Unfortunately, Singapore was a country with no snow, no sand and no war, which meant the class would never get to see a real Snow Trac. The end.

  Miss Foo asked if the class had any questions for Gimme Lao. None had. She then led the class through an appreciative round of applause and thanked Gimme Lao for sharing his knowledge. She was about to switch back to the original curriculum, when Gimme Lao asked when he could next present. There were 117 types of vehicles featured in the Children’s Encyclopaedia of Automobiles, and he could do one a day.

  Miss Foo secretly sighed. She glanced over the other 25 children and asked with despondence if anyone would like to have a go at Show and Tell next week. None would. Miss Foo ignored Gimme’s outstretched hand and turned to ask Janice Ong if she had any hobbies, or pets, or favourite cartoon programmes on television or anything at all worth presenting. Mercifully, Janice Ong kept some goldfish in an aquarium at home. It was settled then. The children would all learn about goldfish the following week.