Posted 9:23 AM by Gobbler
The Rock and Roll Blogs

or

Sex, Drugs, Rock and Blog

Yesterday was one thing, where we almost had sex but didn't quite and almost had porn but then didn't. but today we've got drugs. I'd like to remind any policemen out there, and the drug squad, that these stories are fictitious, they are made up. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

As for todays blog, first vote went to REvelation which is handy because I've already posted daylight robbery. Tomorrow you've got a choice of 'The Beautiful People' or something else as yet unknown. First come first serve!

Revelation

Chiang Mai, Thailand

Fragment

Opium. Before we realised about all the bad things it does to you, we got highly excited about all the good things it does to you. It unwraps your mind, unlimbers your heart. Some of the greatest poetry has been written while under the influence.

You used to be able to find opium houses all over the place; nowadays we have Maccy D’s and Starbucks. A mochafrappacoccaboccachino supercombo just can’t supply you with the same hit as a pipe of opium. These days there’s nothing on the highstreet that has properly replaced the opium house.

T.V. may be the opiate of the masses but it aint opium. As Paul invested in his third pipe of opium he couldn’t see that they had much in common. Back home T.v. had given Paul one more excuse to sit on his arse and not do whatever it is that whatever part of him was still him wanted to do. Paul supposed that in a way that was one thing t.v. and opium more or less had in common: they both made you sit on your arse staring into the corner of the room, but that was as far as it went. In many ways t.v. had given Paul a lot more than opium could ever do; T.V. had given Paul everything he needed and told him everything he needed to know. How could Paul live a happy, fun existence? See Friends. See Seinfeld, Will and Grace, Coupling, Spin City. What music was good? See MTV. See VH1, MTV2, Kerrang. What is happening in the world? See the News. What’s my life like? See The Office. See Men Behaving Badly. What would I like my life to be like? See Sex And The City. See Buffy, Angel, 24, Dawsons Creek, The A-Team. What is life like? See Eastenders. See Coronation Street, Hollyoaks, Neighbours, Emmerdale, Doctors, Family Affairs. It’s all on t.v., how marvellous! T.v. helped Paul understand that he should never and on no account look within, analyse that big thing called ‘me’ and have a good old think; that’s asking for trouble. You are not strong enough on your own, so don’t try. Imagine sitting there all evening without a t.v., just thinking! Do people do this? Who are they, where are they and what do they think about? Opium? These people aren’t normal, they are wierdos. What is there to think about? How to save up enough money for a t.v.?

Paul didn’t know much about opium but as he lay there with the two guides having recently finished pipe number four it didn’t seem to have much in common with t.v. T.v. takes your mind off yourself but now all he was thinking about was himself. All the layers were stripped away. His whole body tingled, he could barely feel his toes but he was pretty sure they too were tingling away. That line is reminiscent of that rather sickening song by Wet Wet Wet but that’s the way it was. But while his body was floating away, his mind stayed where it was and it began to speak to him. It went where it wanted to go and Paul didn’t try and stop it. It told him something he already knew but had managed to deny for a long time because he didn’t want it to be true. He was in love.

I know, I know, I’m sorry, it’s horrible, it’s sickening. Love has its place of course, in songs, in the future, in theory, but really, love is a quaint ideal. We, as a society, have grown out of these fairytale ideas, they are just for children. In this age of modernity and nihilism, stuff like love looks a tad naive. Paul had read that God was Love, but we’ve killed God, so they say. Nietszche proclaimed it one hundred years ago and now it’s more true than ever before. It’s not simply that God is dead, we actually killed him. We believe in nothing because there is nothing to believe in. Where do you put your faith nowadays? In the church? Which one, they can’t all be right and anyway why should you listen to some gibberish written a long time ago that was probably made up? Sod that. Do you put your faith in your country? What’s good about a country? Do you look like a die-hard patriotic twat who supports your country for no other reason other than you were born in it? How about faith in your work? Fuck that, they don’t give two shits about you, why should you give two shits about them? What about faith in other people? But then, you never know which cocksucker is going to screw you over the first chance they get. Sod that. By the time you get down to the idea of believing in love things are getting laughable. You might as well believe in Father Christmas. What the hell is love anyway? Look, the facts are there for you to see. Look at the divorce rate, look at the number of affairs people have, look at your best mate who slept with your girlfriend pissing you right off. Look at that boy you fell in love with and didn’t love you back. Where did that get you? Hell, look what happens on t.v. You play with fire you might get burned, you play with love and your heart might get ripped in two. Probably will, in fact. So do yourself a favour and leave love well alone. Think of it this way: if you believe in nothing and don’t care about anything then nothing can hurt you and nothing matters.

