There were coiffured ladies linking hands with women from the kampungs, men, women and children from the suburbs of KL. There was no issue of being Indian, Chinese, Malay or Other, we were one, we were all the same opposed against injustice. We had never been so bold.
It was inspiring; I felt proud. Proud that people were coming out of their houses to stand on the street with us. It was historic, we would rewrite the history books or at least try to.
The day before we’d read that a 15-year-old girl had been arrested as she’d pelted a policeman with an empty gas canister. She was hauled away kicking and screaming, and one newspaper showed a close-up of her face twisted in rage. The headline screamed, “Renegade Teen”.
The papers are so shit right now, it’s so bloody biased.
Well, what do you expect, they’re all scared and they have to toe the line, otherwise they’d lose their licenses. Look what happened to us.
Nobody reads the papers anyway, it’s all lies.
So what do we read then—apart from the threads and Sang Kancil?
Sang Kancil was an independent online journal that was the cumulative observations of our very own veteran journo MGG Pillai. Apart from Sabri Zain’s online Reformasi Diary, which was a brilliant documentation of the day-to-day street protests, there was no other alternative. The real news was out there on the streets, and we were being fed lies by the mainstream papers.
Sumi stood up, then sat down again, quickly.
Oh god, too much gin.
It’s the Sempoerna. Goes straight to your head.
She sat down again and inhaled deeply.
What if? What if?
What?
If we started something!
Like…?
An alternative newspaper, something that we can all write for.
What do you mean?
Citizen journalism.
I sat up, lit another Sempoerna and sloshed more gin into my empty glass.
You think Fairman would approve?
Heck, he’d fund it, no?
It could be like an underground newspaper, something that we can send out to everybody.
Alternative news—on the Internet, on a website…
From the street!
Opinions, columns, photos—document it all! We can do this.
I was drunk, but it made sense. Why not? Take it into our own hands.
Call him now!
We did. And that’s how it started. After half a bottle of gin and many more Sempoernas, Saksi was born.
Saksi. Witness.
We were going to bear witness to the Reformasi movement. We were going to do it our way. And we were going to do it right.
The People Accuse
Saksi is a site for independent journalism. Our first issue focuses on 20 September 1998, when a massive demonstration took place in Kuala Lumpur. Features, opinions, photography and other stories analyse and document the events of the day and subsequent developments. Saksi is a weekly magazine that is constantly updated. Saksi will present news that is real. News from the streets. News from our reporters who are not afraid of telling the truth.
“Blue Boy, please.”
Marina had said “please” almost like “peh-lis”, which sounded like “polis” to the taxi driver who picked her up. She didn’t know why she was so nervous, she just was. Maybe she should have just said, “BB, please.”
KL’s first gay bar, opened in the 80s, was located on the corner of a slip road off Jalan Bukit Bintang, right beside the five-star Regent Hotel. Open till late on weekends, it had become an institution, where men went to meet other men to be entertained. Where drag queens donned wigs and powder, fake eyelashes and heels, padded bras and gowns, and sang gay anthems like “YMCA” and “I Will Survive” with heartfelt gusto.
The taxi driver had been listening to a religious channel on the radio. He cleared his throat and turned it up even louder. Unperturbed, Marina settled back in the seat and observed the traffic. Cars choked the road she was on. Motorbikes weaved in and out, families thronged the Batu Road night market on her left. She saw a woman struggling with plastic bags, dragging a screaming child behind her. High above, invisible wires held up a glowing tapestry of crisscrossed lights. Even the trees had lights that streamed downwards, and then upwards, like shimmery magic wands.
“So pretty,” she whispered.
Two days earlier, Marina had arrived in KL from Lahad Datu, Sabah, with nothing more than a small gym bag of her best clothes and a piece of paper scrawled with three items:
1. Blue Boy—behind Regent Hotel.
2. Chow Kit Drop-in Centre—ask for Tini.
3. Kak Min—for cheap room.
She had emerged from the cheap flight into a futuristic-looking airport. The bus ride into the city—45 kilometres, so she’d been told—cost nine ringgit and took two hours. The seats were comfortable and she immediately fell into a deep sleep, later waking up with a sore neck. She got off at a bus station and asked around for a bus that would take her to Chow Kit.
