If I Could Tell You (9 page)

AND JUST LIKE THAT. BOOM! GAME OVER, AH MENG said and made a sweeping motion with his hand. He was too old,
la
, that Uncle Seng. Luckily just a few scratches on the car and no one got hurt. But now he’s too scared to drive. I don’t blame him. At that age, my grandfather was half-blind already, he said and rubbed his nose. So, decided or not? Tell you what, I will give you the easy one, the day shift. No drunks, no vomit in the backseat and less accidents as well. One time I almost ran into a
Bangla
worker, the fella just run out of the dark like that. I couldn’t see him until he opened his mouth to shout, Ah Meng laughed, then looked around.

I don’t know, I said. Haven’t even taken the test yet. We’ll talk when I get my taxi license, okay?

Aiya
, for people like you, can read and write, the test is no problem! He rattled on for a while, finished his cigarette and said he had to go, it was almost peak hour and he had to drive into the business district.

He was about to leave when he said, Wong, just take the test. Nothing to lose, right?

He repeated this every time we met up for drinks, until I found myself behind the wheel three months later, sitting and waiting. Always waiting. In the middle of a taxi rank. Or lining up in traffic behind other cars watching the lights, all of us waiting to go. And the long wait for the customers. For them to appear at the side of the road, a hand flapping in the thick air. Then at the end, for when they fumble through their wallets, bags, pockets of noisy change to get the right amount for the fare even though they had been watching the meter flash its red numbers the minute it started to run.

I had gotten tired of sitting at home. Another kind of waiting. The kind you do in between jobs, hoping for the call or the letter to arrive. These days they use email, which I picked up from doing a quick course — one of these courses to “value add” yourself, make yourself more employable, even though I couldn’t see how much more employable I could be; I had a degree from the national university and years of experience from working at an electronics firm. But I sat with a bunch of other people in the room, all of them either many years younger or older, made myself even more employable and still it didn’t work. The thing that no one, not even my ex-boss, could say straight to my face was that I was too old. At forty-five I was much too old and stinking of desperation to be wanted by anyone. Ah Meng was the one who said it. He was the only one stupid enough to be so blunt. It was in that same breath that he suggested I become a taxi driver.

No one can say if you’re too old or not, plus you can always quit if you find something better, he said. Even then, even before I received the rejections, the short, polite letters in their slim envelopes, I knew he was lying.

I told myself it was just like having your own business. No one to nag, and tell you please hand in the file tomorrow the boss wants to see it, even though it is already seven in the evening and you don’t even have time to call your wife to tell her you’ll be late. When I told Ah Meng yes, we shook hands. A hearty but formal shake that meant we’re working together now, the taxi is our shop and both of us share the rent. He wished me luck that first day as I climbed into the cab, and I thought, no such thing. You make your own luck.

THAT first week, I took home an average of fifty dollars a day after hours of getting lost, sweeping the streets looking for passengers. I don’t know which I hated more. Driving around aimlessly, or picking up passengers in the business district and getting ordered around by people in ties and suits, people half my age, telling me to go left or right or faster, please, uncle. That word,
uncle
. It used to mean respect but in a taxi, it conveys anything but that. They might as well call me
boy.

But I am a reasonable man. I don’t argue if they give me some
ulu
, unknown address and I take out the street directory from under my seat, then they make a face and decide to take another cab. I am reasonable but not everyone is like me. Like that customer who made the formal complaint. She didn’t have to be in the cab, no one was forcing her. I told her just that before stopping by the curb and letting her out. The next day, I got a call from the taxi company. Afterwards, Ah Meng talked to me as if I were a child. Just like any other business, customer is king, he said, plus if you get too many complaints, they won’t let you drive any more.

Anyway, he said, what did you do?

I don’t know. I got a bit lost then the crazy woman said I was going around in circles on purpose. She thought I was cheating her! Some people are crazy.

