I now know what the neighbours have been calling me.
That Policeman from the 12th Floor. And the revelation was an unexpected one.
Here I was, buying my usual pack of cigarettes from Uncle Chew downstairs. He runs a little provision shop at the foot of the government-built block of apartments I live in you see. Together with his wife, a stocky woman of about 45, who has a nose the size of the eggs they display for sale on dirty shelves next to the letterboxes. And their son, an amazingly annoying, obese young thug with a penchant for eating his father's plastic wrapped buns. Which, incidentally, can sometimes go unsold for days.
The nearly-bald proprieter had barely handed me back my change when a Police car pulled up to the carpark just outside the shop. And his fat offspring hollered, ice-cream moustache and all,
they are here to pick up that Policeman from the 12th floor!Uncle Chew looked sheepishly at me. I struggled to give him a weak chuckle. And then in his mixture of Mandarin-accented English, asked me if my colleagues were here to give me a ride to work. I told him no and proceeded to dangle my car keys infront of his pudgy face.
I drive remember? He nodded, almost embarrassed, and quickly shuffled off to stuff another popsicle into the big mouth of the boy.
The reason I know what the neighbours call me, what they call me, is because the Chews' humble little hole-in-the wall is the block's Gossip Central. Where
kaypoh housewives on their way to the market, or fetching their pesky little children to and from school, gather to exchange every conceivable morsel of 'intelligence' gathered purely by hearsay and myopic speculation. Does it matter if its any of their business that Ah Lai, on the 5th floor, brings PRC beer-waitresses home for a quickie every morning after two? Of if the live-in girlfriend of Mr Poon, that Slut from the 9th floor, walks around the apartment with only a towel wrapped around her lithe, must be lipo-ed, body? Rumour has it that she is the widow of a slain Triad leader. Maybe that 12th floor Policeman would like to have a word with her. How about old Granny Chin then? Haven't seen her for awhile. Perhaps she's dead and her former asylum-committed grandson has her cold, hard body hidden under the bed. Don't you all get that stench from around here somewhere?
The things I am privy to while buying cigarettes!
Even in those fleeting seconds. The grapevine is so laden with voluptuous fruit, it would be a pity not to pluck a juicy berry or two. But I remain an Accidental Tourist in my own scandalous backyard. How could I, the Policeman from the 12th floor, participate in such sordid banter?
Alex asked me, just moments ago, if Heartlanders were too emotional, too
drama-mama, because they watched too much Channel 8 TV. She had to rescue a good friend Heartlander only hours before. The latter had locked herself in her bedroom, wrecked and wretched, because of unrequited love.
I reminded her that I too, lived in a HDB apartment, surrounded by 'emotional' people.
Just having an address in Hougang does not make you a Heartlander, she said. But we were both too sleepy to say what being a
Heartlander truly meant.
Accidental or otherwise.
Labels: Musings