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REPUBLIC Day

a N O V E L B y J E F TaNP R O O F E D I T I O N

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REPUBLIC Day

This Proof Edition is first published in Australia by Six Scribes Press 2011

Copyright © Jef Tan

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction without permission.

® and © 2011 Six Scribes Press. All rights reserved.

Cover design registered Six Scribes Press.

ISBN 978-0-9871060-1-8

Six Scribes Press

Unit 12, 22 Saxon Street

Brunswick,

Victoria 3056

Australia

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual

people living or dead, events and locales is entirely coincidental.

Edited by Beau Hillier

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REPUBLIC Day

JE F TaN

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In memory of Amran Ayden (1970 - 2003) who taught me courage.

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Strange days have found us

Strange days have tracked us down

They’re going to destroy

Our casual joys

We shall go on playing

Or find a new town

The Doors

The city is what it is because its citizens are

what they are.

Plato

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Standing here, you can safely assume that this train station platform looks

no different from any other train station platform of any modern city.

You only notice the culturally significant nuances: there are different smells,

sounds and colours. Station announcements from public speakers might be

in the local language. Berlin, New York, Tokyo or Hong Kong; a platform is

a platform. And at rush hour (if you’re not amongst the less than twenty per

cent of the population who possess their own means of transport), chances

are you’d be among the commuting throng, meandering through familiar

walkways and assembling themselves alongside the concrete edging of a

station platform like this one. Look now, at their weary faces: all anxious to

get home after a day of hard work.

You can say that it is pretty much the same in the Republic. Like clock-

work, all around this tiny island metropolis (which is half the size of Man-

hattan Island), at just about half past six, the frequency of high speed trains

quadruple, dutifully zipping from station to station. In the Republic, some

train stations tower two storeys overhead (or three sometimes); and this one,

oh this one here has quite a view. If not for the rush hour crowd, you look

out and see the hundreds of blocks of drab government housing flats. And if

you’re really lucky, you can even catch a glimpse of a kumquat sun setting in

this vast concrete jungle.

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But not today.

Today is more humid than usual. And here is where you’ll find one obvious

fault in regards to the subway system: air-conditioning. Republic Day Long

Weekend has just passed, so everyone is expecting the hot spell in full reign.

Stick a fingertip into your mouth and raise it in the air if you like: taste it,

there’s no sign of even a breeze. The women fan their faces with tabloid style

glamour magazines. Older men wipe their foreheads with their incredibly

large handkerchiefs. What about those with their hands full of office work,

books from school or shopping? These ones are often left standing, passing

envious glances at those lucky others seated on benches, which have always

been too scarce to mention.

One of the envious many is a man carrying a worn-out black PVC laptop

bag so stretched and tired, it nearly matches the sadness on his face. He has

newspapers and folders filled with papers, tucked precariously beneath his

armpits. He stares blankly ahead, his mind a basket of muddled thoughts.

His thoughts are like voices of familiar old men in a coffee shop; retirees who

fondly discuss politics all day long and complain about rising prices

and ungrateful children, the same withered old gents who just as much love

talking over each other. These old men love the competition, constantly

trying to sound more relevant and more important than each other, the same

way the demons do in this man’s head.

The man is powerless to silence his turbulent thoughts. In the past he

would summon just one thought: Count your blessings! And like a

command, they would simply quieten and go away. There are people in far

worse circumstances than you, he’d tell himself. Focus on someone like that

and see how lucky you are. Focus on that poor retarded boy they arrested

for trafficking drugs across the border; he’s not much older than your own

daughter. Yes, recall the advice of Sister Rowena and the teachings of Pastor

Lee Way: focus on your blessings. Sometimes the man could conjure up Bible

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quotes and it would cleanse him, like Jesus cleansed the possessed. But these

days? These days the voices ramble on and on and on, and each time they

grow louder than before and more defiant. One year. One year is all I need to

sort everything out. He attempts to convince the voices. Can you last another

year, they laugh back. Yes, can you pull through till next Republic Day?

