Saint Jack (20 page)

“Just tell me one thing,” I said in a pitifully unfamiliar voice. “Are you going to kill me? Tell me—please.”

Toh looked surprised. “No,” he said, “we not kill you.”

“Why the razor?”

“Shave,” he said.

The other fellers erupted into yakking laughter. I tried to shift on the bed to see them. It was impossible. I couldn't move.

“You're trying to scare me, aren't you?” I heard
smick-smack-smuck.

Toh leaned over and nodded, smiling. His dwarf's face made the smile impish. “Scare you,” he said, “and scare udda peoples, too.”

“What do you mean by that?”
Smuck-smuck.
“Come on, this is silly. I'm an American, you know. I am! The American consulate is looking for me!”

“
Mei-guo ren
,” someone said, “an American.” Another replied in Chinese, and there was laughter.

“Now I give you but,” said Toh. He scrubbed the backs of my arms with a soapy cloth. The others leaned over for a good look. One was holding a bowl, eating noodles as he watched, gobbling them in an impatient greedy way, smacking his lips and snapping at the noodles like a cat, not chewing. He peered at me over the rim of his bowl. He gave me hope. No one would eat that way in the presence of a person about to be slashed.

Ho Khan fussed with the razor. He braced his elbows, one against my throat, one on my stomach; and then, scraping slowly, shaved the hairy parts of my arms that Toh had soaped, from my elbow to the rope at my wrists. To my relief he put the razor aside.

My relief lasted seconds. Ho Khan fitted a pair of wire glasses over his eyes and took a dart-shaped silver tool which he dipped into a bottle of blue liquid. He leaned on me again and with the speed of a sewing machine began jabbing the needle into the fleshy part of my arm. He was tattooing me—biting on his tongue in concentration—and behind him the others shouted, bursts of Chinese, seeming to tell him what to write in the punctures.

A
T
N
EWTON
C
IRCUS
, by the canal, they pushed me out of the car and sped away, yelling. I found a few wrinkled dollars in the clothes they had handed over, enough for a pack of cheroots and a meal of mutton chops at a Malay gag stand on the corner. I was grateful for the night, and glad too for the incuriousness of the Chinese who wolfed food noisily at tables all around me and didn't once look at me. My arms appalled me; I examined them in the light of the stall's hissing pressure lamp. The shaven backs of my arms were swollen and raw, the fresh punctures tracking up and down from elbow to wrist, the small half-exploded squares of Chinese characters, perhaps fifty boxes puffed up and blue and some still leaking blood. I felt better after a meal and a smoke, and left, swinging my arms, so that no one could see their disfigurement, down the canal path, past the orphanage, in the direction of Dunroamin.

I smelled the acrid wood smoke, the stink of violence, before I saw the damage; the strength of it, at that distance, telegraphed destruction. The house was gutted. The tile roof had fallen in and the moon lighted the two stucco roof peaks, the gaping windows, the broken and burned verandah chicks. The abandoned black house looked like an old deserted factory; the fire had silenced the insects and killed the perfume of my flowering trees. No crickets chirped in the compound, a smell of burning hung in the still air. Torn mattresses were twisted and humped all over the driveway and lawn. I was about to go away when, feeling the fatigue and pause of melancholy, I decided that I would enter the house, to try to find something in the ruins that belonged to me, anything portable I could recognize to claim as a souvenir, maybe a scorched clock or the German metronome Mr. Weerakoon kept in a cupboard drawer:
There's an interesting story behind this little thing
. . .

I stumbled in the driveway, and stumbling felt like an intruder. Stepping over the splintered front door, I passed through the bar. Broken glass littered the floor. I balanced on fallen timbers, tiptoed into the music room, and there I stood, in the decay the fire had made, not wanting to go upstairs to see what had happened to my cats. The staring shadows of the overturned chairs stopped me. I could feel the tattoos aching on my arms.

Then I saw the candle burning in the kitchen, and near it a crouching man, his face lighted by the yellow flame.

The eeriest thing about him, this old scarecrow in the burned-out house, was that he was imperturbably reading a folded newspaper. I would leave him in peace. I started toward the front door and kicked a loose board with my first step.
Bang.
The candle flame flickered and went out.