That is a point of view. Paul didn’t want to be in love, but not because he thought it was a pointless exercise in naivity. It was a pain in the arse. If all you care about is yourself then life is a lot simpler. That ugly thing called love was in danger of getting in the way of Paul’s plans to meet lots of pretty girls during his travels. Nope, love was not something he wanted, it was something he had, like a disease. In the old days, the same days when opium houses were about, lovesickness was actually an accepted malady. Physicians would treat you for being lovesick. I’m not sure how they used to treat it; perhaps with electric shock treatment or a frontal lobotomy, both accepted medical practices at the end of the nineteenth century. If those nineteenth century physicians had got hold of Paul there’s no telling what they might have got up to with him. Being in love was one of the gremlins that had hounded Paul for the last few years. That’s right, that’s the really sad part for Paul. He had been in love with the same person for years, the silly sod. But was he really in love, or was it more of an infatuation or an obsession or had Paul just got it plain wrong and it was the opium talking? Paul didn’t know, but he had tried all those excuses before and this explanation made sense at that moment.
Pipe number five came round. This was very wrong. Not the pipe, the pipe seemed at that moment very right, but this Gremlin he had just identified was very wrong. He hadn’t seen this girl in two years, he knew that she had a boyfriend she was intent on marrying and he was pretty sure they would never really be able to get on in the long run, at least he hoped that was true. Added to all this she had a very strange taste in shoes that Paul had never been able to come to terms with. And she was American. And Paul was going to see her.

They, still being in intermittent contact, had arranged it before Paul had left. He had planned a month in the US and couldn’t afford staying in hostels or motels for the whole time, two dollar hostels having disappeared in America in about 1950. And now he knew what he was going to do when he got there, the sixth pipe of opium made it all perfectly clear. He was going to tell her that he loved her. And see what happened. It would be like confessing to a priest a dirty secret you have harboured, at least that was the plan. Paul figured that as he had tried to get her out of his head every other way then confronting her with this dark secret of his might just do the trick. He didn’t plan on being with her, wasn’t even sure if he wanted to, he just planned on telling her.

As the effects of the sixth pipe hit home Paul sank deeper into the cushions. Namid the guide advised against taking any more and told Paul that he would probably throw up in the morning. Paul wasn’t convinced he would ever walk again but his head still felt clear enough and he asked Namid if opium was as addictive as he had been told in England it was.
"Oh yes," said Namid, "opium is very addictive. The only reason I am still a guide at my age is because I can get treated by Doctor Goodlove in the evenings. It is dangerous to smoke in Chiang Mai. If I am caught smoking I will no longer be able to be a guide and I will probably go to prison. But for these people, in the villages, opium is a part of their culture; they use it in their ceremonies, as I have told you. Here it is safe to smoke..."

Namid went on talking but Paul lost track of what he was saying. It wasn’t simply the opium, he was drunk, dog tired and had just come to a resolution that might just change his life forever. At the very least he had that night caught and identified another of his gremlins and Paul’s world seemed a better place for it.

Fin

KAt: maybe you should read the vets the story. sure they'll love it! perhaps not... and going on with the gay bar stuff and the 'sketch' radar a gaydar can come in handy. and a little tip: the flock will get on with you much better if you talk to them. Genius i am.

Rach: right you are

Rich: getting your wires crossed cupcake

Cheesm: reread pie shop replacing all the 'pie' words with 'shag' words.

Posted 7:37 AM by Gobbler
Danger Danger High Bloggage

Some talkbacks.

Laura: Had a look at the website for the house, but there didn´t seem to be any photos of the interior so I couldn't see all the nice things you've done. Any bites yet?

Cheesm: Damned hip pies, burn them all

Evil Uncle: How about 'Do you know if there's a back entrance?' or 'can I give you a hand?'

Rich: Evil Uncle has got into the minds of all of us, foul being. But no, nothing untoward about the ultimate pie. Unlike this next blog...

Cheesm: I know but Im a sensitive soul. I dont want to offend anyone and I've only read about these things in books so it's all a bit racey for me. The next blog is even worse - I wasn't going to post it at all!

Rich/Evil Uncle/Cheesm: splendid. Am officially poaching Starfucks and couches for use in a story. Marvellous.

Kat: Any update on the hot rampant scalding? You had a patient? I thought that as a vicar you'd be more into flocks than patients. Pussy Pussy Pussy marajuana, quite appropriate fior this blog, see below. And Yes, it is a trifle tricky, but such is life.

Vinny Boy: hello matey, glad to hear you're alright. Yep, I'll be back 2-3 weeks so I'll give you a buzz when I'm back.

Laura: Have fun on your own with moo. not too much fuin of course, you can get arrested for that sort of thing. Hope you like the blogs.

Okay, theres this blog below. You mayent like it much and if youre the fragile sort i dont recommend it. I dont like it much but there we are and here it is.

Now, tomorrow you've got a choice of 'Revelation', 'Daylight Robbery' (assuming we havent already had it) or something as yet unwritten. Or, if no-one can be arsed to choose, well punks we shall see.

Crisis of Conscience

Ive just deleted a paragraph from the story below. it was basically a bit of porn; the idea was that it would show what might have happened and the idea was that you'd be secretly excited by iot but of course officially disapproving. but my (upper) middle class british prudishness or just common decency has prevented it. I don't know if thats good or bad, but i feel more comfortable about publishing this bit of blog now.

