When Omala’s birthday swung around, Gimme Lao treated her to ice cream at Swensen’s. She was bubbling with excitement when she revealed that Mr Hasim Hassan and his gang were planning a midnight celebration for her. Gimme Lao veiled his jealousy and asked where were they headed. Omala had no idea. It was meant to be a surprise.
The next day, Omala cornered Gimme Lao at the school cafeteria and asked, “Do you know which is the tallest building in Singapore?”
“The OCBC Building by the Singapore River?” Gimme Lao ventured a guess.
“Clever boy!” Omala pinched his ear teasingly. “Guess what? They sneaked me up to the rooftop water tank area last night. We had tablecloths spread on the floor with donuts and cakes, candles lining the parapet and a glorious view of the downtown area from the highest point on the island. What a fabulous way to turn 15!”
“Isn’t the rooftop locked and off limits?” Gimme Lao became alarmed.
“Not if you know the right people who hold the right keys,” Omala said gleefully.
“What if you get caught?” Gimme Lao was suddenly furious. “Unlawful entry is a punishable crime. Even if the police let you off because you are a minor, the principal can kick you out of the school. Do you even think rationally anymore? Or are you happy to be led by the nose by that gang of trigger happy rebels?”
Omala was stunned by the outburst. “Take it easy, Gimme. No one got hurt here.”
“You don’t see what is happening, Omala,” Gimme Lao chided. “You are high on adventure and novel experiences and not realising that you are dancing near the cliff edge. It only takes a tiny misstep and you’re gone.”
“Maybe you are right,” Omala shrugged. “But when you are dancing near the edge, your senses are heightened and sharpened and that is when you really come alive. I realise there are risks. But the alternative is to resign myself to becoming part of the contingent of the walking dead. Not sure about you, Gimme, but I am not going to let that happen to me. Then again, I can’t expect you to understand this, not when you are chained to the school fence where the rules and regulations are painted in the indelible ink of unthinking compliance.”
Gimme Lao blushed with embarrassment, furious that Omala should see him in such an unflattering light. Never once had either stabbed the other with affront or derision. He had been right all along about Mr Hasim Hassan. The man was a bad influence on his buddy, and he had to do something.
The next day, Gimme Lao deposited an anonymous letter in the feedback box addressed to the school principal. In the letter, he wrote in detail about Mr Hasim Hassan’s involvement in an unlicensed stage play at The Substation and highlighted the deviant theme of the play itself. He also wrote that Mr Hasim Hassan brought one of the students along to a private party held on the rooftop of the OCBC Building, an area out of bounds to the public.
A few days later, when Mr Hasim Hassan turned up for his literature class with bloodshot eyes and a grave expression, Gimme Lao knew the school principal had taken action. They were barely 10 minutes into the lesson when the class monitor asked solicitously if Mr Hasim Hassan was feeling ill. It was obvious to the students that the man was not himself.
“I am sick to the bone, yes.” Mr Hasim Hassan spun around to confront the class. The fury and anguish in his voice was unmistakable. “Sick of the hypocrisy and stupidity of the unenlightened. Sick of those in power dictating the code of conduct for the masses. Sick of the lack of freedom of expression in this miserable country!”
The class was stunned. Omala was the first to recover from the collective shock. “What happened, Mr Hassan?”
“I am involved in an experimental play at The Substation, a play with a controversial theme.” Mr Hasim Hassan trembled a little as he ranted. “Someone from this school found out and reported it to the media authorities. That tip off was enough to trigger a clampdown. Now the play has been banned and the production team put under investigation, myself included.”
“That is terrible!” Omala paled. “But how did you know the informant was from our school?”
“Because the principal was questioning me about your birthday party,” Mr Hasim Hassan spit. He followed Omala’s horrified glance and zoomed in his glare on Gimme Lao. “Then again, I would not expect the informant to possess the courage and honesty to own up. In all likelihood he would simply hide in his stink hole and gloat in private.”
His face burning, Gimme Lao stood up and professed, “I have no problem owning up. Had I lacked courage and honesty I would not expose you, would I?”
“Expose what?” It was close to a shout. Mr Hasim Hassan did not have a good rein on his own temper.
