*this is a continuation from the previous entry… *

Now, a little bit about our principal – ‘Brother Casimir’ was a name that brought tremendous fear back in those days. Though he wasn’t really the incumbent discipline enforcer and rarely made appearances around the classroom areas, rumor had it that he once appeared out of nowhere to grab a boy for misbehaving and gave him the nastiest whack ever on the ass. It was said that the cane whack seared so deep, that the poor boy couldn’t sit upright for days. Although I suspected the tale was probably a product of exaggeration as it traveled from mouth to mouth, I did notice that Bro Casimir indeed brought about an enigmatic aura of trepidation around him. He had the stench of a very dangerous man.

Maybe it was his macabre look, I don’t know. With a pair of deep dark eyes, protruded forehead, hooked nose and one side of crispy thin lopsided hind ear – it wouldn’t be surprising at all if one suspects that he was somewhat a cross between a nosferatu and that pesky pet rat of Jabba the Hutt. People were naturally scared of him. Especially us schoolkids. Whenever he passes by a classroom, one could notice the instant effect. The whole class would go quiet and silence would follow wherever he went. Words would travel fast from classrooms to the next, that “Brother is coming!” and everyone would perk the fuck up and be at their best behavior. Dicks would shrivel and sphincters pucker. And I reckon if there was to be a dog around, it would probably bite its own balls to commit suicide the moment Brother appears, no shit. (alright, that was just an exaggeration…)

So, this fearsome white wizard was standing before me, his white pulpit robe flowing, white hair glistening… but his eyes were fiery red. I’d never seen him so fucking mad before. He grabbed my puny arm and dragged me to the corridor and started to hurl a tirade of batshit angry rebuke at me. I couldn’t understand a single thing he said then because

a) I was too busy being scared shitless
b) he had this thick Irish (or was it Scottish?) accent that made him sound like Rambo with a toothache…

I only managed to make up a few sentences, one of them was “I’M GONNA MAKE SURE YOU GET A STICK FROM ME TOMORROW! NOW TELL ME YOUR NAME!” – He didn’t bring his fucking cane so, he had to book an appointment to get my ass whooped on the next day. And that, was the motherfuckest torture I had to endure in my entire life as a schoolkid. Had he whooped me right away on that spot, I wouldn’t had suffered that much. Imagine, I had to go home that day feeling like I was about to be lynched the next day… which gave me a fucking miserable and sleepless night. I didn’t eat well, nor did anything well. Just scared shitless. It was the longest night ever.

The next day was a Friday, I can remember… and I went to school dithering like a Parkinson patient, looking out for the white wizard to appear in front of the class to summon my head. I waited the whole day long, but surprisingly, he didn’t show up. I was at the verge of going insane, and amidst the agitated state of mind and paranoia, a more foreboding thought came to me – the wizard probably didn’t come because he wanted to save my ass for the Monday assembly public caning… OH MY FUCKING GODDD PANIC PANIC.

And from there, I had to endure another 2 tormenting days through the weekend to face the day of reckoning – which by then, I had already mentally braced myself for the worst… And then the time came in the assembly, it never fucking happened. Brother Casimir wasn’t even fucking there. And because the worst of the possible situation had already gone by, my fear sort of like subsided after that. And he never came that day, the day after and for weeks and months after. I gave it a thought one day, about what went wrong and I suspected that I might have given Brother the wrong name and the wrong class out of my freaked out mind – which might have prevented him from locating me… because you know why? We Chinese kids looked all the fucking same to him. The whole incident went by as if it was an incomplete nightmare… I woke up before Freddy Krueger manage to struck me with his evil ‘stick’ (kinky)

That was my second narrow escape from a calamitous fate, after the first one. I can be unbelievably lucky sometimes…

People always say, that there are 2 things you cannot avoid in your adult life – tax and advertisements. But for a high school student, it has got to be the ‘classroom duty’. No I’m not referring ‘duty’ as in ‘your duty to fucking finish your high school and not be a yokel’. But ‘classroom duty’ as in, the janitorial work that your kiddy ass exploited to do by your corrupted school board in their bid to save some maintenance cost. You know, sweep the floor, dust the fucking blackboard and stuff? Yep. Back during my time (I am not sure if people are still doing that today), everyone had to take turn to clean up the mess after class – well unless if you’re a cripple or a biological retard.

