Golden Biker

by Alexander Von Eisenhart Rothe

  Totally out of control he jumped up and down on the broken remnants of the third motorbike, thereby swinging the car jack above his head like a tomahawk.

  The dwarf was sitting on Gerd’s chest, luxuriously inhaling the smoke of a non-filter cigarette.

  “And after that? What happened then?” Gerd inquired.

  “Well, you see” the dwarf answered, “After my brother made his career as a PUA, I thought to myself, Golomir, I said, you cannot go on like that. You can do this as well. Screw the dwarf tradition, there’s no future in strip-mining! Want one?” He offered Gerd the half empty packet of cigarettes, but he declined, shaking his head.

  “Go on, have one! Since you’re unconscious, it won’t do you any bodily harm!”

  “No really, thank you! Are all Personal-Unconscious-Assistants dwarfs?”

  “Well, it’s not a prerequisite as such, but it helps in the job interview!”

  “How?”

  “On the one hand you want to make it clear to the unconscious, that he is well, unconscious, ok? But you don’t want him to panic, would be very bad for the sub consciousness, could mean years of therapy afterwards!”

  “Yes, but” Gerd interrupted, “no disrespect, but could not ‘normal’ people perform at this job just as well?”

  The dwarf gave out a cackling laugh. “I beg your pardon. You fall unconscious and along comes some willy nilly type of guy biding you a good day? You would not believe one word he’s got to say, right? But on the other hand if there suddenly is a dwarf in the room, then all of a sudden everybody immediately thinks: Good God, a dwarf, I must be unconscious!”

  “I get it! That’s why the tiny elephant!”

  “Correct! My brother’s riding on one of those!”

  “Oh, I thought that was you!”

  “No, that’s my brother, but we often get mixed up. Lies in the family. My brother’s working close by, there’s heaps of work around here at the moment. Some buck-naked chap’s been kicked by the same stuff as you have!”

  “Any idea, why I’ve been knocked out again?”

  “Chloroform, very effective stuff!” the dwarf answered and jumped on a very small green striped flying elk. “But, I’ve got to be on my way, you’ll come to pretty soon!”

  “Out of my way!” Hurling his body against the masses of spectators standing shoulder against shoulder, Bear pushed his way through the smallest opening, deliberately distributing kicks to the hollows of other people’s knees. Through the gap thus created, there followed Arthur as fast as he could, on the one hand still slightly shaken by his panic attacks, on the other hand still able to shout apologies, left and right. A quick look over his shoulder though, showed him that their pursuers were hard on their heels.

  “How come, they know we’re here? I only just found out myself!” he cried over to Bear.

  But Bear had no time for any such deliberations. He pushed through a row of excited teenagers and was now in front of the stage barrier, he jumped over it pulling Arthur behind him grabbing him by his neck. They bolted down the empty space between stage ramp and fans reaching a passageway to the backstage area on the left side of the stage, naturally guarded by a burly watchdog from security against intrusive fans.

  “How are we supposed to get past this guy?” Arthur shouted at Bear.

  “Let me do the talking! I know a trick,” Bear gasped, running towards the security guard he shouted at him from afar. “Goddammit, what are you doing here? We have a 14-20! You should be at the front entrance by now!”

  The guard looked puzzled. “A 14-20? What’s that supposed to be? Never heard of it. Who are you, anyway?”

  Bear looked at him indignantly. “Who am I?” He turned round to Arthur. “He wants to know, who I am, ha-ha!”

  To Arthur’s horror their pursuers had at this moment also jumped the barrier in front of the middle stage. It was only a matter of seconds until they would barge on them.

  “I am the one, who might save your ass from getting fired, man! Your superior is waiting for you at the entrance gate, better hurry up, now!”

  “Bear, they’re coming...!” Arthur hissed from behind his back.

  “Listen you!” the watchdog said, “Do you really think I’d be stupid enough and leave my post?”

  “But” Bear insisted desperately, “we’ve got a 14-20 and you will be... oh, forget it, sorry about this!”

  WHACK!!!