“Expose the hypocrisy of your claim that it is your mission to enlighten our minds. Your involvement with the play is nothing but an attempt to brainwash the audience. You want everyone to accept and support your deviant values and beliefs. It is a very private, very selfish agenda.”
The class looked from Gimme Lao to Mr Hasim Hassan in confusion. Gimme Lao had spoken with confidence. Over the last few days he had been mentally rehearsing for just such a confrontation. Mr Hasim Hassan on the other hand was shaken. “You have no idea what you are talking about, nor the harm you have done with your actions.”
“I have seen the play.” Gimme Lao turned to the class. “It affirms homosexuality. The takeaway for the audience is that gay people should be accepted and embraced. Isn’t that so, Mr Hassan?”
A wave of whispers rippled across the classroom. All eyes were on Mr Hasim Hassan as he flushed deeply and cleared his throat. “Yes, there is a lot of misconception about homosexuality. The play addresses those misconceptions.”
“You challenged me to a show of courage and honesty earlier,” Gimme Lao pressed on. “I would like to issue you the same challenge, Mr Hassan. Are you or are you not gay, sir?”
There was dead silence in the class. Mr Hasim Hassan turned pallid.
“Or do you merely hide in the stink hole and gloat in private?” Gimme Lao raised his eyebrows emphatically. It felt good to be able to turn the man’s earlier insult back on him.
Mr Hasim Hassan was literally shaking when he took in a deep breath and said, “You are right. If I lack the courage and honesty to admit that I am gay, I am in no position to enlighten your minds, or to teach you anything. So I am putting this on record right now. I am gay.”
Pandemonium broke out among the students. It took Mr Hasim Hassan a full 10 minutes to quiet everyone down. He had also leveraged on that interval to compose himself. “Since we have broached the topic of homosexuality, are there any questions you would like to ask me?”
Gimme Lao raised his hand. “Can you explain to the class section 377A of the penal code in Singapore?”
Mr Hasim Hassan clenched his fists. “You have obviously done your research, Gimme. Why don’t you share it with the class then?”
“It is a piece of legislation criminalising sex between men, even mutually consenting adult men. Isn’t that right, Mr Hassan?”
“It is a relic we inherited from our British colonial past,” Mr Hasim Hassan stressed. “And it is wrong. It should have been taken out.”
“Is that the message you are trying to drive into the unenlightened minds of the audience who attend your play? To tell them something that is illegal and punishable is quite all right? That to me sounds like a very personal and very selfish agenda. You can get the people you convince into a lot of trouble, my best friend included. I am not sure you are fit to be a teacher at all, Mr Hassan.”
The class gasped.
Mr Hasim Hassan blinked to stem the impending tears of anger. Very slowly, he turned to pack his bag and sling it over his shoulders. Before he walked out of the classroom, he paused and addressed the class. “I am not sure if I am coming back. In case I don’t see you again, please remember this. Continue to grow your minds. Always challenge what the authorities tell you, myself included. Good luck.”
The class gasped again when Omala stormed over and gave G
imme Lao the slap that broke their promise to be friends forever.
SIX
GIMME LAO RAN into Omala again in 1984. He was given permission to defer his National Service in the military to pursue medical studies at the University of Singapore. He spotted her in the atrium at the Central Library building on campus, where the Social Sciences Club was putting up an exhibition. He sat cross-legged on the parapet and watched her from a distance. The two had not met since they graduated from secondary school. That was the year Gimme Lao’s family upgraded to a condominium in District Nine. Although the Subramaniams were invited to the housewarming party, Omala chose not to attend. In fact, that party turned out to be a farewell party in essence, for that was the last time Gimme Lao sat and dined with Grandma Toh, Elizabeth, Barber Bay and Aunty Seah. Mary Lao had made good in her career and moved her family into more affluent social circles. The other neighbours weren’t able to keep up.
Gimme Lao noted that Omala had grown much taller. She was stationed in front of an exhibition panel addressing a tiny group of students and did not spot him. The scrawny girl standing next to Omala however noticed Gimme Lao staring from afar and decided to stroll over to hand him a pamphlet. Gimme Lao quickly browsed through. The literature advocated for animal rights. The two pictures in the pamphlet depicted gavage feeding of geese for foie gras production and catheterisation of moon bears for bile extraction. Gimme Lao smiled to himself. This was quintessentially Omala.