Unscheduled

Hoi An, Vietnam

Friday 4th July

Paul awoke. That wasn’t right. At 11am. That wasn’t right either. He was supposed to be woken up at 9 am by the hotel reception so that he could meet Minh, pick up his tickets and get the 10 am bus to Hanoi. Of course, he knew, he should be taking the train to Hanoi but whether or not the train was a superior instrument of transportation, the bus was cheaper and allegedly quicker. It was all academic now though as he had missed the bus.

As he couldn’t think of anything better to do he went back to sleep and eventually dragged himself out of bed at 3 O’Clock, extremely hacked off. Here he was in the middle of Vietnam where he had, for the last three days, done nothing beyond get drunk every night. There’s nothing wrong with that from a certain point of view, plenty of people spend their holidays getting drunk and it wasn’t as if Paul had led a sober existence up to this point. Paul was annoyed because he had a time limit: he had to be in Singapore on the 24th of July for his flight and everyday he spent pissing it up and going nowhere meant that he had one day less to do other things. It was as if his life was going to be over in twenty days time and given that, spending nights on the razz seemed a bit of a waste of time. There were dozens of places that were higher up the priority list than the bars of Hoi An but if he continued the way he was going he’d have to go more or less straight to Singapore without stopping which would be a lot of effort for very little reward.

By 4pm Paul had finally left the hotel and was making his way to a cafe where he could get breakfast. He walked along annoyed with himself because he had lain in bed so long after he had first woken up at eleven; now it was four and the day was almost gone. Wasted, it seemed.
He sat in the cafe smoking cigarettes as he waited for his eggs to arrive. Too many cigarettes, but he was annoyed and didn’t care. He felt awful anyway, his hangover was kicking in and the day was half wasted. He remembered that his friends in Hoi An planned to go the beach that day, they’d already be there by now of course. They weren’t expecting him as he had told them that he was leaving, so now that he appeared to be staying after all he would have to track them down.

Why was he still in Hoi An? He didn’t want to still be in Hoi An yet the only thing that had kept him in Hoi An was himself. Why had he stayed out late the night before and got very drunk? It wasn’t so that he could go home and be sad and think about gremlins, that hadn’t been planned. It was of course to have a good time and meet a nice pretty girl which, as we have seen, he failed to do. But at least in Hoi An he had friends; once he got on that bus to Hanoi, assuming he ever did, he would have none. The thought didn’t make him feel any better.

His eggs came which improved the situation a little but didn’t succeed in shifting the stagnant cloud of yuck that filled his head. Then out came Janice from a hotel across the road to say hello. Janice was an interesting girl; aside from being phenomenally good looking she was French-Canadian, an acrobat in a circus and had a half Iranian boyfriend called David who proudly wore a t-shirt he had had made in Hoi An with the Iranian, Iraqi and North Korean flags on the back of it and the words ‘Proud Member Of The Axis Of Evil’ written on the front. Hang on, said Paul, after they had said hello, shouldn’t she and Dave be at the beach? Indeed they should have been, she replied, but David had been extremely ill from food poisoning and had spent the day on the toilet. This immediately made Paul feel better. Somebody was feeling worse than he was so things couldn’t be so bad after all. A short time later Janice left Paul to go back to check if any vital organs had followed everything else out of David’s arse and Paul resolved to get a taxi to the beach to see if he could track down his friends.

He chugged and banged his way to the beach on a motorbike that looked about as old as the driver, who was considerably old. None of the dials on the dashboard worked so that there was no way of knowing how fast they were going. Not that it really mattered, the bike was in more danger of breaking pollution than speed records. By the time they got to the beach the sun was well on its way to bed and darkness fell as Paul trudged unsuccessfully up and down the beach in search of anyone he knew. His friends weren’t on the beach so he checked all the cafes near the beach but couldn’t find them there either.

Giving up after a while retired to a cafe to think about what to do. What was there to do other than go back to the bar in Hoi An and hope his friends turned up? He got a taxi back to his hotel. What a rubbish day.

Back at the hotel the plan was to have a shower and get changed in preparation for the evening’s entertainment. But then, he didn’t actually have any clean clothes to change into and couldn’t really be bothered to go to such lengths. As he walked into the hotel he had another idea. There was a perfectly decent swimming pool in the hotel. Having a quick look at the dimly lit pool area he could see that there was no-one else in the pool and no-one else around. He took off his shoes and socks, took everything allergic to water out of his pockets and jumped in. Swimming pools. In the heat of Vietnam a perfectly reasonable means of cleaning yourself. If you didn’t mind the chlorine.

Now that he was in he thought that he may as well get some exercise so he swam about a bit. He noticed that there was in fact someone else in the pool; either that or there was something else in the pool, a figure was sitting in the shallow end. Paul moved there to investigate. It was indeed someone and unless that someone had a very unorthodox taste in swimming costume it was a girl.

