Disgrace

Regret is always heavy, especially knowing you had the power to say or do something different. Something that could have changed your day, or someone's perspective of you, or your entire life. Today I'm heavy with my silence, knowing I had the authority to step in; only I didn't.

Working in retail for nearly three years, I've gotten the natural instinct to look up when someone says 'eh, excuse me' no matter how far or rudely it's called. This man's voice was so loud that I couldn't possibly ignore it; I thought it was a customer who needed my help.

But he wasn't calling me. It was a man standing by the Malay books shelves, his huge e-scooter thing parked next to him.

He started yelling at these two ladies, a pair I had served earlier when they asked me about calligraphy ink. The younger woman was noticeably timid, her voice and gaze low but never forgetting her gratitude. "Thank you so much," she shyly said earlier, still four words more than what most customers would say. She had an accent that I didn't recognise, very unlike my Malaysian colleagues with their Cantonese or the ones from China.

"Eh excuse me, you never see that you hit me is it?!" the man was yelling at them, the younger woman with a basket chocked full of supplies. She turned back to look at him, obviously shocked and confused.

"I never hit you." she said, loud enough for me to hear.

"What never hit? My thing drop what, what never hit?" he snapped back, referring to his stupid e-scooter thing that I always thought make their riders look ridiculous.

"I never hit, the thing drop itself." she answered, visibly confused. Her voice was still calm compared to his.

"What by itself?! This thing so heavy how to drop by itself!?"

And by then I was gone from their radius, instead walking in the cashier counter towards my Stationery supervisor. Even then I could hear his voice, repeating again and again: "Eh, this thing expensive you know! If break who going to pay!? You got money pay or not, huh!?"

None of my colleagues heard it because they all had their attention on their own customers. I was so busy concentrating on this argument in the distance that their voices still ring clear in my head, even til now.

I just continued helping my Stationery supervisor, packing the scanned items into bags while she made transactions. By the time I looked up again, I found that the next customer making payment was the pair of ladies I'd served earlier. I smiled and took the basket from her, and that was when our interaction was interrupted with the man's raging voice, already on his way out yet still tormenting this woman.

"Eh next time you walk you see in front! Bloody idiot. Eh this thing expensive you know, if break who going to pay?! You got no money pay one lah!" he keeps repeating it, oh my God oh my God, stop. And then he says something new: "Fucking idiot! Fuck you lah!"

And that was when I looked at him and saw how ugly he was and I wanted to do something when the younger woman's voice broke me out of my trance: "Do you have the camera here?" The way she said camera was unusual, like kah-may-rah, her voice still stubbornly calm and low. "This man keep saying I knock his scooter."

In the background all I heard was, "Eh fucking idiot! Next time you see in front of you when you walk, stupid bloody fucker!" and he turned to the person he was with and said, "Eh... benda ni mahal, dah pecah nanti dia ada duit bayar ke!?"

And all I did was snap at him Eh enough lah!, maybe the rudest I could have been to a customer, only for him to keep going on and on with his complaints and profanities and how expensive his stupid e-scooter is. And I wanted to spit on him, a man of my own fucking race.

My stationery supervisor was next to me, confused and only able to continue scanning the items in the woman's basket. It was only after the queue was cleared did I manage to tell them what I knew.

And I wish I'd said or done something differently for her and against him. I wish I'd intervened and told him to stop the moment it started, or shouted at him to get out of the store before I call authority, or just said to him not to tarnish our race's image. Anything at all. Anything but shut it out like a fucking coward.

I thought the man was a disgrace to our Malay society, but I guess that honour belongs to me. For not speaking up. For not helping her. For not doing things differently. For not intervening when I was the one in the store who had the power to. This will always be one of the things I will always think about, wishing I'd done something. It riles me up.