This story was written by my brother. ZW "A Night in Paradise" "The Barrel Inn" She whispers in my ear... "I love you no shit, you take me dancing!" The monsoon rains had just stopped. I could smell her beside me in the dark. She smelled like those little white flowers that they make leis out of for good luck... what were they called? "You put on cloths and take me dancing now..." She had slipped off the bed like a cat hunting a wild pig in the jungle and was pulling on my leg. "You make promise!" I could see her slender naked form glowing, all green and red, from the neon light coming in through the window off the street below. "Ok Lily, lets go dancing." Tagg and I had told the girls we'd take them dancing at the big Disco in town earlier in the day. It was late now, maybe midnight. "Get dressed, get dressed! She already had her dress on and was pulling my pants on me before I could stand up. Dancing was serious business for these girls, and I made a promise, if I fucked around too long she'd give me the *"butterfly". The same"butterfly" that would protect me while I slept. Nice girl. She pull hard on my hand, giggly and already dancing, as she lead me down the steep , narrow stairs, paneling worn thin from generations of brothers,grandfathers, and uncles shoulders bumping down the walls. All being pulled by a smiling brown skinned girl, off to dance... The air was heavy on the street, full of the smells of diesel fumes, grilled meat, tropical flowers, sweat, and raw sewage. Tagg stood there with a half smoked cigarette, not yet lit, hanging from his mouth. His girl, prancing around impatiently, instantly burst into an excited conversation with Lily on the virtues of dancing in her local dialect. A beautiful bubbling language, like softly boiling rose water. "Took your time..." mumbled Tagg. "I was catching a few Z's" I said as I pulled out my Zippo and sparked up a flame for him. He took a heavy drag and then spit. "Shit man, she's been givin' me hell for the last half hour! Thought she was gunna make me bleed!" "Big guy like you afraid of a sweet little thing like that?" I said laughing. "Fuck y.." Before he could finish the girls were dragging us through the bustling late night revelers filling the main street.The Fleet was in port and the crew needed to blow off some steam. Some men more than others..We wanted to forget why we were on this side of the world, and the harsh realities of our insane lives trapped on those gray, floating steel behemoths. All around were stumbling, drunk to the gills sailors. Ear to Ear grin-howl at the moon-give me all life's got in a beer bottle and I'll drink a case-sailors. Each one getting the most out of their shore leave before the long days ahead at sea. The club was packed. The dance floor couldn't be seen through the thick crowd, but that was not going to stop these girls! Lily squeezed my hand tight, got kinda low, and then, like a miniature linebacker, started driving straight across the dance floor. Dancers parted as she pushed through and I noticed Tagg being pulled along in our wake by his girl, also in this low linebacker position. They were pro's. Lily pointed to a table by the dance floor and signaled for me to get some drinks as she spun off with Taggs girl, out on the floor, dancing with each other. I sat down and lit up a smoke while Tagg yelled to a cocktail waitress. My head was still feeling the effects of the alcohol from earlier in the day, but I ordered some beers for Tagg and myself, and some fancy expensive drinks for the girls. Before the first round was done the girls had gotten worked up into a frenzy. It went on... for hours. Drunk, sweaty, bodies squeezed, bumped, rubbed, and laughed in one big, long, loud erotic swaying mass. By about three o'clock the girls were too drunk and too tired to dance anymore. It was time to take them home. After dropping the girls off with "Mama-San", Tagg and I went back to our roost at the "Barrel Inn". It was a small dive off the main street near the port. A pool table, a juke box, some cold beers, and the cutest girls on the island. What more do you need. Tagg ordered a beer and I slipped out the back door into the alley and lit up a joint. It was going to be a fine morning.Tagg stepped out, peered into the dark looking for me, then reached for the joint. "I'm bored." he said, taking a hit. "I want to go score some acid." He hands me the joint as I give him a somewhat puzzled look. "Acid?... you want to score some acid?" "yea....acid! you can get anything here, and I want to trip, so I'm gunna score some acid! you got my back?" "Sure, sounds like fun, but I aint stickin' no shit in my mouth that mother nature don't provide while I'm here." "Suit yourself, I'm gunna score some acid!" "So how do you plan on doing this scoring?" I ask, drawing in the thick smoke from the jungle herb. It was coming on strong, as expected. "I don't know... fuck! lets go for a walk." I take another deep hit and flick the roach. I was feeling a second wind coming on and we still had a few days left of shore leave... "Ok, lets go score some acid." The rains had started again so we ducked under shop awnings as we zig-zagged up the street. Tagg asking every Jeepnee and trike driver along the way for acid. I bought a big handful of barbecued "monkey-meat" on a stick from a crippled woman and her daughter. She was grilling it on an old oil can brazier there on the street. This was her world, day in and day out. This is all she has to pass to her daughter. What will be her world tomorrow? Sometimes