They sat there for a few minutes pretending not to look at each other and then said hello. They got talking, as you do. The usual, inane stuff that isn’t in itself especially interesting but useful for making conversation. The other option is to say nothing at all and we humans are sociable creatures. What’s your name, where do you come from, what do you do, how long are you in Vietnam for. If Paul had never met Carolyn from New Zealand who was a vet and travelling on her own in Vietnam for two weeks he wouldn’t have cared to know about her nor she about him but here they were with no-one else to talk to and nothing else particularly to do. It was a pleasant, idle evening and pleasant, idle conversation suited it well. As the conversation went on they edged a little closer. It made it easier to hear each other.

After a while the conversation began to dry up. There would be a few seconds of silence before one of them chanced upon a new topic of conversation which they would both pretend to be interested in for a few minutes before it fizzled out and another impregnated silence ensued. There, in the pool, everything else was cut away. Here were two people from opposite sides of the world, with nothing particular in common. They hadn’t known each other half an hour before and tomorrow, assuming Paul finally left, they would never know each other again. They were alone in a swimming pool in Vietnam where there was no-one they knew. They may as well have been marooned on a deserted island together. They had no lives, no ties, no responsibilities. There was nothing except the two of them and the swimming pool. There was nothing to stop them from kissing, except themselves. Their inhibitions, nervousness and uncertainty. So for a while longer they talked about increasingly irrelevant topics until these were overcome. Then they kissed.

Paul was surprised to have got to this situation. As your run of the mill Englishman his usual tactic for getting with girls was to get the beers in. Alcohol gives you a helpful dollop of Dutch courage and makes you that much more open to persuasion. Alcohol has been helping people get laid since it was first discovered and it had always been Paul’s closest ally in his pursuit of ladykind. So, as Paul sat there in the pool with nought units in his body he wasn’t at all sure how to proceed. It wasn’t as if there was going to be any opportune moment. He couldn’t ask her to dance, invite her in for a coffee, get a mate to make a first move or do one of the myriad of other options that present themselves after a few stimulating beverages. It happened slowly, calmly. It wasn’t that either of them made a move on the other, simply that they had got so close to each other it was the only thing left to do. And after that there was no more need to think of random topics of conversation to break the silence; they both had what they wanted: someone else.

Unfortunately the rest of the world forced it’s way back in; it seemed that they were not the only people who had found someone else; someone else had found them. The main lights around the swimming pool came on, exposing their secret activities. They retreated to a sunbed in the darkness round a corner but the lights came on there too, after a while. It was perhaps an unspoken warning from the management that such shenanigans should be conducted elsewhere or perhaps a pervy security guard had left behind his night vision equipment and was itching for a better view. Whatever the case things had gone as far as they could reasonably go outside. Paul, being the resourceful chap that he was, suggested retiring to one of their rooms. Paul was not a double hard, red meat munching, super stud man’s man, he was just a person like other people and going somewhere more private was the next logical step. And he knew exactly where more private he wanted to go. And so did she, which was handy.

It is fortunate, for the sake of this story, that we are dealing with two clear thinking individuals. Now we can get to the part of the story that we’ve all been waiting for all along: the sex. Yoohoo! The sex! It is time to describe how they got extremely naughty all night long. naughty naughty naughty. (This is the bit i took out)

No. If you really want to read about that, go and buy what I think they call erotic fiction or an adult novel, or just some good old fashioned porn. In fact, these days there’s no need to go that far if you want a few saucy words, you can get them in music. There is, for example, that particularly tasteful Hip Hop tune that was popular on the radio for a good while with lyrics that run something along the lines of ‘Yeah bitch, like that, lick my pussy and my crack’ except of course, because it was on the radio it was ‘Yeah bleep, like that, lick my bleep and my bleep’, a splendid example to the youth of today. Then there’s Justin Timberlake, another stirling example to us all, with his song ‘I just wanna rock you’ where he blatantly sings ‘I just wanna fuck you’ but gets away with it. And that other hip hop gem by some other bint that goes ‘I’m a genie in a bottle, you’ve gotta rub before I play’ and the hundreds of other examples that are out there. Our civilisation is the most advanced on earth so we’re told and we’re becoming increasingly publicly obsessed by the most carnal, animal desire: a good old fashioned shag. If things keep going the way they’re going, which it looks like they will do unless those insane, evil terrorists get their way, we can look forward to a time when marriage will be finally dumped out the window and we can all shag each other good and proper as often as we want. And until we work out a way to make babies other than in a woman, which we’re going to work out sooner or later, and can take out a womans ovaries so she can’t get preggers until such time as she wants a baby, if she does that is, (it’s awfully inconvenient to be have a baby and hold down a job) when we’ll be able to slap them back in again, we’ll just have to put up with spiralling unwanted pregnancies and abortions, no matter how many free condoms we dish out. But that’s life, shit happens. Anyone care for a shag?

But Paul and Carolyn did not have sex, they did not disappear into one of their bedrooms together. They wanted to, they being just the same as you and me; having sex is a lot more enjoyable than not having sex, after all. But now that they knew that someone probably knew they were there and would therefore see them if they disappeared into a room together, and because Carolyn was spending three more days in the hotel and didn’t want all the staff staring at her, and because she wasn’t drunk, she wasn’t so keen. At least, that is what she told Paul. That was partly true, but also she was not completely comfortable with the idea of having sex with someone after only having met them two hours before, sex just for sex was not something she was used to. She also wasn’t convinced how much Paul liked her, he had been talking about going to a bar and the whole thing was rather off the wall. Paul was keen enough but while they were sitting there together it didn’t matter too much where it went. It didn’t go any further; as agreed she got up and went to her room, and five minutes later he got up and went to the bar.

