Jalan Jalan (30 page)

I sit quietly between Julie and Marty, like a piece of paper slid between two electrical contacts. Remove me and sparks might fly.

Mei's is busy tonight; we teachers, the usual lot, all present, albeit quieter and gloomier than normal and taking up the long table near the beer fridge. Also present are Barry and his gang: an unpleasant fifty-something German with a big moustache and his beautiful yet sad-looking twenty-something Indonesian wife beside him. With them an English retired businessman who changes allegiances in Mei's every week or so and no one seems to mind because he is a man who expresses little opinion. In the far corner sits a group of six Indonesian men, and over all watches Mei from her place behind the counter. Her slips of paper for each drink taken for each table are impaled on the spike in front of her.

‘You should go over and whack him, man.' Kim's hair is sticking out at all angles, as though he's just got up. ‘I fucking would if I were you. Fucking whack him.'

‘No you wouldn't. You're as pussy as the rest of us, Kim. Just slightly more stoned.' Jussy wipes condensation down his bottle so it pools on the table.

‘I am not stoned.' Kim sits more upright in his chair.

‘You're never fucking straight, Kim. We all know it.' Julie gives an unnatural shake of her head and blinks.

‘I think you're talking about yourself there, Jooolie. You're constantly twitching and fiddling like a fucking, a fucking twitchy English bitch on drugs.'

‘Kim, watch your mouth.' Quiet yet surprisingly firm from Marty.

Julie sighs.

‘Hey, everyone fucking gang up on the Yank, why don't you?'

‘We're not ganging up,' says Julie.

‘You are. You fucking are.' Kim runs his hands through his messy mop of hair, then laughs. ‘Finding out who my friends are. Fuuuck.'

‘You're getting paranoid, Kim. Have a break from the grass, dude.' Jussy flicks his little pool of water, sending a small spray across the table.

‘Fuuuck. Even the homeboy has turned.'

‘Like I said, Kim, paranoid.'

I look over to Geoff, who is sitting unnoticed amongst us while the others debate their paranoia and addictions. He is sitting with his back to Mei and turned slightly sideways in his chair, presumably to avoid catching Barry's eyes.

‘You alright, Geoff?' I ask.

‘What?' he comes back from somewhere. ‘Yeah, fine.' He looks at me but his eyes wander over my left shoulder to Barry's table, where they linger, then move back to the bottle on the table in front of him.

The others sit silent for a moment to let fingers tap glass, hands run through hair and cabin fevers grow. I can feel the static growing around me as whatever is going on with Julie and Marty builds unspoken like a thunderstorm waiting to crack.

Something is building in me too, as I look at the clock behind Mei. The hands have moved on as though the universe has just bent and we've lost half an hour to the blackness of time warps and wormholes. I've been hoping they'd be here by now, but I'm also pleased they aren't. No doubt now, as I wait and watch the clock, time will change its mind and make things move slowly in the sludge of this uncomfortable night.

‘What's the matter with the faggot table tonight?' Barry must be able to feel whatever it is emanating from our group. ‘Did someone break a nail?'

The only one of us to make a sound is Kim, a sort of guffaw verging on a donkey bray, followed by an agreement. ‘Yes, this is a fucking faggot table tonight. Fucking twitching miserable Brits, a love-struck Aussie and a Montana moron.'

We all just stare. I look for the hairline crack that must be running through Kim's head somewhere. Jungle ganja breaking a good mind.

Jussy just shakes his head at Kim, Julie's hand grasps her Bintang as though she is about to swing it at him, and Marty's face moves through various expressions as he probably tries to think of something to impress Julie and belittle Kim. Nothing leaves his mouth. Geoff is the only one who doesn't react.

I, on the other hand, am dealing with the other I, the other me, only I'm not sure which one is which anymore. There's something trying to pull me up and out of my seat and punch Barry straight in the face. There's another force keeping me stuck to the chair. Images of the bar in England, quaking in my shoes, being useless in the face of aggression, swirl around inside me. Thoughts of New Me
facing up to the Ben Sherman shirt at Bukit Lawang mix in the mucky mental soup. Who am I to be tonight? I know who I want to be, but being afraid is the most crippling of afflictions.

I look to the clock. It now struggles to move on. Time hangs off its arms like weights.

They will be here soon, but I wish they were here, now, in this moment.

—Why wait?

Just what I need now to add to my schizoid confusion.

—Why wait? You've got it in you. You froze once and that was OK. You learn from it. You have learnt. You weren't scared of that Liverpudlian.

—I was stoned. It wasn't even me, either of me.

—It was. Your mind was just free to let your body do what it wanted.

—I'll get pummelled. Or pee myself. Or both. Or I'll just get tongue-tied and laughed at and end up looking a twat.

—What do you care? What happened to the new you? Don't give a shit, remember? Do whatever, say whatever, take no prisoners.

That is true. She has a point. What's happened to that?

—Perhaps I can't change, at the end of the day.

—Misery? Loss? Poor little boy with dead girlfriend? Nothing matters? What happened to what I made you? You mean I died for no reason? Or perhaps your little Indian girlfriend, what's her name, Eka? Perhaps she's having more of an effect on you than you realise.

—Oh shut up. She's nothing compared to what you were. And you, you just died. That's it exactly. Died with no consideration for me.

—I didn't do it deliberately. I just did it. I just forgot people drive on the other side of the road there. That's all. So, yes, I died with no consideration for you. I was in too much pain to consider you. It hurt too much. It hurt. I considered me and shuffled off this mortal coil because it just hurt too much. Any idea how that felt? That much pain? Ever considered that, Ice-Cream Boy?

