It's A Men's Town.

Chapter 1

It is difficult to be afraid of hell when heaven is right in front of you, watching pretty women in tight kebaya and kain susun laughing and giggling, patting and pinching a guy drinking something he shouldn't be drinking, especially when Encik Rahim the Bilal of Mesjid Sungai Udang is calling out the Azan for 'Isya' at the top of his voice to compete with the song coming out of a jukebox so loud I couldn't make out what these women and the man are talking about other than watching them laugh silly every few seconds as if that's the only thing they know how to do since they were born.

Aunt sent me to buy dinner from Makcik Mah (not her real name) who ran a stall selling laksa, laksang, mee halus, and nasi dagang. Hers is a famous stall on account of her pretty daughter who dressed pretty like a queen. She doesn't do anything other than collect money from customers, smiling every now and then at the men who flock to the stall to flirt a little with her before disappearing into the night inside a row of wooden drinking shops right behind the stall for more serious sinning. Makcik Mah is Kelantanese but her daughter speaks like us so I don't really know what's the deal with this family who appeared out of nowhere in our kampong one day. The next thing we know, they've got a stall up and about and doing very well. The daughter later married a police inspector and they lived happily ever after. I don't know what happened to Makcik Mah. Not that I care very much.

This is my town. I don't own it but I pretty much believe that I am the youngest person to be hanging around the place this time of the night and this is more than enough to make me Mayor, at least to the eyes of my friends at school who never ventured out of the house after Maghrib because their father wouldn't like it seeing them this side of town where fights break out every other night sometimes as early as nine. All the time I was there I didn't once come across a boy my age either buying something, or wandering about to gawk at pretty women, or watching men drunk as skunk puking their monthly wage stooping by a cesspool, their body bent like a shrimp in ice-boxes.

Of course every night I will see Tiger (his real name, although I found out later that his real name is actually Sega, maybe short for Seganathan or something.) But he's older than I am. He and his big brother are there every night. I don't know his brother's real name is but everyone calls him Ya, maybe short for Zakaria which is unlikely because he's not Muslim. He's Hindu, whatever that is because I have no idea what a Hindu is having never seen anything about the religion in Dungun other than hearing about they burn their deads in a pyre so the spirit floats all the way to heaven or something. There's five of them in the family. Their grandmother, grandfather and their mother, selling kacang putih from a little past 'Asar in the evening until the place closes down for the night which is past twelve. I don't get to see the grandfather very often but I remember him well with his tall turban and handle-bar moustache, eyes red from too much cheap whisky. Sega and his brother seldom speak to me although they speak like one of us that you won't know that they are Tamil. The grandmother and grandfather speak with their usual upside down Trengganuspeak. They are doing alright selling kacang putih, staying in a rented house a few lots from our house. They survived for years selling kacang putih and you can tell from their body that they are well fed, especially the mother who is probably the biggest woman I have ever seen alive until I got to Texas where I met women big as a truck who can run you down flat as a pancake if you didn't get out of their way when you see them walking down a sidewalk.

A little after eight or there about, a guy selling Spanish Fly will put out a plastic sheet no bigger than a child's blanket left of the main entrance to the cinema. I run to be the first in the crowd before people start to huddle around him. That way I get to see his collection of pictures of men and women doing it in all kinds of positions which he will demonstrate to work up the imagination of his faithful customers so they can try his Spanish Fly pills out themselves, or come back for your money if you don't believe me. He will detail out the action with a bit of jokes here and there, stopping for a second or two to say, this is not for children, go away. And the crowd will laugh ha ha ha. I know he doesn't mean it because it's important that I am there for him to poke fun at. I am his un-paid assistant in pyjama, holding to laksang or laksa or whatever that I begin to worry if Aunt is going to be mad for being this late bringing her dinner home. It's a chance I've gotta take because in a few minutes this medicine man is going to take out from a battered bag he's got with him, pictures of men and women that I will reproduce in pencil illustrations to sell to my faithful customers at school who always look forward to know about my adventures to this side of town in graphic details.