It didn’t matter too much, to either of them. They hadn’t expected anything to happen when they had got into the pool, neither had tried to make something to happen. But something did happen, and then it stopped happening, quite naturally. It could have gone further, it might not have got as far. Paul went to the bar, found his friends and got quite drunk again. When he got back to his room that night he considered making a late night visit to Carolyn’s room, but didn’t. He wanted to be with someone, but he’d leave his memory of her by the swimming pool. In any case she might not take to the drunken oaf he had now become. He went to sleep alone, but unlike the night before and that day, he was quite content.

The next day he succeeded in waking up in time for the bus and paid for his room at reception. As he was about to leave the man on reception touched his shoulder to get his attention and grinned at him. "I want to be like you." He said, motioning over to the swimming pool with his head. That little bugger, possibly with a few chums, had been watching. Paul smiled back and left. If he had been feeling crappy in the last couple of days he wasn’t feeling crappy now; he felt a million dollars. It was time for Hanoi and new adventures.

Posted 11:13 AM by Gobbler
quick as you blog

sorry ive been oput for a few days, thought i had blogged on friday. blogs playing up today so I'l do talkbacks and other stuff anopther time. just a quick story today. formatting knackered because it internet keeps shtting down when i edit.


Gambling Man
Hong Kong
Monday July 28th

Back in Hong Kong for a day and a half Paul has a better plan than going to the Irish Pub. Martin, the Canadian he had met in Hoi An, Vietnam, has an apartment on Hong Kong island which means that Paul has somewhere to stay other than the Airport and the Irish Pub. As Paul has a few hours to kill before he can meet Martin he takes himself to a shopping mall to have a look about.
Paul enters a collosal building nestled among innumerable other collosal buildings which promise to have lots of exciting things inside but he doesn’t have a chance to have a look at whatever exciting things there might be because a Philipino man with peculiarly small hands comes up to him and introduces himself as Pan. Pan is friendly and very interested in Paul and becomes very excited once Paul tells him that he is English. As chance has it, the man said, his sister is going to England in a few weeks. Would Paul mind awfully coming over to see his sister and tell her about England so that it is not be such a culture shock once she gets there? Well no, says Paul, that would be alright, he has nothing particular to do for the next few hours. Splendid, says the man, and away they go.
Pan takes them to a building a few minutes away from the centre of town. As they enter the apartment there is no sign of Pan’s sister but he assures Paul that she will be a long shortly and in the mean time offers Paul something to eat and drink. Paul takes a coke and sits down in the sitting room to wait. He isn’t one-hundred percent comfortable about being in this room and tells himself that if the girl doesn’t arrive soon he will make his excuses and leave, but in the mean time this guy is being very friendly and there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly worrying about the situation.
A minute later another Philipino man enters the room who Pan explains is a friend of his. This new guy is also very friendly and explains to Paul that he worked as a poker 21, or blackjack, croupier on a cruise ship and makes lots of money by cheating the tourists out of theirs. His partner plays at the table and he tells the partner what cards everybody has using hand signals. The croupier gets up and moves over to the corner of the room where there is, conveniently, a blackjack table. Apparently this is the croupiers apartment and he uses this table to practice on. Interested in how it all worked, Paul sits down at the table as the man shows him all the different hand gestures and explains what they mean. Paul is having trouble believing that this is happening. This sort of thing actually goes on? This is proper gangster stuff. The croupier assures Paul that he has made thousands of dollars in this way and then asks Paul, as if the idea has just popped into his head, if he would like to be his partner and make some money; he needs a guy with white skin so that the rich tourists would not suspect anything. Tourists trust white people.
Paul thought about this idea with a smile. How would he explain it?
Dear Uncle,
Have abandoned world trip in favour of a life of gambling and crime on a cruise ship.
All the best,
Paul.
Perhaps not. But before Paul has finished writing the letter in his head to his uncle a pretty girl has appeared out of nowhere and plopped down next to Paul at the table. Pan explains that this girl will pretend to be his girlfriend and will help Paul if he hesitates too long nod nod wink wink. Pan actually nods and winks at Paul.
What exactly was going on here?
Was this girl Pan’s sister who wanted to know about England?
Why exactly had real chips just appeared on the table?
Where exactly had these men just sprung from who now sat down at the table and produced thick wads of dollar bills?
Who are they?
Where is the exit?
Paul sits at the table wondering exactly how he has wound up in this position. Something is not quite right. The men start to cash in their dollars for chips and the girlfriend produces two hundred dollars for Paul to play with. It is definitely time for Paul to leave and he knows it. But Paul doesn’t leave. Paul starts to play.
Everyone is friendly and jovial, this is nothing more than a friendly spot of gambling. With help from the dealer and some nudging from the girlfriend so that Paul knows how much to bet or raise he wins almost every hand; instead of 200 American dollars he now has close to ten thousand.