  Bear’s well-aimed hit with his fist had the security guy slump to the floor. Bear pushed the door open. “Come on! Let’s go!” he shouted at Arthur, who climbed over the unconscious security guard with a questioning look on his face. “Excellent trick, Bear, very original, really!”

  For the last 20 minutes they had not moved one inch. The traffic was chock-a-block—and they were in the thick of it. Solomon was nervously drumming the steering wheel, checked his Swiss precision watch and bent forward to look at the slowly sinking sun. From the back of the truck he heard a faint moaning—that German businessman and the girl were slowly waking up. Ephraim and Moshe had tied them up and put them on the car floor.

  “Excuse me,” Moshe said, bending forward across the seats, “but they’re slowly waking up behind there. Would be nice if we would eventually get to, wherever it is we’re going!”

  “Get back to your seat!” Solomon shouted at him angrily.

  “Sorry, sorry, didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feeling!” Shaking his head he retreated to the back of the van.

  “What’s bugging him?” Ephraim wanted to know, not having missed the outburst.

  Moshe took out a cigarette case from his pants pocket opened it and fingered a small joint from it. “No idea! Must be stress. I don’t give a shit!”

  “It’s probably because we’re stuck in traffic, he wanted to be at the hide out before sunset.

  And that’s not gonna happen!”

  Moshe passed the joint to Ephraim. What is it with this stupid Tocheß and his stupid sunset?”

  Ephraim inhaled deeply then slowly released a cloud of thick smoke. “Maybe he’s afraid of the dark?” They both giggled inanely.

  “I can smell that!” Solomon suddenly yelled from the front. “Extinguish it, at once!”

  Ephraim pulled a silly face pantomiming Solomon.

  Moshe grinned broadly, had a last hit from the joint and tossed it through the open gap of the side window.

  The sunset had a dramatic quality to it. A huge flaming red fireball was sinking down behind the houses sending its last rays into the sky, which was illuminated with different shades of yellow-orange and a rich violet. The sparse but evenly spread clouds were literally glowing.

  The magnitude of the moment, however seemed to evade Solomon. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!” he cursed, hitting the steering wheel with his fist. Since they had kidnapped Gerd they had not moved more then 50 feet. The traffic jam around the ‘Indira-Gandhi-Memorial’ Hall had them in a tight grip. Solomon sighed, shook his head and let it sink onto the steering wheel. All in vain! But there were rules and regulations far older than his orders for the day, commandments he could not disobey. No there must not be any exceptions. With another sigh he raised his head, opened the door, got out, went round to the side door and yanked it open it with a hard push. Moshe and Ephraim looked up in surprise.

  “What’s up?” Moshe demanded to know.

  Solomon tried to avoid looking at them. “Untie the two prisoners. We’re going to release them!”

  “Whaaat?” Hastily Ephraim and Moshe both got to their feet.

  “That’s an order. Let them go!”

  “But why, for heaven’s sake? Uncomprehending Moshe looked from Solomon and Ephraim and back.

  “Because today is Friday and the sun is going down, that’s why, you cretin!” Solomon riled at him.

  “S
o what?”

  Solomon took a step towards him, grabbed him by the collar pulling him close to his face so that their tips of their noses were almost touching. “It is Sabbath, you undeserving tipesh!

  And I am not going to desecrate the holy Sabbath with work. And you won’t either, you Hobby-Jews. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

  Ephraim and Moshe looked at each other flabbergasted. “Yes, but” Moshe said finally, “all the effort we put into this! Can`t we just hide them somewhere, until Sabbath is over?”

  Solomon spat on the ground contemptuously. “No we cannot. On Sabbath you shall not work, nor drive a car, nor hide anything—zero, zilch, nothing. And that counts for you too! Oj, Jahwe, sometimes I think I’m dealing with the first anti-Semitic Jews here!”

  Ephraim shrugged his shoulders, pulled out a knife and cut the shackles of the still unconscious Gerd.

  “Here!” said Solomon handing him two button-sized tracking devices “at least with these we’ll always know were they are. Fix them up, so it won’t be all for nothing at least!”