The scrawny girl suddenly hoisted herself onto the parapet and sat swinging her legs. “Pretend we’re discussing the pamphlet,” she muttered. “I need a break. My feet are killing me.”
Gimme Lao tilted his head and teased, “You’re leaving your buddy all alone at the booth? Not a very nice thing to do.”
“Don’t worry about her.” The scrawny girl crinkled her nose. “That’s Omala we’re talking about. We call her The Tornado. She has enough passion and ferocity to tear the entire campus apart.”
“What do they call you?”
“Wei Wen,” the scrawny girl answered matter-of-factly. “I keep a low profile. I am in the Social Sciences Club to earn extracurricular activity points, not to change the world.”
Gimme Lao paused to get a good look at the girl. She was very fair, to the point of being pale. Her lips were thin, and her eyebrows were but the faintest suggestion of twin shadowy crescents. There was a sense of invisibility about her; she would be hard to notice in a lecture hall among the other girls dressed to grab attention. The only remarkable feature that left an impression on Gimme Lao would be the steely gaze in her eyes. She looked like someone who knew where she was headed.
“I am Gimme Lao. Year Two. Medicine.”
Wei Wen turned to look at him. “Medical student? Half the girls in my sorority would kill to date one. I can make good money pimping for you.”
Gimme Lao laughed. “What makes you think I can’t get my own dates?”
“Not that you can’t, but that you don’t have insider information,” Wei Wen explained. “As you can tell, I don’t have the looks nor the boob size to be a threat to any girl. So I am harmless enough to listen in on all their gossip and confessions. I can tell you which girl goes down on her knees and which doesn’t. Can save you a ton of time.”
“You’re a witch!” Gimme Lao pretended to be horrified. He was instantly drawn to her deadpan humour.
One week later, Gimme Lao bumped into Wei Wen at the monthly campus flea market. She waved him over to her cart and pleaded, “Get one of my tee shirts please! I haven’t made enough to cover the cart rental yet.”
Gimme Lao smirked and picked up a sample at random. The print on the front read ‘I Am Missing The Singapore Dream’. Flipping to the back, he frowned as he tried to decipher the odd letterings: ‘ash’, ‘redit’, ‘ondo’, ‘lub’ and ‘ar’. He sent Wei Wen a questioning arch of the brow.
“I am missing all the five ‘C’s. Cash. Credit card. Condo. Club membership. Car.” Wei Wen stared at him. “You’re not very intelligent for a medical student, are you?”
“You are not very friendly for a salesperson trying to close a deal, are you?”
“Buy a tee shirt and I will help you get a date. I know you have to attend a couple of networking lunches with the medical graduates who are invited back to share their experiences. A pretty date by your side will lighten things up.”
“I will buy a tee shirt if you agree to be my date.”
There was a pause as Wei Wen stood looking stunned.
“Say yes and say it quick. The rental cart is not going to pay for itself,” Gimme Lao teased. He enjoyed seeing the blush spread over her face.
Not only did Wei Wen accompany Gimme Lao to his networking lunches, the two began to date regularly. Gimme Lao’s cohort mates were generally surprised that he chose to settle for such a plain looking girl. After all, medical and engineering students were considered by most of the girls on campus to be good catches. Many would overlook the lack of social graces or physical attributes of a doctor or engineer in the making for a chance to eventually be married to one. Had Gimme Lao so desired, he could have a huge pool of eligible candidates to pick from.
But Gimme Lao knew he did not have the patience to play the dating game. He was told by the seniors that once hospital attachments began in Year Three, social engagements would grind to a halt. “Get attached fast,” they advised. He needed a girl who knew what she wanted and where she was headed, who understood the value of time enough not to spend an hour every morning getting her hair styled and makeup applied, who would not get upset because he failed to text her on her pager when he was bogged down by tutorial assignments and who was intelligent enough to catch his jokes. Based on his intuition and early observations, Wei Wen fit the bill.