Paul sits there wondering what the hell he is doing and what he should do now. He doesn’t want any of the money, he wants to get out of there. It is obvious, it has been obvious from the start, that this is a con and he is going to be shafted at some point. These men who are throwing away thousands of dollars are blatantly actors and bad ones at that and the whole scam was designed somehow to get money out of Paul. He is in a room with increasingly pissed off men who want to win their money back. If he leaves now he might seriously upset them. He is alone in a strange city and the situation is looking increasingly unpleasant. But if he is going to leave at all it had better be sooner rather than later.
"This is my last hand." Paul declares to everyone. He sips on his coca-cola and avoids eye contact with any of the men with whom he is playing
For the last hand Paul is dealt a five and a six. The bank has an eight showing and Paul knows from the croupiers hand signals that the other card he has is a ten which makes eighteen and means that the bank has to stay. Paul raises a thousand dollars knowing that the croupier will be kind to him and indeed he is, Paul gets a ten. This leaves him with twenty-one which beats the banks eighteen making Paul a winner. So far so good, Paul is close to getting out of there. But as it is the last hand the fat rich bastard at the end of the table raises to 40,000 dollars. As Paul knows he has won he takes the prompt from his girlfriend and meets the rich bastard, but before they can flip the cards Paul needs to be able to prove that he has 40 grand to lose. This is a slight issue; Paul does not have 40 grand to lose. Panic. Perspire. Persevere. "Ah," says Paul, "My girlfriend has the money, don’t look at me!" The girl produces 200 hundred dollars, leaving them about 30,000 dollars short.
Another idea strikes Paul. He knows that he just needs to convince them that the money exists somewhere so that he can get the hand over with and escape. "My driver is cashing a big cheque and the money will be with us shortly so let’s get on with it." This may have been the worst story he could have come up with but he doesn’t know what to do. He is closer to throwing up or fainting than coming up with a good way of getting out of there. He should have left the moment someone mentioned gambling but here he is now with six men who want him to show he had forty thousand dollars and finish the hand and if he doesn’t show that he has the monery then he has a feeling that they are more likely to rearrange his face and bugger him backwards with a pitchfork than shake hands and wish him good luck. As the fat rich guy is counting out his forty thousand dollars on the table in used hundred and fifty dollar bills Pan announces to everyone that he had forgotten about the driver. You can’t blame Pan, Paul had after all just made the driver up. Pan takes Paul aside for a moment and tells him that he can get twenty-seven thousand together from here and there and with the money on the table Paul only needs a little over three thousand dollars to bring the total to forty thousand. Paul has almost ten thousand dollars on the table, the girlfriend has just produced another two hundred and with Pan’s twenty-seven thousand that makes thirty-seven thousand; it is up to Paul to produce the rest. Paul assures Pan that there is no way he can come up with that kind of money. The trouble is that Paul does have the money, in the bank, its just that if he produces three thousand dollars and then loses it his trip is going to have to be cut short.
The charades go on. The only good thing about this is that the six men haven’t started strong arming Paul for the money yet. Pan begins to get more desperate for Paul to come up with some money. He says that fat rich bloke will be happy if Paul can produce a credit card from his wallet to show that he has brought at least something to the table. He smiles at Paul and tries to reassure him that everything is okay, saying "Hey man, don’t worry. You know you’re going to win so you should be saying Merry Christmas!" Paul is very far from saying Merry Christmas. Pan tells Paul that once this hand has been won Paul will get to keep close to seventeen thousand dollars, all he needs to do is produce his wallet. Paul tells Pan that he doesn’t have his wallet with him. This, fortunately, is true, but he does have his debit card in his back pocket. He keeps quiet about that one.
They return to the table where the fat rich guy has finished counting out his forty thousand dollars in cash and wants to see Paul produce. After some discussion it is proposed to put the fat guys forty grand in a safe they conveniently have next door along with two signed and sealed envelopes containing the two hands and Paul is given two hours to go to a bank and get the money. Paul agrees, he’ll agree to anything to allow Paul to get out of the room. There are friendly smiles all around and Paul gets up to leave. But not so fast Mr. Paul! He has an escort to take him to the bank. A big, bearded Indian guy in a black turban. Shit.
Out the two of them walk into the sunlight with all the people rushing around about their business. The big Indian points out a bank across the road but Paul tells him it is no good, he has to go to an HSBC which he knows towards the centre of town. Paul suggests this because he knows there is a Seven Eleven near the bank and if he can get in there perhaps he can get some help. There is nothing particularly logical about this plan but he can think of nothing else, other than laying down in the street and beginning to cry hoping that the big Indian guy in the turban will take pity on him. As the Indians facial expression hasn’t changed from the stonefaced ‘I am a hard bastard, fear me’ look that he had the first time Paul saw him this doesn’t seem to be particularly likely. They reach the Seven Eleven, Paul makes an appropriate excuse to go in and does so, closely followed by his minder.
Desperately trying to buy some time to think, Paul spends as long as he dares deciding what to buy and then picks a coke off the shelf. He goes to the queue and who should be standing in the line in front of him but an honest to goodness Police Constable wearing a smashing black uniform and a very smart hat. This is Paul’s chance and he takes it.
