by Mike Stoner
We are standing, looking up at the sign which slants up the side of the doorway, flashing its name in red, white and blue:
MEMPHIS.
‘Elvis. My tribute,’ says Charles to no one and everyone.
One of the suited men pats him on the back and says something in Chinese. They shake hands and Charles invites everyone to follow him into the club, which we do. The girls in short skirts are left outside to carry on promoting the chic of lung cancer and the promises of the club.
Two of Charles’ armed guards from the house are acting as bouncers and push open the double doors. We gather in a small entrance foyer and Charles holds his hand up, signalling for us to wait. All sunglasses are removed and placed inside suit jackets. Charles then looks to the dukun and nods at him, his hand ushering the old man towards another set of double doors. Walnut Face steps forward and the bodyguards open them for him. Inside, red and green laser lights twirl, move up and down the walls and reflect and refract off mirrors and spinning glass balls hanging over a large polished and shining dance floor. Music plays quietly in the background.
Before the old man enters he pulls his shoulder bag to his front and his hand gropes around in it. Out comes a little leather pouch, as worn as his face. He pulls it open, turns it upside down and shakes sand over the threshold of the main room. While he does this he mutters some sort of chant and then he burps. I look to Charles and the others in suits to see if we’re all going to smile and wink knowingly at each other and have a secret joke at the crazy old boy’s expense. All I get is a wall of furrowed brows and serious expressions and some nodding of approval.
Fuck, it wasn’t even an impressive burp.
The dukun is walking slowly into the main room, fumbling in his bag again. Charles follows a few steps behind and the rest of us shuffle in behind him like we’re entering a church service or a funeral. The witch doctor has found a little bell which he holds between thick dry thumb and crooked, cracked forefinger. He tinkles it a few times in a row, chants something, tinkles, chants, tinkles, chants, all the while heading to the middle of the dance floor. Finally we’re there. All gathered around him in a circle. Eyes closed, still he tinkles, chants, tinkles, chants. Green and red disco lights light up the valleys and peaks on his face, making the moment more surreal.
I don’t think this guy is going to help me with my issues, as Charles seems to think. He’s a fruitcake. Not that I’ve got any issues anyway.
—No, of course you haven’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t have pompommed, would you?
—Go, please.
The dukun stops in his ritual, opens his eyes and looks at me, one shining eye and the other translucent white with cataract. He keeps looking at me. I feel the others following his gaze.
—Why is he looking at me? I ask her.
No answer. She has already gone. Perhaps the old boy has spooked her.
I look at the ceiling, not knowing where else to put my gaze. Nice set of lighting equipment for the Third World. I must look weird, staring up there. Look back, act normal, paranoid boy. Please don’t still be looking at me. Of course he won’t be. Why would he? He’s here for the club.
I look back. He’s still looking. He nods, I think. I’m not sure. Then he closes his eyes, chants some more, breathes in, holds it and then lets out a burp that is deep and dark and almost animal-like and lasts for three seconds.
Impressive.
The bell is back in his bag and he walks to Charles. He whispers in his ear. Charles whispers in his. He whispers back again and looks across at me as he does. They both nod. Then Charles makes an announcement.
‘The club is now blessed and will be open to the public from nine tonight. But please all enjoy yourselves now. There is champagne and any other drink you want, free at the bar. Please stay as long as you wish.’
The music is turned up a few dozen decibels. The small group make their way to the bar where three young men in black bowties and white shirts stand waiting to serve. I am wondering how to make my excuses and leave. I know no one except Charles and I have no interest in getting to know anyone else, but Charles comes to me, dukun at his side.
‘What did you think of the blessing?’ asks Charles.
‘Very interesting. Thank you for inviting me.’ My eyes are locked on Charles’s face. I don’t want to look at his little walnut friend. I can feel his good eye examining me, but it’s like his cloudy eye is looking even deeper, sub-skin, at Old Me, making him squirm under his gaze.
‘Teddy is a very talented shaman. I am very successful maybe thanks to him.’
‘Very talent.’ Teddy nods at Charles’s shoulder; I see the movement from the corner of my eye.
