The Engagement

The face of the young Malay girl at the toll booth lit up as the car window rolled down. To say she was doll-faced would be an understatement. The sign outside the booth read:

Jurutol Anda: Aisyah.

“Hai Aisyah,” Mike grinned cheekily as he passed her the magnetic striped ticket.

She blushed, smiling from ear to ear. Her skin was so fair and flawless you would expect to see her in a Sendayu Tinggi advertisement, not a PLUS tollbooth. She proceeded to process the ticket in the computer.

“Senyum you manis la,” Mike said as he handed over the money. The two other guys in the car were dead silent. Mike enjoyed doing idiotic things like that because he liked to see people’s reactions.

But everyone else just thought Mike did idiotic things like that because he was an idiot.

Aisyah giggled the most demure little laugh, face half covered by her tudung. She keyed in the amount and the metal bar in front of the car went up. She tried hard to stifle her almost perfect smile, but she couldn’t.

“Thank you, Aisyah.” Mike sang as he put the white Proton Saga into gear and drove off. Still not a word from either of his passengers. It had been a long drive.

Nik Amir stared blankly out the passenger side window. Shazni Hafizi in the back had his Alien Workshop cap pulled low over his face. Mike knew better than to force his way out of an awkward silence.

Sometimes Mike hated himself for being 22 and still boyish, unclear of where his life was going. Most people at 22 are already set on their life path and taking strides. An insurance agent Mike used to date was now a manager and earned a five-digit monthly salary. His cousin in the navy was currently the navigation officer of a Laksamana class warship. And now, Nik was getting engaged to the girl of his dreams, ready to start a family of his own.

The journey to Nik’s house would be another half hour. And Mike needed a break, not just from the driving, but from the sudden block of ice that seemed to have formed between the three of them. He spotted a stall by the road, where an old lady was frying kuih while her husband made drinks.

“Bros,” Mike had to be the one to break the silence after all. “Kita berenti sat, pekena Nescafe tarik ngan cekodok.”

The words hung there in the air, waiting to be acknowledged. Mike pulled up at the stall.

Nik was the first to get out, and shut his door with a loud ‘ka-thunk’. Yes, I know, ‘ka-thunk’ – it’s a Proton, what do you expect?

Mike figured the guy must have had a lot going through his mind. After all, tomorrow would be the day he would promise a girl and her parents that he would take care of her for the rest of his life.

As Mike got down and stretched his legs, Shazni Hafizi shoved him hard.

“Weih,” Fizi hissed between clenched teeth. “Ngko giler aper?”

“Apahal?” Mike asked, puzzled.

“The girl at the toll.” Fizi said.

“Aisyah?” Mike recalled. “Apahal ngan dia?”

“Bukan ko dah pernah tengok muka dia kat Friendster ker?” Mike froze. “That’s the girl Nik is getting engaged to la!…Bodoh!”

If Mike could have laid his head down on the road and driven the car over it at the same time, he would have.

The English Teacher

Jerry Seinfeld once pointed out:

“According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

Mike however, would never miss a chance to speak in front of a crowd. He could look the room in the eye and bullshit, while looking good doing it. Although he denied it when I pointed it out to him, it was obviously a skill he inherited from Papa Stone.

Mike’s fondest memory of being called on his BS was from back in school, for English presentation. Everyone had been given seven minutes each to deliver a speech on any topic they chose. Mike doesn’t really remember now the content of the speech he gave, but he sure didn’t forget the conclusion:

 “I’ll end my speech with an old Sanskrit proverb my grandmother used to say to me when she was alive,” Mike paused for effect. “Don’t go looking for snakes, young man… You just might find them.”

 The entire room of 40 people who had silently given Mike their undivided attention for the past seven minutes broke out in applause. Lauren Tan in the front row was already giving him puppy dog eyes.

 Puan Zarina however, was sparse with her show of admiration. The English teacher tilted her head forward and looked over her glasses at Mike.

 “Sanskrit proverb, Michael?” she asked.

 Mike sighed. She doesn’t miss a thing, does she?

 “Those are the lyrics to a Metallica song,” she said. “but excellent effort anyway.”

 The class erupted in laughter. To this day, the class clown still asks Mike if his grandma was secretly a heavy metal fan.

The Orientation (Part 2)

Showing up at a massage parlour at 4am carrying fishing equipment is not the most bizarre thing Mike has done. But it certainly ranks in the top 3.

