The lives of others pt.2

Over the past few weeks, I spent time with two childhood friends, M1 and M2.

M1 is the same childhood friend/bully mentioned in many posts previous. He lived in Vietnam for two years, got married last month and has relocated to Singapore. Over dinner at Everything With Fries, we discussed Mat Rempits along Seagate, and the acrobatic positions one can perform onboard a motorcycle speeding down the coastal highway. We discussed the rempits of Vietnam, who Whatsapp while trundling along Saigon’s murderous traffic on their motorcycles, and concluded that Malaysian rempits are still the way to go. We discussed how if any of us went out with a partner of the majority race, we’d be spending our date nights outside (not inside) Queensbay, squatting along the rocks of Seagate, having a dinner of ikan panggang, satay or keram after watching a movie at BJ Complex.

M2 is a friend I haven’t seen in 8 years, not since I left high school and swore never to go back to church (I have repented since). M2 is now a booze-swagging, chain-smoking businessman – a far cry from the good boy image I had of him. The 8 years of silence was a chunk of our lives that we had completely missed, so we caught up on where we left off as teenagers in Penang. We talked about old friends, cousins, uncles, and the bitterness of old clergy. I listened on about his time in Amsterdam, his new clients, new hobbies, life as a working adult – all the while as Singapore’s city lights wheezed past us, the tunnels of expressways enveloped us – us comfortable creatures in leather seats, soothing air-conditioning and spellbinding trance music.

Thanks for the ride. It was a good forty minutes of cruising and chatting in your Peugeot 407.