Singa-pura
Warwick Newnham
Balinese wet season and as per the nights and weeks
preceding the eight-o’-clock downpour drenches the streets of the strip with the
monsoonal sheets of rain falling like waterfall and cascading the soaking
tourists and locals to splash through the flashing drains and run laughing for
the shelter of the Sari Club’s bamboo and thatched bars where young inebriates
of all nations hoot and holler and knock back ‘Dua Bintang Bir Lagi’[1]and
‘Arak’ cocktails.
A smack of shrooming Aussie trawl trash cling to the
bar like a small fleet besieged as the drunken in-coming flotsam crashes
against them in a surge of sodden swimmers and shorts and t-shirts. In their
haze they order bottles of ‘Arak’ and the drinks appear and float before them
like neon jelly-fish as they shout the bar and each-other and they laugh like
loons as Markovic, the engineer, intones in polish Basso-Profondo:
‘JED DRUNKEN RRYBA NYAH HAH HAH HAH!
DWA DRUNKEN
RRYBA NYAH HAH HAH HAH!
TRZY DRUNKEN RRYBA NYAH HAH HAH HAH!’[2]
Their laughter is infectious and with
free drinks as berley they seine a shoal of Swiss-Miss-Back-Packers keen on
inebriation and shouting. They join the joke with:
‘Yes ! You make like Se-Sa-Me Street
Yes? You are ….how to say? Count?’
‘I not count’
I Prince! Prince Markovich!’
The smack of shrooming Aussie trawl trash clings to
the bar in paroxysms of hysterics as Markovich shouts them and the shoal to rounds
of shooters and as one they toast him with:
‘One Count Nyah Hah Hah!’
And
‘ON YAH MARKY!’
And
‘Count!
Count! Count! Count!’
Marky scowls at the degradation of his
rightful title and flicking his hands at the Swiss-Misses with disdain he
Ten-Hups and Right-Turns and as he Commence-March is suddenly face to face with
a Comrade-In-Arms from Back-In-The-Day; Staunch, Stand-Up and True. Markey
stops and starts and stares and mimics rubbing at his eyes with amazement: he
laughs and Shouts:
‘CZTERY DRUNKEN RRYBA
NYAH HAH HAH HAH!’[3]
They greet each-other as trawl-trash-home-boys ‘MATE’
and lock fore-arm, wrist and fist: shouting at each other over the hubbub…
‘Still telling girls that
You are a prince I see?’
‘Vladimir…my
friend!
You
not as they say
Dead!’
‘Rumours as to my recent demise have been greatly exaggerated to
say the very least. And it’s Val Count: Val!’
‘It
is true …..Val!......that
Dead
men don’t quote no
Oscar
Vild[sic]….but do they drink?
‘I’m not a Fuckin’ Camel Marky! What do You reckon?’
‘I
think, my friend we drink!’
‘Vodka,
Vodka for my friend!’
‘What? Potato flavoured ethanol?’
‘No! Is special bottle…
I bring….just for
In case you not dead’.
‘You had me at vodka!’
They toast each other with skolled shots.
‘I
heard you stuck in Gorge-town!
I heard Val Got some lady problem.
You
fall in love?’
‘No-No-No-No-No!
Wasn’t me!
Wasn’t There!
Didn’t Do It!’
‘Not
being first time-
You
remember last time?’
‘No-No-No-No-No!
That was In
Another Country
And Besides
The Whore
Is Dead.’
‘Shakespeare
he remembers?
Shakespeare?
How
you forget?
George-town?
Remember?
‘
GeorgeTown:
Holed up at Ma-Ma-Sans’ Boarding-House-Bordello
in GeorgeTown as the dry-season settles into everything and what with the flies and the heat and the dust:
where the only civilized responses are alcoholic siestas and repose until,
finally, at dusk, a cool wind brisks in from across the bay and as the temperature drops and the sun sets and they
emerge blinking like marsupials in the early-evening neon stroboscope of
flashing lighting as numbered dancing girls in swim-wear setting up for another
night on the tiles.
