shaken and stirred

��ok sir, this time is not my fault. i have already done all that you asked me to. and now you still want to charge me. ok. never mind. anything that happens after this � don�t blame me.�

with those cryptic words, he finally left the office. as i sat alone at my desk, dazed and stunned at what had just unfolded, i was so overwhelmed by sadness. i hardly knew him but for 7 hours today, i dipped into his world and came through it totally traumatized and enlightened.

i was accosted by an ah-beng serviceman at work today. i could have charged him, but i refrained from doing so because i reckoned it would not resolve anything.

instead i pulled him aside and drawing on my time as a prefect and what little experience and knowledge i have, i appealed to his warped ah-beng sensibility. it kind of worked, as he relented a little and apologized for being so rude. the whole morning was spent accommodating his whims and fancies because he claimed he is a single parent who cannot stay in. we were prepared to excuse him for night range and make special transport arrangements to get him where he needs to be over the next 3 days.

just as we thought we had settled his problem, he created another one.

my fellow officer trainer called me and told me he wanted to charge that ah-beng with insubordination. my thoughts immediately fluctuated to the incident in the morning � i let him off in the morning with a warning that yelling at people who are senior in rank in the army is not a responsible thing to do. he had wanted to request for flexi arrangements because he wanted to be a responsible dad and pick up his son from day care to care for him in the evenings. my boss bought his story and accommodated him. however, what he did to my officer friend was inexcusable. he may have his reasons, but that does not remove the fact that he threatened authority in front of everyone. he even lay hands on him, and warned him to watch out � usual ah-beng stuff. all for the fact that my friend told him for the second time to stop smoking during the lesson.

i was called down. my friend was getting all hot and bothered. i went down and did a mini investigation. i talked to the serviceman and he told me that the reason why he flared up at my officer friend was because he claims that the trainer �cursed his mother�. for those not in the know, to ah-bengs, cursing their parents to them is an infringement of their misplaced pride. then i went to talk to my officer friend to appease him and to calm him down. i also talked to some eye-witnesses and other officers who were present.

fact remains that i couldn�t establish beyond a reasonable doubt that my officer friend said something so uncouth to him. nobody, not even the people he claims to have overheard, can say for sure he heard my friend said the forbidden. my boss and i spent the whole afternoon to get him to come to his senses. on hindsight it could have been a mistake on my boss�s part � he has been an ah-beng for most of his thirty years, how could he just change at the snap of a finger?

my boss made the decision to out-process him from this training frame because he did not want to take any more chances and allow the serviceman to have any more contact with my officer friend. only then i learnt that the serviceman actually came to look for trouble. he claims to have financial problems and a broken family outside. he had intended to intentionally defy or punch someone to get himself into detention barracks so that he can escape his creditors and at the same time, force his estranged wife to care for their son.

but for all our efforts, he still went back to confront my friend. he even claims to have called his brothers to wait at the bus stop for my friend. i have my reservations about this because when he was �calling his brothers to disperse�, what i heard from his handphone sounded like his wife � i recognized it because he wanted me to help him mediate his family problems.

what striked me most was his sense of bravado. his warped sense of pride and friendship. it was too real to be true. and as he stood there facing the charge, he was unrepentant and insisted that he was not in the wrong and is owed an apology from my trainer friend. he had to be charged despite my boss�s protests because higher authorities insist that he be charged.

i am so shaken by the whole incident. the front i was putting on. what people perceived as confidence and eloquence on my part. you have absolutely no idea how my balls shrank and how badly my legs were shaking. i really thought he would see sense and move on.

his stubbornness reminded me of myself. to him, the fifty dollars my boss originally gave him to alleviate his situation was so important to him � when he needed to use the money to pay for his token fine for the charge against him, he would rather go to detention barracks than to pay the fine. i advised him otherwise, repeating what i told him for the umpteenth time. to just think for his son. and his family.

those words he said to my boss and i before he finally left the office really shattered me. it reminded me of why i decided that i will not become a lawyer in secondary 4. it reminded me of how there�s really more to life than our current situation. the amount of sadness that filled me far outweighed the fear i had of being bashed up outside camp. i was so sad that someone, despite knowing what�s best for him, still decides otherwise. that his pride was more important to him. that it did not matter that my friend did not say those things about his parents. that it only mattered to him what he heard. his one-person-only universe.

i also thought about how maybe he really wants to get out of the underworld rut he is in now, but cannot because it is the only life that he knows about. that he knows no other alternatives. i thought of how this is what sustains him. i am saddened because it doesn�t occur to him that words alone will not convince his wife he wants to change because actions speak louder than words. and if he were to persist in his unruly ways, there�s really nothing anyone can do. at the end of the day, for all we want to help, we can only help as much as he wants to help himself.

i sat there alone after the day at work had ended for me.

it hit me. i have to change too. and stop being so stubborn and insist on things my way all the time. that whatever happens, i cannot expect people to understand. i saw some of myself in his character. i was so appalled.

i teared. i was so glad i was so enlightened through the massive sadness.