Ah Meng sighed, stubbed out his cigarette and asked me if I wanted to go to the betting shop with him; my luck might change. I usually buy the taxi number plates, plus a few more, he said. One time, I quit buying and then the number came up! Third prize, a lot of money, you know? So from then on, I buy every day. Come with me,
la
. You got nothing to lose.

I TOOK some time to get used to the routes. Ah Meng said it would take six months. Six months, at most, for me to learn how to navigate the city, even the little known parts with their winding inroads, the shortcuts to take, where to go during which hours. He always started on about this over his pre-shift cigarette, propping up his leg on the front wheel.

And it did get better. Slowly. Things started improving after two months; I was making eighty dollars, minus fuel and rent. It was at the end of my shift one evening, and I was putting together all the parking coupons from that day, meaning to bring them home and press the tabs back in to make them look new again when I noticed police cars in front of my block. I was pushing them into my pocket when I saw the ambulance. There was just one medic, sitting in the back with his legs hanging out. Close to him, a police officer was on the phone, watching while his colleagues busied themselves setting up a blue tent. Nobody seemed to be in any hurry.

Ah Meng appeared at my side and said, Ay, Wong. Did you hear? Ah Tee died. They said that it was a suicide.

Ah Tee? You mean coffee shop Ah Tee? He’s our neighbour. Who said it was a suicide?

I heard people talking about it just now. Over at the other block.
Aiya
, anyway, so obvious. Anybody also can tell it’s a suicide. Who would want to kill him? And for what? Money? He doesn’t have anything. Or– Or maybe he borrowed from the loan sharks.

Ah Meng was bouncing on his toes as he talked. I wanted to ask him to stop, I drove a long way today. From Jurong all the way to the east, and down to Sentosa, a family going on a beach outing, with kids screaming in the back all the way there. The headache started in the morning and never stopped. I wanted to go home, crack open a can of beer, and be left alone.

Before I could say anything, Ah Meng came closer, so close I could smell the coffee on his breath.

Eh, you want to go to the place and pray for numbers? Maybe outside his flat. Maybe in the morning. Before your shift.

Are you crazy? No, no, I said, shaking my head.

Why not? he shouted. Then he lowered his voice down to a whisper, almost, it was impossible for him to whisper even if he tried.

I need the extra money, he said, need to save up for the move to the new flat. I didn’t know it was going to cost this much. This whole moving nonsense, nothing but trouble. The compensation they gave us all spent on stupid things that should already be there, like tiles for the floors and windows. And you know, they didn’t even give us doors! Imagine, no doors for the bedroom or the toilet. Have you seen it? What a joke. And of course the wife wants new things for the new place.

I nodded. I’ve seen it, I said.

Ah Meng stopped here and patted his pockets for his cigarettes. When he found them, he shook one out and lit up.

If I win some money from the lottery, all my problems from the move will be solved... I’m sure Ah Tee will want to help. I mean, there’s no one else to send him offerings. No family or anything.

How do you know this? I’m sure they–

He shook his head, he was the only child, there was no one left.

Just think of it as a favour for a friend. We burn some offerings for him, ask for good luck. Nothing wrong with that.

I shook my head. We weren’t friends. No one was friends with Ah Tee, not that I knew of. He was just the guy who brought us our beers when we sat at the coffee shop on Sundays. He brought us our bottles and opened them and gave us our change and happened to live in the same building as the rest of us. That was all he was. I wanted to say this but the words sounded bad, even in my head.

Wong? he said.

See how, okay? I have to go. Dinner at home getting cold.

I waved bye and walked towards the lift. The lift doors were already shutting when Ah Meng yelled across the car park.

Call you tomorrow to confirm, okay? he said.

I waved one last time, meaning, okay, we’ll see.

MEI Ling was at the door when I got home, holding a book open and standing on her tiptoes. Papa, can you help? she said.

I motioned for her to wait and looked briefly at the textbook. Mathematics again. She’s always having problems with math.

Have you tried hard enough? Try again.

I did, but I don’t know how–

Think, think. Are you stupid? I said and shook my head.