‘Teddy thinks you need his help.’
I feel I should look at him. I’m being rude, so I look. He is gazing up at me. One twinkling bright eye, one polluted.
‘Mm. Need help.’ He points his crooked finger at me.
‘No. Really. I’m fine.’
The crooked finger pokes the middle of my chest. ‘You,’ poke, ‘need,’ poke, ‘help.’ Poke.
‘No, I—’
‘He says you do. So you do.’ Charles looks across at his companions at the bar and raises a hand as if to say he’ll be there in a second.
‘Mm. Both you. Both you need Teddy help.’ His finger points to my head and then to my chest again. ‘Both you. Mm. And she too.’ He double-taps my chest. Something like an electric shock shoots into my centre of gravity and knocks me back a step. ‘Tell Charles when ready. You, you and she come and see Teddy. I help all you.’
Charles puts his arm around Teddy’s bony shoulder, raises an eyebrow at me, smiles, nods and leads him away as he heads to the bar.
I breathe in quick, short bursts of air to stop from passing out. I clip-clop at a dizzy high speed across the dance floor and out into the street. I buy a pack of cigarettes from one of the girls in short skirts and walk as fast as I can away from the club, sucking in lungfuls of hot polluted air while I fumble and tear at the plastic on the cigarette pack.
We jolt to a stop. I climb out of the cramped seat of the becak, pull my trousers out of my sweating backside and walk off.
‘Hey bule,’ the rider shouts behind me.
‘What? Ada apa?’ I say back, sweat trickling into my eyes. I rub them.
‘Uang. Money.’ He rubs thumb and forefinger together.
‘Oh, shit.’ I walk back to him and fumble a couple of notes from my front pocket. ‘Sorry. Stupid bule.’ I slap myself on the forehead and hand him some notes. I haven’t bothered counting; I just want to be in Mei’s having a drink.
He looks at me like I’m the idiot I am and shoves the money in his shirt pocket, revs up and pulls out into traffic in a black plume of smoke. He doesn’t look over his shoulder.
Teddy’s walnut face is bouncing around my mind like a sped-up Atari Pong game. I can still feel where his bony finger prodded my chest. I rub the spot as I pass the compound security and quicken my pace. I have never needed a drink so badly, my mouth is bone dry, but my hand has left a wet patch on my shirt.
‘Fucking dukun. “You, you and she.” What a load of shite.’ I realise I’m muttering as I step into Mei’s and the two people sitting at two tables at either end of the room look at me. I stop and dither and try to decide where to sit. To my left is Barry the psycho Canadian. No way am I sitting there. To my right is Geoff the morose Mancunian. I look at one of the empty Formica tables in the middle of the room, yearning for it and its solitude, but Geoff is already beckoning me over.
I just want to be alone, but ever polite even in times of mental stress, I head to Geoff. I go via the beer fridge first, take a bottle, pop the top on the opener screwed to front of the fridge, and take a long drink. I sit opposite Geoff, who is huddled over a Bintang, staring over his glasses at Mei. I haven’t noticed her until now. She is at her usual position on her stool, but today her hair is loose around her face and she is wearing sunglasses. I look outside to see if the sun is r
eflecting off something and into her eyes.
‘It’s not the sun. It’s that bloody twat.’ Geoff nods towards the only other customer in here.
I swig more beer. My heart is running the hundred-metre hurdles. I sit back and take a deep breath, hold it, hope my heart will slow.
Barry is staring at Mei.
‘He’s only been with her a couple of weeks and he’s already hit her.’
Looking more closely I see a bluish-yellow mark showing out of the side of her sunglasses. She touches it with her fingers and turns her head slightly away.
‘How do you know it was him?’ I ask, but I know it was him too, just from having spoken to him the once. Some people leak hatred.
Geoff doesn’t answer. He knows I know.
The room is silent. The heat of the day soundproofs everything with its blanket-like weight, even the whine of the beer fridge is like the hum in deaf ears.
Geoff stares from Mei to Barry, from Barry to Mei. He is leant over his beer, knuckles white where he grasps the bottle with both hands.