"Leave me alone," Paul says. "Tell your friends that it was all nothing more than a stupid game and it is over now. Tell them that everything is forgotten. It is over. You must go."
The big turbaned man looks at Paul. He still doesn’t exhibit a different facial expression. At last he replies "Very well. I do not know what business you have with my brother. I think he will be very disappointed but I will let you go." He turns and exits the Seven Eleven leaving Paul standing next to the policeman, shaking but free.
Perhaps now would be a good time for Paul to talk to the policeman and tell him what has happened, to be on the safe side. The big Indian has left the Seven Eleven but he might be waiting for Paul just round the corner. But then, what will the cop make of it if he try’s to explain himself? "Well Constable, you see I got involved in a gambling scam and now they want me to cough up three thousand dollars. I know I’m going to win because I’ve been cheating the whole time..." There is a good chance that this will not go down well with the Hong Kong Constabulary and the last thing Paul wants now is to get in trouble with the police; he’s got less than a day left in Hong Kong and doesn’t want to have to stick around. By now the policeman has paid for his things and is leaving the shop. It is too late. Paul pays for his coke and joins the crowd of people in the street where he sees no sign of the big Indian.
It seems that the whole unpleasant affair is now over so Paul goes to a phonebox to call Martin. He gets through and explains what has happened. Martin responds with a long list of expletives, which don’t sound encouraging, finishing with "Don’t let them follow you here!" Martin may not be the coolest of cookies and he has proven himself to be unstable on a motorbike but he has been in Hong Kong a lot longer than Paul; his lack of calm over Paul’s story is enough to get Paul crapping himself again.
Paul takes a quick look around him but cannot see any suspicious looking people. No Philipino with the small hands, no fat bloke carting around 40,000 dollars looking angry, no large Indian guy with the mean face and the black turban. He walks to the jetty from where he can catch the ferry to Hong Kong Island where Martin is staying and moves to the railing of its empty upper viewing platform from where he can see the shopping mall where he had first met the Philipino guy with the small hands who wanted Paul to tell his sister about England. Paul turns to leave but freezes. Standing at the railing about six feet from him is the same big Indian. Just the two if them, alone on the viewing platform.
Paul begins to walk to the stairs giving the man a wide berth.
"You are very lucky," the big Indian says as Paul moves past him.
Paul stops, turns to the him and says "what did you say?"
"You are very lucky. You have eyes in the back of your head and you are very lucky."
Without responding Paul moves past the man and goes down the stairs to once more lose himself in the safety of the crowd. After a few seconds he turns to the stairs to see if the man is coming down the stairs or is following him. No-one is coming down the stairs; instead another man, identically dressed, is going up the stairs.
It is time for Paul to get a ferry to Hong Kong island and escape, but if they have followed him this far they may follow him on the ferry as well, so what should he do? He buys the ticket for the ferry, gets on, and right before it leaves gets off it as inconspicuously as he can and disappears into the crowd, just in case. He does this three more times, just in case, but saw no more big Indians or other frightening looking people and it looked as if he was safe. Safely on the fifth ferry he has a look around it to see if there is anyone he recognised, but there is not.
As Paul gets off the ferry at the other end he doesn’t see anyone that he recognise either, but if they had followed him to the other jetty they could, for all he knew, still be watching him. After being so impressively stupid earlier on in the day he doesn’t want to make any more mistakes and doesn’t want to chance them following him home. He goes to a phone box and calls the croupier with the number he has been given and explains to him that he is not coming back and that everything is finished. It seems that the man understands but before he has finished talking to Paul the money runs out on the phone. Hopefully the guy has got the message. Possibly being a little overdramatic Paul then holds the piece of paper with the number on it up in the air and rips it in half so that, ‘if they are watching’, they will get the message that Paul wants nothing more to do with them. Paul then walks in random directions for the next two hours, goes in and out of many shops buying bits and bobs here and there, all in the hope that if anyone is actually following him he will lose them. Eventually he makes it to Martin’s apartment where Martin is waiting for him. They sit down together and Paul explains the whole sorry story. As he hasn’t seen anyone or anything suspicious since he reached Hong Kong Island, Martin assures Paul that everything is all right and he has made a successful escape from the con-artists. Things certainly seem a lot better now that Paul is in his friends apartment but is far from convinced that everything is alright. He refuses to go out that night just in case, so the two friends spend the evening watching movies and trying not to think about gambling.
Next day, Paul is feeling a lot better about the world and he has managed to convince himself that the gambling scam he became involved in the day before is behind him, that the men who he met were nothing more than lightweight con men and that the Indian guy who followed him to the jetty was just trying to scare him. He didn’t wholly believe that that was actually the case but believing anything else would have left him too frightened to leave the apartment, and he had to catch a flight that evening. That’s usually the way things go; people will believe the most unlikely things if it means that they can convince themselves that the more likely and unpleasant explanation isn’t true. People will go to extraordinary lengths to ignore whats really going on if they can find something else to believe. Give me the sugar coated candyfloss lies rather than the shit on a stick truth any day; the lies are easier to swallow.
