Treatment

The Con­fes­sions of a Sin­ga­porean Gang­ster in Lon­don – The Broth­er­hood Press 2002. 8893120028 & 29-Redux

Chap­ter 28 & 29

“When the road ran out” & “some­where in the jun­gles in Cambodia.”

“We all got conned, it was a bad mistake…….a ter­ri­ble mistake…….we thought the old man who rules the four houses ordered us to beat you up…..that’s what we all thought…….we thought the order came directly from him…….you know how it is, we are all soldiers……..it’s not our place to ask questions……I don’t want to die……..I don’t want to die…..someone fixed us…….I don’t want to die……not like this.”

Those words rat­tled around like a pin ball in my head fir­ing off a mil­lion cells – there I was sit­ting with a gun in my hand mak­ing a mil­lion cal­cu­la­tions per sec­ond, con­nect­ing the dots when all I should be doing was keep­ing to the plan.

“If it wasn’t the old man who else could it be?” one part of my mind whis­pered. “Who else?”- “This can’t be hap­pen­ing!”- “It doesn’t make any sense.” – “he must be lying. Yes, this is ploy, he’s just buy­ing time!”

With these thoughts swirling in my head, I tried to pick up the line again, but it was giv­ing way to a broader and darker line that seemed almost to race past this faded line – it was the begin­ning of a new real­iza­tion, one that was even more unnerv­ing and sin­is­ter than any other word or sign that had passed between us that afternoon.

That sin­is­ter line in my head raced across the land­scape in my mind at the speed of light only to sud­denly stop abruptly – there where the road ends, the awful real­iza­tion sud­denly dawned on me in the full splen­dor of Tech­ni­color, the man who was about to die that after­noon was telling the truth – there’s no doubt about it — that’s the way with peo­ple who know death is cer­tain – they no longer have any incen­tive to lie.

It was bad enough that I was a Sin­ga­porean gang­ster in Lon­don, but a philo­soph­i­cal hit man who sud­denly loses his line on the job – that was really bad – it was tragic.

(Reflec­tions: See what I mean killing a man isn’t that sim­ple as they make it out to be in the movies or the radio – a hun­dred and one things can go wrong – see, I told you so! Didn’t I? – Did I tell you once some idiot pointed a gun at me demand­ing I hand over my brief­case. As a yawned with the expression,

“Not another idiot with a rusty old gun, pleeeeeeeeze!”

His hands began to shake so vio­lently, the gun went off blow­ing off his big toe – the same thing hap­pened once to another famous hit man in China town who once walked into the pro­vi­sion shop to do the pro­pri­etor, only to walk out smil­ing exchang­ing greet­ings and car­ry­ing two cases of canned abalone, it turned out the guy he was sup­posed to do, hap­pened to be his long lost third cousin removed from the old coun­try – like I said in the last chap­ter, killing a man ain’t that easy – fate has a strange way of step­ping in – it’s a ran­dom thing, like walk­ing into a bet­ting shop pick­ing out a set of num­bers straight from the top of your head only to for it to mag­i­cally line up – if this was a scene from a con­ti­nen­tal film, the sub­ti­tles would prob­a­bly read.

“Err, hey you’re not read­ing your lines like you’re sup­posed too.”

As I sat there with these thoughts swirling in my head – I real­ized things weren’t going they way, they were sup­posed too – like being sud­denly blind sided – wham! Bang! –now that I real­ized the old man wasn’t the one who ordered my cream­ing, this man had to live slightly longer– “slightly longer” spoilt it all, the dying time thing, the part about how a assas­sin needs to be like a cook prepar­ing, mar­i­nat­ing, brush­ing – I had it all down to a sci­ence like tak­ing a piss.

It’s a 1, 2 and 3 thing – (1) unzip (2) slip out Mr. Ana­conda (3) Aim (4) Fire — only this time step (5) was the one where I found my fore­skin snared on my zip­per – like I said, a hun­dred and one things can go wrong– that mucked up the tim­ing – it spoilt the rhythm – above all one ques­tion kept bounc­ing no end in my head.)

“If the old man who ruled the four houses didn’t order the beat­ings, who the hell ordered it?”

As I looked at the man oppo­site me repeat­ing the words,

“I don’t want to die…………..I don’t want to die…….not like this……I don’t want to die.”

