Of Memories & Men November 2004 Click to view Table of Contents Click to view photo gallery Click to view cover story

Creative Non-fiction

Boy By Emily Ding

Photograph by Emily Ding

I didn’t think much of him at first sight.

Lean and ropey and very dark from years spent under the scorching sun of Malaysia’s eternal summer, he had been no different from the other boys in Kota Tinggi who spent every hour of their waking lives outdoors playing marbles and frolicking in the streams, diving after frogs and tadpoles with their bare hands, half-pipe dreams filling their heads. In this backward province, there was never much else to do. Sometimes, too, the heat of the sun became almost unbearable, the main catalyst of the massive explosions of temper in our little Hokkien hamlet. There were no tall buildings to shade us from the heat, no hotels, no cinemas, only the two-storey Parkson Grand (which was anything but ­ grand, I mean) opposite my grandparent’s house and a deserted hospital of white, barren walls. Even now, thirteen years later, this place has not changed much, not fundamentally.

Kota Tinggi. If you were to translate its name literally? Tall Town, that’s what it would say. But I’m not even sure if you can call it a town. I often think of it as a province, a backwater, somewhat secluded from external influence. It is this very lack of interference from the world around it that ensures its constancy, keeps it frozen in time; with it, my memories are frozen too. When I return to this place I see myself as a child again, and I see also myself as I am now, with that strange feeling that I am watching my two selves, as if I were somehow outside my own body. There is that surreal sense of the past and the present living in sight of each other, the two halves of a life coexisting.

It may seem unlikely to you at this point, but I daresay I had quite an illustrious childhood. My grandparents lived in an extraordinarily ordinary house painted with uneven blue and yellow splashes that nestled just off the road behind the large, gaping monsoon drain. Almost boxlike in shape, the house rambled front, back, and sideways as if different blocks of it had simply been plopped down carelessly on a whim. It was a charming combination of stone and wood, elevated on good strong legs just high enough for me to squat under. I remember having done that many times to escape the blistering heat, and sometimes, to hide from my mother when she flew into one of her rages. And always, constantly nipping at my heels was my grandmother’s loyal mongrel ­ Blackie, we called her, for obvious reasons.

Perhaps I should mention that I was a bit of a tomboy at that age. I spent most of my time with my older cousin, Kenny, and his partner-in-crime, Heng, whose proper name I cannot now remember. But I remember him ­ his narrow, toothy grin, so unnaturally white against the darkness of his skin it was startling. He had a pointed face and an under-bite that was very apparent. His features were uncoordinated and awkward, as if they had been made for someone else. Now, seeing him through the fragile films of my memory, I liken him to a street urchin ­ from his frayed t-shirt mussed with sweat, dust, and dirt, to his knobbly knees, right down to his grimy feet and thin sandals. The only surprise was his hair, which was laughably incongruous with the rest of him ­ it always sat flat and neat on his head, slicked wet by a small comb he always carried around in the back pocket of his shorts. I remember he could not pronounce my name right: “Enemy! Enemy!” he would holler. I tried to correct him many times, but it never worked, and the name stuck.

How we met I am not quite sure. When I was little, my mother would often bring me to my grandparents’, every holiday, at every opportunity, even the weekends sometimes. My grandparents’ place was very chaotic, full of festivity even on Mondays. There would be old friends of theirs come to visit, setting up two tables for ‘mahjong’, their favourite way of passing the time. And perhaps the three of us were brought together that way, through the adults who seemed to drop by my grandparents’ whenever it suited them, stayed till the wee hours of the night, and left whenever they liked, sometimes even after my grandparents had turned in for the night. The doors were always open ­ to anyone, to everyone. It is difficult to conceive of such blind trust these days. Indeed, now my grandparents have conformed and tend to keep their doors locked, too.