Some of those voices that swirl about in that noisy coffee shop head of his

don’t always belong to demons. Some sound like his wife, or his daughter.

A former business partner, too. Some belong to his deceased parents. Or the

financial advisor. Sometimes the happy ones would cheer him up with some-

thing entirely random. They might be words he heard a long time ago like his

little girl’s garbled first words, or his wife’s cheesy poetry; the kind of uttering

he was careful to commit to memory. But these ones don’t come around

much anymore. Other times they were voices that echoed sadness and anger.

But the worst of them all must be the ones that asked questions that don’t

have any kind of answer at all; questions that were asked with an awkward,

begging desperation, the kind that brought the man to his knees once, in a

public toilet, crying through empty hands.

Today, all these voices are showing no mercy. Today they shout, plead, beg

and hiss. “Count your blessings!” he commands. No good. He fumbles in his

pocket. There’s a handful of loose sweets (there might have been three or four

but they’ve melted into a greenish mulch, embedded into the handkerchief

fabric) and nothing else. The man looks around nervously. Was somebody

watching?

The train station is getting busier. Of course it would be. Hear that sound?

The public announcement is informing all commuters (in the five official

languages) that there is a “slight delay” in the trains. Now that’s rare! Instantly

people start looking at their wristwatches. Some curse, barely audible. The

gathering crowd is chastised again, this time by another pre-recorded

announcement to “stand behind the yellow line”.

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“Yeah like bloody sheep!” someone curses.

The man turns around, strangely grateful to the Caucasian woman he no-

tices.

“I’m sorry,” she apologises, “shit day.”

He smiles ever so faintly at the Caucasian (or ang-moh) woman but says

nothing.

***

THE woman is accustomed to the way local men behave towards foreigners

like her. But it’s not her fault, and it’s not really their fault either. They are just

the way they are. No one speaks to you unless spoken to and these days, she thinks,

it’s hardly worth the effort. She feels a little sorry for the man in front. His hair

appears anxious to depart from his head and his paunch is visible even from

behind. His drooping shoulders cartooned an impression that his burden (his

laptop bag and paper-filled folders) weighs a hundred tonnes. She sees that

he is Chinese, from his thin weary eyes behind his spectacles, and reckons

Droopy Loser-guy might be in his late forties. He could be older, she corrects

herself. Who really knew the age of these Asian men? Perhaps her time here as

an expatriate hasn’t been long enough to qualify her deductions. Who cares?

Droopy Loser-guy is, after all, just another sad commuter that, for all she

knows, she will never meet again. She looks away and lets her eyes wander.

She spies the CCTV cameras all around the station like metal hawks perched

on the crossbeams.

A slight breeze blows past now but only because of the approaching train.

Physics teachers (and there are many of them in the Republic) will inform

you that it’s all to do with the force of motion brought about by the wind

speed of the Metropolis Rail Transport. Everything is engineering.

About fucking time, the ang-moh woman thinks, looking to her left like

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everyone else, eager to get into the cool air-conditioned air of the carriage.

Gracefully the train hums as it arrives. Hhhhmmmmmmmmmmm!

And then something cuts through the train-song like a murderous knife.

The ang-moh woman hears it; quite possibly the loudest screech she’d ever

heard. Looking about quickly, she is not sure if it had come from the train

itself or from the shrieks of women near her. Abruptly, the noise crescendos

into a cacophony of fear-stained screams and heart-stopping gasps. Noth-

ing. No, hang on. Droopy Loser-guy is standing in the gap of the tracks. The

screaming voices had been flying at one singular direction: him. What the

fuck? She sees him turn around – just in time to catch a smile from his face

– before the train sends him flying some distance forward with a force of a

giant hand, hard and furious. The bones in his body snap audibly as he lands

and disappears under the carriage. The train driver has already jammed the

emergency brakes, but it is now the laws of physics and technology versus

human hope.

Too fast.

The train comes to a full stop because it is unable to go further. After all,

it has a human torso now wedged somewhere between its wheels and the

tracks.

The woman stands motionless where she is, staring ahead. She is oblivious

to some commuters and their hysterics, or those who are taking pictures with

their camera phones.