Marky and Val kick off with a breakfast
of Bloody Marys followed by a substantial luncheon of screw-drivers and then G
and Ts’ for the malaria and the quinine in the tonic water and finally rum,
dark and molasses and nasty.
Chinese gentle-men sit in rumpled white
linen suits and are fanned and attended to by bar-girls in cheongsam slit
hip-high; the tintinnabulations of their avian cooing and tittering attenuated
in the general bar noise. They watch as Marky and Val drink themselves right
and they cheer them on raucously shouting:
‘YESSSSSSS!’
And
‘GOOOOOOOD!’
Drunk with amorous intent Val scans the remaining
talent seeing that all the good ones are with the ‘Chi-Na-Men’ and with that he
orders more drinks and cigarettes and sends for his rickshaw-rider.
Marky, as per the nights preceding, dances with the
Ma-Ma-San to pre-war 78s’, all scratchy and tinny,
through a gramophone she keepsakes behind the bar. In reminiscence she keeps
her eyes tight shut and faithfully clicks out Morse Code Messages in the
staccato heel-tap of stiletto on tile as Marky leads her expertly through the
passionate of re-enactment of the small death of the tango.
The Chinese gentle-men in rumpled white
linen suits watch Marky and Ma-Ma-San tango and cheer them on raucously
shouting:
‘YESSSSSSS!’
And
‘GOOOOOOOD!’
The record finishes and the dancers bow
to each other; one with drama and flair, the other ornately and formal. Markey
returns to his drink and says:
‘This,
I never
Tire
of doing this
Thing…this
tango’
‘Good,……..Come On!’
‘Vhat
to come on?’
‘The Gong Marky!
Let’s go kick the gong around!’
‘Vait:
I thank the Ma-Ma-San’.
‘Fuck that…
Let’s get on!’
‘Is
always time for manners, Val!’
Val and Marky exit the sanctuary of
Ma-Ma-Sans’ into the noise of the pimps and touts and into the clamour of
horns, mopeds and rickshaws. They emerge blinking like marsupials in the
evening neon stroboscope of flashing signs of Love streets’ brothels and bars: illuminated,
resonant and radiant. Their regular-rickshaw-rider awaits their carriage and
they are swept along with the human tide down Love Street and forward to the Apothecary
where sweet-pipe-dreams await the weary traveller. He knows the route
well and the wait and the eventual return to Ma-Ma-Sans and repeat. He carries
them on weekly retainer and today is payday;
‘Imagine!
A month of wages for a week of waiting! ‘
He hustles them through the traffic and soon has
them at the Apothecary’s door where he takes his stipend of 20 Ringgit and
settles in to wait their return. He practises his English and repeats:
‘Hello. My name is Nazim’
Marky and Val are greeted by the
Apothecary as regulars and are shown
To recliners to be attended to by
Pipe-Girls in Cheongsam slit hip-high;
The tintinnabulations of their avian
Cooing and tittering
Attenuated
In the general quiet as the languid yet busy
Opium den conducts its pleasures for commerce.
They kick the gong around.
And repose
Eloquently wasted:
‘I
think ‘we gotta go out of this place’
‘No Way! Get Fucked! Fuck Off!’
‘How
many mornings before we wake up sick
And
not no more having fun?’
‘No…..like the song
Am I ever gonna’ see your face again?’
‘I
try to talk; you make fun!’
‘No Way! Get Fucked! Fuck Off!’
‘Seriously
Val……lets go to Singapore?
Chill
out for a ‘vhile……
…..
Drink
stengahs..
…
Raffles…
..
.’
‘Yeah
………You right!
…………..
…….Gotta’ get out of this place…….
………yeah
……..You right….
…
You right……….’
Balinese:
…. night and as the rain clears the Sari-Club swells with travellers
and tourist; street scamps dance for rupiah with monkeys perched upon their
heads. As Marky and Val toast the rest
of the trawl trash drifting off to disco, dance and drink at the Lucky Seven
Night Club, looking for a fight or a fuck or whatever. They drag with them the
shoal of Swiss-Miss-Back-Packers still keen on inebriation and shouting leaving
Marky and Val to shout at each other over the hubbub of tourist and monkey boys
and Madonna who ‘Wants It Right Now’ and can ‘Make Him Show You How’.