The classroom duty was always a fun thing for me and my buddies. I’m not implying that we LIKED to do janitorial work, but more like having the propensity to make the most out of each job. We’d give half assed effort for it and spend the rest of the period romping around. You know, like engaging in broom fights… duster fights… duster soccer… duster juggling (there were a thousand and one cool stuff that we could do with a duster, besides dusting the stupid blackboard) and sometimes, illegal activities like swapping defective desks to adjacent classes. Such were our activities, fully utilized to our juvenile amusement.

One day, we overdid it. I overdid it. I don’t quite remember what was the theme and who was there with me that day but, I was having a blast. Towards the end of the duty, right before we were about to wrap up and lock the classroom, I did a final stunt called ‘the basketball chair’ maneuver. The ‘basketball chair’ maneuver, as the name implies, is played like a basketball… except that there is no ball nor basket involved. You use a fucking chair. Here’s how it works – you throw a chair from a distance away towards another chair, so that it lands upright and stacks up on one another. Requires a little bit of skill to pull a stunt like that but, if you can master it, you’d save a lot of work stacking up chairs.

That day, I was pulling a feat that none of my friends had ever done before (well, that’s probably because they’re not as such a dumbass as I was…). I was trying to do the basketball chair thing at the full length of the class. That is – from the front of the classroom, right to the back of it. That’s like the equivalent of a full court shot in a real basketball game. I don’t know what was I thinking but, it seemed like a neat idea back then.

I can still remember, the chair I was holding was one of those ubiquitous old skool rusty steel chair (that always fucking stain our white uniforms). That thing was heavy, about a few kilograms. I lifted it up with little regards, took a careful aim and flung it with all my might. The chair took flight across the classroom, landed about half a foot short of the target and fell sideways, resulting a din of metal crashing against the cement floor, which I reckoned was loud enough to be heard across the building block. On any other normal day, this would had been a really trivial thing to happen. But that day, was not an ‘any other normal day’. It was the day the planets were not in alignment to my chi, and the cosmic energy was incongruent with my spirit, which thoroughly fucked up my chakra. After the explosion of sound, I noticed a white object towering above me from behind… which prompted me to turn back and look up, and saw my 6 feet something school principal – the formidable Brother Casimir Hannon… and that was when I realized that my fate was in jeopardy there…

(to be continued…)

*Kinda free at work this morning, so I decided to write a little…

There was a time when I used to be immaculate. A time far before the internet and porn. A time when I only know about soccer and being innocently mischievous… until I learnt ‘more’ about the world that one fateful afternoon.

It was after school at about noon, and as usual, I went over to the school field (which was opposite my school by the sea) to play soccer with my friends. It was like a daily routine for me whenever I had to wait for the school bus. But when I arrived there, I was quickly ushered to the edge of the volleyball court changing room building (which was just right next to the field) by this friend of mine (the same guy who showed me my first porn mag).

He whispered to me in a hushed tone :

Friend : [whisper] “Duuuuuude.. shhhh! Keep it down! There’s a guy at the back of that wall there jacking off! ahakss!”

Well, he actually quoted ‘pak chiu cheng‘, which is Hokkien for ‘wanking’.

Me : [whisper] “What the fuck?? He’s doing it on our field?? Why would he want to do that lah??”

I was innocent. Forgive me.

Friend : [whisper] “I don’t know man. Don’t ask me. Maybe he’s just sick or something.”

It was just a blank discussion. It really mattered not to us on why the guy did it. But for something like this to happen in our school compound, it’s already heck of an interesting phenomenon for the rest of the younger boys. The news then started to spread faster than a wildfire, and in the matter of seconds (it was really that fast), we had dozens of curious boys sneaking behind the wall… myself included, to peek at that psychotic horny dude jacking himself off under the hot sun.

The guy happened to be a middle aged bloke… still wearing a motorcycle helmet, sitting on the edge of the washing well (a place to wash our feet) and fervently working on his dick. He was pretty much in ‘control of the situation’ until I made that fake moan in falsetto voice…

Me : “Ooooohh ahhhhh oooooohhhh aahhhhh ooooh aaaahhh~~”

My prankish cry triggered 2 simultaneous reactions:

1) The guys catching for their breath for laughing too fucking hard, and
2) The wanker jolting up as if he was discovered by his mother-in-law porking the family dog.

I kinda half expected him to immediately pull his pants up and skedaddle, you know… but then surprisingly, he went on with his business. I guess he must be already ‘too far to go back’ in his fantasy, lest he’d spill his cum on his pants or something like that. And that kinda gave us more time to goad that guy up with more of our shenanigans.