I could hear her mother in the kitchen and I thought about going in and telling her what I saw. What Ah Meng said. Ask her if she heard about Ah Tee, how such a thing could happen right here, in our building. But I already knew what she would say. Um. Hm. Ya. She would shake her head, clicking her tongue all the while, sounding like a gecko in the wall. The ones that you can hear but never see. That is all she says when I bring something up. A few mumbled yesses, clicks and the shaking of her empty head. When she starts talking though, about the neighbours, her brothers and sisters, and about what happened in the past, she can talk my ear off. All those words about people I didn’t know, about things I didn’t care about. She would go on until I stopped her by walking away or putting on the TV.

Sometimes I think Mei Ling is like her mother, that she might grow up to be like her, but someone would comment that she looks so much like me and I would remember that she has my blood. Sometimes I think that might be good enough.

Okay, I said and walked over to Mei Ling, putting my hands to my back and stretching while I looked over her shoulder.

Read the question, I said.

Alice has 28 apples. Ben has 3 more apples than Alice. Clark has 2 less apples than Ben. How many apples does Clark have? she said.

This girl, good at reading but not so good with numbers. I said, it’s a simple question, don’t know how to do?

I sat down next to her and started. It’s simple, I said, first, tell me who has the most apples here, and who has the least?

WE didn’t talk about it over dinner. It is not something I want to think about at the end of a working day. Such bad luck, just when the taxi business was improving. When the news came on that night, I grabbed the TV remote, ready to switch channels when they start to talk about Ah Tee. I sat waiting for it to come on during the half hour but it never did. Afterward, I wasn’t sure if I was relieved not to hear more about it, or disappointed that they had left it out. I guess it was much too ordinary, I thought. Like reporting a car crash, or an elderly person passing away from pneumonia. Too common — people jumping from apartment buildings. Now, they are starting to jump in front of oncoming trains, even while commuters stood around on the platforms minding their own business or reading the paper, unaware that their day was about to take a turn until the sound of it, a thump and a scream from someone who caught the flash of movement, drew them out of their own heads and into the moment. The first suicide had been quickly followed by a second, and then a third, like it was a trend that people caught on, wanted to follow so badly they couldn’t wait. Then came more and more. There are posters all over the MRT stations now. Posters which read “Value Life”, as if seeing that would help. I don’t think it would have stopped any of them, not even the little boy. People said he had put his bag on the ground and just leapt — in his school uniform too. It was after the little boy that everyone really started worrying. The others were said to be depressed, or unstable, or in debt. Not right in their heads. But a little boy, everyone could get sad about.

That night I dreamt about being in our new flat. One with doorways and windows wide open. Mei Ling and her mother were there with me. Then I was on the ground, below the block of flats, looking up while the building leaned to the right, tossing my wife and daughter out of the naked window. The building crashed to the ground like a felled tree, but slowly, silently, as if the weight of it was nothing more than a browned leaf, a scrap of paper. All the while, I just stood and watched and did nothing, my hands hanging by my sides, my feet heavy as rocks. The dream stayed with me the rest of the day. I could hardly look at my wife and daughter during breakfast. Went about feeling the cold guilt slide around in my stomach so that I could barely eat. I didn’t know if it was that, or the fact that I picked up only five customers, but when Ah Meng asked again, almost pleading with me to go to the spot where Ah Tee died, I said yes.

This is how I came to stand at the spot the next morning, watching Ah Meng fuss over the jar which he had filled with ash from the altar in his flat. He took a while trying to decide where exactly to put everything. Not just the makeshift joss stick urn, but the plastic plates of food, heaped with leftover rice and meat and lotus paste buns. I filled a cup with fresh coffee made just minutes before, and he opened a can of beer and put that next to it, even though I’d never seen Ah Tee drink, all those years in the coffee shop, not once.

It was still dark out but I thought I could make out bloodstains, faint maps and spots spread over the grey concrete, indelible even if the cleaners scrubbed a hundred times, a thousand. I was just going to tell Ah Meng to forget it. That I don’t want to be involved after all when he turned to me.