‘Do you wanna’ do some shroom?’
‘Sleep,
perchance to dream?’
‘Now who Speaks Of Hares?…
Well?..’
Val calls to a monkey-boy and with a 100 rupee note;
Orders\
‘Jamur…..Mabuk. Dua Potong. Pergi Disini Dua Potong Jamur Seratus
Rupiah Untuk Anda.
Ok?’[4]
The boy tucks his monkey under his arm
and with eyes all suddenly adult he demands:
‘Tidak Harga Biasa! Satu potong Jamur ini
Duaratus! Dua potong ini tigaratus!’[5]
‘Ok, ok 300 for the mushroom and 200 for you, when you get back?
‘Ok Mister!’
Val rubs two 100 rupiah coins together
between his thumb and forefinger and with the appearance of three coins he
gives them to the boy who looks at his hand saying:
‘ANDA PENCHURI!’[6]
Val laughs and flips the boy another coin nimbly caught and with
his monkey firmly tucked the boy is out into the evening traffic. Drinks are
ordered and toasts drunk:
‘To You, For You and Up You!’
‘Fuck
you mother!’
The boy returns and on receipt of the
remainder dispenses bags of shrooms and Val and Marky wash these down with
fresh drinks and toast the boy and each other and as per the nights preceding the eleven-o’-clock
downpour drenches the streets of the strip with monsoonal sheets of rain
falling like waterfall and cascading the soaking tourists and locals to splash
through the flashing drains and run laughing for the shelter of the Sari Club’s
thatched bar.
They kick on
And
In-Vino-Veritas
With blurry
edges
And visions.
Shouting
at each other
Over
the hubbub of tourist,
Monkey
boys
And
Madonna.
‘Remember Sanji?’
‘My name is…Nizam!’
‘Hah! Orchard road?’
‘Johhny-Two-Thumbs?’
Singapore:
Markey
and Val, barely shaken or stirred by transit ,sip double Stengahs through
straws and repose taking the languid punkah driven air in the:
Long Bar,
Raffles Hotel.
Singapore.
Evening
falls and as
per days preceding their regular-rickshaw-rider
awaits their carriage and they are soon swept along with the human tide and
along Bras Basar Road searching for the legendary tattooist infamous, amongst
sea-men and service-men and trawl-trash:
‘Johnny-Two-Thumbs ‘
Their regular-rickshaw-rider takes
short-cuts through kampong and losman, laneways and alleyways. They are transported through another time, an
older Singapore more suited to fedoras and empire and safari suits. They pass
gaping holes in the City-Scape where cranes and scaffolding stand guard on
de-populated tracts of development and enterprise. In the harsh glare of
shopping mall lights they are deposited at a high-line retail development
rising all glass and steel and sleek from the dust and the heat of the street.
They remonstrate with their rickshaw-rider;
‘No, no Sanji!
This not Johnny-Two-Thumb!’
Only to be
told:
‘No Tuhan[7]!
Ol’ Mister Two-Thumb…
He die…..dead.
Numbah-One-Son makes New-Lucky-Shop!
No more Bras-Basar-Road.
Numbah-One-Orchard-Road!’
Electric doors open and admit them and
close behind them with a hiss and pneumatic ‘KLOOOOOOSH’ and they rise from the
street all glass and steel and sleek in the mirrored vault of the lift. They
are reflected and re-reflected in images stretching perspective as a myriad of
self-portraits stream back and forth and the infinite beckons from the
peripheral shadows.
They exit the lift at the seventh floor
and walk around the mezzanine past old Singapore recreated in gleaming tile and
neon; restaurants and bar, apothecaries with bear bile and snake bile as
potions and lotions, where coolies stream past laundries and yum cha joints
hustle steaming trolleys.
They pass an English-Pub recreated with
heavy oak fittings and pint glasses and beefeater pies and 16 dollar jugs of happy
hour special margaritas. Marky says;
‘Vaste
Not
Vant
Not?’
And enters the bar to wait Vals’ return.
