I DON'T LIKE THE WORLD, I ONLY LIKE YOU - Chapter 2: He who was my Deskmate Part 1-5

Chapter 2: He who was my Deskmate Part 1-5

001

When we were studying, Mr. F was a legend in our school. His face was like the actors in TVB dramas who were casted to act as righteous anti-terrorism elite; his results were so good it was considered twisted; and he could even play the saxophone. Thus, he was the object of fantasy for many female students, regardless of whether they were awake or sleeping.

He was rather snobbish, always putting up a cold front in front of others. During that period of time , I merely thought of him as a refrigerator who liked to act cool – my ideal boyfriend was Chan Ho Nam, as I dreamt of becoming the girlfriend of a godfather: together, we would use our axes to slash our way to survival from Causeway Bay to Tsim Sha Tsui, and live happy and carefree lives thereafter.

Our high school was the best in our city. However, our school had a rather odd rule – that the seats in the class would be distributed in accordance with results. Since our form teacher was extremely law abiding (he must have been a Cancer), we were always instructed to queue up outside the classroom after our Mid-Year Papers and Final Year Papers. The form teacher would then slowly go down the results list; only those who have been called could go into the classroom to select their seats.

This experience was a terrible one, and I always felt that this rule is one of the most inhumane rules that has ever been invented. Mr. F was always the first to enter the classroom, but he never sits in the first row, because he doesn’t like it. Rather, he would sit in the fourth row, with his seat always being the one nearest to the window – it has a good view, so it was more convenient for him to day- (act) dream (cool).

At that time, there was a male student in class who never washes his hair; however, as he admired me, he enthusiastically wrote me a love poem, title “Spilling My Hot Blood All Over Your Tombstone”. Since I was always just slightly worse than him in terms of results, I would necessarily be required to share a table with him. Just the mere thought of my tombstone with his blood splashed over it gives me goosebumps.

When I was due to select my seat, the only other seat available was the one besides Mr. F – he always sat alone – in this strange, perverted school of mine, great privileges were bestowed on those who could excel academically.

Thus, I did the bravest thing I ever did in my life. I grabbed my bag and escaped to Mr. F’s side, plopping myself down on the chair before he could say anything.

He turned his head and glanced at me – I remember that he was listening to music through his earphones then. I smiled at him extremely awkwardly, while he simply looked at me expressionlessly, remaining silent until the CD in the music player had finished playing.

“Is it Jay Chou?” I tried to engage him in small talk. Jay Chou was extremely popular then, entire rows of shops on the streets were always playing his music. Mr. F opened his music player, and changed the CD before putting his earphones back on. He replied coldly, “The Beatles.”

That’s how we became deskmates.

Many years later, whenever I recall this encounter I would complain, “Couldn’t you have been friendlier to your new deskmate?”

“Sorry.” He apologized sincerely, “After all, nobody could have possibly known that the person who sat down would be my future wife.”

002

Mr. F was an extremely quiet person, and rarely spoke unless compelled to. If he could answer the question with a monosyllabic word, he would never use a multisyllabic word. If he could make his point with a single phrase, he would never use a sentence. If he could summarize his reply within a single sentence he would never use two. In any case, chatting with him will cause one to be frustrated to death.

When he was small he learnt the saxophone for a period of time. It was precisely because of his taciturn nature that my mother-in-law suspected that he suffered from autism. Coincidentally, she had connections with a famous saxophone teacher then, and thus she made F attend saxophone lessons in the hopes of allowing him to make more friends.

Not long after, the teacher complained to my mother-in-law, claiming that Mr. F simply couldn’t meld into the group.

My mother-in-law decided to have a chat with Mr. F.

“Son, how many people learn the saxophone with you?”

“4 or 5.”

“How are they?”

“Alright.”

“Is there anyone who you get along particularly well with?”

“No.”

“You must take the initiative to approach others, and try to converse more with them. If possible, you could also invite them to visit the house.”

“Can’t.”

The introverted gourd shook his head severely.

My mother-in-law was on the verge of breaking down, “Why not?”

The introverted gourd answered with an air of righteousness, “I’m using my mouth to play the saxophone, so there’s no time to talk.”

When my mother-in-law recounted this incident to me years later, I snuggled into the sofa and laughed uncontrollably. I told my mother-in-law that she ought to have let him learn ballet instead – then, his mouth would be free to talk to others.