She had 400 ringgit to her name and paid a 200 ringgit deposit for a room next to Kak Min’s place. It was in the heart of Chow Kit, on Lorong Haji Taib, where transsexual sex workers like herself found work. Young men from Sabah, in Malaysian Borneo, who had no choice but to come to the Peninsula or Semenanjung as they called it, to work.
The first thing she needed was a pair of shoes, and that was what she bought from the shoe shop from Sungei Wang, the shopping mall Kak Min took her to. She was not used to wearing heels, not ones with a stiletto. These had a high arch and had cost fifty ringgit, the most she’d ever paid for a pair of shoes. But they were from that shop that all the drag queens went to for their shoes and she had paid in cash. It felt good.
The taxi came to a stop and Marina straightened her feet and stretched her calves as she got out of the car. The driver kept his eyes down as he took the ten-ringgit bill from her and straightened the white kopiah on his greying head. Quietly, he uttered a Bismillah. “More of them now than ever,” he muttered to himself, then sighed and eased his car into the busy street.
She started walking down the dimly lit alleyway. She was told to follow the street “until you see them”. “Mainly older white men and young Malay boys,” so she was told. Marina didn’t want a sugar-daddy, she wanted to make her own way in life. But, she was “open to options”, as she’d told others from time to time. Life presented itself in ways that she had to embrace. And if a man presented himself to her in more ways than just wanting to fuck her in the mouth or her ass, she would be open. Open to his condo, his chequebook, his car, his leathery, hairy balls and his eager cock. The greedy looks came soon after. Like the looks from those men on the street, stuck against each other, eyes raking her up and down as she smiled at them and sashayed in.
“Is there a cover tonight?” Marina asked shyly, her voice barely audible above the blasting techno music. It was dark, but a mirror ball was throwing specks of light on the walls. The boy behind the counter arched a plucked eyebrow and nodded. He had dusky pink lips and wore a skimpy yellow top.
“Yes, Friday night, with show and one drink. Twenty ringgit only.”
Marina took out her purse, ruffled her hair with her slightly sweaty palms and carefully peeled out two ten-ringgit notes. She noticed a scratch on one newly painted crimson nail and grimaced. She clicked her tongue in annoyance.
The boy gestured for her wrist and he pressed a stamp onto her skin. His hands felt cold and clammy. A yellow fluorescent skull glowed back at her.
“Enjoy!” he said in a sing-song voice.
Marina turned and saw an older man standing a few feet away and smiled at him. He eyed her from top to toe, taking in her teased hair, her high-waisted red skirt, her silver heels. He was balding, but his startling blue eyes were clear and focused. His black T-shirt was slightly bunched over his taut belly.
“Hi, I’m Marina. And you are?”
The music was loud, so she had to repeat herself.
“I am Hans, new in KL, first time here.”
She smiled at him and he responded with a toothy grin.
Marina took Hans by the elbow and together they manoeuvred their way into the narrow space filled with sweaty bodies around the dance floor. She stood taller than him. Her hips met his rotund belly, and they both giggled. The music was the latest techno and house, the stuff of all clubs. Cantaloop, the jazzy, hip-hop number, loosened hips, mouths, tongues.
Hans had his hands on her thighs, and he grabbed her waist.
“I want to fuck you, now.”
Marina was taken by surprise. She wanted to watch the drag show, but she needed the money, it would mean fifty ringgit for a blowjob in the alley at the very least.
“But Hans…” She looked toward the stage, bent down and spoke into his ear. “I want to see the show, can we fuck later?” A flicker of disappointment crossed his face.
“Sorry, but I have an early flight to catch, maybe we can meet again another time.” He grabbed her hand awkwardly, kissed it and shrugged, then shoved a name card into her hand.
Marina took his card and blew him a kiss. She had to stay, she wasn’t ready to leave just yet. “Okay, Hans, see you next time. Don’t forget me, okay?”