Paul gets dressed, makes sure his teeth are extra shiny clean and leaves the apartment with Martin. The plan is to go to the Victoria Peak tram and walk along the peaks of Hong Kong Island which will give them great views of Hong Kong. Three blocks from the apartment Paul notices some distance ahead of him on the pavement an Indian guy in a black turban walking towards them and his heart takes a jump. Calm down Paul, he tells himself, it’s just an Indian guy, there’s quite a lot of them about. But as they approach each other Paul recognises him as the very same stonefaced big man that had escorted him to the Seven Eleven and then followed him to the jetty. Terror enters Pauls heart but he keeps walking. At least Martin is with him this time. As they walk past each other Paul stares right into the mans eyes; if this is a show of bravado then it is certainly all show and no bravado; Paul feels like vomiting. Martin and Paul stop on the street after man says to Paul "You are very lucky."
"What?" Says Paul. It is touch and go whether Paul is going to remain standing there, attck the man, collapse or run away.
The man proceeds to ask Paul several times if he knows why he is so lucky. Paul does not know why he is so lucky, Paul does not feel that he is very lucky, Paul feels that he is cursed. He tells the man that he does not know who he is or what he wants and doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about. The three of them know this is not true but Paul can’t think of anything else to say to him. Paul and Martin walk past him heading straight for the nearest mall. Luckily there are lots of malls in Hong Kong. The big Indian guy does not appear to follow them but shouts after them, trying to get Paul’s attention. The sound of him calling "Sir! Sir!" follows them into the mall but once inside they hear no more. The only thing to do now is buy beer and coke and pies and hot foot it back to the apartment and hope the big Indian guy and chums don’t lay siege. The idea of going for a stroll on the hills of Hong Kong seems suicidal and has been vetoed. It’s beer and meat pies all the way.
Back in the flat Martin is now just as worried as Paul. At least Paul is going to escape to the airport that night; Martin is stuck in his flat and it is now pretty certain that they know where Paul is staying: how else could they have run into the Indian guy three blocks from Martin’s apartment? If the shit is going to hit the fan Martin is going to be the one standing behind it. The two of them had planned to go and see Terminator 3 that evening before Paul’s flight, Martin had won cheap tickets through a mobile phone competition and the tickets had even come with neat fridge magnets but they weren’t going to put one foot outside the apartment unless they had to. So they sit in the apartment all day praying that the mob don’t smash their way through the door and do unpleasant things to them.
No-one comes in, no-one knocks on the door, nothing happens all day. When the time comes Paul calls for a taxi, thanks the dishevelled Martin and leaves the apartment. At least it is dark now, and raining, so if anyone is still watching they may not recognise that it is Paul. The taxi pulls up at the address. As Paul opens the door the lights come on in the taxi and Paul realises that the driver is an Indian wearing a black turban. The driver turns to Paul and smiles. Paul is preparing to run away but on looking closely at the man sees that it is not the stonefaced big man that has been frightening the crap out of him for the last day and a half. "Hello sir," he says, "you want to go to the airport, right?" Paul tries to see if there is any sign that this is the big Indians brother or some other lackey. But how could he tell? But then, was he actually going to refuse to get into this guys taxi because he happened to be an Indian? What would he say to the man, "Sorry mate, you look a bit Indian to me and I suspect you are a member of a crime syndicate. Be off with you, I shall call another taxi"? It doesn’t seem very fair. Paul gets into the taxi and it moves away.
Paul is now trapped in the back of the taxi as it makes its way through the dark and wet streets of Hong Kong. Before long he doesn’t recognise the streets and so has no idea where he is going. The driver is rabbiting away on the radio in some foreign tounge. Is he chatting to his boss deciding which dark alley to take Paul to? Will Paul shortly be talking to the Phillipino man with the small hands demanding that Paul hand over all his money or be chained up and dumped in the bay? The croupier had mentioned that he worked on a cruise ship, perhaps Paul would be boffed, taken onto the cruise ship and then buried at sea. He looks in the reverse mirror at the driver, who smiles at him and asks him if he has been in Hong Kong on holiday. Paul tentatively replies that yes, that has been the idea. Paul looks out of the window trying to see if he can recognise where they are. He can see the bright, bleary multicoloured lights of a Hong Kong street that tell him nothing.
Before too long Paul arrives at the airport. It has been an expensive ride but at least he has arrived in one piece. He pays the driver, thanks him and begins to walk away but then stops cold. The driver has said something to Paul that he only half heard. Paul spins around and stares at the man. "What did you say?" he asks.
The driver, who was about to drive away, repeats what he has said, "I wish you lots of luck. In your travels. Sir."
"Ah. Thank you. Same to you sir," replies Paul, with a sigh of relief. The taxi pulls away and Paul moves into the airport and safety.