by Rea Tarvydas
“Um, how old do you think that girl is?” asked the OFB as if he couldn’t stop himself.
“Old enough. Let me set you up.” Well, well, there’s life in the OFB after all.
Easing a moist finger along the carefully pressed collar of his khaki tropical-weight, mail-order shirt, the OFB stared at his water bottle for a long moment. One of the fine muscles above Fast Eddy’s right eye fluttered before settling into a steady beat in unison with the music.
“Lovely girl.” The OFB’s eyes flooded with eagerness.
“A lot to handle.” Fast Eddy nodded as slow as possible. Hard to do when high. “Yes sir, there are days when even a young guy like myself can’t . . . ” Words drifted away and he lifted his shoulders into what felt like a casual shrug.
“Oh. My. Yes.”
Fast Eddy patted his right breast pocket like a baby. “Thank God, I’ve got what I need.” His eyebrows arched into his forehead. Maybe the amphetamine wasn’t such a good idea but he needed something extra to make it through the evening. He counted four full beats of the music. Counting usually helped him come down, soothed him.
Eight half-beats later, the OFB asked what he meant and Fast Eddy offered Viagra. The OFB considered the blue pills over one quarter beat then swallowed. Half an hour later, Fast Eddy beckoned the red-silk hard body over and explained what was required. They negotiated a price and she led the flushed schoolboy version of the OFB off to the bathroom for stall delights unlike anything he had encountered before.
Fast Eddy tried relaxing into his barstool and absentmindedly swallowed an ecstasy tablet. It wasn’t long before the missed beat of the techno blues provided him with the space he needed to linger inside the music. Beautiful. He watched the slow motion movements of the dancers and imagined the blowjob the OFB was getting. Around-the-world. Definitely more than the old man bargained for. Fast Eddy was rock hard thinking about it.
People flowed onto the crowded dance floor, leaving neon trails behind them like a long exposure photograph. He attempted to capture their ecstatic grainy faces and contrast them against the static background. Increased shutter speed. Gave up. Panned the vibrating crowd and started counting.
The music pulsated from one song to the next, beats blurred into a tangled mass of rhythms. The relentless drumbeats inhabited his body, moving him from side to side. His jaw ached with pleasure.
Fast Eddy turned toward the open front door and caught a glimpse of a crowd surging. Swivelled back toward the tinted windows facing the street and watched a black-and-white swirl of people push their way down the narrow street. Spindly arms rose above heads in a futile wave, attempted to make space. Going nowhere together.
Hallucinating?
He rubbed his eyes.
No.
Definitely a mob.
Scrolled his memory for mention of demonstrations. He couldn’t recall reading about any authorized demonstrations in the SCMP and he always checked. Crowds scared the shit out of him, ever since he was trapped in Lan Kwai Fong during New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Illegal demonstration? Falun Gong?
No placards or political T-shirts. Just everyday people carrying plastic bags brimming with fruits and vegetables above their heads. Rugby followers wearing a variety of brightly coloured sports jerseys. This was a spontaneous mob. He ignored the gummy lump stuck to his tongue.
The crowd lurched forward, emitted a metallic energy that radiated in acidic waves and penetrated the filtered windows. Replicated back onto the base of his skull. A loudspeaker stuttered in Cantonese. Stifled shouts bounced off glass-fronted buildings then Fast Eddy caught a whiff of sulphur.
In that moment the crowd rioted. People flailed their scrawny arms and started beating each other about the head and shoulders. They shouted, shoved, and twisted themselves together into a locked puzzle. A series of windy shouts knocked at the windows, rattled the doors.
Gotta get out of here. Visually tracked his getaway across the packed dance floor to the back. Zeroed in on the tower of sealed wooden liquor boxes that blocked the alley exit. If the crowd forced their way in. Trampled to death.
Time shifted. Fast Eddy watched a pasty hand close the door, fumble with chrome locks, before he realized it was his hand, attached to his numb arm, that snapped the locks. He was certain he heard them thunk shut, impossible over the pounding music.
