II
"To live outside the law you must be honest.
– Bob Dylan
My mind is completely empty of everything but fear. What did don Juan say? This is your brain on drugs? No. After fear comes clarity – and I have the clarity I associate with a good hack into a supposedly secure system and I'm counting the Benjamins as they transfer in an electronic stream to the usual offshore account. I'm not going to die – no future tense – I'm beginning to die. The experience is going to be long and drawn out. The Italian cracks his pistol butt cracks across the side of my head. The sausage job has begun.
"C'mon hippy," grunts Darnell fondling the beauty doctor. He kicks me me hard in the ribs and sends me tumbling down the stairs. I start to get up and they push me down the next flight. I lay stunned at the bottom. "Go ahead and scream."
I don't scream. I should. Why can't I – why am I always silent?
Fobbed off on uncomprehending - but very rich - grandparents who'd retired to Florida to die, I was the unpopular jewboy with the horn rimmed glasses and the skinny puny body. Physical abuse was doled out in abundance in the the locker room of Junior High PT, with the complicit knowing winks of the coaches who saw nothing wrong in one of their charges being dragged into the bathroom stalls for a swirly and cruel finishing kick to the balls.
But I was smart, so much smarter and I developed a detached attitude which served me well. I thought of myself as an Outlaw, threading my way through the cliques and cliches of secondary education. I began to annoy the teachers – I knew the answers before they did. I saw no reason to respond to the tired barbs of my classmates and developed a laconic manner of speaking so at odds with the dark apathy of my thoughts. I think so much more than what I say.
With puberty came a testosterone lust for burning rubber, pounding cylinders and hemi action. I could line up with the best on Friday night on the backstreets of Orlando, blasting the hell out of the spics in their jacked up ricers with the huge spoilers and fart cans bubbling yellow smoke with my old fashioned heavy metal – a Mustang GT390 Fastback – rescued from the junkyard.
You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here? Why am I going into the blue after the money's gone? Why are two bullies from the Florida Mafia dragging me out onto the neon lit street where nobody cares and the heads are turned away, a whimpering shit-job on the streets of Bangkok.
But all I can manage to say in between the blows is…
"You broke my computer."
They can't comprehend my concern. The two blink in dull unison. But, it was a Solaris Sparc workstation, top of the line and a tragedy to lose. The Italian job curses and forces me at gunpoint into the trunk of a large automobile. Darnell slams the top shut. I feel the car start and lurch forward and I wonder, where does the highway lead to?
Racing cars and motorbikes was an adrenalin rush, but nothing like the absolute control I had on a keyboard and computer console. A modem and a connection and I discovered the black realm of the outlaw BBSes. The thrill of easy money – but there's no thrill anymore as I claw at the trunk. I'm in darkness. The car lurches about. We're off.
#-#-#
They don't drive far. From the doppler sounds ascending and receding I know we get stuck in traffic by the NEP. Now for the casual tourist who is not taking his final drive spooned up against the spare wheel in the back, I would recommend this spot in Bangkok – the largest sex emporium in the world, a three story shopping mall of phony-orgasmic flesh. No point making any noise, they'd think I was into kink. The nice Thai would smile… and close the trunk.
Dockland isn't far, I imagine the shadows of the industrial slum sliding across the dull polish of the car, I hear the crunch of gravel as they turn left, stop, turn right, another stop.
They're arguing. I strain to hear what's being said. It's vitally important and may mean a minute or two more. The longer the sausage job is delayed, the better.
"This is it," barks the Italian job. "Dock Thirteen."
"Goddamnit," snaps Darnell. "Are you fuckin' blind. This is Dock Eighteen."
"You pazzo. The fuckin' sign says Dock Thirteen. It's fuckin' Dock Thirteen.
The car doors open. Darnell is grumbling loudly.
"Goddamn sign's dirty. This is fucking Eighteen, Gino."
"Hey, hey, hey!" Gino snaps. "Who was with the old man all day? I was. I know where the hell I am."
I know both their names. I don't think we'll be any more familiar.
They yank me out of the trunk. They push me down the dimly lit dock. This is not the modern stretch, the giant gantry cranes of the Klong Toey container terminal loom like Martian war machines to the north. A miasma of rotting seaweed and fecal matter clog my nostrils. I feel sick and woozy and my legs are like rubberbands that have been stretched past their use. Gino curses and pushes me aside, he leads the way.