  Sunil parked his tuc-tuc directly in front of the concert hall. That luxury was afforded to him by the fact that his devotees had quite ruthlessly made a space for him. The tuc-tuc drivers of Delhi were not to be trifled with. Dressed in yellow-black garb they were singing and dancing all around him, as he was moving toward the entrance, thereby pushing any concertgoers out of his way.

  “Right!” Sunil said, turning to the tuc-tuc driver who had led him so far, “where are they now, these foreigners?”

  The driver bent down submissively. “I don’t know, sir, they have to be here somewhere!”

  “Then, go look for them and bring them to me, so that I can give back the money!”

  Immediately his devotees spread out into the hall. Only one of them remained next to his side, his eyes fixed upon the stage. “Ehm, Sir, I think, I have found them already!” he said in a muted tone pointing his finger at the stage! Sunil turned around and saw Arthur and Bear—albeit as a 26 by 26 feet projection on a video screen. There they stood, in the middle of the stage, looking a bit unsettled.

  “I think I’m about to wet my pants!” Arthur hissed to Bear, who, with the enormous crowd staring at them expectantly, seemed to be completely petrified.

  On stage in the glaring spotlight, they both felt very lonely all of a sudden.

  “I did say ‘left’ didn’t I, but no, mister Bear knows best, as always. So clever, that mister Bear is!”

  “Oh yeah?” Bear nagged back, “smarty pants here probably has a cunning plan, to get us out of here, am I right?”

  “You can kiss my...”

  “And you mine...”

  “No, you can...!”

  About 30.000 Indian concertgoers were fascinated by Arthur as he started to provocatively jostle Bear, who likewise, started to punch Arthur.

  “Gotcha!” Shaki suddenly shouted right behind them. Together with Number One and Number Two he came barrelling towards them on the stage at full speed, knives drawn.

  However they soon froze in their movement as soon as they had realised, where they were.

  “Holy Shiva!” Number One exclaimed as he looked at the 60.000 staring eyes.

  Shaki too was mortified hiding the knife behind his back. “Let’s go outside! We will sort this out amongst us!” He shouted to Arthur and Bear.

  Bear gave him the finger. “You mean, so that you can slit our throats, don’t you? I’ll find it quite accommodating here, thank you very much!”

  Naturally the audience, hearing nothing that was said on stage, only saw five guys indecisively arguing amongst themselves. If this was the warm up gig, it was rather lame. Some clapping and cat whistles were being heard. More joined until the whole crowd rhythmically demanded the show to go on.

  “Hey!” Bear hissed at Arthur, “You know any songs? I mean, with lyrics and all!”

  “Of course, whatever you like? I know the complete cycle ‘Songs from Earth’ by Gustav Mahler, know all the words to it!”

  Bear rolled his eyes. “Anything a bit more up to date, maybe? Something I might know as well?”

  “Well yes, the standards of course... Sinatra?”

  “Perfect! Which one?”

  “New York, New York! I could manage that!”

  “Ok, now name a city in India, come on...”

  Arthur gave him a puzzled look. “What on earth...? You want to play city, country, river, now?”

  “Shut up. A city in India... now!”

  “Bombay?” Arthur suggested, not having been to a lot of cities in India, so far.

  “Bombay it is!” Bear answered grabbing one of the microphones. “Good evening Delhi!” he yelled into the microphone. The rhythmic applause died down, expectantly the mass of people looked up at him.

  “For Chris’ sake what are you doing?” Arthur whispered frightened.

  Bear grinned back. “Making the best out of a situation, besides I always wanted to do that!”

  Again he drew the microphone near. “I can’t hear you! Come again: HELLO DELHI!”

  The crowd gave a restrained noise of jubilation.

  “Bear!” Shaki hissed behind him, “Cut the crap, ok?”

  But there was no stopping Bear. “We are, ehm... the band… Arthur, Bear... and the Killers!” With this he presented Shaki, Number One and Number Two behind him. “Come out front you guys, don`t be shy!”