“Don't worry,” I called to him. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

I made my way into the kitchen, found the candle and lit it. The old man had run to the wall where a blanket was spread. He was Chinese and had the look of a trishaw driver, the black sinewy legs and arms, close-cropped hair, a small dark reptile's face. He wore a blue jacket and shorts, and on his feet were rubber clogs cut from tires.

“You know me, eh? Me Jack.” I laughed. “This my housel” In that dark smelly place every sound was weird and my laugh was ghoulish. “You want smoke?” I threw him a cheroot. He cowered when I brought the candle over for him to light it.

“Me Jack,” I said. “This my house—Dunroamin.”

He blinked. “You house?”

“Yeah,” I said. “All finished now.”

He cackled and said something I couldn't make out.

“You live here now?” I asked. “Sleep here, eat here—
makan
here, eh?”

“
Mahan, makan
,” he said, and picked up a small bowl. He offered it to me. “You
makan.
”

There were lumps of rice inside, with two yellow pork rinds on top of the rice. I took it and thanked him and choked back one of the rinds. It was a sharing gesture and it worked. The poor man was calmed. He went to a tin lunch pail and spooned some more rice into the bowl.

“No,” I said.

“
Makan
,” he said, and smiled.

I took the bowl and ate a few grains, chewing slowly. I pointed to the newspaper. “You read, eh?
Sin Chew Jit Poh?
” Naming the paper was like conversation. I thought of another. “
Nanyang Siang Pau
, eh?”

He nodded eagerly and handed me the paper.

I put the bowl down and unfolded the paper, looked at it, said, “Yes, yes,” and gave it back.

He didn't respond. He was looking at my arms. He put a skinny finger on one row of tattoos, and tapping each character, worked his way down, tracing the vertical column. He frowned and tapped at another column, but faster now. “Chinese,” I said. “Chinese tattoo.”

I grinned.

He backed away, holding an outstretched palm up to ward me off; he groaned distinctly, and he ran, kicking over the tin lunch pail, and tramping the broken boards of the music room, and howling down the drive.

That night I slept on the old man's blanket and breathed the fumes from his crudded lunch pail.

 

“
Curse of Dogshit
,” said Mr. Tan, translating in the Bandung the next day. He read my left arm. “
Beware Devil, Whore's Boy, Mouth Full of Lies, Remove This and Die.
Very nasty,” said Mr. Tan. “Let me see your other arm.” The right said,
Red Goatface, Forbidden Ape, Ten Devils in One, I Am Poison and Death, Remove This and Die.

After that, Mr. Tan was included in the conversations Yardley had with the others when my tattoos were mentioned. For years, Mr. Tan had sat every afternoon alone with his bottle of soybean milk. Now he was welcome. Yardley couldn't remember all the curses and he called upon Mr. Tan to repeat them.

“Incredible,” Yardley said. “There, what about that one?”

“Forbidden Ape,” said Mr. Tan promptly.

“Can you imagine,” said Yardley. “And that one—‘Monkey's Arse' or something like that?”

“Dogshit,” said Mr. Tan.

“All right,” I said. “That's enough.”

“Remember old Baldwin, the chap that worked for Jardine?” asked Smale. “He had tattoos all over the place. Birds and that.”

“You going to keep them, Jack?” asked Coony. “Souvenir of Singapore. Show 'em to your mum.”

“You think it's a joke.” I said. “These things
hurt.
And the doctor says I have to wait till they heal before I can get them off.”

“You'll never get them buggers off,” said Yardley.

“The doctor says—”

“They can graft them,” said Smale.

“Acid,” said Yates. “They burn them off with acid. I read 162
about this somewhere. It leaves scars—that's the only snag. But scars are infinitely preferable to what you've got there, if you ask me.”

“Maybe they used some kind of Chinese ink,” said Coony. “You know, the kind that never comes off.”

“Balls!” said Smale. “If it was Chinese ink he'd be able to wash the flaming things off with soap and water. No, that there's your regular tattooing ink. You can tell.”

“
Monkey's Arse
,” said Yardley, laughing. “Christ, be glad it's not in English! What if it was and Jack was in London, on a bus or something? ‘Fares please,' the conductor says and looks over and sees
Monkey's Arse, Pig Shit
, and all that on Jack's arm.”