The station officers appear out of nowhere for Emergency Procedure #34:

to evacuate the crowd. Everyone clears away, obedient, as they usually are,

except this ang-moh woman who is riveted to the spot, staring blankly ahead

with her mouth still gaping open. Droopy Loser-guy… Nothing but a train

carriage inches from her face now and no Droopy Loser-guy.

She does not see that before long, she is the only person standing there. She

does not hear the officers asking her to step aside. She does not feel the warm

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phantom breeze blowing all round her, blowing papers everywhere; papers

that were once held together, safely in the arms of one man who has finally

learnt how to silence the voices in his mind, forever.

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When I arrive at the station I’m surprised to find that they’re still

taking pieces of his remains out from under the carriage. This time

I’m lucky. This time I managed to get to the scene when the body is, literally,

warm. I flash my ‘Ministry of Security: Anti-Narcotics Division’ identity card

at the friendly Republic Civil Defence guy so there’s no trouble at all in

getting to the no-access areas. He even lets me see the dead guy’s face.

“At least he looked like he died a happy man,” the guy says.

He might be right. The dead guy is smiling. And here’s the funny thing.

His smile is a calm one, instead of those twisted grimaces of horror like

you find on murder victims. Come to think of it, the dead fellow actually

looks like he’s gone to heaven (if you’re the type who believes in that sort of

thing). I find myself smiling back at him and lost in a daze. No one cares as I

stand over his incomplete body on the stretcher-table while the other Civil

Defence guys carry on with the extrication of those parts of him still stuck in

the undercarriage.

I admit, I’m pretty pleased at the chance of even being here. And I have

Inspector Khoo to thank. The man is my ticket to the nearest suicide shows

in town and believe me, there have been one too many happening in the

last few years. Every other day somebody kills themselves and it rarely gets

reported. I’d be called twisted for saying it – and for being at places like this

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in the first place – but the way I see it, it’s all part and parcel of living in the

most competitive city on earth. There had been a time (I read somewhere)

when Japan was the suicide capital of the world. Not anymore. We have

broken that record too. How’s that for another ‘number one’ for a country

obsessed with breaking records? I scribble something down with my pen and

notebook so that my pretence appears more convincing.

A distance away stands Inspector Khoo and his witness. It all looks just

a little bit comical; Inspector Khoo with his round beer belly and sweaty

Smiling-Buddha face attempting to console this thirty-something white

woman with messy mascara eyes. It’s like a scene from one of those Ameri-

can alternative-style music videos where some mad Gothic chick is swaying,

ready to burst into a shriek. It doesn’t look like the woman has recovered

from the shock. She appears to be rooted to the spot, looking blankly ahead

and saying nothing.

“Hallo Inspector Khoo!” I call out. I just want to say my thank-yous for

alerting me to the scene of the crime before heading home.

“Ah! Sergeant Michael Chua!” the man practically bellows and smiles again,

obviously pleased that I made it this time. He’s dropped me his alerts many

times before and each time I narrowly missed a corpse, being carted away or

already gone. “Well if it isn’t your lucky day,” he continues, quite oblivious to

the lady’s condition.

“It certainly is,” I reply in Mandarin in an attempt to disguise our conversa-

tion. “Very lucky indeed!”

“They say ah, this one very odd.” As he says this one, he flicks his index

finger in the direction of the body, like flicking a booger. “They say that he

did not look like he was planning to jump at all. He had all this stuff to carry.

Like he had a lot of work to do tonight.” Inspector Khoo speaks very matter-

of-factly.

“He was smiling,” I say.

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“He what?”

“Smiling,” I reiterate, “he still is. There, have a look.”

No-no-no, Inspector Khoo gestures by waving his hand. Not after a full

meal, no. The sight of bloody body parts wouldn’t go down too nicely with

the oyster omelette and pork rib soup that he had for late afternoon tea. “As

long as you are happy, I’m happy.” He grins. “Blood is still fresh on that one.”

“Yes indeed Inspector Khoo,” I reply. At this point I’m quite eager to close

the conversation and move on home so I add: “the bloodier the better.”