When the two first kissed, Wei Wen asked Gimme Lao why he had picked her.
“Because you don’t spend time looking in the mirror admiring yourself. You look into binoculars, focus on what is up ahead and work towards the future. I admire that.”
“That must rank as one of the most unromantic thing to say right after a kiss,” Wei Wen chuckled. “But I like it.”
“Why did you pick me?”
“Because you’re my ticket to my Singapore Dream.” Wei Wen poked him in the ribs. “I expect to escape public transport by the time you make registrar and to escape public housing once you start your own practice.”
As she watched Gimme Lao chortle, Wei Wen wondered if Gimme realised she was serious about what she said.
Wei Wen’s childhood ended when she was in kindergarten. That was the year her mother gave birth to her younger brother. He was born with Down’s syndrome. It was a good thing Wei Wen’s grandmother lived with them and took on the role of caregiver, so her parents could continue running their food stall at the hawker centre. But the grandmother was adamant that Wei Wen chip in. The little girl was trained to change her brother’s diapers, feed and bathe him and rock him to sleep at night. After all, the parents were not going to live forever. The grandmother drilled it into the little girl’s head that her brother was her responsibility for as long as they both lived. There was no escaping it.
In primary school, Wei Wen’s rapture over her teacher nominating her to join the chess club was short-lived; her grandmother forbade her to attend practice sessions. When the teacher sent her home with a note, her grandmother stormed down to the principal’s office to demand that Wei Wen be exempted from extracurricular activities. There was a retarded sibling at home to be cared for. Wei Wen was secretly disappointed that the principal gave in to her grandmother’s demands. She might have been really good at chess.
In secondary school, Wei Wen told the family she was going to work part-time at McDonald’s to earn her own allowance. That was the only way the grandmother would let her off her caregiver duty. For the first time in her life she had independent control over her leisure hours. All she had to do was inform her grandmother that she had taken on additional shifts, and she was free
to join her friends at the arcade or the movies. Life was beginning to look good, except that there was never enough pocket money, not when she was paid a miserly 2.50 dollars an hour.
At least the team at McDonald’s was fun to be with, especially with Haizad around.
Haizad was the assistant manager at the outlet. The girls loved him because he was handsome, fun and generous with his money. After shifts, they would head down to Centrepoint at Orchard Road, where Haizad bought them slurpies from 7-Eleven and the gang hung out in the mall to talk shop. At the movies, Haizad supplied popcorn and supersized Pepsis. When a birthday swung around, the gang was treated to ice cream cakes at Swensen’s. He was every girl’s perfect manager. That was, until Zarinah came into the picture.
Zarinah was not the prettiest girl in the gang, but definitely the most bosomy. At McDonald’s, she wore the uniform one size too small, so that the buttons strained themselves against the fabric and the boys queuing up to place their orders could peep in-between the button gaps to check out the colour of her bra. Haizad made a show of reprimanding her because it was his duty. But everyone at the outlet had caught him eyeing Zarinah when he thought no one was watching.
One day, Zarinah whipped out the newest Sony Walkman from her bag and popped in a Best of ABBA cassette tape. Everyone gasped and crowded around her. Walkmans were the newest craze in town, but how could Zarinah afford one? They didn’t come cheap. Zarinah smiled mysteriously, said nothing and continued to bob her head to “Dancing Queen”.
Ironically, once the general curiosity tapered off, Zarinah itched to reveal her secret. A scandal soon began to brew. Zarinah was now Haizad’s special girl. She visited him on his rest days on Tuesdays when they locked themselves in his room for hours on end. Zarinah giggled and said she couldn’t go into details about the kind of fun they had for that would get him into trouble. She was, after all, merely 15.
A chasm began to form in the gang’s dynamics. When they met at the mall and argued over which film to watch, Haizad sided with Zarinah and overrode the others’ picks. When they organised overnight barbeques at East Coast Beach, Zarinah dictated which cassettes were to be played in the portable player. The gang became an unwilling audience to Zarinah’s public display of affection calculated to attract attention. Over the weeks, hostility brewed as the gang gossiped mercilessly about Zarinah. Everyone agreed that the girl was poison.
Let's Give It Up for Gimme Lao! Page 13
