Trying to find the magic

Like an Australian creek in the heat of summer, I've been dangerously low on ideas recently. I'd type a sentence, maybe even a paragraph, and realise that I have nothing useful to contribute or that I am unable to translate all these ideas swirling in my head into words. Writing is very draining and it requires immense concentration, patience, and perhaps some sort of talent that I am deficient in.

So perhaps I'll take this opportunity to finish my reminisce series which I started last year and never completed. It's actually a very appropriate time to write this now. 2002. Secondary 4. My final year in that heaven and hell.

It began promisingly enough. I was glad to be back in school after the sheer torture of the year-end holidays. I basically had no friends. Was feuding with Michael, feuding with Gerald, drifting away from Siow, and didn't know Tong well enough to dare to ask him out during the holidays. Those weeks were probably the most lonely of my life. I stayed at home for 2 weeks straight, watched Serendipity ALONE because I really wanted to see it and had no one to accompany me, spent my days in front of the computer monitoring Britney's album sales as if my life depended on them.

The major difference in terms of academics was that all our science teachers had been replaced. Apparently 3.11 produced such awful results that a major reshuffling was ordered by the senior administration. Out went Samson Tan and in came Jason Lee for Physics. We gladly bid farewell to that ancient Biology relic also known as Toh Siew Tee and cautiously greeted Yong Lee Har. The starkest change was in Chemistry, where Terence Ng was sent downstairs to teach general science and Quek Yi Lek was summoned to save us from acadmic damnation. I guess it was appropriate that I scored A2s for all my sciences in the 'O's. Which was a disappointment at that time but in retrospect was rather remarkable when you consider that I basically knew zilch about Chemistry at the beginning of the year and was performing atrociously in Physics and Bio. Having new teachers motivated me to start anew and push myself to do well. I am a firm believer that teachers exercise a great deal of influence on their students. If you like a teacher, you are more likely to want to do well in that subject.

I will fast-forward to the month of April because I can't remember anything that happened before then, which probably means that those first few months were utterly uneventful. It was 1 Apr 02. April Fool's Day. For some strange reason, we had followed Gerald to the dental centre at SGH. He was with his mum and Tong & I decided to make our way to town from there. On the bus, I remember feeling this strong urge to tell Tong about my sexual orientation. I can't really recall why. Maybe part of me hoped that he was gay too. I wasn't deluded and knew that he was probably not, but at that time it seemed like a shot worth taking. I think it went beyond that. I had this need to tell somebody, to share my deep, dark secret with the world. Since Secondary 1, there had been rumours about my orientation. But people never really believe these kind of things until they hear it directly from the horse's mouth. So I told Tong. We were in McDonald's at Suntec. He was studying (or trying to anyway), and in typical Tong fashion seemed so very nonchalant. He took no interest in what I had to say, and I actually had to repeat myself several times and drop all sorts of hints before he finally got it. On the bus home, he asked me whether I was attracted to anyone in class and that was when I leaked those 2 infamous set of initials, BT and KO, that would be used against me for the rest of the year.

The next day Tong greeted me in this very sinister manner and I more or less knew I was done for. It leaked out slowly at first. He told Gerald who said something like "Ya isn't that damn obvious?" As the weeks went on, Tong used this information to subdue me. I was effectively his slave - running errands, buying food, carrying his bag for him, doing silly, humiliating things at his whim or fancy. I made a fool of myself in a futile effort to plug the leak, I begged and pleaded and even tried to pass it off as an April Fool's joke. But it was far too late to do anything at this point. All I could do was sit back and watch in horror as one by one, people started to find out about me, from classmates to teachers. I don't know if the teachers ever believed what they heard, but I do remember becoming persona non grata to several classmates, including Keith. I don't blame him really. This pushed me even closer to Tong & gang because although he was the one who had betrayed my misplaced trust, he was also one of the few people in class who would hang out with me, albeit with plenty of teasing and derogatory comments regarding my sexuality. I do wonder if he feels guilty about everything he did to me that year. Do you?