No sooner have I said those words, bang! The ang-moh comes at me,

slapping and scratching like some rabid cat and shrieking some foreign

gibberish at the top of her lungs. It might be in English but I’m too desper-

ate in shielding my face to know for sure. How the fuck could I know that

this ang-moh understands Mandarin? You really can’t be too assuming these

days. Scratch, scratch, claw and shriek, shriek, shriek! It takes Inspector Khoo

and two of the men in navy overalls and fluorescent orange vests to hold her

back. One of the men’s helmets flies right across the platform. But I survive.

Mad Ang-moh Lady gives up the struggle and crumbles into a weeping mess

instead. I check out as fast as I can and wave my swift goodbyes to Inspector

Khoo. After all, I have an important dinner date to attend to: with Ma.

It’s my birthday. Puntang! My mother would swear. She’d chide me if she

knew where I’ve been today. You never sully the rest of one’s life with the

defilement that death brings on a decidedly auspicious day like a birthday,

or so we’ve been brought up to observe. Oh well. I’ll have to shut up about

what’s happened this evening now, won’t I?

Truth be told, I know exactly what to expect and the birthday dinner is

something that I have to go through for my mother’s sake. I’ve never seen any

point in celebrating anything if it’s going to remind someone of some part

of an irrelevant past. With my face stinging from the abuse I had just copped,

I hurry on foot out of the station, transfer to bus and make my way through

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one of the oldest public housing estates in the country. Old concrete blocks

with red brick facades and pale, whitewashed rectangular columns. One block

is identical to another and it’s like this for most of the district. I know my

path. I can do this drunk out of my mind. That’s how long I’ve lived here.

My watch tells me I’m not too late.

She’ll sit there watching her new favourite Chinese soap on our old Hitachi

television set. Ma watches just about everything these days, and can put up

with anything but televised Parliamentary debates and the annual Repub-

lic Day Parade celebrations. But she loves this the most: this TV series with

the annoying theme song. I can hear it multiplied from one television set to

another as I make my way past every tiny apartment unit along the same cor-

ridor, carefully avoiding the overhead votive incense containers that circulate

this part of Block 12 like satellites of a Taoist universe. I pass Mrs Wee’s and

see that her television set is tuned to the evening soap as well, her eleven-

fingered grandson’s dreamy gaze catching mine. How many housewives and

their families would be sitting there, dinner in front of them, transfixed to

the adventures of a poor wench from the pre-war era? I don’t want to think

about it. I never care for such things; which celebrity is playing whom and

whether the poor wench gets to marry the rich young heir from a wealthy

plantation. I suppose my mother does. I see her shaking her head in disap-

proval at the scheming matchmaker who is interfering in the protagonist’s life.

“Ma,” I call out as I remove my shoes and close the aluminium gate behind

me.

She nods.

I sit beside her with a bowl of rice in hand. With dinner laid out before our

television characters bickering in their historically inaccurate costumes, the

mood is set. Such a relief that there’s no Western style fast food today. A rare

special: Ma’s cooked a dish. Steamed pork in fermented shrimp sauce. There’s

never been any point in cooking up a storm in a family of just two, so there’s

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always fast food from the restaurant that Ma works part-time in. On occasion,

there would be extra helpings, courtesy of Mrs Wee from next door. There

are also hard-boiled eggs dyed red for good luck. “We’ll have fish next time

Michael,” she says and I nod. The wench is in tears now as someone’s evil

half-sister has struck her.

“The pork is delicious,” I say.

“What happened to your face?” she asks. Oh that. Damn, it still stings. “And

your shirt?”

Shirt? I find my breast pocket missing. And along with it went my badge.

Probably in the hands of that hysterical woman; she would fit right into the

insipid story unfolding on the TV. “Nothing serious,” I explain quickly, “just

a mad person I encountered in the line of duty.”

“Be careful,” Ma advises, not removing her concentration from the televi-

sion screen. I can’t tell if she’s offering her advice to that sobbing wench or

me. “The young master has fallen for her,” Ma adds. Oh.