The bouncers arrived on his heels, nodded at him and jammed a board through the door handles. They linked arms, created a human fence across the blocked front doorway and eyed the dancers. Transmitted steel-edged warnings.
Going nowhere. Nowhere.
Relax. Don’t panic.
The DJ cut the music and repeated that everyone needed to keep quiet and stand still. His authoritative voice echoed through the uneasy room. Even the stoned dancers stopped moving. A humid, earthy scent pressed down from the baffle ceiling, then somebody turned the air conditioning on full blast, thank God.
Fast Eddy couldn’t take his eyes off the moving mosaic caught in the window frame. He focused on the unremarkable face of a young woman wearing a ponytail. Shielding herself from her neighbours’ blows as efficiently as possible. Blank-faced, she laboured against a force that pulled her like trash into a flooded gutter.
The shouting intensified.
Fast Eddy envisioned black, lacquered batons swinging among the flapping arms and they appeared like magic. Yes. Policemen edged a path with their scratched plastic riot shields, methodically battering heads and shoulders. Fast Eddy caught a glimpse of a white-haired old woman with blood running down one cheek, her tattered cardigan hung off a shoulder, exposing a paper-thin undershirt.
Un-fucking-believable.
A pair of hands shoved him against the inside of the window, hard.
“What the?” Peeled himself off the glass and spun around.
The OFB stood there wheezing, thinning hair flattened against perspiring temples. Glassy eyes darted from side to side. “I oughtta hit you, you bastard.”
“Listen, old man.”
“Don’t call me old man.”
“You are an old man. Listen. There’s a riot.” Fast Eddy gestured. So much for keeping the client happy.
“I’m an old man. At least. You. You’re despicable.” The OFB took an unsteady breath. “You got that. That girl. To stick her tongue. Up my ass. What’s wrong with you?”
Good question. He thought about articulating an apology. Typed and counted the words. Why should he apologize? The OFB was like any middle-aged, married Caucasian man in Southeast Asia. When presented with temptation they always picked the ripest. “Look. There’s a riot going on. We’ve gotta stay calm.”
That’s when the OFB stared out the window. He slowly shook his head. Opened and closed his mouth a few times and fixed Fast Eddy with red-rimmed eyes. “This place is crazy. You’re crazy.”
“Screw you. Fat loser.” Fucking fat wallets. Buying everything and everybody, including the crimson hard body that should’ve been his for the evening. He’d seen her first. Finders keepers. Fast Eddy felt his high slipping away, replaced by familiar anxiety crackling beneath his skin like liquid silver.
“Fat,” said the OFB.
Fast Eddy thought the OFB didn’t look quite right; something about the older man’s face reminded him of ashtray contents. He bore no traces of his former ruddy complexion. “Calm down.”
The OFB swore then kneaded his neck and shoulder. Sweat soaked through his faded hair and dripped down, pooled into his collar.
“You all right, old man? You don’t look so good.”
“I think I’m gonna be si — ” The OFB vomited down his chest and onto the slick tile floor. A greasy mixture of partially digested food and beer splattered onto Fast Eddy’s shoes.
Viagra heart attack, thought Fast Eddy. He hustled the OFB into a chair and shouted at the bouncers. “Call an ambulance! Giu gau seung che! Giu gau seung che!”
It took a few slow minutes to maneuver the OFB out to one of the
many waiting ambulances because, although the riot had ceased, the crowd took its time thinning out. Fast Eddy pushed to the front of the injury queue, caused a scene, insisted the OFB receive treatment first, handed over a bribe. A sullen paramedic ushered the old man up steep stairs into the waiting ambulance.
Fast Eddy spent time assuring the OFB that he’d call the office and the wife as soon as possible. Let them both know the old man has been transported to hospital. Tried to disregard the vomit stains on his lucky shoes.
“God, I wish I was — ”
Fast Eddy ignored the OFB. He couldn’t tolerate the pukey, sweaty smell. An amphetamine headache was forming behind his left eye. He slipped past several moaning people receiving first aid and then the police pacing next to a cordoned-off, yellow-tarped mound.
