1	Homelessness, Singapore

This is a continuation of Part I

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January 30. Saturday. Morning. Tiong Bahru.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs scholarship tea session was on that day, and I was invited. Dressed in my best shirt and leather shoes, I left home.

On the MRT to Raffles, I realized that Mike had not yet called me. I called Johnny, the friend who was supposed to house Mike for the night, and he said that Mike called him while he was working and he could not answer the call during his work. Mike was not housed at Johnny’s home.

Realizing that the arrangement had collapsed I called up Tanjong Pagar FSC and they said that Mike was not there, I decided to search for Mike instead.  I got off at Tiong Bahru and searched around the void deck where Mike slept, reasoning to myself that he could not have gotten far since he was lugging along that heavy bag of rations.

My friend joined me in my search. And since she was familiar with the area, we went to search an area that is concentrated with other alcoholics, or maybe strangely purposeless people, lazing about. A flurry of text messages between me and Johnny  and he suggested to me more areas to look. As we were looking, I suddenly realized the obvious – it was weird for Mike to have called Johnny since Mike has no handphone. I asked Johnny which number Mike used to call him, and moments later, Johnny got me into contact with the number that Mike used to call, which belongs to a man called Hussein. I called the number, and Mike was at the other end of the line…

… we walked over to that void deck he was in and we found Mike, smoking and drinking and surrounded by his friends. He cried, telling me how hard it was not to drink, and how his bones ached from not drinking. Realizing to myself that Mike cannot quit alcohol outside of a proper rehabilitation program, I cursed at my stupidity for failing to predict the situation. I'd been had when the social worker had asked Mike how long he can go without alcohol and Mike replied confidently a week. I under-estimated the addiction.

“Why did you look for me, I did not call you. I wanted to call you but I have no 10 cent coins.”

A lie. A blatant lie considering that his friend with the handphone has been beside him all this while. He had decided to return to his addiction while I was away.

“When I see you, I want to change. I follow you. I want to change. Look here.”

And he held the sticks of Beedis and closing his fist, scrunched them up into a ball and threw it onto the ground. His lighter skidded across the floor next. Déjà vu.

Because I wanted to make sure that this resolution was backed by a gesture more complete. I asked him for his NRIC. He gave it to me.

“Help my friends, they need help too.”

He gestured to an old lady who is also an addict of sorts. And my friend went off to buy her food. But that was the limits of our help.

“You will help them yourself after you recover, Mike.”

Mike was a bit drunk at this point from the beer, so he started rambling incoherently. He took out a police order from CNB which stated that he has to report for urine tests every Tuesday. And he insisted that we call his CNB officer for no good reason. My friend made the call.

“I did not take drugs, but they said that I did.”

Mike had told me earlier that the last time he took heroin was over 20 years ago. Now I don’t know whether to believe in his stories.

Hussein then took me aside.

“I don’t want to talk about this in front of the girl [my friend], but can you lend me 50 dollars? I am getting my pay next Tuesday, and I can return you the money at this spot next Tuesday. Promise”

I declined. He smiled sinisterly.

January 30. Saturday. Afternoon. Tiong Bahru.

I wanted to bring Mike to the FSC for I did not want to think of a solution while being surrounded by his drinking and smoking friends that had provided him his sin. But first Mike insisted on visiting his friends and wanted us to pray for them. We obliged.

He took us into a block of rental flats. Up a few stoeys, and once Mike stepped out of the lift, he fell. A yellow noxious-smelling cleaning agent was on the floor, and Mike fell completely on his back.

“Water! Water!”

Amidst the sudden confusion sprang on us, the cleaner and I dragged Mike away from the cleaning agent. Mike groaned and the cleaner frantically tried to get water from the residents in the flats. My friend and I rushed to a nearby flat and knocked. A mother answered our call and meandered to get a glass of water for us. We poured the water on Mike’s leg, the cleaner was extremely serious about making sure that the agent was washed away from Mike.

Brown skinned children wearing nothing but diapers stumbled out from the flats to gaze wide-eyed at the pandemonium. The whole scene looks like that of a third world country.

Mike, whom we helped up onto a chair along the corridor groaned in pain, complaining of an acute pain in his leg as we tried to get the stuff off him.

Never in my life had I seen such a cleaning agent used before, or cleaning done without a conspicuous sign warning people of its dangers. I could hardly breathe around the agent for its sharpness penetrated the nose and stifled the lungs. It is as though the cleaning agent was reserved only for another world, a world for the poor kept secret from the other worlds that Singapore is made of.

After recovering from the shock of the fall, Mike continued to insist that we visit his friend. He knocked at a door, and a woman opened it.

“I gave her my rations. She is retarded. She knows nothing. Pray for her.”

And my friend laid her hands on her and prayed. The woman cried without saying anything. A bare-chested man soon appeared and closed the door.

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Continuation of the journey tomorrow