  Tentatively the three gangsters made a few steps forward. Number One gave an embarrassed smile and waved at the audience, Number Two, ashen faced, had turned to stone, whereas Shaki was boiling with rage.

  “We are the support act,” Bear continued, and we will perform for you, a cappella our song:

  ‘Bombay, Bombay!’ He bent over to the gangsters whispering: “Okay! You are the baseline doing: Dub-Dub-Dubidoo! Twice and then again one after the other! Just like Sinatra, you know how it goes... let’s go: Dub-Dub-Dubidoo… Dub-Dub-Dubidoo!”

  Hesitantly Number One fell in.

  Bear kicked the amazed Arthur. “And now here we go!” He shoved a second microphone in Arthur’s hand and began: “Start spreadin’ the news... I’m leavin’ to-day—come on, Arthur—I wanna be part of it... BOMBAY, BOOMBAY!—Hey, it even rhymes!”—These vagabond shoes...”

  Arthur, overcome by shock, reluctantly picked up the microphone and started to sing: “...are longing to stray,... and make a brand new start of it—Boombay, Boombay!”

  Shaki just stood there, mouth agape. Meanwhile also Number Two had awoken from his rigidity and was merrily going “Dub-Dub-Dubidoo!”

  Just when George, the dedicated girls heartthrob, had bitten into his sixth’s grease dripping samosa, the dressing room door flew open and his manager stormed in. “Georgie Porgy, dear boy!” he reprimanded him gently, “Weren’t we supposed to cut down on food, a little bit, eh?”

  George tried in vain to suppress a burp, chewing vigorously.

  “But I am sooo hungry...”

  The manager sighed, getting into any discussions with his stars was hopeless anyway.

  Suddenly the small monitor hanging in the upper corner of the room showing a continuous picture of the stage caught his eye. “Do we have a new warm up act?” he wondered, grabbing the remote he turned up the volume.

  “If I can... make it there, I’ll make it... anywhere!!!” At that moment Bear and Arthur were belting out in a duet. George and his manager stared at the stage in disbelieve.

  “Who...” George stammered uncomprehending, “... who are those guys? What are they doing up on our stage? Just do something...”

  The manager jumped up. “On my way!” He stormed out of the dressing room.

  Without turning his eyes away from the monitor, George greedily bit another chunk off his samosa. Unfortunatel
y it was so big that even he could not swallow it. It got stuck in his throat and at first George tried to free himself of this piece of fried savoury with muted coughs. But alas, it was tightly wedged inside his gullet. With panic slowly mounting inside him he tried retching, hitting his throat while jumping up and down, but to no avail, slowly he was running out of air. The colour of his face changed to deep red, while he was stumbling around his dressing room making desperate gurgling noises. Seized by ice-cold panic, he fell to his knees and everything around him turned black.

  “Oh, excuse me! Actually, I am looking for the stage.” Sunil had pushed the door open from the outside, directly hitting George’s protruding behind. Like a cork from a bottle, the greasy lump of samosa flew from George’s gullet straight across the room, hitting the mirror and landing in a jar of cold cream. Panting and wheezing George was inhaling the stale air of the dressing room. Sunil was just about to close the door again, when he recognised who was lying on the floor in front of him. “Hey!” he exclaimed with joy, “You are George, from the Nataraja Dream Boys!”

  “It’s up to you, Bom-bay, Bo-ho-hombayyyyyyyy!!!!!” “Hey!” he exclaimed with joy, “You are George, from the Nataraja Dream Boys!”

  Silence. Not a single sound was to be heard inside the huge hall. Bear and Arthur stood at the ramp’s edge as if nailed to the floor, fists still in the air, behind them the gangsters and in front of them 30.000 clueless Indians. Then it started:

  “Buuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh!!!”

  Loud whistling, rotten pomegranates and other vegetables were flying through the air. The crowd had to make way for their feeling of disappointment, after all they had come to expect a perfectly choreographed Mega-Show, not to watch some knackered foreigners, doing a rather off—key version of a Sinatra song with the wrong lyrics and without any musical accompaniment.