I found myself loos­en­ing my grip on the gun. His mantra repeated in a shrill hyp­notic tone, had a strange effect on me, pulling me back – far back into the dis­tant past, as if the dikes which once held back the waters of time had sud­denly given way.

There I was again in the mud churned trenches some­where in the jun­gle in Cam­bo­dia, the sound of shells tear­ing across the air before they shook the ground. Above the whop, whop, whop of heli­copters swoop­ing low as they sprayed the Viet­namese lines with machine gun fire. In the dis­tance the clank, clank, clank of artillery fire being let loose. Cordite and sweat filled the air, columns of black smoke divided the hori­zon – I found myself in hell again!

Sit­ting there in the restau­rant watch­ing the man, I found my mind’s eye turn­ing inwards. I saw the whole line of the trench, it was exactly like a scene out of “all quiet in the west­ern front”, straight for twenty meters, then dog-toothed to pre­vent blast, then straight again. Beyond it, stretch­ing out fur­ther to the dis­tance to the South, a range of moun­tains, form­ing to cre­ate the impres­sion of a royal Siamese gon­dola. For an instant it looked almost too peace­ful to be real, like some myth­i­cal ves­sel float­ing placidly in a sea of green.

Then another incom­ing shell screamed in shak­ing the ground with a thun­der­ous roar, the sand­bags that made up the para­pet had been blown clean away. A sec­tion of the trench caved in and barbed wire was all over the place hang­ing all over the churned smok­ing earth.

The sound groan­ing filled the air. Some­one shouted, “Mama!” The medics were try­ing to clear debris to get to the wounded men. Men who always wore that vacant expres­sion when­ever you pulled them out from the mud – men who always wailed after being cut down by shrap­nel – men who kept on knock­ing their heads against the wall repeat­ing the words,

“I don’t want to die……..I don’t want to die………I don’t want to die.”

That day as the man before repeated the same words, I found myself to think­ing about all the men who fell in some dis­tant past – I remem­ber one Kam­puchean offi­cer who stared at me lean­ing against the wall, his expres­sion hardly betray­ing a glim­mer of fear instead, he radi­ate peace­ful­ness and as I approached him. I wanted him to get down, I remem­bered call­ing out to him,

“Dein pak ay hen – a hun tei neh – pro tie jung je kai!”

(take cover you idiot – it’s heavy artillery – what you doing there, propped up for like a sit­ting duck)!

I ticked off his details in my head as I crawled over to his side, he was around my age one of the first batches, the red beret trained in jun­gle war­fare. I remem­bered vaguely how he wanted to start a small busi­ness fix­ing bicy­cles after the war ended, he liked to lis­ten to Michael Jack­son, a son was on the way, his wife had eyes shaped like a banyan leaf – as I came up close to him, I real­ized his head was cut away in sec­tion, so that the smooth skin and the hand­some face remained on one side, but on the other were the ragged edges of skull from which the remains of his brain were drop­ping on to his scorched uniform.

At that moment, another incom­ing tore through the skies – this time, it was close, some one shouted, “Get down Cap­tain!”– after the blast, the world became radi­ant white and silent, it was calm and peace­ful – I had just turned 19 and like the other boys there that day, I found myself repeat­ing the same words I heard that afternoon.

“I don’t want to die……..I don’t want to die………I don’t want to die.”

That after­noon as I sat there watch­ing the man before me – his words cast a spell on me – I found myself sud­denly stand­ing all alone watch­ing a wave of immense loss from the past sweep­ing into the present, as it fin­gered towards past the sands of time and touch me. I felt that unspeak­able fire — that after­noon as I sat there with a gun in my hand watch­ing the man, I mourned the lost of those who had fallen – I mourned the loss of my inno­cence – above all, I didn’t want to be a part of it any longer.

I real­ized then, I loved life, it didn’t even have to be my life or even the life of a loved one or even the life of some­one I even knew – any life would do, even the life of a stranger who once beat into a pulp – the life of the man who sat before me weep­ing that afternoon.

I don’t expect you to under­stand these con­tra­dic­tions – they’re not sup­posed to make sense – like a the faint impres­sion of the moon in day­light – it’s vague – hardly mak­ing any sense at all except to those who see the world through the eyes of a man who sim­ply knows, he’s dam­aged goods.

