Singapore Noir

“Suntec City,” he said. If these policemen were honest, they would blush, he thought. But they did not. “Suntec City,” he said again.

Three drunk, young white men had beaten up an old cabbie at a taxi stand while white tourists in the line cheered them on as if they were in some underground fight club. Two Chinese men — local men — had gone to help the cabbie and wound up getting thrashed by the white men, to more cheering from the foreign white trash in the taxi line.

“Singapore is safe,” he spat, “if you’re white and rich.”

“We caught them and one of them is in jail.”

The old man shook his head. The fucking police had let them go. Let them go on bail. Two absconded. Was that the plan? Didn’t they know the white cowards would run? They had not even bothered to investigate at first and the initial arrests had only been made after people on the Internet got involved, identified the men, and made a police report. And what had that fucking investigating officer said? Wah, you guys very free. Can do better than the police.

“We’ve dealt with that officer.”

The old man sneered. His peace was gone and the original gentleness with which he had viewed these two men in front of him was also gone, replaced by the anger that had been slowly corroding his insides until he’d found his gun. So yes, he reckoned that he and other Singaporeans could damn well do better than the police.

“Do you know how serious your offense is?”

Offense? He had not killed any precious white “foreign talent,” although he had considered it. There were only so many times he could drive by, refuse to stop to pick them up. There were only so many times he could stop, pick them up, take their condescending shit, take their scanning his cab for a NETS machine, and, seeing none, tell him they had no cash and ask if he had NETS. How many times had he driven to a cash machine — and have the fare never return to the cab? How many times had he been promised — Hey, uncle, I’ll pay you tomorrow. Just give me a call. Or pick me up again. I’ll make it up to you. White man’s honor. So superior. And when he had called? A quick cut, no reply.

In the past, he had put up with it — it was an occupational hazard. People did that. Not just white expatriate types, but also local kids who never intended to pay their fares, making a game of leaving the cab quickly after he had stopped to drop them off. But over the years, the anger had grown and slowly eaten away at him. He had tried meditation. Since he did not like driving at night, he would go to a meditation center at Jalan Besar — a dingy place in a rundown prewar building at the corner of a traffic junction, above a bunch of dirty motorcycle repair shops. He had tried to find peace there. To find forgiveness for himself and others, to remember that all were one. But any peace he found would quickly disappear like incense smoke when he got into the cab and returned to the streets.

Until his gun came — and suddenly he was calm, knowing that if he really wanted to, he could kill every one of them. At first it was just the white trash. Then it was the Singaporean women — the sarong party girls — the unofficial prostitutes that made Singapore a kind of sexual Disneyland for these white bastards. He did not mind actual call girls — they were making an honest living, just like he was — it was legal in Singapore anyway. But not the local women who thought only the white foreign trash were good enough for them, who actually thought them superior to local men simply because they were white and had expatriate paychecks. His list grew — but as he included more stereotypes, from obnoxious mainland Chinese to lecherous Indian nationals to bitchy Singaporean women to increasingly primped-and-preened local men as bitchy as their female counterparts, the greater his sense of calm grew too. They could behave as they wanted. Knowing he could kill them was consolation enough. That sense of power, of control, was good enough reason to risk everything he had — not much — to keep the gun. It calmed him and it made him smile, which really was good for Singapore’s tourist image. And we want to keep attracting the white trash, right? Smile, Singapore. He smiled — as a “taxi uncle” he was Uniquely Singapore too. His gun had made him a better man. Love all, serve all.

And he had never threatened a fare with the gun. Or killed a fare. His gun had never come out of that pouch. He had never brandished it in a threatening manner, never made a show of it to a passenger. No one had ever known he had it.