Marina kept dancing on her own until the music stopped and a bald Caucasian man wearing heavy make-up, a white bustier and a long hooped skirt came on stage. The crowd clapped politely. A small Chinese man, his hands folded across his waist like a Mandarin, walked in behind him and sat at the piano on the stage. They nodded to each other and the performance began.
For an hour, Marina listened to the most exquisite music she’d ever heard. The bald man stood in the middle of the stage and sang hauntingly in a language unfamiliar to her. His crimson lips made large O’s and made him look like a clown, and as she stood there in the middle of Blue Boy, amidst sweaty strangers and the strange music, she felt beauty. Her feet ached and her toes pinched against the new silver straps, but she felt a calmness wash over her, as if the city she had yearned to come to had just welcomed her into its fold.
* * *
It was almost midnight on a Friday and I was walking down Jalan P. Ramlee. I’d decided to take a cab and meet Karin at the club.
Every two weeks, I took Ecstasy. It had begun as a girly night out some months ago, but it had become regular. Sumi didn’t like it, said it made her feel like the world is coming to an end, too much emotion, can’t handle it. But Karin, well. Karin and I loved it.
I got off just behind the Shangri-la Hotel as I didn’t want to get stuck in the tight squeeze of cars. The taxi driver appreciated it too and raised his eyebrows as I asked him to keep the change.
There was a crowd and the sharp click-clack of handmade heels. Expensive cars purring in a row, all inching towards the valet. Women in designer clothes, sequined tight-tight skirts, expensive glittery clutch bags, guys with slicked-back hair and straight backs.
Karin was my age, 26, and had recently married Cleo Magazine’s most eligible bachelor of the year. The wedding was a no-expense-spared glittery weekend affair at the Carcosa. A colonial-style extravaganza of white and gold; guests partied on the hotel greens, drinking from gold-embossed champagne flutes under tents that had twisty gold minarets, tulle from chandeliers, lilies everywhere. The cake was a five-tier frosted dream—it was the most delicious vanilla butter—and guests stayed on partying at the Long Bar till dawn.
I’d known Karin since we were kids at Methodist Kindergarten in Petaling Jaya. Her German father and Cantonese mother lived three doors down from our street in Section 5, and we had grown up together. Karin, beautiful, long-limbed and sleek like a gazelle, with bouncy copper curls and piercing blue-grey eyes. She was on the cover of every magazine in town, and one of the most sought-after models in Malaysia and Singapore. And she had married Kai, who was also of mixed blood—Malay-Irish—and they were KL’s celebrity couple of the moment. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kai and Karin.
Karin’s father was a structural engineer and had travelled frequently around the region. One night he showed up with a skinny Thai woman at their door and asked Karin and her sister to call her “Big Sister”.
Karin’s mother, Aunty Kim, diminutive and ferocious in her humiliation, screamed at her husband and his “slut” so loudly that the entire street had heard her. What proceeded were the most filthy indignities in English, German and Cantonese I had heard in my twelve years.
I remember seeing Karin huddling next to her Indonesian maid by the metal gate, her face pale with fright. She wore pink pyjamas and clutched a teddy bear. I didn’t see tears, but I imagined them streaming down her cheeks.
Karin’s dad disappeared after that and Aunty Kim took to drinking until she met a nice Indian doctor at the Polo Club, and later married him. Karin had meanwhile become the most scandalous and envied girl at Assunta Convent; she was gorgeous, smart and the school’s top athlete.
And we were friends. I was three inches shorter, rounder, flat-nosed and pimply, and three shades darker than her honey-alabaster skin. But you have SO much character, Del. At least one of us has that.
She was a pothead, most of us were—rebellion was part and parcel of growing up privileged in PJ—and together we got up to mischief that made the girls at Malory Towers look like amateurs. We were never expelled—we came close to it—but as head of the debating team, I was too much of an asset, and she was in the sports field. As long as we kept bringing back medals, which were shown off during assembly, we were in the good books.
My handphone beeped.
Hi darling, running late. See you inside! Mwah.