I reached out for the cup the man held up and placed it on a set of chopsticks.

“I want to tell you this, I just had a divine rev­e­la­tion, but if you don’t stop whin­ing. I going to change my mind and pop you one right here. Do you hear me? So get your­self together!”

The man poured tea three times into the cup, his hands shak­ing so vio­lently threat­en­ing to tip the pot. Then hold­ing up the cup to me again, he said:

“Brewed from the fire of mag­i­cal arrows – benefactor.”

Rais­ing the cup, I said.

“Let nei­ther, heaven or earth come between what we have agreed upon.”

After the man had set­tled down and com­posed him, I leaned for­ward and asked.

“If it wasn’t the old man, tell me who was it then?.….…..This bet­ter be good….I swear to God it bet­ter be very good!”

dark­ness 2002

Greet­ings from the broth­er­hood Mr Miyagi, I am the chronicler.

You know what to do!

Posted by the chronicler:

dark­ness Says:
Novem­ber 30th, 2006 at 10:31 pm

Nacra,

Many in the 130th and 140th fought beside me in Pil­lium and the Ascen­sion wars. Do you all remem­ber? Or have you all for­got­ten? I wonder?

I know some of you per­son­ally, we have sat down together break­ing bread like brothers.

Oth­ers I even know per­son­ally, I know the names of your sons and daughters.

You will all turn against me now!.

I think not.

You should always bear this in mind Nacramanga.

I want steam­boy to be deliv­ered to my cosca by 0800 GMT tomorrow.

He is a fool, but even a fool has a right to speak his mind in the broth­er­hood. If I don’t mind his non­sense no one should take him too seri­ously. He has a right to his views.

We are not here to ham­mer down ppl just bc they hold dif­fer­ent opin­ions from us.

We should all be grace­ful enough to give them a bit of cre­ative license — after all he designed those space stations.

I will give you 24 hrs to end mar­tial law in the strange­lands after that you may if you wish order your men to move against me, but not a sin­gle man will move against me Nacra­manga — not a sin­gle one — I am the father of the game, the one who led them in Pil­lium and the Ascen­sion wars.

Do you under­stand who I am?

I am dark­ness. This is very polite request, obey me if you are wise.

Chron­i­cler, I want this to be recorded.

I don’t want to fight, I really don’t want too, but you ppl keep forc­ing me too.

I feel very sad.

I am darkness.

30–11-06

dark­ness Says:
Novem­ber 30th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
I am chal­leng­ing you nacra give the order. No one will obey you. Give the order! Go ahead!

I dark­ness am chal­leng­ing you!

The Con­fes­sions of a Sin­ga­porean Gang­ster in Lon­don – The Broth­er­hood Press 2002. 8893120030-Redux

Chap­ter 30

“La Grande Casino.”

To enter the Grande Casino was to imag­ine words like chiaroscuro and des­tiny. It was a much smaller ver­sion of a full sized casino minus the razzmatazz one sel­dom comes across these days, slightly shab­bier and worn around the edges, rely­ing more on the patrons to sup­ply “la atmosphere.”

The type of place one typ­i­cally comes across in dingy side lanes in Paris, New York and Lon­don where from time to time, the rich would sim­ply indulge in a spot of slumming.

Much too small for a full sized orches­tra with only a lone singer with a husky voice and a shim­mer­ing gown who leans sin­u­ously belt­ing out jazz ever­greens over a grand piano while the rest of the floor remains per­pet­u­ally flooded in twi­light: that was the Grande Casino.

A place where men and women would look you up and down dis­creetly in the lobby area, where women dressed in long flow­ing gowns hold­ing on to ivory cig­a­rette hold­ers sashayed by while leav­ing a lin­ger­ing aroma of exotic per­fume. While men walked around with a dou­ble scotch and ser­e­naded older women. I’d seen it all in the movies, and I knew how it was sup­posed to look and feel – worn mahogany, and old vel­vet, that was the Grande casino a place that only came alive only after eleven.

Accord­ing to the man who once beat me up, this was the place where I would find the third wife that evening – she had taken to a spot of gam­bling recently. I imag­ine it was her way to while away the evenings.