Val continues past shops stocking song
birds and gilded cages, past boutiques and shoe shops and florists and finally
enters under the blue and white flickering neon sign. He is assailed with the
hum of transformers and tattoo guns rattling and grinding away as a fleet of
navvies tough stamp anchors and sweet-hearts and flags to their hoary hides.
He is met at the counter by a Chinese teenager who screws up his
eyes and says:
‘No Glot!
No Tickee
No Laundry
Come
Fliday!’
And then laughs and says in un-accented
English;
‘No
man…just kidding.
What you
need?’
Val lifts his shirt and raising his
right arm displays the unfinished work that stretches from armpit to hip and
across his ribs.The teenager whistles and says;
‘Grand
Father?
Uncle?
Father?
Val nods.
‘What you
need?
You want
finish?
Come back
two hour!’
Val nods again and laughs as the youth shouts:
‘No-Glot.
Come
Fliday!’
Val returns past song birds and gilded
cages, past boutiques and shoe shops and florists, past old Singapore recreated
in gleaming tile, restaurants, bars, apothecaries with bear bile and snake bile
as potions and lotions, where coolies stream past laundries and yum cha joints
hustle steaming trolleys. He returns to Ye-Olde-English-Pub where Marky waits
with a 16 dollar jug of Happy-Hour-Special. He says;
‘Ten margherita!
Nyah hah hah hah!’
Balinese:
Night and as the Sari-Club empties and
fills again with fresher tourists the rain-squalls advance and retreat with the
incoming troughs and lows. Street scamps dance for rupiah with monkeys perched
upon their heads.
Marky and Val shout at each other over
the hubbub of tourist and monkey boys and Madonna and the drinks flow on riding
the incoming swell of yester-year and awash in libation and commemoration.
Markey is animated by remembrance and the booze and a big bag of ‘Trip-To-The-Moon-Mister’
blue meanies.
His laughter is infectious and with free
drinks flowing like berley he seines a shoal after shoal of glitter glinting
Back-Packers and as ‘Prince Markovich’ he presents each one for inspection only
to have Val knock them all back one by one as too big or too small, too fat or
too skinny, too German, too ugly, too old, not old enough and so on until
Markey throws up his hands in exasperation and bemoans:
‘All
this beauty……
Val PLEASE?’
‘They all ugly <
Markey>’’
‘Please..Val….
Compared
against what?
Please
to look around!’
‘Exactly.
Compared to What?’
Markeys’ face is lit with recognition as he exclaims:
‘ Val……Val……..
Vhat
about those girls in Singapore?
You
remember?’
‘?’
‘In
the disco….
Sixteen
dollar jug margherita!
Yes?.......
Val?’
Singapore:
They wash up against the bar with the
incoming tide of expatriates and working girls, where every taste of peninsular
beauty is represented in every
combination and permutation as a million mirrored lexicons, refracted and
reflected, bounce from mirror balls and mark the dancers in stroboscopic
reliefs of bacchanalian disport and transports of ecclesiastical delights of
flesh and the now.
Marky and Val kick on with Bloody Marys and
Screw-Drivers, then G and Ts’ for the malaria and finally
rum, dark and molasses and nasty. Chinese gentle-men sit in rumpled white linen
suits and are fanned and attended to by bar-girls in cheongsam slit hip-high;
the tintinnabulations of their avian cooing and tittering attenuated in the
general bar noise
The Chinese watch as Marky and Val drink. They cheer them on
raucously shouting:
‘YESSSSSSS!’
And
‘GOOOOOOOD!’
But
their imprecations are lost in translation and fall unheard in the disco noise
and the flashy grinding bump being performed by Eurasian beauties in neon tube
dresses as the DJ invokes;
‘Get Down
On With You Lambada’‘
Get! Down!! On! You! Lambada!!’
These
girls dance like fluid snakes entwined. Their tube dresses move north and they
are moving their silken clad cunts in
gyration and sliding them up and then down and up again against each other’s
thighs. These sloe eyed beauties engage in a full and frank exchange in the
tongues as of angels and of man. The Chinese gentle-men in rumpled white linen suits watch this tango
and cheer them on raucously shouting:
YESSSSSSS!’