The detectives arrived, lifted up the crinkly plastic covering. A woman with a ponytail sprawled face first on the sidewalk, her Burberry knock-off skirt flipped up above the waist, exposing scuffed white underpants.
The detectives talked before they wandered away, synthetic wood clipboards in hand. They left her there, half-naked, out in the open. No one seemed to notice. People drifted past with little more than a cursory glance.
Fast Eddy wondered who would cover him in the street if he lay dead. He smoothed his shirt and fingered the hem. He beckoned to a police officer and pointed out that the woman remained uncovered. The constable said he should mind his own business, move along.
“But she’s been stepped on.” As if that explained anything.
“Okay, okay,” said the other constable, who then scrutinized his identification card before dismissing him with a flick of his leather motorcycle-gloved hand.
“What was the fat businessman so upset about?” asks Joe.
“Probably the Viagra. Too much for him.” I widen my dry eyes in an attempt not to look away, especially to the left. Liars usually glance to the left.
I rattle on about the political bullshit at Goldman Sachs, about how it was just as well I was fired. About how I should’ve quit last year when they screwed me out of my bonus but that’s how it goes. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Joe listens without interrupting.
“New job’s okay. Scotiabank’s a good bank,” I say when I can’t think of another thing.
“Did you cover her?”
I glance at him through the spicy haze.
Joe nods and slowly fidgets a coaster into shreds. His gaze lingers on my face as if he’s memorizing every feature.
BLANK
MIDNIGHT AT THE bank.
When the door of the half-lit conference room opens, it’s Jerry, smartass senior vice-president with a golden touch. The youngest senior VP in the history of Morgan Stanley. In his late thirties, Jerry lives alone in an isolated house high above Big Wave Bay, an exclusive expatriate enclave, his sailboat anchored in the waters below. Jerry’s a legend in the investment banking world; mergers and acquisitions are his specialty.
I stand at attention for a moment and sit again.
Ignoring me, Jerry slumps into an office chair at the conference table. Beneath the glare of a pot light, his sun-scarred face is made up of large, irregular features like pieces of a broken platter, reassembled and glued. His gaze is piercing blue. Jerry asks, “Best punk band?”
“The Clash.”
“Best song?”
“Guns of Brixton.”
“Unusual choice, Blank. That’ll do. Someone told me you were in the army.”
“The Rangers, sir.”
“Where did you tour?” Jerry glances at his watch.
“Afghanistan, sir. Two tours.”
“You should know I’m an anarchist and I don’t fucking believe in war.” Jerry cocks his head to one side and the other.
I consider his broken face, alternating with light and shadow like thermal imaging. “I don’t know that I believe in it either.”
Afghanistan. It’s been four years. Each night I scramble across a field of dry, scratchy grasses. Tony’s waiting beneath a blackened tree. That’s when I wake. Colours, trails, sounds vibrating. Never mind.
“You all right, Blank?”
“Yes, sir. The flight knocked it out of me.”
“Call me Jerry. Now tell me about DoubleClick.”
“That was a tricky one, Jerry.”
“Yeah, I’ve got tricky. Really tricky.”
A deal I helped broker, DoubleClick is an online advertising company acquired by Google. We put together a compelling deal, stole it from Microsoft at the last minute.
“How’d you get Google to up their offer?”
“I reminded them that they needed to win the war against Microsoft.”
“You guys and your fucking wars.” Jerry crosses his arms across his chest. He stares out the windows that overlook the harbour. Outside, the buildings are lit up with a sea of lights floating like colour static and, at this time of night, it’s darker inside than outside.
I wait.
I’ve heard through the grapevine that Jerry is busy drumming up a new account he will not identify for fear of jinxing the deal. He’s superstitious.
Jerry swivels back to the table and says, “I’m putting together a pitch book for CRITIC.” CRITIC is the largest state-owned investment company of the People’s Republic of China. If we’re successful and sign them as a client, there’d be a neverending stream of work for the bank. A huge prize.
Silence pools on the tabletop.