I try to blank my mind from her. It fails. She always manages to get in there.

—I didn't think so. So go ahead, give my death some reason. Grow some and go and tell that Canadian woman-beater what a shit he is.

Big slow footsteps, heavy behind me. Chair legs scrape back across the tiles. One, two, three heavy bodies sit on creaking wooden chairs. It's like I can see out of the back of my head. It's a Western, the gunslingers have walked in and the piano stops playing, poker players stare with forgotten hands, and the barman moves the expensive bottles off the shelves. Sort of. At least everyone's staring at whoever's sitting behind me, but Mei's most expensive bottles are all in the fridge and are all the same price, there is no piano, and this is a no-gambling country. But the effect is still close enough.

I shift in my seat to look behind me. I recognise two of them as Charles' guards and the other I've seen loitering in the Iguana. Here they are. The cavalry.

—Lucky you. Don't need your balls after all. There's six the size of coconuts just behind you.

—Well, I'll do the talking. They'll do the muscle bit.

My confidence has grown. The moment is here and I can change the whole mood of the evening. Newbie will save the day, with a little help from his friends.

Whispers cross the room from Barry's table, followed by laughter.

‘You packed your bags yet, faggot boy?' The Canadian voice kills the silence and my Western movie metaphor; they don't know the muscle is my backup.

—Go on. Be Clint Eastwood. Clean up this town.

‘Oh, shut the fuck up.' The words come out loud and angry and unexpected. So much for internal conversations.

‘Oh, one of the girls is menstruating.' More laughter from across the room. Mei presses the remote to turn the TV on, perhaps in some hope of calming the room.

‘What you doing?' asks Julie in a hushed voice, while others stare at me.

Three large bodies give off heat behind me.

—Feel lucky, punk?

—Not really, but bugger it.

I stand. I turn.

‘Look out, Barry. He'll kill with his verb tenses.' The German strokes a large moustache that lies across a puffy, moist face, and looks to his wife, who stays expressionless. Barry sits back in his chair and smirks. Biceps I've never noticed before pour out from under his T-shirt sleeves.

I look to Charles's guards and although they are looking nowhere in particular, my balls grow. The opposite of the expected shrinkage.

It's like the mushrooms have kicked in again as I walk across the bar. Ten steps that feel like an hour each. During not one minute of one of those hours do I think about sitting back down, running or fainting. What's the worst that can happen?

—You could die.

—If that's the worst, then I welcome it.

—Liar.

—I miss you, and this here, this moment, is nothing. This is what I want. I want nothing else to care about. I'm not scared of dying.

—Easy to say with backup.

‘Can you, Barry'—my finger, strangely steady, points at him— ‘please keep your mouth shut when we are in this bar?' I'm by their table. The three of them are turned towards me. German's wife goes to the toilet.

‘Sit back down, son,' says the Englishman, wobbling on his fence.

‘No, not yet.'

‘Come and sit down,' says Julie from behind me. Marty mutters agreement.

‘Fucking Newbie is back on form. Yeah. Go get him, Newbie.'

Sighs and then silence again after Kim's input.

I wait, expecting to hear the sound of chair legs scraping tiles as three strong Chinese make their move. But no. Just more silence.

Just as well. I'd do this anyway. With or without them.

—Brave and all lack of self-care, I am impressed. But you're going to get creamed, Ice-Cream Boy.

—It'll do me good. Might even wake me up. Now hush.

‘And I'd like you to apologise to my friend Geoff.'

Barry shakes his head and with each shake the smirk widens.

‘Anything else? Fag.' Hate pours from him like piss from a burst colostomy bag.

‘Stop hitting Mei.'

He stands up, his chair flies and skids across the floor on its back.

‘You…' Glasses leave his face and are placed on the table. Squidgy little eyes. People look different when you see them for the first time without glasses. They look lost.

‘Me what? Faggot?' I use his favourite word. ‘Haven't you got any other insults in that ape head?'

He stutters for a second and blinks.

‘Pussy.' He spits it out, but there's not a lot of venom to his attempted strike.

I laugh. Something strange is going on.

—You're not backing down, numbnuts. Keep it up. He's floundering.

‘Now first, say sorry to Geoff.'

‘Fuck that.' Barry takes a step to the side of the table.

I hear a chair move behind me. No, not now. I don't want the help now. I want the battering. I want to feel and I want to bleed.

‘Apologise.' A voice from behind. An Australian voice.

Barry squints as he looks behind me at Marty, like he's trying to read a distant road sign. More chairs scrape across Mei's tiled floor.

‘Yeah. Apologise, dude. And apologise to Mei, too, on your way out.' These aren't Chinese voices. That one is from Montana.

I look behind. Marty, Jussy and Julie are standing. Kim has both hands running through his hair and Geoff, although still seated, is almost smiling at the beer bottle he holds. Kim pulls his hands out of his mop.

‘Fuck it, Newbie. I'm with you. Fucking apologise, Barry. You dick.' He stands and pops a cigarette in his mouth and lights it. ‘I fucking love this country.' Then he giggles like a four-year-old.

The Oriental backup have heads turned away, watching football on the TV like it's the only thing happening in the room.

Sweat patches are spreading out across Barry's tight-fitting T-shirt.

‘Fuck you, faggot.' He steps part way around the table.

‘Apologise, Barry.' A female voice, so far unheard.

He stops again and looks at Mei, who has come out from behind her counter. In her hand is a baseball bat. This is turning into the best film I've seen.

‘Get back behind the counter, Mei. I'll deal with you later.'

‘No. You apologise. Then you leave. You not come back, Barry.'

‘Get back behind the fucking counter, Mei, before I put you there.'