I've been possessed by the fashion faux pas spirit ever so often, most recently during National Day this year. Urgh! But perhaps the worst ever was during the President's Challenge. We had been strongly encourgaed (which in AC basically means forced) to donate to the President's Challenge. The proceeds went to the Heart Bus, which was basically a double-deck SBS bus (service 196) embellished with hearts that contained our signatures and the school crest smack in the middle of it all. We were the first school to actually have our own heart bus. As part of the unveiling ceremony, the President (duh, it's his challenge after all) was invited to inaugurate the bus. As part of the proceedings, we were taught to do the 'Express Yourself' dance, which basically meant following the movements of a teacher who fancied herself to be Madonna, and repeatedly hearing "Don't go for second best baby, put your lover to the test, you know you know you got to, make him express how he feels and baby then you'll know your love is real..." Now I wasn't as much of a Madonna loon back then, which was a good thing because if the same thing happened now, I would start hyperventilating and descending into pure faggotry. Most of the guys were blissfully unaware that they were dancing to Madonna. Hell, I remember in Sec 3 one of my classmates didn't even know that she sung 'Like A Virgin'! o_O I mean, yeah you're straight and all that but surely there are certain things that even the straightest of guys should know??

So back to the President's Challenge. We were allowed to wear our own clothes to school that day. I chose this sleeveless red t-shirt, which was really a daring thing at the time because I had never ever won anything without sleeves out of the home. But then the fashion faux pas spirit possessed me and I decided to pair it with this Union Jack t-shirt that I had purchased from London the year before. The t-shirt was basically one big Union Jack flag, even down to the sleeves. So I wore that t-shirt underneath and wore my sleeveless over (incidentally this one featured the bald eagle and some American stars and strips and whatnot). I cannot even BEGIN to describe how AWFUL the whole outfit was. It was so absolutely hideous I disposed of the inner tee at school and thus heralded the first time I was ever sleeveless in public. As we sat in the parade square waiting for Nathan to arrive(whereupon we would toast him with bloody NEWATER!) Sherwin, this really muscular guy who fancied himself to be some contemporary Don Juan, came up to me and pointedly asked "Are you gay?" I wanted to kill myself. I couldn't say yes but at the same time I couldn't bring myself to say no either. So I just kept quiet. I suspect that lots of people were talking about me back in the day. Thankfully I was never really aware of exactly what was being said. That whole period of time was very painful.

I realise that a big part of my 2002 invovled Gerald Goh. All the insults traded, all the ridiculous fights, all the pranks played. I have to mention a few. Tong occasionally borrowed money from Gerald and so Gerald would periodically ask him to return whatever money he owed. Thing is, Gerald always seemed to ask for more than he was due. And Tong being Tong had no idea and just kept on giving out those 2 dollar notes, as if he were a dysfunctional ATM that would simpy dispense cash upon request even if you didn't have that balance in your account. After a couple of months he finally caught on to the Burd's wicked schemes. So Gerald became more brazen and started fishing money out of Tong's bag (he never carried a wallet because he would lose it sooner rather than later) whenever he wasn't in class (which was quite often).

Sometime during the year, he bought new shoes. Nike boings. I accidentally stepped on them a couple of times. I SWEAR that it was an accident. Ok, maybe I did so on purpose once or twice but the straw that broke the camel's back was REALLY accidental. He went ballistic, thinking that I was "trying to be funny" and demanded to step on my new RIPCURL bag in retaliation. Which is all very childish when you think about it now but hey, that's what we were. Naturally, I didn't want my new bag to bear the imprint of his shoe. So we started fighting as he tried to wrench my bag from me and I struggled to hold on to it. It got to the point where I realised the only way to save my bag was to make a big commotion. So I did. In front of the entire class, in front of our teacher, I shouted "CAN YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" Now my Chinese teacher, Han Kok Peng, was CLUELESS about how much animosity there was between Gerald and myself. She tried to calm the situation by telling us that as friends we should get along and not quarrel. This merely made the situation worse and Gerald wanted to tell her that I was gay (which is really out of point but I suppose he felt that was the only weapon he could use against me). So he blurted, "but lao shi, ta si tong xi..." Tong interrupted him just in time and got him to shut up. Which was really one of the few times that Tong came to my rescue. Writing this now, I cringe to think about how I was perceived by my classmates.