Mr F. passed by with a cup of water, and rolled his eyes at the both of us.

003

I underwent a major operation when I was in Junior High. Because the operation caused some damage to my nervous system, there were a couple of years during which my entire back had a total loss of feeling. I rarely bring this up in front of others, and nearly no one knew about it.

One day whilst we were doing self-revision in class, the female student seated behind me started to play ‘Guess the Word’ with her deskmate.

After playing a few rounds with her deskmate, she asked me to sit up and proceed to write on my back in an enthusiastic fashion. I was instantly stunned as my back had no feeling at all.

I shook my head and told her that I couldn’t guess the word. She began to write another word on my back, and I shook my head once more.

She was in a state of disbelief, and commented that I must have been pretending – the word she wrote was so simple, how could anybody fail to guess the word?

It was an extremely awkward moment for me. If I didn’t explain my nervous system injury, there does not appear to be any other reasonable explanation for my inability to guess the word; but if I started explaining my injury, it would be extremely troublesome. At that moment, I was at a loss as to what to do.

Just then, Mr. F, who rarely plays with us or talks to us spoke up. “Let me try.”

I wasn’t very familiar with him then – even though we were deskmates, we hardly spoke as he was a ten thousand year old iceberg after all. Thus, when he spoke up just then, everybody went into a state of shock: Is the genius finally descending from this throne to interact with us commoners?

He didn’t even wait for me to agree before placing his finger on my back and writing. Naturally, I had absolutely no idea what those words were, but Mr. F’s participation had revved up everybody’s interest in the game, causing everyone to stare intently at me. I felt that it would be extremely embarrassing if I refused to answer; thus, I just picked out a word offhandedly, claying that he wrote his surname.

Who could have guessed that he would claim that I was right.

I was extremely shocked! My guess was actually correct?!

Subsequently, he wrote another word on the back. Once again, I tried my luck and guessed that it was my surname.

He chuckled, and replied in his low voice, “Yup, right.”

The female student sitting behind me was puzzled, “But no matter how I look at it, it doesn’t look like Joey’s surname to me.”

However, nobody bothered to investigate further, and chose to continue chatting instead. Thus, I managed to fudge my way through successfully without getting caught.

Till today, I still have no idea what Mr. F wrote at that point in time. It was only later that I discovered that Mr. F had already known about my operation beforehand. The school had conducted a physical examination previously, and my absence on the day that they returned the physical examination report resulted in my report being placed on my desk. It was then that he glanced at my report and silently committed my injury to memory.

004

If Mr. F is “the man who can recall everything at first sight”, I would be the “woman who is unable to recall anything despite multiple sights.”

My math was terribly poor, whereas his was excellent. Whenever we sat for our exams, he would always solve the questions at lightning speed, and basically only required half an hour to complete the paper, after which he would stare out of the window and drift into a daze. It was only then that I dared to sneak a few peeks at his answer sheet and copy his answers.

I continuously comforted myself whilst copying – after all, the Bible says that “It is more blessed to give than to receive”; therefore, what I’m doing does not constitute cheating, I’m simply helping Mr. F rack up points so that he’d be able to obtain more blessings in the future.

The process usually goes like this:

(Sneaks a few peeks at his answer sheet) ACBCD, BCAAD, okay, got it.

(Buries my head and furiously scribbles the answers) BCAAD, BD… What was it again? Darn! I forgot!

(Sneaks a few more peeks stealthily) Oh oh, it’s BCAAD…

(Buries head again) Wait… Was the final answer B or D? I didn’t look properly!

Just when I was about to take another look at his answer sheet, I discovered that this person had actually folded his answer sheet into half!

I looked up in surprise – only to find him staring at me silently, with an expression of disdain etched on his face.

I managed to squeak out a hollow laughter, and tried my best to recall whether the final answer was B or D, but to no avail.

Finally, a cold voice rang out, “It’s D.”

…

He complained disparagingly, “You can’t even copy properly? So stupid.”

I could only grit my teeth and silently bear the insults for the better good, instead choosing to act as if I didn’t hear anything.

Mr. F was the Mathematics representative. Before we became deskmates, we had absolutely no interaction at all. That said, there was an incident which remains deeply etched in my mind.