And
‘GOOOOOOOD!’
Marky
and Val are stupefied with drink, incapable of speech or movement, incapable of
participation beyond Eyes-Wide-Open and an incandescent tumescence as the girls
gyrate and neck before them.
Tango,
full participation, cheongsam rumpled raucously, tumescence and frank, this as
their thighs sliding and Cheongsams like incandesce moving full and north. Neck
as linen entwined. Engaged drink, gyrating. Gentle-men! They’re moving Val,
full by north, beauties, suits, angels Eyes-Wide-Open to tongues entwined.
Gyration speaks of cheer, gyrate cunts up, participation in movement, with
linen. Others are cunts. These others and sliding fluid, sliding girls, drink,
before rumpled girls and north entwined and down and of north and north and
again north….
Balinese:
Moon
and bent like a spoon in reminiscences and mushroom: in the heat Val strips his
sodden sari club staff tee-shirt and in the flashing strobe of the disco he
dances tattooed and naked to the waist; gleaming metallic like wiring with
dragon and rhythms and rhymes and chants and orisons to the discipline of the
Inkster’s arts.
Dragons and carp swim with octopi
Pictographs
of seraphim attending Venus
Lions; rampart
and flying.
He appears and
re-appears frozen in the staccato stutter of dance-floor light as mystic images
of shamanistic ciphers.
His laughter is infectious and with free drinks flowing like
berley he seines a shoal after shoal of glitter glinting Back-Packers keen on
inebriation and shouting.
He appears and re-appears frozen in the staccato stutter of dance-floor light
as mystic images of shamanistic ciphers.
Singapore:
Marky and Val are stupefied with drink,
Eyes-Wide-Open and with incandescent tumescence but the girls move on,
realizing that neither has the capacity for the patronage they seek. Too late,
Val strips his shirt to join them in the lascivious Lambada but with them now
gone he dances solo in stroboscopic reliefs of
bacchanalian disport and in the transport of ecclesiastical delights. He
appears and re-appears frozen in the staccato stutter of dance-floor light as
mystic images of shamanistic ciphers with Dragons and carp swimming and octopi
and pictographs of seraphim attending Venus with lions; rampart and flying. The Chinese gentle-men in rumpled white linen suits freeze
and the bar-girls in cheongsam slit hip-high cease their fanning and attending
and avian tintinnabulations and they all watch intently reading the signs and
reading between the lines.
The Chinese
gentle-men engage in terse exchanges in Mandarin as the bar-girls in cheongsams
avert their gazes to the floor and furiously resume their fanning and attending
and avian tintinnabulations as the appointed emissary approaches Val and bowing
asks first in Mandarin and then English:
‘GRAND-FATHER?’
‘FATHER?’
‘SON?’
His words shatter to
shards like Mah-Jong tiles and are swallowed by the noise of the bar and Val
continues to dance all tattooed and naked to the waist; gleaming in the disco
lights metallic like wiring with dragon and rhythms and rhymes and chants and
orisons to the discipline of the Inkster’s arts.
Dragons and carp swim
with octopi and pictographs of seraphim attending Venus with lions; rampart and
flying. He appears and re-appears frozen in the staccato stutter of dance-floor
light as mystic images of shamanistic ciphers.
The Chinese gentleman approaches: bowing
again asking loudly this time; first in Mandarin then English:
‘GRAND-FATHER?’
‘FATHER?
‘Son?’
Val is lost in thought;
incognizant that he is being questioned and stared at.
Dragons
and carp swim with octopi and pictographs of seraphim attending Venus with
lions; rampart and flying. He appears and re-appears frozen in the staccato
stutter of dance-floor light as mystic images of shamanistic ciphers.
He
dances solo in stroboscopic reliefs of bacchanalian
disport and the transports of ecclesiastical delights of flesh and the now.
A third Time the
emissary with looks of exasperation demands:
‘GRAND-FATHER?
FATHER?
Son?’
Val
realizes that he is being questioned; required of some form of response. He states
loudly in declamatory mode:
>In the beginning was the
, and the
was with
, and the
was
! <[8]
The Chinese gentle-men engage in looks with the appointed emissary
and then terse exchanges in Mandarin as the bar-girls in cheongsams furiously
resume fanning: attending, avian tintinnabulations.
