Luncheonmeat

Dick expected to die in his sleep and he didn’t mind a bit, in fact he was quite looking forward to it. After several months of dithering, he finally had taken possession of a motorized bicycle. He had never driven a bike before. He didn’t even know if ‘drive’ was the correct verb, or if it was proper to call it a ‘bike’ at all. He wanted to call it a scooter, but that made him feel like Dennis the Menace, so he called it ‘the fucking bike’. The owner had taken him down to the beach, showed him more or less how it worked and issued dire warnings against the power of first gear, which would later be repeated by Dick’s genial neighbour. He tootled around for twenty minutes, coughed up 12,000 pesos and launched ... read more

Alone in nondescript plaza in Cuidad del Este, delivered across, rather than to, the border by a local bus which had no time for formalities, Miles was an illegal immigrant in Paraguay having been deported from Brazil. It was essential that he obtained a Brazilian exit visa. He would return to Brazil (illegally) and attempt to leave again. A bronchitis attack induced by a thirty degree drop in temperature between the Copacabana and this nondescript swamp left him coughing, shivering and slightly delirious as he trudged back from whence the bus had come. Presently he came to a long bridge over the Rio Paraná. The river was invisible below beneath billowing mist boiling into the freezing early morning air. There was little motorized transport across the bridge. On one side of the road ‘smugglers’ unhurriedly pushed ... read more

Miles was a convalescent. Discharged from hospital more than a month ago, he had been allowed to leave London and overwinter in a summer holiday cottage above Kilkieran Bay, Co. Galway. Eileen spoke fluent Irish and was supply teaching at the local “all Irish” school. Miles watched daytime TV, sometimes took a stroll and tottered down to the pub in the afternoon. As if living in sin while working for the nun’s was not bad enough, Eileen and Miles lived next door to the priest. It was his first parish. The two sinners, the priest and the postman formed a very strong quiz team and toured the local pubs together in the priest’s car. The only similarities between Miles previous ‘life’ in a small city in Nigeria and his current life in extremely rural Ireland was ... read more

“I want to see the Delegado,” Miles stated, as a formal statement. “You just did. That was him.” The friendly Federalé continued to steer Miles towards the exit of The Federal Police Headquarters, Rio de Janiero, Brazil. “Remember. Don’t forget. Forty eight hours.” He waved cheerily and pushed Miles out into the esgoto of humanity that was the street. Bade him boa viagem. Dick had spent most of the day alone, in a windowless room, on a plastic chair, under a lightbulb, beside a water cooler. Infrequently the door would open and a variety of men, all obvious police officers, would look at him for longer or shorter intervals, but mainly he had just been sitting. Months, perhaps years before, Miles had overstayed his visa. Now he needed to become legal. In pursuance of such status, ... read more

Padraic's mother had a very serious talk with Padraic, older brother Kevin, and younger cousin Finn. "Things are different in Mexico. You must put your used toilet paper in a trashcan. Never flush it down the toilet." "Why?" asked Finn. "Because Mexican toilets are different." "Why?" "Because they have less money." Crossing the border from San Diego into Tijuana was easy enough. Huge concrete walls and men in camouflage impeded traffic from the other direction. A nearly-empty toll road ran from the outskirts of Tijuana to the beach resort. Intense sunlight lit the dust of the scrubland, empty except for thorny weeds and a car full of relatives driven by the venerable patriarch, GrandDude. On the beach a teenager tried to sell a brown-skinned, sombrero-wearing, ludicrously-happy, marionette to the three young Americanos. Twelve-year-old Kevin tried to ... read more

It was so shockingly easy to pull women in Beijing that Dick wondered why so many of the Revolting Foreign Men seemed to have girlfriends. Why would anyone go to the effort and expense of maintaining something as volatile and costly as a Chinese pseudo-princess, when more durable, cheaper alternatives are available in every supermarket, noodle bar or underground train? His guess was that the RFM get off the plane, score, become catatonic at their astonishing good luck and by the time they resurface the claws are in, the chains are on, and they are carrying the world’s most attractive monkey on their back forevermore. It’s not the best option on the planet, but it sure as Hell beats the crap out of the 120kg gospodyni back in Gdansk. Try regularly leering lasciviously at any suitable ... read more

Padraic was overjoyed. He had somehow used his whiteness (or possibly his beard and lungi) to walk to the "VIP" area of Babu Ghat and view the returning of the victorious Durga to the elements. After being waved through by pretty, smiling, plump brown girls in police-training uniforms, he found himself at the end of the procession, watching the muddy Hoogli fill with man's physical depiction of the timeless triumph of good over evil. Hundreds of statues littered the riverbank a few dozen meters downstream. The VIP area was populated by a few dozen media persons (both Indian and ferangi) with expensive ties and large cameras. Padraic stood near them, swaying in the sacred rhythms of a thousand drums and flowing water. He was watched with a mixture of indifference, curiosity, and vague suspicion by the ... read more

He decided to spend the Hindu festival of Dussehara in Varanasi. Dussehara is the festival of Victory of Good over Evil. Shri Ram, the 7th incarnation of Vishnu, killed the great demon Ravana who had abducted Ram's wife Sita to his kingdom of Lanka aka 'Sri Lanka'. The war against Ravana lasted for ten days. The entire narrative can be read in the epic Ramayana, a Hindu scripture of immense significance. Varanasi was one of Paul's favourite places. He looked up some old friends. Kahianya, a Varanasi boat wallah, invited him to come that night across the river to the Maharaja Fort. About ten local babas had booked the boat for a month of such nights, with one chapter of the Ramayana being enacted at a time, in the open and with great style. That particular ... read more

At 8:30, Dick stands by the road. He has spent four days sleeping on the ground and cooking over a fire and breathing the air: simple pleasures impossible back in Beijing. He has been royally shafted: 30,000 tögrög for a lift from UB; 2,000 for a cold beer; 1,000 for Coca Cola water he despised drinking. He will return on the local bus like a local person. In the queue are two ancient men carrying filthy shoeless children; three dogs (one stupidly friendly and wolf-like, the other two viscously growling and Labrador-like); some gruesome kids who shout 'Konitchiwa!' at him as he approaches; two adult females in black wooly tights and white shoes with authority over some of the unsavoury kids; and four tall girls who might be supermodels. In his pocket he has an apple, ... read more

Nothing emphasizes egocentricity better than a gun in your psyche. Like luck, guns are a zero sum game. Dick had not seen the guns, but the nice man at his door told him about them and asked him to leave town. Dick acquiesced. Two days later, Dick was in Bangkok and the world was his oyster. It was August: no ‘r’ in the month. Dick had never been to Bangkok before. It was an obvious stop off between Almaty and Ho Chi Minh City. Soros and his Open Societies Institute had paid him in cash, USD cash. Dick had a lot of that cash in his pocket: $1870. More money than Dick had seen since yesterday when it was two grand. He had booked into a four star hotel for just for one night, to find ... read more