Mei points a remote at the large TV screen hanging on the wall. It flicks onto Sky News.
‘That’s new.’ I say.
‘Yes. He told her to buy it.’ Eyes narrow as he nods towards Barry.
‘Satellite.’
‘Well-spotted.’
Geoff being sarcastic. Unusual.
Walnut Face pokes me in the eye. I rub it and turn my chair to see the news. Fuck off, Walnut.
‘The Supreme Court has ruled against another recount in Florida, meaning George W. Bush is the president of the United States.’ George W. nods and waves at a large room full of cheering people waving the Stars and Stripes.
‘Put the sport on, Mei,’ says Barry.
‘But Mr New and Mr Geoff are watching news,’ says Mei.
‘Fuck those faggots. Put on the sport.’
Mei’s hand shakes as she picks up the remote. She puts it back down without changing the channel.
‘Mei. Sport.’
‘I want news too.’ She adjusts her stool towards the TV. ‘I want hear about how US cheats with democracy.’
‘Mei. I paid for that fucking TV, so put on what I want.’
‘My bar.’ She adjusts her stool again and sits upright, nodding her head. ‘My bar.’
Nothing is said. From across the room I sense Barry is contemplating his masculinity and power and how to regain it in front of two lesser males. He rolls his beer bottle between his palms. I don’t suppose the contemplation will last long. Soon he’ll think of a way of reasserting his Alpha side or whatever the fuck it is men use as an excuse for being belligerent twats.
Geoff, on the other hand, seems to have caved in on himself. His head is so far down between sunken shoulders that his forehead is almost touching his bottle. The lesser males know they will make no clever remark or fight for superiority over the Alpha to defend the woman’s honour. The woman is defending hers because the lessers don’t know how to fight.
The scrape of Barry’s chair on the floor is as jarring as fingernails on a blackboard. The fall of his feet across the floor is steady, not slow, not quick. I don’t look his way directly, but I see unfocussed movement from the corner of my eye. Geoff’s head raises enough that his eyes watch Barry’s movement. Barry enters my vision; he is standing under a still-waving and self-satisfied-looking George Bush.
‘You want to watch TV, you faggots, you buy your fucking own.’ He reaches up and turns it off. ‘And Mei, if I invest my money in this shitty business, I say who can do what in here. My money means this is our business, not just yours. Understand, Mei?’
I have turned back around to the table and face Geoff, whose head is back below his shoulders.
‘Mei? Understand?’ Just short of a shout.
Behind her counter Mei nods in jerky fast movements.
‘Good.’
A rat scurries along the edge of the room and disappears under the beer fridge.
Barry heads back to his table and mutters, ‘Fucking faggots.’
‘Arsehole. Fuck you.’ A whisper, then louder, ‘Fuck you.’
Geoff is peering over the top of his glasses from a head still hanging low. He looks as if he hopes no one heard him, but at the same time there is a glint of something proud in his eyes. I don’t turn to look at Barry but I can feel his eyes on us. New Me has been shocked into the shadows, not so don’t give a shit after all. Old Me doesn’t turn around and try to out-stare Barry; he’s too busy playing face-off with his alter-ego.
‘You need to watch yourself, Geoff. It is Geoff, isn’t it? Geoffrey. Things can happen to a man in this country, so you just watch yourself, you Limey faggot.’
I hear a dry gulp from Geoff’s throat.
‘And you too, Newbie. Guess you’re too fucking scared to look at me. I want you both out of here. Out of my bar.’
I’m hunting around inside trying to find the Me who stood up to the Liverpudlian, but he’s absent; obviously only appears when stoned or mentally knackered. The rat makes a run across the floor and out of the bar.
Mei is off her stool and walking to Barry. I can hear her whisper in his ear, but don’t hear what she says. He grunts. She whispers again. He grunts again.
‘Alright,’ he says quietly, then louder, ‘lucky for you, Mei says you spend well. For faggots. So fucking stay if you must.’ His footsteps cross the room. His chair scrapes again. ‘Bring me another beer, Mei.’