In the past Ma would have pressed me for a name of a girl I was seeing.

These days she can’t be fussed. She saves whatever money she can and spends

her free time at the knitting club at the community centre, and can hardly

wait for the new casino they’re building to bring the tourist dollars in. She

never even questions me about my ‘woman friends’ that spend the night here

every now and again. Inside I’m dying to tell her about the accident at the

train station, my mad attacker and the dead man who smiled but I know full

well that any talk of death today would upset her and spoil the occasion. The

wench is in quiet monologue now, plotting her escape from the rich heir’s

mansion.

The TV show ends with another dramatic theme song as the credits roll.

And as it ends, so does dinner as Ma gets up on cue and removes the dishes

one by one. The news comes on but, as ever, she pays no interest. “I hear the

news on the radio all day, I’m sick of it,” she says.

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Oh? “Then tell me something about the meteor hurtling towards Earth,” I say

to test her, “the one that the Americans call Rudolph, the one made entirely

of ice?”

“What’s a meteor?” she asks amidst the clank of dishes and slosh of soap

water.

“It’s a really big rock,” I tell her, “that flies in from space and sometimes

lands on the planet. And this one might just land in our part of the world.

But not to worry Ma,” I say reassuringly, “lots of space rocks pass by Earth all

the time. And hardly any chance of one hitting us.”

“Well I certainly hope not,” Ma says, “we don’t want dangerous things

breaking people’s windows.”

The woman has no idea. These rocks are so huge they flatten whole cities!

If one landed here, this very flat and all the hundreds around us will topple

like mah-jong chips in a royal flush. I laugh.

“Go and offer something to your father,” she says, obviously tiring of this

science doom talk.

And I do.

I walk over to Father’s altar, our little shrine of remembrance where his old

portrait hangs. He looks nothing like me. Father’s face is round, nearly a

perfect circle and his slanting eyes narrowed to a squint in a pose that is

almost comical. His lips purse to form an “Oh!” From the height of the altar,

his face is almost moon-like. He gazes into my eyes, frowning as if to ask: who

the fuck are you? I wish I could remember something about him, anything.

Sometimes I squint right back at him and think: who the fuck are you?

In my dreams he is sometimes the one who rescues me from drowning.

Once when I was a child I had ventured too far up the deep end of a public

swimming pool and found myself floundering. Hands reached down and

grabbed mine as I struggled for life, and hoisted me up, sending me to the

arms of my extremely upset young mother. I never remembered the face of

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that man who saved me. I wish there had been some nuance of a memory of

him but I cannot for the life of me remember anything. And so, whenever I

re-live the time of my near drowning, I picture my father; after all, who else

would it be?

Beyond that there’d be nothing apart from that sad story of how he

disappeared while on holiday, a story often reiterated by my mother. “Fishing

was his favourite pastime,” Ma says. One afternoon as he stood on a jutting

rock, a massive wave came without warning and swept him away. Ma says in

a manner that is devoid of emotion, as if he deserved that way of ending, like

his choice of leisure activity did not find her approval. “Next thing, nothing.

Just gone. Like that. No more. No more Pa.”

Well, wherever his soul is, I hope he’s happy. Today as I pay my respects,

I ponder on his facial features on that portrait and wonder how different he’d

look if he had that dead man’s smile. I imagine a conversation with him as I

stand in front of the altar. I imagine, as I always have, him asking what I was

going to do next, with my job, a non-existent wife, and life in general. “I

don’t know Pa,” I reply, “I don’t know. I’m up for a promotion at work; the

women I sleep with are married, attached or just plain crazies. As ever, I don’t

know.” My answers are still as short and stupid as ever.

I’ve just turned 33 and the only box left to tick is to get married and settle

down and procreate. Every other box is ticked and, as far as society here in

this tiny nation is concerned, you can say I’ve done pretty well. I could always

invest in something and make more money, drive a car and tell everyone how

successful I am. Ma can stop working in that stupid burger restaurant and tell

Mrs Wee from next door to stop feeling sorry for us two.

