The Adventures of Jetboy747

Ethel and Me

With Mumbai cancelled, Damon and I have decided to take off to Kuala Lumpur for the weekend. It’s close and cheap, so why not?

Not that I have reason to escape, unlike Damon. He’s swamped at work. Doing whatever it is he does. And a few days away will be relaxing and well deserved for him. Me? I’m, more or less, tagging along. It’s deserved, because we’re a couple. As a couple, we don’t get to spend enough time together, though my schedule allows pretty much anything.

But I still find this island claustrophobic. I’m adjusting to it. But a weekend away sounds good.

I told the elderly clerk at 7-11 about my weekend away. I call her Ethel and she’s my new friend, mainly because I buy everything she suggests: A teddy bear for Children’s charity? Sure. Two bottles of 300 Plus for 4 dollars? Absolutely. Chocolate bars, prawn chips, maxi-pads, bags of ice, everything seems to on special when I’m at the counter and I always agree. Except beer, which is the only reason I go to the place.

The other day, Ethel was impressed with my Paragon Market bag. “I like,” she said. We smiled at each other knowing that neither of us could afford the $100.00 roast beef or $75.00 strawberries on offer, but shopped for the more inexpensive and practical sundries, like ginger and fresh mint, both a dollar. The experience is the same.

Ethel can be fickle and wasn’t overjoyed to hear of my trip to Malaysia. Either that or she didn’t understand what I said. Our friendship is a lot of nodding and giggling. This took time. Ethel is none to friendly with Damon and they’ve known each other for over three years. I seem to have broken the ice rather quickly.

I think Ethel realized that all her weekend promotions would fall on deaf ears. With the Canadian sucker in Malaysia, who is going to buy the teddy bears and bags of powdered mash potatoes in the backroom? In the end, Ethel shrugged. It was as good as, “have a good time.”

Coco and Me

Coco is my new best friend in Singapore. Even though she’s dead. And we never met. I guess I should say, she would have been my best friend, if we had met, and before she was murdered.

Tragic End to Coco’s Sad Life

That’s what the newspaper headline said and I knew I liked Coco right away. She was a prostitute. Murdered in a small alley off Sarangoon Road. (I live just off Sarangoon Road!) Not in a brothel, but we were practically neighbours. Granted, I have a lovely view of Singapore and a security guard at the gate and a terrace with enough room for a pony. Coco wasn’t so lucky.

But she was friendly and popular (we share that in common, if I knew anyone in Singapore) but I’ve never worked as a prostitute in a Shophouse. We could have talked about things like that over a Tiger beer and had some dinner, maybe Chilli Crab, though rather messy and a lot of effort for little bounty. Or so I would have liked.

When she prostituted in Chinatown, Coco was making $4,000 a month. (I’ve been to Chinatown, but not when it was infested with whorehouses.  That was in the 70s.) She was hard working, no holidays and on the job from noon till 9pm, 7 days a week. At her death, she was making $30 a trick in a squalid, dingy whorehouse that reeked of urine. According to the paper, Coco was still pulling in $3,000 a month when she died. That’s a lot of sex for a woman that should be nearing retirement.

Coco drove into Singapore every day from Johor Baru, Malaysia. I didn’t even realize you could drive to Malaysia until yesterday. I’d heard something about a bridge, but couldn’t visualize it. Malaysia was always a faraway place, when I was in Canada. Vague. The other side of the world. Now we’re neighbours, just across a bridge.

Still bigger things consume me.  I’m trying to conquer the simple act of buying milk here, milk that doesn’t taste like a sugary milkshake, full of preservatives so it doesn’t spoil for weeks, or melamine from China. These things are closer now. Melamine in Chinese eggs in Hong Kong. It’s more real.

Her mother realized that her daughter’s life had come to a violent end when she recognized Coco’s sparkly high-heels in the passenger seat of her vehicle on the news. What an odd thing to notice. I suppose Coco had nice taste in shoes. Something her mother envied. I imagined her causing a fuss, yes, yes, yes. Knife in chest. Squalid urine soaked shophouse. Stolen gold chain. Staggering into the street. Yes. Yes. Yes. Prostitute. I understand all this. But where are the shoes?”

Poor Coco. If we’d ever met, I knew we’d friends. But unfortunately, I’m realizing that Singapore is full of Cocos’, girls just like her. And if I put my mind to it, I’ll find a Coco of my own.

Homeless

“Evicted is a rather strong word honey,” Damon says. And I don’t know what to think.

The first box of my possessions left for Singapore this week. I’m uprooting and moving to the other side of the planet and we’re homeless? Nowhere to live? Thrown out on Serangoon Road? Situations like this don’t fill a Canadian boyfriend with heaps of confidence.

“It’ll be fine,” he continues. But I’m not so sure.

If I were homeless here, I could cope better. I would pack up my front-loading LG washer and dryer on a wagon, and know where to go: houses with unguarded outdoor power supplies and carelessly unattended water taps. I could survive. And smell fresh doing it.

Singapore is another story. I’ve been there a total of 5 days in my life. Damon took me for a spectacular dinner on the top floor of a posh hotel and I looked at the city twinkle in the night. It was beautiful. But surviving within the bowels of it? Homeless? I wasn’t convinced.

But I don’t want to seem like the type of boyfriend that gets nervous about being homeless in a foreign country. I try to play it smooth and cool, like this type of thing happens to me all the time. Entering Singapore, I’m already technically an illegal alien, so why not homeless?

I start to surf the net for hints and techniques on weaving palm fronds into a sensible ranch-style bungalow. Because what do I know? Something inexpensive and portable that will be comfortable and stylish as well as typhoon proof. And what the hell am I suppose to do during a typhoon anyway?

Most of my suggestions, Damon doesn’t think practical. Palm fronds? Laundry wagon? So when he suggests I look at the Singapore property market on the net, I become completely confident that I will solve the problem.

“What district do we live in now? What district are we moving? 8 thousand dollars a month! The Bencoolen? What the hell is that? A penal colon?”

Damon decides that it best if I look up properties he suggests, which proves more useful. I make helpful comments such as, “I like the bathroom” and “I like the pool.” Not very practical. So, with no help from me, Damon solves the problem and finds us a home.

But I think I’ll learn how to weave palm fronds into a stylish home, because you never know.