Moving on to one of my favourite incidents ever. We were on the bus to some old folk's home for community service, and Gerald and I were at it again, trading insults at each other. I would always win the verbal argument and the only way he could ever compensate was by using physical violence. Mainly, he would assualt me on my shoulder with his claw. Which hurt. Anyway, it got to the point where Gerald was simply exasperated and decided to use my sexual orientation against me once again. "Simon, I know that I may be quite ugl...not very good-looking, but at least I'm not a gay like you right?" I just burst out laughing. You see, my main weapon against Gerald at the time was the way he looked(which was very mean la and I apologise for doing so), and I guess that I had reiterated it so many times he began to see himself that way.

Finally, my number one favourite Gerald Goh incident. It was during Geography class. Only half the class took Geography and the other half would go over to .13 for History. We would take this opportunity to seat wherever the hell we wanted to, and on this occasion Tong was next to me, and the two of us were directly behind Gerald. Jonathan Ng was selling these packets of Smarties for charity or something, so we bought a few packets and started to eat them. Then Tong and I thought of this brilliant prank to play on the burd. The background on this being that Gerald would seize any opportunity to antagonize me, and we decided to use that against him. We took a smartie and threw it on the floor. Tong stepped on it with his shoes. We then proceeded to smother the smartie in lead, rubbing the pencil lead against the smartie as if we were playing the violin. Tong then proceeded to offer the smartie to Gerald. On cue, I broke out into violent protest. "No they're mine! Don't give it to him!" A look of glee erupted on Gerald's face when he realised that he had an opportunity to annoy me. He demanded the smartie and so Tong surrendered it to him, whereupon he happily tossed it into this mouth with the satisfaction of having won this skirmish. A couple of seconds later, he turned around and drank some water from his bottle. To this day, I'd like to think that this was because of the dirt and lead on the smartie. Tong and I started to laugh hysterically. We actually managed to play the same trick on him again 5 mintues later. It was absolutely hilarious. We started this whole Pb(the symbol for lead on the periodic table) joke and never told Gerald about what really happened until many weeks later(and when he found out he attacked Tong's shoulder with his claws). Good times.

Another favourite with Gerald was after the pre-lim labs, when we were quarantined in the classrooms for a period of time before being released. Luck would have it that we were in the same classroom as Ivan the white-haired freak. He had this large patch of white hair above his ear which was very unfortunate, especially since he already looked monstrous. Ivan was perhaps even more physically violent than Gerald, if that is possible. Once, before some exam, he had been making fun of me and when I responded in kind he got so angry that he started kicking me in the shins repeatedly, to the point where I thought I was going to die. Certainly someone you don't want to mess with because when he gets angry he really has an immense amount of strength. So Gerald and him began insulting each other. Ivan probably started it, calling Gerald the bird and all. Everything was fine at first until Gerald called Ivan a white-haired freak, a zebra. There was one of those dramatic moments where everyone fell silent and you could just cut the tension with a knife. The eye of the storm if you will. The expression on Ivan's face changed. You could actually see it changing in slow motion. A moment later we went back into real time and Ivan jumped out at Gerald, who was sitting behind him. The impact of that nearly knocked Gerald out of his chair and then Ivan started to punch Gerald in the face. They had to be pulled apart and Gerald's spectacles were mangled beyond recognition. So he went out of the classroom and I knew what was going to happen. He came back with the discipline mistress, Karen Liau, who we all adored really. She was a big-time bitch when she first came into AC in 2000 but by 2002 everyone had fallen for her former air-stewardess charms. Actually, we all adored her except for Gerald because she gave him a very hard time over this incident. I remember Gerald giving her this really fucked up analogy about how the punching was akin to letting someone go into class and breaking everyone's pencils and she scolded Gerald for being rude. Gerald started to apologise for this in his usual disgruntled manner and she told him that if he wanted to raise the matter further the both of them would have to stay back after everyone was dismissed. This was anathema to Gerald and he decided to drop the matter, after he had basically been humiliated in front of 3 classes worth of people.