“Yeah, Pa, I don’t know. But if anything was to go by what I saw at the

station earlier this evening, then maybe my life might get a little bit more

interesting. Or not. I don’t know Pa, I don’t know.” I kowtow my joss incense

stalks in my fingers three times and plant them in the tiny silver container on

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the altar tray.

“Oh and one more thing Pa,” I say, this time smiling. “Say hello to the dead

guy if you see him, the one that died smiling.”

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There he is (snap, point!).

It isn’t too difficult to track this kid down, thinks the officer they call Small Paul;

to him, identifying the boy is easier than picking out a fake Gucci handbag in

a Makan Street lane way stall.

When other people can begin their weekend plans, some like him have

a job to do. You don’t pass off a chance on a club raid, especially one like

(snap!) this. Every opportunity to score a point and impress the superiors is a

chance worth taking. And this included tip-offs from anonymous strangers on

possible pill-popping junkies on a night out in town. He wishes Chua hadn’t

been so aloof. He wishes his immediate superior could at least show some

interest in this mission. If he had his passion, Small Paul decided, he’d be here

right now guiding him through this raid. There’s so much more he could

learn from Chua, all those tricks of the trade. He wonders where he is at the

moment. It’s odd that a man of Chua’s age can jade so quickly. Where’s that

heroic zeal to obliterate drugs forever? How did fighting the bad guys water

down to just another day at work?

Personally, Paul Wong takes his job as patriotic duty; in fact, more like a

crusade. How could anyone not? All through Republic schooling he was

taught that a great many people were incapable of their own thoughts and

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the onus always fell upon the leaders to do the thinking for them. Therefore

the idea that anyone could volunteer his or her mind to a ridiculous eupho-

ria-filled insanity is really beyond comprehension. The human mind is a dark

place. If anything, drugs took them all there, no question. Republic History

lessons constantly remind young citizens of the devious crimes of the British

colonials and their East India Company, in an era where ambition and plun-

der carved huge profits. It had been a time when many were introduced into

poppy-powdered pastimes that eventually destroyed their minds: china-white

opium in exchange for commodities and a lifelong dependency on trade

with the colonialists. Zombie addicts of the British monarchy. Heroin then

is heroin now, so what’s the difference? And only too similar to ice, ecstasy,

ketamine and whatever that was out there because they all do the same thing

in Paul Wong’s book: they turn your mind to mush. How can anyone not be

passionate about eradicating them from the face of the earth?

If anyone should leave the force, it will have to be Big Paul Wong. A man

who’s been in the department since before Small Paul Wong was born (or

so he believes). Old, stagnant Warrant Officer Paul Wong. Nothing more

than old blood coagulating in the corner, collecting his monthly pay checks

and waiting for his pension. And because he was the first Paul, he’s Big Paul.

But no one calls him Big Paul; it’s a reference that Small Paul uses in secret.

They just call the young corporal “Small Paul”, because he’s newer, younger

and well, it’s more amusing. “Small Paul” stuck from the first second of the

first minute of the first hour of Corporal Wong’s first day at the department,

despite his insistence on being called Corporal Wong. Oh, how he detested

it! But hey, at least that was about the only thing he hated about his job. After

all, which other civil service job gives you a chance at exciting drug busts like

this?

But tonight is not a department-sanctioned raid. Big Paul had expressed

some doubt over the authenticity of the tip-off caller. The old bear’s always

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like that, hiding behind a book and taking too long to make any decision. So

Small Paul decided he would do this himself, with the help of two or three

other junior officers. He convinced them that even if the tip-off was a dud,

at the very least, the dance club owners will have had the privilege of his

acquaintance and be reminded of who’s boss. Show them who’s in charge

now won’t we? (Snap!) The caller mentioned that as many as sixty people will

be taking drugs that night. Possibly more. Now if Small Paul can manage this

one on his own, that would be nothing less than a medal.