Val
presents the tattooists’ business card that he had from the old man himself
back in the day and the emissary bows whilst reading the card and then again to the Chinese gentle-men who look first each other and then exchange
tersely in Mandarin. They bow first to the emissary and then to Val who
then demands of the emissary;
‘Girls;
lots of ‘em!’
The Chinese gentle-men laugh as the emissary translates girls as
transvestites. The girls in cheongsam slit hip-high cease their fanning and
attending and they too laugh in avian tintinnabulations and they all watch
laughing as the appointed emissary bows and with barely controlled laughter
says:
‘AHHHHH
SOOOOOOOO!
You
Want Girl?
Love
You Long-Time?
Go
Bugis Street.
Here
No Glot!
Come
Fliday’.
Singapore.
Their
regular-rickshaw-rider awaits their carriage and they are soon swept along with
the human tide along Bras Basar Road searching for the promised girls. He takes
short-cuts through kampong and Losman and laneways and alleyways and they are
transported through another time, an older Singapore more suited to fedoras and
empire and safari suits. They pass gaping holes in the city-scape where cranes
and scaffolding stand guard on de-populated tracts and onwards in the dust and
the scurry and the heat of the street until finally they arrive on Bugis Street
past shops stocking song birds and gilded cages, past boutiques and shoe shops
and florists and past old Singapore with restaurant and bar and apothecaries with bear
bile and snake bile as potions and lotions, where coolies stream past laundries
and yum cha joints hustle steaming carts and lady-boys.
They remonstrate with their rickshaw rider;
‘No Sanji! No lady man!
No boom-boom!’/
’Sanji? Where the girls
at?’
He answers:
‘No Tuhan
No girl here!
No glot!’
Val feels ‘Johnny-Two-Thumbs’ extra
digit goose him from the grave and the joke is on them. They laugh. And laugh.
Balinese:
Early morning and the Sari-Club empties as
rain-squalls advance and retreat with the incoming troughs and lows. Street
scamps with monkeys perched upon their heads leave racing through the squalls to shelter as the
music is turned down whilst the chairs turned up and an air of weariness is
serenaded softly by Bob Marley and ‘No Woman No Cry’. Marky and Val shout at
each other drunkenly over the quiet and as the staff clean up for shutdown the
drinks flow on, advancing and retreating in incoming lows and troughs, riding
the incoming swell of yester-year, awash in libation and commemoration.
‘They got jokes these China Men…..
jokes. yes. Hah.’
‘I seen you.
I saw you Marky!
Looked like you were in love!’
‘A
little yes. Some were……
Very
beautiful!’
‘Any port in a storm?’
‘It
is …
As
to say…….
I
not to smell if…..
If
you not to feel pain’
‘Or something like that.’
Singapore.
They tell Sanji to find a bar with girls and later still wash up
against a bar with an incoming tide of expatriates and working girls, where
every taste of peninsular beauty is catered for and represented in every
combination and permutation.
A million mirrored lexicons, refracted
and reflected, bounce from mirror balls and mark stroboscopic reliefs of
bacchanalian disport and transports of ecclesiastical delights of flesh and the
now.
Morning is breaking and as per the days
preceding their regular-rickshaw-rider awaits their
carriage home and they are soon swept along with the human tide and
short-cuts
through kampong and losman and laneways and alleyways .They pass cranes and
scaffolding standing guard on free development and enterprise and in the harsh
glare of morning lights they tour past high-line retail developments rising all
glass and steel and sleek from the dust and the scurry and the early morning
heat of the street; past shops stocking song birds and gilded cages, past
boutiques and shoe shops and florists and gleaming tile and neon where
restaurant and bar and apothecaries with bear and snake bile as potions and
lotions, where coolies stream past laundries and yum cha joints hustle steaming
trolleys. They are mirrored in the gleaming glass as they pass and are
reflected and re-reflected in images stretching perspective as a myriad of
self-portraits and still-life stream back and forth and the infinite beckons
from the peripheral shadows.
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