Some of us howled like wolves, some followed suit with more creative orgasmic moan, some simply yelled “HOI!”. The jeering lasted for about 10 minutes (Now that I think of it, that was kinda long for a session of jackoff) before horny dude decided he had had enough, pulled up his pants and got the fuck out of there.

We had a good laugh and some of the kids even went to the site to survey if horny dude had actually ejaculated, which they later ascertained that he didn’t. He left the site clean, except for perhaps a few strands of pubic hair for the roaches as souvenirs.

Believe it man… there are a lot of sick people amongst us. (I meant the horny dude, not us innocent kids…).

PukeMachine, like I’ve said before, I’ve seen him hurt himself many times when we were kids. Far too many times to be just average. Far too many times to be just stupid. PukeMachine, the epitome of stupidity…

Here are a few more of his preposterous acts :

playing with explosives
Firecrackers were pretty much legal back then. One fine weekend during the school holidays, PukeMachine decided to make a bomb for himself. What he did was – he unrolled those little red firecrackers to salvage its volatile powder, and burned a bunch of it at close range. Now, any normal kid with an average wit wouldn’t have deemed this as a good idea… no matter how fun it’s gonna be. All except for PukeMachine. He thought that it was a fun thing to do… and hurt himself pretty bad from the explosion.

His face was almost completely healed when he returned to school after the holidays, but was still bad enough for most of us to notice that both his eyebrows were cleanly burnt off, and the epidermal layer of his face carbon black, with some random peelings on his temple. When asked about it, he would simply claim that he was accidentally scalded by boiling water, but later, confessed to me (his best friend evarrrr) that his injury was inflicted by a homemade bomb. Everyone found out about it after that. (thanks to me)

the finger trick
PukeMachine came to me one morning, and told me that he discovered something awesome. I was like “yeah? what is it?” and he showed me one of his fingers. It was blistering at the region right above the fingernail. I asked “what happened to your finger?”. He then told me, “Mike, if you repeatedly rub your skin like this, the skin would come off! How awesome is that! Try it man… it’s fun”. He was chafing his own skin off and thought that it was fun.

I didn’t ask why would he do that for, nor did I question the sanity of that act. I just pretended that I was very impressed with his ‘discovery’ and told him I’m gonna chafe all the skin on my finger that night, and I would show him tomorrow. But of course I didn’t. He showed up the next morning with blisters on all his fingers, some even had dried blood still caked on it. I just bluffed him that I couldn’t get my skin off and he dissed me off like I was the dumbest fart on the planet for not partaking that skin chafing fun. Now that I think of it, he kinda reminded me of Ralph Wiggum.

cursed bicycle
PukeMachine was our class goalkeeper. Not that he’s good or anything, but because he was big enough to block a large portion of the goal box. He had a nickname to go with his goal keeping, “slippery fish catcher” – attributed to his clumsiness in catching even a slow rolling ball. But that was not relevant to what I intend to share here (but important to justify why he was chosen for the goalkeeping role).

Anyway, one day, he failed to show up for the class soccer tournament. Cellphones weren’t invented yet back then, and we were made to wait for the goalkeeper that never came. We then had to proceed the game with the reserve goalkeeper. Apparently, PukeMachine met an accident on the way to the game and broke his arm in two. There weren’t any details spared to give us an idea how the hell he managed to break his arm from a bicycle accident. He just said ‘he fell off’.

But I didn’t believe him. You don’t break your arm when you fall off a goddamn bicycle. Unless your bicycle is 3 storeys high or capable of speeding like a fucking motorcycle. He probably rode off a cliff or something, but I’m just speculating. He could have broken his arms from jumping off his apartment unit. For the fun of it.

cursed bicycle 2
I once asked to join in a bicycle trip with PukeMachine and my other classmate, Johnny, into gallivanting around a rural housing area which was known for its intricate network of dirt tracks. Because I wasn’t really familiar with that area, PukeMachine and Johnny would have to guide me around, lest I might get myself lost or something.

And that’s what PukeMachine did, or at least attempted to do – to take advantage of that situation to abandon me and then to live out to tell the tale about my misfortune. So, he rode faster, in hope that I won’t be able to catch up the lead and got myself lost in that maze of dirt tracks. But little did he realize that his bicycle didn’t have much traction on those dirt tracks, and he got himself gliding down at the first corner (just like how that T1000 cyborg glided on that overturned liquid nitrogen truck in Terminator 2), and landed flat right in front of a family relaxing on a bench, all who stared down at him like they’ve just witnessed a UFO landing right in front of their yard.