Darnell smiles with a predatory rictus and whacks the beauty doctor into the flat of his other hand, the sound of Curtis's face being tenderized is loaded into memory. "You goddamn hippy," he snaps. "Gonna smash your goddamn face! What you think Mr. Cyranova wanted to go on fuckin' vacation to Thailand? We're going to bust you up nice and slow. Are you ready to go?"
"I'm not a hippy," I say flatly. I guess this is where I'm supposed to cringe and whimper, but I'm not going to sacrifice my principles to expedience – I never wrote sakshat, my code's not shit.
"I say you're a goddamn hippy."
Mosquitos whine in my ear. I smell a whiff of tobacco. I wish I could have a last smoke
Gino stomps around an array of shipping pallets, stacked tetris irregular with crates and comes to an abrupt halt. I lurch into him and tread on his heels. Darnell cuffs me upside the head and I feel a trickle of blood, mixing with the ever-present perspiration, run down my cheek.
"This ain't Thirteen."
"I told you," Darnell's voice rises to a high pitch. "I told you, you dumb dago."
The heat has leached them of their hitman cool. Faces shiny with sweat they screech at each other.
I look away, following my nose and the scent of tobacco. The dock as it stretches out into the curve of the still river on is a study in contrast, a chiaroscuro from a noir film. Not far away a ramshackle shack of corrugated tin and plywood is perched on the pilings, an ancient looking PT boat in the slip nearby with the water lapping at the hull.
She's leaning up against the shack, a cigarette dangling from her hair veils her face, long legs, tits straining against a too tight black tanktop.
"Hey, fuckheads," she says. Even in this far too studied stillness, she radiates a certain lewd aggression beneath the yellow dog vomit light stuttering right above her head. The mark of the porno industry is an attitude even more than a nasty tribal tattoo, such as the one disfiguring her shoulder and neck. I never liked tattoos. "Fuck off. Blow."
This gets Gino's and Darnell's attention in a hurry. They turn and stare.
"Is she talking to me?" Gino does the Bickle. "Is a fucking whore talkin' to me? Do you hear this shit, Darnell?"
"I hear it, but I don't believe it," says Darnell.
With a casual flick, the glowing ember of the cigarette she held takes a dying arc into the oily water of the slip. The flat palm of the other slaps the side of the shack twice. There's enough of a roll to her shoulders in the motion I catch the glimpse of a leather harness, the gleam of gun-metal. She's no whore.
"I said blow." There's an undercurrent of a snarl to her tone.
"Not the kind of blow we're lookin' for, whore,'" barks Darnell.
"You'd look pretty on your knees," sneers Gino.
Just then I felt the dock shake and heard a voice shout. A man's jumped off the PT boat and is waddling, no stumping, towards us. He's a bullet plug of a black man; short, wide as a professional linebacker and bald as a cueball. He looks seriously pissed.
"Where are your fuckin' manners?" he attempts to roar, but his voice is as high pitched as Mike Tyson's on helium. "I know that voice – you snot nosed, pimply assed, butt fucker Darnell - and I want some respect for the lady."
The girl is watching everything. Both Darnell and Gino have their heads down like hunting dogs. A shudder runs through me for these poor unfortunates we've stumbled upon. Yeah, the short black dude is frightening, but he's unarmed and what can the girl do? Her guns are probably for show. It's gonna be BOOM! BLAM! and SPLASH! in the water. So long and over to Dock Eighteen for program termination.
"Damn. It's Otis. I thought you was dead," says Darnell after a pause. "Gino, my man, thanks for going the wrong way. I'm gonna beat the shit out of the short stack. This son of a bitch owes me money. The lady's all yours."
"Shoulda stayed on the boat," says the girl to this Otis. "Where's your shotgun? Where's Dutch?"
"Boat and boat," says Otis. His little beady eyes stay fixed on Darnell.
"Now that's a damn shame," says Darnell with a sneer. He steps forward pushing back the flap of his black jacket.
"Fuck this shit," says the girl. She almost sounds bored. Her hand whips up in an arc and smashes out the light. In the final moment they're all moving like slow-mo bionic man figures
A barrage of gunshot rips apart the darkness, the worst disco strobe effect imaginable. I stumble about and hear harsh shouts and screams. My senses shut down, I don't smell the stench of gunpowder, barely notice the thin strands of smoke when my eyesight adjusts to the dim ambient light of Bangkok behind us. I'm only concentrating on what's keeping me alive.