“What’s your strategy?” I defer to his judgment and use the time to think about the company. I don’t know much. CRITIC’s primarily known for mergers and acquisitions, with a focus on foreign investments, technology, and best practices in operations and management.
“What would you focus on, Blank?”
“Technology.”
Jerry says, “That’ll do. DoubleClick was a helluva pitch, Blank. A helluva pitch. I need you here as my right hand. Two weeks. We’ll build the pitch book together. And we’ll use DoubleClick as a case study.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll start in the morning, this conference room. We need to re-key the door — I’ll make the arrangements and get the key to you. It’ll just be the two of us so get ready for paperwork. I’ll bring my own printer, no routing through the office. We’ve got to be fucking careful, Blank.”
I nod. All of a sudden I’m too tired to speak after the sixteen-hour flight from New York.
Abruptly, Jerry exits the conference room, slams the door on the way out. A minute later loud music shrieks from his corner office. Jerry’s dedication to first wave punk is notorious.
I drag my suitcase across the marble floor to the front lobby. A personal assistant in a black pantsuit materializes out of the shadows and arranges for a car service to the Harbourview Hotel. I know I won’t sleep. Everything new, moving and vibrating.
“That’s enough work,” says Jerry late the next afternoon.
I push aside the document I’m reading. The conference table is covered with piles of paper. We’re building a complicated pitch book. Multiple tech companies, each with summaries of product lines, details on financial performance, capital structure, valuation parameters; a large amount of information to analyze.
“You play poker, Blank?” asks Jerry.
“Yes, sir.”
“I run a Saturday game. C’mon out and I’ll introduce you to the guys.” Jerry scrawls the directions to his house in Big Wave Bay, includes his personal cellphone number. “Don’t hand it out to anyone, especially Worley Man.”
Mr. Worley is the managing director of the Hong Kong office but I haven’t met him yet; he’s away on a business trip inside China. I agree to the poker game and head back in the direction I think will take me to my temporary office.
“Yeah, turn left and you’re there,” calls Jerry from behind. “Get with the ticket, Blank.”
Red taxis inch past, tail lights piercing airborne particulate. I cover my mouth when I cross the street. The sidewalks are to
o crowded so I balance along the curb. In a noodle shop people huddle over bowls of steaming food, chopsticks flashing. Bones. A pneumatic drill punctures concrete alongside a barricade with amber lights. I startle. Breathe long slow breaths, in and out, through my mouth.
On the bus I find a seat on the upper level, at the front, a birds’ eye view over the street. The bus careens through the city into a white-tiled tunnel. Strip fluorescent lighting pulls the bus through. We emerge into the green southside. The bus sways along a narrow coastal road. Shotcrete walls line the sides. Every now and again, the bus catches up to a cyclist and passes quickly, before braking into a corner, and another, and another. I’m suddenly nauseated by the staggering movement and stumble to the lower level. I lean my forehead against the cold air-conditioned window. I don’t want to close my eyes but I cannot help it.
The Shek-O minibus is packed with families loaded down with beach equipment: shade umbrellas, coolers, and brightly coloured bags overflowing with toys and food. Standing room only, except for the last open seat next to me. The driver leans on the steering wheel and studies his folded newspaper, checking the stock market.
An old guy dressed in a Speedo and swim cap, a faded towel draped over his shoulder, and flip-flops, boards the bus. He’s talking on his cellphone and eyes the empty seat beside me. I edge closer to the wall and make space. The old guy ignores me. When more people board the bus, he curses under his breath and sits on the edge of my seat.
When the bus is crammed the driver takes off at high speed. The road is narrower, still. Wind whistles through open windows. I cannot move. Everyone is talking at once, louder and louder, until I can no longer hear myself think. I’m fuzzy from a combination of fatigue and jet lag.
It’s difficult to believe I exited a city of eight million less than an hour ago. I’ve taken 100 mental screen shots over that time. Congested streets, taxis swerving, cyclists with knees flashing, an old man in a Speedo talking on his cellphone. All tamped down by heat and humidity.