NPCC was really fucked up. You suffer for 3 years so that in Sec 4 you get to make everyone else suffer. But after I paid my dues, I was sent for some stupid NPCC Day and subsequently Youth Day Parade instead as part of the marching contingent. Which meant that instead of ordering people around, I would be ordered around under the hot sun, no different from when I was a junior. Which pissed me off greatly. There were around eight of us involved in this fiasco, if memory serves me right. After a while, we decided that we would not burn a good part of our Saturdays to participate in the practices. Attendance was taken of course, but our own AC teachers were back in school and not at the Police Academy. Practices were held there initially. So after taking attendace, the AC guys would magically disappear. We would find a way to escape from the area, change into our civilian clothes, and get the hell out of there before anyone noticed. In retrospect, and after army where you can get charged with AWOL and sent to DB for this sort of thing, I wonder how I ever went ahead with it all. Don't mind me saying this, but it really did take balls on our part to run away week after week. Maybe it shows how desperate we all were to escape the sheer torture of boring, mindless drills. The most dramatic scene was when Youth Day drew closer and practices were held at the National Stadium instead. We would go to the Police Academy to mark attendance and from there buses would take us to Kallang for rehearsals. We actually had to run behind the whole row of buses to avoid being detected, and Kavin had to talk to the instructors to draw attention away from the fact that there were people running away under their very noses. It was a great adrenaline rush. I'm surprised that we weren't caught until the actual Youth Day Parade was over and Joseph Yeo was furious that ACS (I) had not marched along with the contingent. Of course we didn't march, we hadn't attended any rehearsals! That Mondy, after lab practical pre-lims, we were on our way to the quarantine classrooms when I saw him waiting at the corridor, picking us out one by one from the masses of students. Oh shit. Totally screwed. He raised a ruckus and we had to come up with all sorts of excuses so that he wouldn't find out what had really been happening all along. I don't think he ever did but he was still "very very angry", as he would say in that voice of his. I was really lucky that 20 pushups (that I couldn't even do properly) was all the punishment that came out of the whole affair.

What else. Oh yeah. In the last proper week of school (before the study break for the actual 'O's), Tong began to proclaim that he would break off all ties with me after Friday. I was shattered. I didn't understand why after all this time, after all the things I had done for him and he had made me do, he was pulling the carpet from underneath my feet. Gerald, naturally, was overjoyed and even started a countdown on Friday, reminding us that we had 6 hours and 20 mintues left before he would have nothing to do with me any longer, That became 4 hours and 45 minutes, which became 2 hours and 5 mintues, and as the numbers got lower I just started becoming more and more depressed. All my eggs were in this basket and it was going to be destroyed. I blamed it all on my homosexuality. He doesn't want to mix with me any longer because I'm gay and no one wants to mix with gay people. But I couldn't help it. Of course things didn't turn out that way in the end. After our last paper we went to Bukit Merah SAFRA to play pool and from then on, slowly but surely, I began to establish myself in Tong's life. Gerald and I had said so many bad things to each other over the past 4 years that there was really nothing left to be said and we decided to put everything aside.

Which leads me to the present. I fought so hard for Tong's friendship. I put up with betrayal, humiliation, just bullshit in general, and for what? He can never seem to confirm anything, he tells us not to count on him(going for an outing), he hasn't seen me in months and he doesn't seem to be very bothered. I've taken him down from his pedestal (hell I'm trying to get rid of the pedestal itself - it's not healthy to worship your friends...or anyone in general). My social life is no longer dependent on him. I relate better to and prefer the company of my samazozi friends(and yes that includes you too Lena). Tong's no longer that special individual who I give every priority to. So what gives? As I was writing this I realised that no matter what, Tong will always be special to me in some way, and that if I've managed to put up with him for 6 years, I can put up with him for another 6. We may no longer relate to each other the way we used to(yes I HAVE become a completely different animal over the past year), I may no longer be as tolerant and patient and able to put up with all the nonsense, you may have your girlfriend who you devote most of your attention to, but somehow something inside me is unable to just let you drift away like that. All I'm looking for is some appreciation.

That's all.