My head and everything in it, including split personalities and eyeballs, unfreeze themselves. Geoff’s face is red, and still looking down. He shakes his head.
‘Can you pay my bill? I’ll sort you at work next week.’ Without waiting for a reply his chair is kicked back and he is gone.
‘Pussy,’ Barry mutters.
Enough. Enough of today and dukuns and expats and me. I need escape from mind games. I cross to Mei, settle up for me and Geoff, force a smile at her and say thanks. A small smile touches her lips but I can’t see what’s in her eyes. Then she mouths, ‘Sorry.’
I smile and shake my head at her and leave her bar with my eyes fixed firmly on the outside.
‘Pussy,’ says Barry.
—Pussy, says Laura, you going to let him get away with that?
I say nothing to either of them. I want freedom. I want away from people and their pressures and needs.
I want Eka. She is no pressure, no stress. She gives, I take. She is enjoyment and a kind of peace. She is a shield of succulent flesh that wraps itself around me and lets me be the most basic of beings within her shield; a being without cognitive thought. A primal being. With her I want a succession of moments that contain nothing other than primal pleasure. And I’m going to get them.
Oh, yes I am.
Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. You, you and she.
Oh, shut up.
Flesh. Faces burrowing. Into necks. Into skin. Bittersweet scents. Clawing, Caressing. Pulling. Tongue trails. Gentle bites. Almost pain. Hair in lips. Bitter taste. Sweet taste. Thirst. Sobs. Cries. Sighs. Solace. Closed eyes. Stroking. Finger tracing. Softness. Chests rising, falling. Rising, falling. Slowing. Stroking. Rising. Falling. Spinning. Sleeping.
‘Better?’
I mmm at Eka. I am better. Walnut Face is just an amusing event now. Rationality has returned. Eka seems to have that effect on me. The old man has crawled out from under my skin and taken his mind games and cheap tricks with him. Barry also doesn’t scare me now. If Geoff wants to get involved that’s up to him. It’s not my business. Nothing is my business. That’s not why I came here; I don’t want business. I don’t want involvement. Unless, of course, it suits my mood at the time, and Barry most certainly does not suit my mood. Dark, soft breasts under my cheek suit it now. Staring down the length of Eka’s brown body, fingers tracing across her stomach and to her triangle of hair, the musky scent of after-sex skin, slow gentle breathing, a looseness in my shoulders and spine; all this suits now; this mood and this moment.
My mind is nearly empty again. All thoughts and anxieties flow out of my head and trickle from my ears and the corners of my eyes. They run down the sides of my cheeks and follow the curve of Eka’s breasts onto the thin-sheeted bed, then briefly they puddle, soak into the mattress and join the dark and miserable thoughts of the hundreds of others before me who have sought solace in flesh and lust in this cheap and ugly hotel room.
She strokes my hair.
‘I forget.’ She looks at the ceiling.
‘What?’ I ask, my voice a croaking whisper.
‘I forget. Things. Many things I don’t want to think of. I forget.’ A pause while her breasts rise, fall, with her breathing. ‘I forget, for a while I forget. I am happy. Thank you.’
My finger traces around her belly button. For a second it isn’t her belly button, so I close my eyes hard and kiss her nipple. It is hers again.
‘Thank you, Eka. I thank you.’
MINNIE
‘S o where you going today, man?’ Johnny has to raise his voice above the sound of the rain. He flicks a cigarette at his mouth and misses. It bounces off his lip and lands in a wide rivulet of rainwater that’s running across the school’s fore-court. It spins and turns until it joins the torrent of water flowing down the road.
‘Keep practising, Johnny.’ I offer him one of mine.
The rain is relentless in its bombardment. It overwhelms roads and pavements and pours in waterfalls off shop awnings and buildings. It drums on the roof above us and thunder cracks overhead every few seconds. The day has fallen into a murky twilight. Becak riders have their plastic-bag-covered heads low as they pedal hard against the river that flows almost to their knees. The big four-by-fours send waves twice that height to the sides of the road as they drive on. The waves slosh up the rise on the forecourt and break over the top. Johnny and I step back towards the school entrance to avoid wet feet.
