It's Not Good To Hate Somebody.

Most likely I will never know what it feels like to have a father since no way I can convince Aunt Su to remarry just so I can experience the joy of having a male I may consider a father around the house for a change. Maybe I will never get used to the idea of sharing the house with a man because Aunt raised me with the idea that we don't need a man in the house because we are doing alright without a man to do the things man normally do around the house like fix a floor-board, or re-wire something, or sit in front of tv all day ordering people about to get his drink or a newspaper acting grumpy and irritable. Thinking about this, I come to the conclusion in my own uneducated fashion that I don't need a father afterall. It was a nice thought nonetheless that I played in my mind driving from the pizza parlor in Taman Tun back to our little place in this big wide world in Damansara Perdana.

A caregiver will tell you that men are grumpier and more irritable than women. I don't have the answer for this but generally this is true. I am not aware of any scientific research on this but you can do the math yourself to see if what I am saying is any good to arrive at the final analysis.

Maybe it's me or maybe it's them, but generally, men I used to take care of don't like me very much. Aunt Su used to say it's because they were jealous to see me getting all the attention from the women at the old folks' home whenever I came for a visit. I'd tell Aunt Su how nice it would be if only I get the same attention from young, pretty, available women whenever I go about my business looking for the most likely candidate for a missus. The reason all those women gave me all the attention was because I usually have something for them like biscuits, fruits, or minyak angin, sometimes fizzy drinks. I was their Santa Claus, minus the belly and the beard, and the red suit, and the black boots.

There was a gentleman in that institution who really hated me that I was at my wits' end trying to figure out why. Aunt Su said maybe because I reminded him of someone he used to hate in his younger days. I figured it was more than this.

One windy afternoon Aunt Su and I were enjoying our lunch at a picnic table under the angsana tree. He came in from the building walking towards us, his eyes fixed on me that I felt a little uncomfortable but continued talking to Aunt Su, dabbing the drips around her mouth. He got to us near enough for me to see the wrinkles around his eyes. As if possessed by some demons, he raised his walking stick to point it straight to my face and mumbled something like 'syaitan! syaitan! syaitan!' It must have scared Aunt Su that she trembled and fumbled with the fried chicken. Good thing this gentleman was an elderly person. Had he been my age or younger I'd love to lunge at him and tear his jaws apart for behaving like that in front of Aunt Su. He stood there in the sun for a couple of minutes, mumbling something in what sounded like the combination of Gaelic and Swahili, when two orderlies appeared to lead him into the building.

I met the person in-charge to enquire if it was safe for Aunt Su to be in the same building with that elderly gentleman. He assured me that he'd personally see to it that everything would be alright and that I had nothing to worry about. When someone gives you that kind of assurance you had better not trust him because I know 100% that he is not the resident supervisor and he leaves for home after five. I took Aunt Su to the hotel with me for the rest of the weekend.

I don't plan to write a long entry on this story but sadly, the elderly gentleman died and the secrets why he hated me is buried forever in a grave somewhere in Penang.