The Casino was on the sec­ond floor with a rigged roulette table from where I stood, I could just hear the muf­fled sounds of an ivory ball bounc­ing away – so the man who once beat me up said, he had even given me a few com­pli­men­tary chips with the words,

“It’s noth­ing much, but that’s the least I can do to square the accounts.”

He said he knew some peo­ple there like the Russ­ian émigré who whispered,

“Place your bets gentlemen.”

In an oily for­eign accent who over­saw the roulette table.

“Put it on 18 as many times as you like. Like I said, I do what I can to square the accounts.” The man who once beat me up had said.

When I asked whether the third wife could enlighten me, the man who once beat me up sim­ply shrugged his shoulders.

I want to share this with you this, the human mind is a strange thing, on one level, you could say. I am a very prac­ti­cal man, I needed money for both me and Jean­nie. Emi­grat­ing isn’t cheap, there is a whole lot of stuff that needs money and now that some­one had placed a price tag on how I winch and limped, I wasn’t about to let it sim­ply past by with­out at least cash­ing in on my chips. Remem­ber, I am a Sin­ga­porean gang­ster in Lon­don and gang­sters are the most prac­ti­cal peo­ple on the face of this planet, that’s why they choose to do the things they do. It’s busi­ness. It’s noth­ing personal.

But I knew, the rea­son why, I went to the Grande Casino that night was because I was drawn to the notion of meet­ing her again – the third wife. It’s a trac­tor beam thing (some­day, I may try my hand at writ­ing sci-fi to explain fur­ther) but if I am pressed to explain. I would sim­ply say, I was a moth and she was a flick­er­ing flame.

A moth doesn’t have any­thing resem­bling such a thing as a choice, it’s fate is pre­de­ter­mined, it has no other choice but to fly around in ever decreas­ing cir­cles around the flick­er­ing flame, each cir­cle draw­ing tighter, each cir­cle bring­ing it one step closer to it’s source of fas­ci­na­tion and fear only to even­tu­ally charge into the very source of it’s allure.

By the sev­enth round I had amassed quite a sum, it was time to cash it all in – and then it hap­pened, from the cor­ner of my eye, I saw her and though she reg­is­tered a slight look of sur­prised, I real­ized she was had been there quite a while, star­ing at me – it was the third wife of the old man – who looked at me as if she knew I was sim­ply meant to be there that evening –it was the over­pow­er­ing sense of calm that enveloped her, the radi­ant silence burn­ing within – one which spoke of her desire for me.

I am Yu Huan Guan, the Sin­ga­porean gang­ster in London.

dark­ness 2002

“Aziz! Light!”

Heh, your pic reminds me of the lit­tle boy in The Fifth Ele­ment who was sup­posed to be shin­ing the mir­ror at the hieroglyphics.

Could some­one (Mr chron­i­cler) please tell me what is happening?

It looks very interesting.

Won­der no more Joan.

http://intelligentsingaporean.wordpress.com/2006/10/21/daily-reads-oct-21-wee-shu-min/#comment-2002

Can some­one please tell me when they (the broth­er­hood or what­ever) will be run­ning their next mini episode?

I have also heard there is a party sched­uled for this meet­ing with a Sin­ga­porean busi­ness­man. May I ask whether any­one knows of the time and place.

Please note this is a gen­uine resquest for infor­ma­tion. So kindly keep it accu­rate and remem­ber to smile along with us all. Thanks Singapore.

bbdame,

swd,pls fol­low the link:

http://intelligentsingaporean.wordpress.com/2006/10/21/daily-reads-oct-21-wee-shu-min/#comment-2260

I think the boyz have done their famous dis­ap­pear­ing act once again.

I heard the next episode will be 60 mini episodes entitled,

“The moon in day light.”

I will be com­ing out after this Christ­mas. How­ever, I do not know where they will post from.

It’s best if you check in the link reg­u­larly to get an update on what will be happening.

I hope it helps. Bye Bye.

Wow Miyagi is a writer as well. Yes, we will def­i­nitely have to sup­port you and we look for­ward to it.

May I ask is this planned meet­ing just another ruse or is it real?

I really dont want to get stood up again

Lynn et al

Ruse or real? I don’t know, Bambi dark­ness is noto­ri­ously unre­li­able, but even if it’s a ruse, there are no tables anymore!!!!!

They all got snapped up alredi! I hope this helps.