No he didn’t break his arm this time, just his pride, as Johnny and I laughed squarely at his face and spread the news like wildfire the next day.

****

Just thought of sharing all these so that you kids will not make the same mistakes like PukeMachine uncle did…

Being a child must be the darkest period of PukeMachine’s life. Or at least one of the darkest, for he wasn’t born a very bright person. At least not bright enough to keep himself out of unnecessary troubles. That explains why during the course of our childhood, I had seen him hurt himself pretty bad many times over. Far too many times to be just average. Far too many times to be just stupid. He’s one of a kind.

That reminds me of an incident happened during our first secondary year, our first day of wearing the green pants of adolescence. We still hung out together back then, and witnessed a lot of newcomers came drafting in from alien schools that day. We weren’t very thrilled about it of course, being the old boys there and all that. There was a feel of being smug about our identity and we didn’t feel like being too friendly with them.

I remember I almost beat up a new guy during assembly that day, for accidentally knocking me on my shoulder. It was a fair porcine guy with a fair complexion, and I nearly creamed his ass had not there been a someone to break the fight then. He wasn’t very big or look too nasty, so, he was an easy target for me. I was a smart kid. I knew who’s vulnerable for some beatings and who not to mess with. I pick my target well. (That guy would later become one of my best buddies.)

Just as there were a lot of bleating little victims asking to be beaten up, there were also plenty of badass rednecks whom I chose to keep my distance from. Amongst the meanest and most savage of them was this redneck guy who went by the name Beng Hee. His hair was always disheveled, and he didn’t tuck in his shirt. His beady eyes were like that of a shark’s and he had a very thick neck like Wayne Rooney. From the first look at him, one could tell that he’s not a person that’s worth messing up with.

But not PukeMachine. On that first day of secondary one, Beng Hee caught PukeMachine staring at him inside the class. That was when he threatened PukeMachine with an intimidating hand sign – that he’s going to kill him or something. But PukeMachine didn’t get it. Instead, he flipped Beng Hee a bird (inside the class) and got himself registered into Beng Hee’s ‘to be beaten up’ list. That explains why we were being chased by Beng Hee after school (I was being chased along because we hung out together).

After being chased for about a few good hundred meters, Beng Hee stopped because he was too exhausted. He pointed at us like he’s letting us off, and that he’s going to deal with us later when he’s fit enough. We thought that was the end of it for that day, and so I decided to walk off. Maybe to convince Beng Hee days later that I played no part in antagonizing him and his army of darkness, for I, was just a petty little bully who only makes my living beating up scrawny little Indian kids. Maybe, I can even offer PukeMachine’s head for him to let his steam off, or something like that.

I was pretty sure my plan would work… until PukeMachine did something really stupid. He walked back to face the already content Beng Hee, and FLIPPED HIM ANOTHER BIRD, and stood there laughing maniacally like he’s been possessed by the god of stupidity.

“FUCK! PUKEMACHINE!!!! WHY DID YOU DO THAT FOR???” I yelled at him.

Beng Hee went ballistic and summoned more of his strength to give us another chase. I could tell from the look of his mad face that he’s in a homicidal rage, and it wouldn’t be wise to stay around waiting to get myself killed. And so we ran from him for another few hundred meters. By then, I was already damn exhausted and used up all my energy to run any further. So, I did what any smart kid would do – hide. Inside an unlocked factory bus. You see, Beng Hee only wanted PukeMachine, not me. I reckoned that he would continue to chase him and I’d be safe by refuging inside this bus.

PukeMachine was left to continue running along the street without me. He only realized that I wasn’t with him after a few seconds, to which, he turned just soon enough to see me going into the unlocked bus to hide, and he followed suit. He went into that bus to hide with me.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE????? YOU SHOULD BE RUNNING OFF!!! YOU STARTED ALL THESE! YOU DON’T FLIP A BIRD TO A MAD GANGSTER WHO’S CHASING YOUUUU!!!!!”

It’ll only aggravate him further – that was what I wanted to tell PukeMachine. But he was laughing, like he was having the jolliest time of his life. I didn’t know what was wrong with him and I didn’t yell any further, lest Beng Hee might hear my shouting from outside the bus. We continued to hide inside there for approximately 10 minutes, before bolting off to board our transport home (I was with my schoolbus).

The incident was later forgotten, until I heard about the news of PukeMachine being rounded up by Beng Hee (and some of his gang? I couldn’t remember) and got pummeled for what he did that day. I, on the other hand, didn’t face any confrontation from Beng Hee after that day at all… just, shaken from that incident.