Thus God Created Penis (Questions on Masculinity and Male Gender Roles)
by YBLalat

Part 2: The Entertainer

The doorbell rang. Someone got to the door first before me. I sat back down on the couch and continued on with my reading. “It must have been Kamal or Che Wan”, I thought. Then, a high-pitched laughter echoed in from the hallway and into the apartment via the door left ajar. “Damn it, it’s a girl”, I said, almost in an announcing manner to my other roommates, as I began to stand up and make myself appear better-looking, although knowing that that was an impossible task, just waking up from bed at ten in the morning. But just as it was quick for me to prepare myself for the unexpected female guest, the female guest herself was also quick to barge in and poke her head into the God-awful messy living room.

“Hi Lalat.”
“Hi.”

She stood right in the middle of the only path to my room; thus, disabling me to retreat and escape from the awkward situation. I assumed that she would take off her shoes and her winter jacket and then come and sit in front of the living room computer as she would normally do, but she didn’t. She just stood there watching each and every one of us.

“You guys aren’t doing anything today?”
“Nope”, answered one of my roommates who were busy in the kitchen.
“Just relaxing in front of the TV, Lalat?”
“U-huh.”
“What are you reading there?”
“Crap.”
“Really? Come on, tell me.”
“A PC gaming article. ’Becoming an Online Transvestite-gamer is Easier When You are Losing’.”
“That is crap.”
“U-huh.”
“Lalat, don’t just u-huh me. Say something. Say something more civilized, okay?”
“U-huh, okay.”

Hearing of my uninterested response, she sighed and withdrew herself from my sight and towards the bedrooms in order to, I assumed, find someone or something else that could be a source of entertainment and interest for her. I didn’t think that she managed to find anything from the bedrooms because a few seconds later, she was back leaning against the wall right in front of me. Anas was on the phone with Zam, and Mamat was in the bathroom, and Pyan was out to his study group meeting and, I was reading some crappy article. It was pretty obvious who she would bug out of boredom.

“Is it good? The article?”
“Pretty…”
“You enjoy reading it?”
“U-huh.”
“You enjoy u-huh-ing me, eh?”
“U-huh.”
“Are you even listening?”
“U-huh.”
“Okay, you asked for it. Now, I am going to bug you.”
“U-huh.”

Without even taking off her shoes and her winter jacket, she walked over to where I was sitting and leaped onto the next cushion beside me and placed her pale Chinese face only a few inches away from my brown dog-poop right ear. She froze that pose for a while, in the hopes of intimidating me and then instilling guilt inside my conscience for not being a good host, and then she whispered, “You will talk to me.”

Upon hearing that, I reluctantly folded the magazine article up and put it down near my two feet and took a deep, silent breath. I wasn’t actually irritated at the request – just unenthusiastic to entertain it. With one hand supporting the back of my leaning head and the other tucked inside my left pocket, I began to slowly turn my face around, being careful not to crash against her already too close face, and said, “Sure.”

“Okay. Talk to me about something.”
“About what in particular?”
“Anything…”
“I don’t think I’d do a conversation like that. Why don’t you ask me questions?”
“Like in an interview?”
“Yes, but I’ll also ask you questions too, in response to yours.”
“Okay, now, how should I start…”

And so, she asked me a few questions, some were rather personal while some were general ones, and I answered them to the best that I could, or willing. I also asked her a few of my questions, most were pertaining to her studies and current activity and not much about her past or interest or family, and she often would digress and talk about something totally distinct that what I had asked for in the beginning. Some issues were avoided utterly throughout the discourse, such as love interests and personal views on religion and reform politics, while some were dwelt with a little bit of depth and intimacy, like the reasons why I wrote the way I wrote in my journal and her views on the post-modern social changes in the Malay mentality.

“Malays are always with Malays. They don’t mix, they don’t explore. They are stagnant, even if they are out of the Malay Archipelago, or studying oversea and in constant contact with a foreign culture. Boys and girls, whatever, they are all like that. That’s why, among a lot of reasons, I don’t particularly thrilled to hang out with Malay girls here.”