Usually, you cannot remember your friends’ mothers, but I remember Heng’s vividly. How could I not? She always left such an impression, with her fiery red dresses and heavy earrings, her permed ringlets, and high heeled shoes so out of place in a provincial town such as Kota Tinggi. The only thing I can say Heng inherited from her was his underbite, which was more pronounced in her. She often frightened me with her loud, grating voice and her mercenary fingernails (it is the only way I seem able to think of them), which were always painted the same fiery red as her dress. I still believe that the reason I never let my fingernails grow out is because of this childhood memory I have retained, which makes me shudder whenever I think of sharp, long, red fingernails, like the sound of them stritching on a blackboard. So I resorted to chewing on them instead, and had red-hot chilli scrubbed onto my lips by my mother, who despaired of getting me to kick the habit.

One day, Heng’s mother came by Grandma’s house, as she often did. She was probably in one of her infamous, restless moods. I huddled in a little corner hunched over my sketchbook, and did not say anything to her. But she came up to me and smiled ­ though it seemed to me more like a barring of her yellow teeth (she smoked often) ­ and made some small talk about what I was drawing and such. Then after a spell, she asked if I could think of a lucky four-digit number. I knew much about the lottery. Every adult in Kota Tinggi tried their luck with the lottery hoping to strike the jackpot. They never did, and they almost never do, still.

Hoping that she would leave me alone soon, I quickly came up with a number. “4411,” I told her, hesitant.

She frowned. “But 4’s an unlucky number.”

I tried to come up with something else but I couldn’t. She gave me an indefinable look, but wrote the number down anyway. A few days later, she turned up at my grandparents’ house in her favourite scarlet frock and heels, a big smile on her face, made ghastly by the overabundance of lipstick. When she left, she’d also left behind the scarlet imprint of her wide mouth on my cheek.

The very next day, she brought me to the Parkson Grand, told me to pick out whatever I wanted with the new prize money she had won. I did not really want to. She intimidated me with her loud-mouthed, aggressive manner. But because she was Heng’s mother, I went along.

I remember trailing behind her with a box of chocolates when she suddenly thrust a paper bag into my hand and hustled me out the entrance of the Parkson Grand. At the back of my mind, I had a premonition that something was very wrong, but I was too bewildered to react. I allowed her to push me along. She was an adult; surely she would know the right thing to do?

But just as we stepped out the door, we were jerked rudely back. Rough hands shackled me and yanked the paper bag out of my hands. It must have been frightening, I cannot really remember. These men and women were probably milled around us in their daunting navy neck ties, and I imagine that I could see Heng’s mother screaming and shouting violently, struggling to break loose of the tight, hostile circle they had formed around us. I think I must have been too scared to do anything. It seemed I had unwittingly become an accomplice to a crime.

After that harrowing experience, I don’t think I saw Heng for days. Then while I went to feed Grandma’s newborn chicks one morning, I found him already there, waiting outside the pen. And somehow, everything went back to normal. I don’t remember anything apart from that. I don’t remember any awkwardness (and it must have been ­ awkward, I mean - despite us being only children).

I haven’t seen him in years now. The last time I saw him I hardly spoke to him. He looked the same, I remember, except taller, but otherwise, he looked the same. Still skinny, still dark, still with that same under-bite, only he looked more like his father. I think I said Hi and left it at that. I’d outgrown speaking in Mandarin, and he didn’t really speak English fluently, so I felt like I’d left him behind, that he’d been relegated to my past, and it was too hard to bridge it.

I found out later that he’d left school at the age of thirteen, which may certainly come as a surprise to most of us, who perceive academia as the be-all and end-all of a good, respectable life, but this wasn’t the case in rural Kota Tinggi where I spent so much of my childhood.

“A pity,” I remember my grandmother saying. “He’d have done well if he’d had the chance.”

I remember keeping quiet, mourning a little. I always feel sad when someone I know has less than I do, or is less lucky than I am.

But times have changed a little. I heard sometime ago that his little sister was doing very well at upper secondary, that she was easily the smartest girl in her form or something like that. It was nice to hear that she got her chance. I wonder if he’s happy for her, or if he envies/resents her what he couldn’t have.

Heng reminds me of so many things: my younger self, especially; but he also reminds me of all the people I’ve grown away from. We just lost touch along the way.

I guess we grew up.