The Library is a full house tonight. At a crowd capacity of over six hundred

people, not including those lining up outside desperately hoping for standing

space, the owners of the establishment are ecstatic at the turnout to say the

least. It had been very crucial that the right DJ star be picked. It can make

or break the night. Tonight’s guest DJ had evidently been the right pick. The

owners can’t tell if it was his talent at the decks or his chiselled Norwegian

good looks that spun the hype and hysteria. For what it’s worth, they really

don’t care. It’s a fickle business. The proprietors of the Library agreed to

Small Paul’s warrant on the vital condition that he and his team would be as

discreet and disruption-free as possible; not that they had many conditions to

speak of. No one negotiates with the laws of the Republic and the officers

that enforce them. So it’s here in the privacy of the office, in front of the

monitor screens that Small Paul says: there he is.

As a rule of thumb, every entertainment complex in the Republic must

have cameras installed. This rule actually applied everywhere and anywhere

“an assembly of four or more people” gathered. So even food halls in shop-

ping malls had cameras. Offices such as this one would have an inside-out

view of all that went on. And yet, the manager cannot fathom how that an-

noying officer can tell who’s who and who’s doing what. With dim lighting

and flashing strobes, one would have to watch the tape again and again in

slow motion to spot anything at all. But he had learnt from early years in the

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business to simply give in and not protest. One hundred per cent cooperation.

If the officer says he’s identified someone on drugs, you just nod and escort

him, no questions asked. Just see to it they do it quick and fast and not scare

anyone, especially not on a good night like tonight.

The passageway from the office to the main dance floor snakes like a secret

tunnel from a medieval castle. Small Paul is only too eager to remove himself

from that claustrophobic, window-less space these nightclub owners call

their office. He makes a mental note that should there be a fire, no one will

emerge unscathed. “Fire hazard infringement,” Small Paul mumbles into his

voice-recorder. Let’s give a little something to Republic Building Safety. Not

surprising, since this is one of many heritage buildings built during the time

of the British. It had three floors and a generous rear compound, what latter

day real estate agents would call the ‘clincher’. It had endured, since its rescue

from dereliction, brief lives as a meeting house for a local clan, a banquet

restaurant and a bookshop. Its last incarnation was a tribute to its century old

origins: a private library and social club for the elite in the British community

back when the daily anthem was ‘God save The Queen’ and not ‘Onwards,

Citizens of the Republic!’ Now, nearly three and a half million Republic

dollars later, The Library is the most popular dance club in Asia and a proud

mention on every tourist brochure.

Small Paul can feel the temperature change instantly as they wade into the

crowd. The music, which was nothing more than an ominously low thump-

thump-thump just moments before, has sharpened into a louder and crisper

rhythmic banging. There’s a cheer. Someone nearly spills her drinks over him.

He can barely make out the features of the woman’s face, or anyone else’s

come to think of it. The whole scene begins to remind him of tribal rituals

on TV documentaries. It’s not too far removed really, all this mad dancing.

Small Paul likens the DJ to the high priest.

Small Paul stops in his tracks and turns to one of his men, who nods back

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in full agreement.

There’s the kid.

***

THE crescendo from seconds ago fades into a strange sequence of percussion.

This must be why they’ve dubbed the DJ the ‘Picasso of sound’. It’s all very

synchronised, this orchestration of dimming lights, sound and smoke

machines. Ah, this is the part where the throb of the bass blends with the

pulse of light strobes. The kid loves it.

The kid has been living for a moment as perfect as this. It sucks when he

has to travel to neighbouring countries to have a good party. As far as he’s

concerned, what is the harm of a couple of pills? It sure beat alcohol, which

made him clumsy and drained his energy. For all the hard work he’s had to

put in to schoolwork, this can’t be too much to ask for, could it? A happy

buzz to hover over the most kickarse music, an experience to share with the

best friends he’d ever have in the whole wide world. Party now, is his motto.

Party now before everyone graduates and moves on with their grown-up

lives and retreats into their own little cubicles. In all his substance trips, the

kid never fails to stay faithful to his mantra: mind over matter. Mind over

matter and you won’t fall into the addiction trap.

In the past, the kid would contend himself with vodka and red bulls or at

worst, an anti-histamine pill with whiskey. And then came ecstasy at a full

moon party in Phuket. From that moment on, there was no turning back.