The exam scripts were being returned to us then. The Mathematics teacher had divided the exam scripts into two piles – one pile for students who managed to pass (this was given to Mr. F to distribute), and another pile for those who failed (and this was left to the teacher to distribute). Naturally, my exam script was in the pile that failed.

When it was my turn, the Mathematics teacher said disparagingly, “Only four correct answers for a simple multiple choice paper? Even a pig that I’m teaching would score better than that.”

Mr. F walked past at that precise moment, and glanced at my paper. He then righteously rebutted the teacher, “She has five correct answers.” The teacher was momentarily stunned, and the whole class made extremely ambiguous noises, “Wow~~~~~”

From that moment onwards, I was given a new nickname – “Five Answers”. Subsequently, when I was working in Beijing, the company which I was working for was coincidentally situated at Five Answer Street. It’s as though I’m forever cursed to have “Five Answers” tag along with me in my life.

Speaking of this matter, Mr. F is unable to recall even an inkling of this incident. Thus, he doesn’t even realize that this nickname of mine is bestowed on me solely because of him.

After the incident, Mr. F’s role as Mathematics representative was suspended after a few months – the reason is because this person is unable to recognize faces easily. On top of that, he is often unable to memorize people’s names. This resulted in him often returning the exam script to the wrong person.

005

I really like Jay Chou. One year, he came to our city to hold a fan club meeting. Even though the organizers announced that they would only be distributing the tickets at 5PM, the fans had already started to queue up by 12 noon. From a distance, one could observe the black masses of people assembling whilst hugging their banners, as though they were an illegal mob.

I deliberated on whether I should play truant in order to get hold of some tickets, and begged Mr. F to help me. He coldly refused.

I decided to play truant anyway, disregarding Mr. F’s lack of support in relation to my course of action. I sent a text message to my form teacher, informing her that I was suffering from menstrual cramps and had to return home that day.

Who knew that on that particular day, my brother would suddenly discover his conscience and took the initiative to help me obtain medical leave. He told my form teacher that I had injured my leg, and had to report to the hospital. (This annoying brother of mine specializes in causing trouble for his sister for twenty years.)

Mr F., though seemingly disinterested in helping me out, couldn’t resist helping out at the last minute. He then ran to the form teacher to inform him that I had to return home as a result of a fever. The form teacher became enraged and slammed the table, “She herself said that she had to go home because of menstrual cramps! Her brother then told me that, having injured her leg, she had to go to the hospital! Now you come to inform me that she’s having a fever – So, what exactly is she doing?!”

According to witnesses at the scene, Mr. F. was stunned into silence for a second – only a second – before replying calmly, “As a result of her menstrual cramps, she suffered from a persistent high fever. However, she insisted on attending physical education class, and as a result she fell from the horizontal bar and injured her leg. Thus, her mother brought her to the hospital.” During the entire process, his face never even reddened for a moment. This ability truly renders people speechless. Upon hearing about this incident, I patted Mr. F’s shoulder and sighed regretfully. It’s a pity that Mr. F was born in China. Had he been born in the Golden Triangle, he would definitely have been the head of the criminal syndicate who wouldn’t experience increased palpitations or a change in face color even at gunpoint.

There was another instance when we were due to take our Chemistry exam. Before our class was due to take the exam, another class had already sat for the Chemistry paper. Thus, I decided to be smart and obtain the answers from the earlier class.

Mr. F wanted me to revise my work properly, but of course I wasn’t so obedient. Instead, I chose not to heed his advice, throwing my books aside and obstinately trying to memorize the answers. Because of this incident, Mr. F was rather upset with me and decided not to speak to me for one whole day.

On the day of the exam, I was extremely confident. However, the moment I received the exam paper I was stunned into silence. To my absolute horror, I discovered that the paper I was sitting for was totally different from the one which I had studied!

Mr. F slowly completed his exam script with a “You totally deserve it.” expression on his face while choosing to ignore my existence.

Shocked and at a loss as to what to do, tears began forming in my eyes. When the teacher reminded us that there was only ten minutes left before we were due to return the papers, my script was still entirely blank. Mr. F, who was seated beside me, suddenly asked me, “Do you know your mistake?”

I nodded my head vigorously, with the tears still in my eyes.

He threw his exam script to me, “You better not try the same thing next time.”