And I'm not doing a good job. I wish I was high so I could deal. A pipe packed full of hash would solve all my problems right now. Laugh like a baby
The fat man: Otis. He is squalling like a big baby and rolling about the dock clutching his leg. But it's Darnell who fills my tunnel vision as he suddenly lunges towards me. He stares directly in my eyes and then slumps headfirst against my legs as he falls to the dock. A gun clatters free of his hand by my feet as does the beauty doctor. I bestir myself enough to kick that vile club, coated with Curtis's brains into the oily water of the slip.
Gino's screaming through the smoke. "Goddamn whore. You goddamn whore. Fuckin' DEAD MEAT! C'mon you bitch, I'll blow your fuckin' head off!"
I can see him now. He's perched on top of a pallet stack, legs spread wide and he's got two guns. Bullets go snapping by as he goes Hollywood – shooting in all directions.
The girl ghosts out of the midnight miasma with a gun at the ready, a soundless wraith. Gino dances as the puppet strings are cut free. She swiss-cheeses his innards. The gunman tumbles off the and lands hard on the dock
I keep watching.
"Oh God," groans Gino. He crawls like a dog, tries to get up and falls back on his butt, legs twisted underneath.
"Sucks to be on your knees," the girl sneers. Gino looks up, wheezing hard.
"No," Gino burps blood down his chin. It gets lost on the black cloth of his jacket.
"Blow this," she says with a vampire smile. Something awful is about to happen.
She puts the barrel of the gun to his mouth and pulls the trigger.
I should pick up the gun at my feet. I should run away. I had my chance. I'm frozen like Bambi grazing in the grove and Godzilla's lifting his foot. She's watching me now out of the corner.
"Hey, Otis," she says. "How much did you owe shitface number one?"
Otis stops his squalling and rolling about on the dock long enough to answer.
"Forty bucks," he moans and goes back to clutching at his knee.
"Fucking forty bucks," she says with a disgusted toss of her black mane. "This is fucking stupid."
"A little sympathy," he shrieks.
"What's going on, Revy?" He appears from nowhere. An even larger black man in a flak jacket who looks like he walked off the set of Apocalypse Now in that getup.
"Nothing, Dutch," she sounds amused. "You missed all the fun."
"This isn't fuckin' fun," shouts Otis. "I got kneecapped. I'm calling it quits, Dutch. Can't take no more."
"We need to leave," rumbles Dutch. "This is a problem, Otis. We have to get that bleeding stopped as soon as possible, but we can't stay. Time to make waves to Roanapur."
"I can help," I say.
Dutch looks through me. The girl laughs. She has a nasty laugh.
"I can bandage him up," I continue. It's all I got. I'm afraid of the girl. I know she won't leave a witness behind.
"Can you work a radio?" Dutch asks. "How about radar? I'm going to need some help with Otis down. Revy only does guns, she doesn't know shit about anything else."
"Fuck you," says the girl named Revy. She's busy lighting up a cigarette.
I try not to look at the bodies of Darnell and Gino. Hardware is hardware. I can work anything.
"Sure."
#-#-#
So you see, I found the Blympalot after all, it didn't crash hard into the rocks and drown me after all. Instead I exchanged one prison for another. Don't you get these references? Neither does Jane, I'm telling her the story after indulging in some nice black hash and she's got a blank look on her face. I can feel her perpetual annoyance beginning to bubble up.
Jane's still in fear of Revy. Some time recently the gungirl got in her face, whispered some cold shit in her ear - about making her an honest girl, if you know what I mean. So I tell her the next part for commonality's sake. Let her know she has no competition at all from Revy. Because you see, Revy dismissed me long ago on that bloody dock in Bangkok before I boarded that boat on a return trip to hell.
"I owe you," I blurt out. I'm so shaky and out of sorts after all the death I've witnessed. I'm beside myself . My hands are shaky under her inspection as I help untie the ropes holding the PT boat in the slip.
"Yeah, you do." The cigarette glows red. "Whatcha got?"
I look at her. She makes an impatient snort and gestures. "I mean it, whatever ya got. Hand it over."
"It's all I got," and I hand over the one single dollar I tried to give Pisit earlier this night.
"All you're worth," she says and snatches it away. The contempt is palpable. After a moment she talks again.
"You just stood there," she says. There's something like old black varnish to her stare. There's an emptiness I wouldn't want to attempt to fill. "Feet fucking like tree roots. Watching everything, but not doing one fuckin' thing. Could have run, maybe saved your skin. Could have picked up the gun and gone down laughing. I'd take either over fucking nothing. Fuckhead."
Her judgement flickers in the green screen of my wetwork. The words burn and fade away.
THE END