 The motorcycle ride there had been refreshing. The cold night wind blowing against his face helped clear some of the alcohol in his head. He began to wonder why a massage parlour in a small town would see the need to be open at 4am. How many people actually wake up in the middle of the night and decide to go get a Thai massage?

 “Senior,” he yelled to Sureish up front. He could hardly hear himself over the revving 2-stroke engine and the beating wind. “Is this a real massage place… or something else?”

 Sureish looked backwards at Mike and laughed. He patted Mike on the knee. They pulled up outside the tallest building in the town – a 3 storey motel beside the railway tracks. Mike went pale.

 “Why pucat already, macha?” Sureish chuckled. They parked the bike and made their way around to the back of the complex.

 Sureish led the way, with Mike following closely behind, carrying fishing rods and a pail. The entire premise was dark except for the moonlight. Like mice in the night, they found their way to a shop lot attached to the back of the motel.

 Something definitely smelled fishy. And it wasn’t Mike.

 Sitting on a wooden chair outside the shop lot was an old Indian man. He greeted Sureish by name and they exchanged pleasantries.

 “Who’s the young man?” the old guy asked in Tamil.

 Mike felt his blood freeze at Sureish’s answer: “Fresh meat.”

 The old man laughed as he let them both in. Once inside the shop lot, Mike was surprised to find what appeared to be a cosy living room. Sureish plunked himself on the leather couch while Mike awkwardly looked for a corner to lean the fishing rods. 

 A Chinese man with a horse-like face came out from one of the back rooms and loudly greeted Sureish. Then began a friendly conversation between the 2 of them in fluent Mandrin. Mike, already like a deer in the headlights, stared with his mouth gaped wondering just how much more about Sureish he didn’t know.

 Then a Thai girl in an orange tank top and hot pants appeared with a tray of hot beverages. Her skin seemed as if it were made of marble and her long black hair came down to her waist. Her poise was demure, but there was something very sensual about her.

 Mike’s heart began pounding. It was his first week away from home and already he found himself in a prostitution house. His girlfriend back home would not be happy. Let alone his mother.

 The girl in the orange tank top kneeled and poured tea for all of them. When she made eye contact with Sureish, he smiled at her and she blushed. It was the same smile Mike would learn and replicate successfully years later, once even with a stubborn young lady doctor.

 But right now, Mike was too sacred to be in the mood for any of this. However, he didn’t want to look like a wussy in front of the coolest Indian guy he had ever met, so he decided to bite his tongue and see where the night would lead him.

 “Oil massage” Those were the only words Mike understood in the stream of Mandrin that followed.

 “Macha,” Sureish called out. Finally someone acknowledged Mike being there. “you go in the room there and get ready, your girl will come… And relax, da!” He chuckled.

 Get ready? Girl will come?

 It wasn’t a room really. It was more of a ceiling height cubicle with a curtain instead of a door. Inside was a rubber mat, and on top of it were a pillow, a towel and a pair of knee-length cotton shorts. Looked like a real massage area. Maybe he was getting antsy over nothing after all.

 Mike stripped down to his underwear and put on the shorts. On the other side of the plywood wall, he heard the muffled sound of Sureish’s voice. Then the voice of the girl in the orange tank top. She giggled. Mike folded his t-shirt and jeans neatly in a corner and sat on the mat, waiting for ‘his girl’ to show up.

 He breathed a sigh of relief when she appeared. Instead of being a sultry young thing, she was a huge Thai woman in her late thirties. She had the arms and calves of a female weightlifter. This was definitely not a hooker. A bull farmer? Maybe.

 “You wan oi masat?” she asked.

 “Yes, oil massage,” Mike answered.

 “Oi masat no shorts,” she said. “Tower only.”

 “Towel only?” Mike had confessed to me before that he had a paralysing fear of being naked in awkward situations. “Nothing inside?”

 “No.” She left so Mike could change.

 He figured she must be a professional, so when she came back she found Mike wrapped in the towel sitting cross legged on the mat. She instructed him to lie down on his belly and relax.

 From the moment she started vigorously thumbing the soles of Mike’s feet; he knew she was an experienced masseuse. Mike smiled at how silly he was, getting worked up over nothing earlier. The massage was very relaxing as she made her way up to his back and neck. Then she asked him to turn over and began massaging his front from the toes up.

 As she massaged his shins and knees, Mike had forgotten that he was half naked and being squeezed by a strange huge woman. Her hands kneaded his thigh muscles like they were bread dough. Then suddenly, without warning she pulled off the towel, leaving Mike in nothing but his birthday suit.

 “You wan masat tees?” she asked, pointing between Mike’s legs.