“To put an easy elucidation on such a complicated issue, the online journal, to me, is no more than a place where I could store my writings safely. I’ve been writing since I was 16 and most of the material that I wrote then was nowhere to be found now. Sometimes I write as myself and about myself, although oftentimes not entirely truthful in reality, and sometimes I do fictionalize events into a more dramatic and directed piece, whichever gives me the best kick, frankly.”

“Mahathir, in every sense, is the greatest individual that the Malay race has ever produced. Such an outstanding visionary and a great thinker of the nation’s future he is, that, to me, not revering him for all the deeds that he has done is simply intolerable.”

“Do I read? No, not that much. I read non-fiction sometimes – bibliography, news magazine, editorial journal – but never novels or popular paperback. There are several reasons to that habit. One, being a writer wannabe that I am, I try to shun from the unique writing style of other authors; so that, in a subconscious sense, I won’t write like them. Two, this one is a bit much actually, is because I found it hard to relate to the characters in novels and paperbacks – they seem so contrived and so one-dimensional.”

“Do you know what your journal’s impression of you on Malay girls around here is? You make it like you are this puppy-eye sad, desperately lonely guy who turns to being a jerk and hates girls and enjoys porn and all. A typical guy in most aspects, I know, but your openness and bravado in actually writing about it in public makes you not only a typical guy-weirdo, but an A-class pervert. The obsession with breasts, thanking God for the glimpse of some poor girl’s panties as she bends over to pick up her pen, that lesbian-lover fantasy of yours – all that is just creepy, you know?”

“To be frank, I have no qualms with what Mahathir has or hasn’t done for the country. I think he is a good politician, a good leader and a good role model in general. It’s just that, well, to me, there are better candidates for his position right now. He is so damn old, he should just retire and pass on the torch to someone else. I mean, come on, he’s been there on his throne since I was born in 1981. He’s actually personalizing the PM title.”

“Remember this - you are what you write, Lalat.”

And then, out came Anas with his semi-exposed belly button and the portable home telephone in his hand. He looked like he had just come back from a week-long, one-man expedition through a rugged, mountainous terrain on a limp donkey – all weary and smelly. He also looked like he was a bit surprised to see me talking with the girl, or any girl for that matter, and with such uncommon closeness and frankness. But drawing from his facial reaction at that particular Saturday moment, just as he had woken up from his standard 12-hour slumber marathon, nothing was impossible to be expressed. Half of his face was smiling a silly, evil grin while the other half was as sad as a dying old man.

“Hi there. What are you guys up to?” he asked us in a mumble.
“I am torturing Lalat. Just look at his face – red from all that forced blushing.”
“You want to go the Mall, you said?”
“Yes. I’m bored. I think I’ll go and catch anything playing on screen at noon.”
“Okay, sure. I’ll be ready in a minute”, he continued as he slowly turned around.
“Okay. Quick, quick”, she urged him with one hand flapping like a bird’s wing.

Upon seeing Anas walking away into his room and from her sight, she dropped her waving hand down and onto her lap and twisted her hips to a near 180 degree and faced the red and recovering Lalat once more. She raised her eyebrows a few times in a very playful manner upon seeing me again before smiling a quick smile and continuing on.

“Okay, Lalat, you have a minute more to entertain me before Anas arrives. Go, go!”
“Oh sure, I’d be glad to be your private clown”, I replied with a near monotonous tone.
“Fine”, she said, with a sudden sour and sulky face on, upon hearing my sarcasm.
“Okay then.”
“I’ll just wait for Anas in his room.”
“Fine with me.”

With one hand tugging at the couch’s shoulder, she rose up from the couch and walked away towards the hallway and into Anas’s room. From afar, she shouted, possibly with her head lurking out and all of her body inside the room, onto the adjacent walls opposite of mine and her voice bounced from one wall to another before reaching me up front.
“Thanks anyway for lending me your ear and talking to me.”
“Sure – no problem”, I yelled back.
“Exactly why I am here – your loyal, fleeting amusement”, I whispered to myself.
“Good luck wasting your time with that transvestite article.”
“It’s a great read, thank you. Enjoy yourself at the Mall.”

Yes, I felt so used, and yes, so dirty too. Woman, you make me feel like a whore.