From the outside, you’d never think that KL’s most notorious club would be in the basement, but it was. The cramped corridor was already loud with chatter. It smelled musty and the familiar dark-red walls led to a door that would let in one person at a time. I could feel the music vibrating through my heels.
It was the beginning of a night with no end. I closed my eyes, said a quick prayer and walked in. The Backroom was a church for us to redeem ourselves with others who wanted to commune with the divine. Mass communion. Tab on the tongue. The body of Christ. Amen.
Fifty bucks got you a pill. Most times it was good, really good. Sometimes it wasn’t. The bouncer smiled, gave me a thumbs-up, a wide smile and a wink. This one good. Don’t worry. It was a pink one. Karin was the expert, so I put it in my purse for later. We’d pop it at the same time and then wait.
The podiums were already full of swaying, gyrating, topless men. Three, four to a pole. Oiled torsos, skin-tight jeans, some slightly unbuttoned. These were the beautiful gay men of KL. Muscle-Marys. Pumping iron non-stop just to show off their buff bodies. Gay culture was starting to take off, and this was a sign of liberation. They could be themselves, and it was a bold “fuck you” to the establishment.
The dance floor heaved and throbbed. I stood by a railing and hoped that Karin would see me.
It was the time of the night when many were already high. I knew what it was like. An orgiastic release—especially when the rhythm would crescendo and the pounding would satiate us—until the next one came along.
Karin was late and I was getting impatient. I went to the bar. One vodka lime, please. The real stuff please. The petite Chinese bartender gave me a smirk, as if to say—Bitch, we don’t sell fake booze here!
It was packed. Really packed. Soon enough, I’d run into people I knew. But Karin knew everyone—she would, of course. Models knew other models. And models knew all kinds of people. On weekends like this, you’d have people from all over—Jakarta, Bangkok, London, Berlin, Amsterdam. People flew in to drop E, dance their tits and asses off, get laid and fly back. DJs were paid big bucks to spin and we had the best flown in from all over the world. We had no press freedom, we had police brutality, we had an authoritarian government, and we had MDMA.
And when we got high, we would just forget. Forget about our shitty jobs, bosses who were pricks, the 2.5 kid
s at home, the mortgage, the credit card bill, the cops who would beat up sex workers whom they hauled from Chow Kit, the lies our politicians told, the bad adverts on TV, the lack of intellectual scholarship in our universities, Malay rights, the refugees who were being beaten up at detention camps that very moment. If only everyone could take E—there would be peace, joy and happiness.
It was naïve idealism, I realised, but then, all I wanted to do was fry my brains and get completely off my head. The club was really filling up. There was a steady stream of people coming in now, and there she was.
In a tight red dress. Prada bag and high heels. Curls and lip gloss. Walking towards me. Babes, so sorry. Traffic was insane. Mum was talking to me non-stop about this condo that she wants to buy in Mont Kiara for investment. I told her KL is going through a real-estate bubble and that she should wait. Then Kai calls from Jakarta and I have to talk to him, cos I haven’t seen him in two weeks. Then one of the heels of my Prada broke and I was so trauma, for like five mins. Anyhow, I’m here. So let’s party!!!
Karin had two tabs. The blue ones are better, babes. We can have the pink ones for later.
A bottle of water each. We put the tabs on each other’s tongues.
To tonight, darls. Let’s live forever!
The E normally took about twenty minutes to kick in. Normal being subjective. It depended on your mood, what you’d eaten that day. The time of the month. And then the endless “live forever” toasts. I bet that’s what everyone felt like. I looked around. There was a blonde who looked like the ex of an ex. She was tottering on heels, in an ultra mini. Model. Giggling her head off. Dirty dancing with a dark guy who had his arms and hands all over her. She glanced in my direction and her eyes were glazed. She was as high as a hawk.
E made you feel invincible, in a different way than coke. This high came on slowly, easing like delicious champagne into your veins. I looked around and smiled. And nodded my head to the music. Damn, it felt good. We were all in communion with the great god of E. We were all one with each other, one with ourselves. No malice, no greed, no hunger, no thirst. We were complete.
Once We Were There Page 3