 If Mike’s mind was a computer, at that moment the screen displayed only one thing over and over again: WTF?! WTF?! WTF?!

 “Wha…?!” Mike scrambled to cover his nakedness. “NO!”

 “Very nice…” she cooed. “Fifty ringgit only…”

 *   *   *   *   *

 Daybreak was less than an hour away. Mike sat alone on the motorcycle outside the motel. He was tired, hungry and freaked out of his mind. Sureish showed up carrying the pail and the fishing rods, laughing.

 “What happen da, macha?” he clapped Mike on the back. “So fast you finish already?”

 Mike didn’t find it funny at all. In fact, it was scary to think that this was his first week of university.

 He had four years to go.

The Orientation (Part 1)

The rows of old shop houses were pitch dark and dead silent except for the sound of crickets. The sign by the bridge clearly said: 

Dilarang Memancing Di Atas Jambatan.

Amaran Keras Daripada Majlis Daerah. 

But two figures stood perched over the railing with their fishing lines in the water below. Beer bottles stood in a black plastic bag beside their feet. 

Mike looked at his watch. It was 2.15am. It had been his first week of university life and the earliest he had gone to sleep was at 4.30am. With his elbows on the railing, he rested his chin in his palms and tried to sneak in a nap. 

Mike had been warned about the ragging among Indians in government university hostels, but he never expected it to be this horrible. Every night it was a different group of seniors, being told to perform acts which no parent would want to see their son doing. 

Memories of stripping down to his underwear and dancing to the percussion-heavy Tamil hit ‘Pokkiri Ponggal’ the night before came to mind. Mike shuddered. 

“Sleepy already, macha?” Sureish asked in Tamil. 

“No, senior.” Mike stood up straight. 

Macha?. For the past week, Mike and his fellow freshies had been addressed simply as “dei p*ndek” (and no, it’s not ‘pendek’). It was either that or their customized nicknames (which for the sake of common decency and Mike’s dignity, I will not reveal here). Looked like Mike was starting warm up to Sureish. 

Sureish was a final year Mechanical Engineering student. When Mike had first seen him on campus, his first impulse was to turn and run the other way. Sureish was tall, had shoulder length hair and a goatee. Plus he was from Klang. Those are enough signs to know this was an Indian dude you should avoid at all cost. 

“Your Pokkiri Ponggal performance yesterday was the bomb, da,” Sureish said. “I haven’t seen a freshie that sporting since… my first year.” 

They both smiled knowingly. 

“You can ngam with me, macha. We same kepala.” Sureish continued. After a week of ego abuse, Mike felt his smug self again. “If in KL you wanna go clubbing next time, gimmie a call. I know people in Bangsar.” 

“Thanks, senior.” Mike replied sheepishly. He knew better than to spoil that moment of male bonding with chatter. He took a swig of Heineken. And so did Sureish. 

The night had begun with Mike and two of his friends being ‘orientated’ by second-year seniors. Mike was doing the breast stroke on a concrete floor when Sureish barged in and told Mike to come with him. Turned out one of Sureish’s many hobbies is fishing and he decided to hire a sidekick that night to keep him company. 

Sureish reeled up his line to reveal an empty hook. The bait was gone. 

“Stupid fish,” he chided. “They’re fucking with us tonight.” 

“Wanna leave ah, senior?” Mike was really hopeful. Three hours on their feet and all they had to show for it was an empty pail and half a plastic bag of worms. And his head felt like it weighed a tonne. 

“Your fathers are all hookers! (it sounded cooler when he said it in Tamil)” Sureish yelled into the water below. He dumped the remaining worms into the river. Through sleepy eyes Mike watched and wondered what must be going through the worms’ minds. He was getting tipsy. 

He reeled up his own line and finished off the rest of his beer. Finally, another day of this week in hell was coming to an end. Or so he thought. 

Sureish kick-started his Yamaha 125Z. Mike picked up the fishing rods, the pail and his helmet. In his state of mind, took him a moment to figure out which one was supposed to go on his head – the helmet or the pail. He staggered over and hopped on the bike behind Sureish. 

“Let’s go for a massage,” Sureish said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do in a dodgy small town at 3am. 

“Massage?” Mike chuckled. He thought Sureish was pulling his leg. 

“Yeah, it’s open 24 hours.” Mike’s eyes widened. “The tauke is a cool fella. I’ll introduce you.” 

Moving at 90km/h, Mike wondered if he could jump off the motorcycle and make a run for it. 

*   *   *   *   *

to be continued...