Paul Theroux - Saint Jack

“Don’t worry,” I called to him. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I made my way into the kitchen, found the candle and lit it. The old man had run to the wall where a blanket was spread. He was Chinese and had the look of a trishaw driver, the black sinewy legs and arms, close-cropped hair, a small dark reptile’s face. He wore a blue jacket and shorts, and on his feet were rubber clogs cut from tires.

“You know me, eh? Me Jack.” I laughed. “This my housel” In that dark smelly place every sound was weird and my laugh was ghoulish. “You want smoke?” I threw him a cheroot. He cowered when I brought the candle over for him to light it.

“Me Jack,” I said. “This my house — Dunroamin.”

He blinked. “You house?”

“Yeah,” I said. “All finished now.”

He cackled and said something I couldn’t make out.

“You live here now?” I asked. “Sleep here, eat here— makan here, eh?”

“ Mahan, makan ,” he said, and picked up a small bowl. He offered it to me. “You makan. ”

There were lumps of rice inside, with two yellow pork rinds on top of the rice. I took it and thanked him and choked back one of the rinds. It was a sharing gesture and it worked. The poor man was calmed. He went to a tin lunch pail and spooned some more rice into the bowl.

“No,” I said.

“ Makan ,” he said, and smiled.

I took the bowl and ate a few grains, chewing slowly. I pointed to the newspaper. “You read, eh? Sin Chew Jit Poh? ” Naming the paper was like conversation. I thought of another. “ Nanyang Siang Pau , eh?”

He nodded eagerly and handed me the paper.

I put the bowl down and unfolded the paper, looked at it, said, “Yes, yes,” and gave it back.

He didn’t respond. He was looking at my arms. He put a skinny finger on one row of tattoos, and tapping each character, worked his way down, tracing the vertical column. He frowned and tapped at another column, but faster now. “Chinese,” I said. “Chinese tattoo.”

I grinned.

He backed away, holding an outstretched palm up to ward me off; he groaned distinctly, and he ran, kicking over the tin lunch pail, and tramping the broken boards of the music room, and howling down the drive.

That night I slept on the old man’s blanket and breathed the fumes from his crudded lunch pail.

“ Curse of Dogshit ,” said Mr. Tan, translating in the Bandung the next day. He read my left arm. “ Beware Devil, Whore’s Boy, Mouth Full of Lies, Remove This and Die. Very nasty,” said Mr. Tan. “Let me see your other arm.” The right said, Red Goatface, Forbidden Ape, Ten Devils in One, I Am Poison and Death, Remove This and Die.

After that, Mr. Tan was included in the conversations Yardley had with the others when my tattoos were mentioned. For years, Mr. Tan had sat every afternoon alone with his bottle of soybean milk. Now he was welcome. Yardley couldn’t remember all the curses and he called upon Mr. Tan to repeat them.

“Incredible,” Yardley said. “There, what about that one?”

“Forbidden Ape,” said Mr. Tan promptly.

“Can you imagine,” said Yardley. “And that one—‘Monkey’s Arse’ or something like that?”

“Dogshit,” said Mr. Tan.

“All right,” I said. “That’s enough.”

“Remember old Baldwin, the chap that worked for Jardine?” asked Smale. “He had tattoos all over the place. Birds and that.”

“You going to keep them, Jack?” asked Coony. “Souvenir of Singapore. Show ’em to your mum.”

“You think it’s a joke.” I said. “These things hurt. And the doctor says I have to wait till they heal before I can get them off.”

“You’ll never get them buggers off,” said Yardley.

“The doctor says—”

“They can graft them,” said Smale.

“Acid,” said Yates. “They burn them off with acid. I read 162 about this somewhere. It leaves scars — that’s the only snag. But scars are infinitely preferable to what you’ve got there, if you ask me.”

“Maybe they used some kind of Chinese ink,” said Coony. “You know, the kind that never comes off.”

“Balls!” said Smale. “If it was Chinese ink he’d be able to wash the flaming things off with soap and water. No, that there’s your regular tattooing ink. You can tell.”

“ Monkey’s Arse ,” said Yardley, laughing. “Christ, be glad it’s not in English! What if it was and Jack was in London, on a bus or something? ‘Fares please,’ the conductor says and looks over and sees Monkey’s Arse, Pig Shit , and all that on Jack’s arm.”

“He’d probably ride free,” said Frogget.

“No, I’ve got a better one,” said Smale. “Let’s say Jack’s in church and the vicar’s just given a little sermon on foul language. The lady next to Jack looks down and—”

“Lay off,” I said, rolling down my sleeves to cover the scabrous notations. “How would you like it if they did it to you?”

“No bloody fear,” said Coony. “If one of them little bastards—”

“Shut up,” said Yardley. “They’d tattoo the same thing on your knackers before you could say boo.” Yardley turned to me and said, “Don’t get upset, Jacko. They got ways of getting that stuff off. But I’ll tell you one thing — you’d be a fool to try it again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That whorehouse of yours,” said Yardley. “You were asking for it. Any of us could have told you that. Right, Smelly?”

“Right,” said Smale.

“So you’re saying I deserved it.”

“What do you think?”

I said, “I was making a few bucks.”

“Where is it now?” Yardley nudged Frogget.

“None of your business,” I said.

“Jack thinks he’s different,” Yardley said. “But the trouble is, he’s just the same as us, living in this piss hole, sweating in a towkay ’s shop. Face facts, Jack, you’re the bleeding same.”

“Really?” I said, wondering myself if it was true, and deciding it was not.

“Except for that writing on his arms,” said Coony.

Macpherson, an occasional drinker at the Bandung, came through the door. He said, “Good evening.”

“Hey, Mac, look at this,” Yardley said. He grabbed my arm and spoke confidentially. “This is nothing compared to what they do to some blokes. You learned your lesson. From now on, stick with us — we’ll stand by you, Jack. And just to show you I mean what I say, the first thing we’ll do is get that put right.”

“What’s it supposed to say?” asked Macpherson.

Mr. Tan cleared his throat.

Weeks later, Yardley found a Chinese tattooist who said he knew how to remove them. We met at the Bandung one evening and he looked as if he meant business. He was carrying a doctor’s black valise. But he never opened it; he took one look at the tattoos, read a few columns, and was out the door.

“Look at him go,” said Smale. “Like a shot off a shovel.”

“A Chink won’t touch that,” said Coony.

“So we’ll find a Malay,” said Yardley.

The Malay’s name was Pinky, and his tattoo parlor was in a kampong out near the airport. He was not hopeful about removing them, though he said he knew the acid treatment. But no matter how much acid he rubbed in, he said, I would still be left with a faint but legible impression. And grafting took years.

“Why don’t you just cut your arms off and make the best of a bad job?” said Smale.

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” I asked Pinky.

“Can make into something else,” said Pinky. “Fella come in. He tattoo say ‘I Love Mary’ but he no like. So I put a little this and that, sails, what. Make a ship, for a sample.”