He decided it wasn’t going to be the last time. Coming back home to the

Republic brought the all-too-sober hassle of trying to score the drug for a

decent party. But it was worth it! At forty-five dollars a pop, the buzz could

last much longer than ten red bull vodkas, which cost a lot more if you

worked it all out. Plus, you could stay sharp, focussed and positive for hours

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on end. It was a nice feeling, this imperviousness to anything that was nega-

tive or painful. Well, at least for roughly three and a half hours.

But lately, the kid is willing to experiment with more exotic substances that

fall within reach, like crystal meth. But tonight! Whoa, tonight this shit, what-

ever they called it (what did they call this shit?); little green pills or pellets,

really like the stuff you feed carp with, except just a little larger, like rounded

tic-tac sweets. And the most peculiar colour: bright green! You pop a few at

a time, he and his buddies discover, about three or four little ones. People

around him could have mistaken them as exchanging mints. And then up into

the mouth, like that.

“Anything?”

“No, nothing,” says his friend.

And then it happens.

It is an all too familiar start to the sensation. First it swells inside you like

a balloon, gathering like a tsunami does when it drains the shores of its

seawater. Yes, like that. A strangeness that rises to that place just below your

heart and then disappears, only for a second and then bang! The wave crashes

back onto shore and drowns out every single crevice of nothingness and

emptiness, filling every hairline crack of your being with a single sensation of

oneness. Nirvana! The kid need not look over at his buddies nearby to know

that they’ve been swept over as well. The beauty of it is how they’re suddenly

one and the same. The effect had timing. The kid doesn’t realise how his own

voice has gone way ahead of his own mental command. “Whoooooah!” He

hollers, proud and victorious, a single fist punching up the air and through

an invisible ceiling. The joy is infectious. Whether it’s the music or the little

green pills, the kid doesn’t care. At this very moment everything and every-

one is a culmination of all the happy things he’d ever experienced in all his

twenty years of life; a summary of only the positive, stirred into a delicious

Rojak salad. It is, in a word, divine.

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“Shioke!” someone exhorts, barely audible against the DJ’s repertoire.

“Shioke!” the kid shouts back in delight, much louder. And then again,

insanely louder: “SHIOKE!”

Soon enough everyone around chants the same word. Shioke, shioke, shioke,

shioke! The kid can see it on the faces of all these beautiful people. For no

rational reason at all, he loves them all with his whole heart: straight girls and

boys, gay boys, lesbians, university kids and young upstarts, everyone. Shioke.

Such a simple word it is: shioke. Nothing more than an everyday expression

for when food tasted yummy or when money was won at the lottery or that

lone cigarette right after good sex. Shioke. They all chant: shioke, shioke, shioke,

shioke!

Even the DJ is smiling now, both hands pointing at his adoring audience in

total sync with the boom, boom, and boom of the rhythm. Ah, this is what he

lives for. Oslo or Osaka, as long as good music existed, he’ll be there. That and

oh, for the girls who love Norwegian dick too, ha-ha! With a quick turn of some

dials on the buttons of his turntable, the DJ spins another tune. The floor is

now a frenzied swamp of writhing, gyrating bodies.

It is after an endless passage of ecstatic eternity that the kid finds someone,

slightly shorter than himself, standing before him with a badge in his hand.

The guy cocks his head sideways, motioning him to step off the dance floor.

The kid looks around and sees three more fellows like him, grim and in

uninteresting un-club attire. Right. Them. This is it, he says to himself, this is

it. The one dreaded moment that you’ll spend your entire life regretting.

The kid complies, and follows after them, still smiling and slapping palms of

the hands of familiar faces along the way with one hand in tribal accordance,

as if to say it’s all cool and that he’ll be alright. Nothing to get upset about;

the night has just ended a little sooner that’s all.

“Ai zhai,” he utters to himself as he is escorted away along with a handful

of others. Chin up, chin up, all cool, all cool, nothing to see here: “ai zhai, no

32

biggie.”

“Quiet you!” (Snap!)