“He'd probably ride free,” said Frogget.

“No, I've got a better one,” said Smale. “Let's say Jack's in church and the vicar's just given a little sermon on foul language. The lady next to Jack looks down and—”

“Lay off,” I said, rolling down my sleeves to cover the scabrous notations. “How would you like it if they did it to you?”

“No bloody fear,” said Coony. “If one of them little bastards—”

“Shut up,” said Yardley. “They'd tattoo the same thing on your knackers before you could say boo.” Yardley turned to me and said, “Don't get upset, Jacko. They got ways of getting that stuff off. But I'll tell you one thing—you'd be a fool to try it again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That whorehouse of yours,” said Yardley. “You were asking for it. Any of us could have told you that. Right, Smelly?”

“Right,” said Smale.

“So you're saying I deserved it.”

“What do
you
think?”

I said, “I was making a few bucks.”

“Where is it now?” Yardley nudged Frogget.

“None of your business,” I said.

“Jack thinks he's different,” Yardley said. “But the trouble is, he's just the same as us, living in this piss hole, sweating in a
towkay
's shop. Face facts, Jack, you're the bleeding same.”

“Really?” I said, wondering myself if it was true, and deciding it was not.

“Except for that writing on his arms,” said Coony.

Macpherson, an occasional drinker at the Bandung, came through the door. He said, “Good evening.”

“Hey, Mac, look at this,” Yardley said. He grabbed my arm and spoke confidentially. “This is nothing compared to what they do to some blokes. You learned your lesson. From now on, stick with us—we'll stand by you, Jack. And just to show you I mean what I say, the first thing we'll do is get that put right.”

“What's it supposed to say?” asked Macpherson.

Mr. Tan cleared his throat.

Weeks later, Yardley found a Chinese tattooist who said he knew how to remove them. We met at the Bandung one evening and he looked as if he meant business. He was carrying a doctor's black valise. But he never opened it; he took one look at the tattoos, read a few columns, and was out the door.

“Look at him go,” said Smale. “Like a shot off a shovel.”

“A Chink won't touch that,” said Coony.

“So we'll find a Malay,” said Yardley.

The Malay's name was Pinky, and his tattoo parlor was in a
kampong
out near the airport. He was not hopeful about removing them, though he said he knew the acid treatment. But no matter how much acid he rubbed in, he said, I would still be left with a faint but legible impression. And grafting took years.

“Why don't you just cut your arms off and make the best of a bad job?” said Smale.

“Isn't there anything you can do?” I asked Pinky.

“Can make into something else,” said Pinky. “Fella come in. He tattoo say ‘I Love Mary' but he no like. So I put a little this and that, sails, what. Make a ship, for a sample.”

“I get it,” I said. He could obliterate the curse but not remove it.

“He puts a different tattoo over it, apparently,” said Yates.

“Only the one on the bottom stays the same,” said Frogget.

“It's better than leaving them like they are,” said Yardley.

The walls of Pinky's parlor were covered with sample tattoos. Many were the same design in various sizes.
Death Before Dishonor
, Indian chiefs, skulls, eagles and horses,
Sweet-Sour, Cut Here
, tigers and crucifixes,
Mother
, bluebirds, American flags, and Union Jacks. Behind Pinky, on a shelf, were many bottles of antiseptic, Dettol, gauze, aspirin, and rows and rows of needles.

“You'll have a hard job making those into ships,” said Yates, tapping my blue curses.

“Do you fancy a dagger?” asked Smale. “Or what about the old Stars and Stripes?”

“That's right,” said Coony. “Jack's a Yank. He should have an American flag on his arm.”

“Fifty American flags is more like it,” said Smale.

“Hey, Yatesie,” said Coony, pointing to the design reading
Mother
, “here's one for you.”

My arms were on Pinky's table. “Chinese crackter,” he said. “I make into flowers.”

So I agreed. But on each wrist the wide single column—
Remove This and Die
—was too closely printed to make into separate flowers. Pinky suggested stalks for the blossoms on my forearms. I had a better idea. I selected from the convenient symbology on the wall: a dripping dagger on my left wrist, a crucifix on my right.