this city can break your heart. I hear Tagg whistle and I turn to see him jumping on a taxi trike with a local. "This is it man, jump on!" I pull out an excessive amount of money from my pocket and drop it at the little girls feet and look at her for a moment. She looked back at me, picked up the money and held it tight to her chest. I nearly broke. "Why the fuck are we here fucking with these people?" I think to myself. "Hey man , come on!" I put my hand to my back pocket and feel the familiar bulge of the automatic knife. "Ok..." I tell myself, taking a deep breath to try to clear my head. "we're on." I jump in the back with Tagg as the driver twists hard on the throttle. The local clings to the back, and in a burst of blue smoke we cut through the crowd and into the rainy streets. Tagg lights up a cigarette, closes his eyes and throws his head back. Half a block up the street, another local, comes trotting out in the street right for us and jumps on. The trike hunches and swerves a bit but the driver seems to take no notice. We speed past familiar streets until things get very unfamiliar...crossing a bridge over a small river, I realize we are heading to the barrios out on the edge of the city in the jungle. I hadn't been on this side of the city, this side of the jungle, and I was a bit too drunk, and stoned, to keep my bearings. Tagg was no help, head back, eyes closed, half a cigarette hanging out of his mouth humming some stupid pop tune. After too many turns through alleys and side streets, I was lost! "This is not good." I thought. Pulling out a cigarette, I look over at the man Tagg had been talking to back in the city. He turns to me, smiles, and nods his head. I light my cigarette and turn to the guy clinging to the other side of the trike. He turns his head, smiles, and nods. I take a big drag on my smoke and look at the back of the head of the driver then at Tagg. "What the fuck is going on here?" I think to myself. As we get farther out of the city, into the barrios, the buildings turn to poorly built houses, then to tar-paper covered bamboo shacks. This is where those that survive in the margins of the city sleep, live, love , raise family's and hope for a better day. We pull to a stop in front of one of these shacks, to a chorus of barking dogs. They could smell us. We smelled unfamiliar, threatening, white. The two men jumped off and motioned for us to follow them. Tagg opened his eyes, smiled, and got out of the trike. I got out and lit another cigarette. The driver sped off as we walked into a darkened entrance leading into a small room cut in half by a thin gossamer piece of cloth. Arranged around a small, non-functioning television, were wooden crates covered with military blankets which we all sat on. Hanging over our heads was a naked 60 watt light bulb, complaining as it struggled to illuminate the four men sitting in the room. Tagg starts asking about the acid again and I realize that these locals don't really speak English. Tagg sure as hell doesn't speak the local dialect, and what little I know is only good for making the girls blush. "Shit...what the fuck??" I think, as another man walks into the room. Tagg pays no attention and continues to try to make his request understood. The conversation gets loud and very confused. I look around and try to take stock of the situation. Tagg and I are sitting with our backs against the front wall, close to the door. The two men that we arrived with were sitting across from us on the other side of the T.V. The third man that had just came in, stood there in the doorway, leaning against the jam. Then I get a chill. Three sets of eyes were peering at me through the gossamer sheet that was just behind the two men. I could make out faint shapes in the dark behind the curtain. One was an adult... female by the look of the eyes, the other two had to be children. Suddenly, one of the men Tagg was speaking to gets up and goes out a back door. Tagg keeps repeating "Acid, acid... do you understand?" to the other man. The man in the doorway starts nervously shuffling from one foot to the other every time Taggs voice booms out of his 6' 3", 200+ pound mid-western farm boy frame. I look at the eyes behind the sheet again and see something that disturbs me. In each set of eyes I see... fear... of what? Of us? Of what will happen when the man who left returns? I turn and look at the men in the room. They seem to have this same nervous fear in their eyes. Then at that second... he returns, coming through the back as he had left, startling everyone, with his closed fist held out in front of him. I was already on my feet with my hand in my pocket, finger on the switch to my automatic knife. Tagg jumps up and holds out his hand with a grin like a young boy on Halloween night. The local drops two tablets into Taggs hand, who instantly throws them in his mouth and swallows with an uncomfortable comedic gesture to all present. I toss a wad of bills on the T.V. at the same time I grab Tagg and push my shoulder into the guy standing in the doorway. The momentum of that drunk farm boy Tagg, half falling over backwards from my pull, propelled us out into the thick morning air before our hosts knew what happened. I kept pulling Tagg and walking at a fast pace amongst the barking of dogs as Tagg proclaimed, "Told ya I'd score..." "Fuck you!" I said "That was bullshit! Lets get out of here quick, we don't belong here!" "Yea, you're right, we don't... we never do. Uhh where are we anyway?" "In the barrios on the east side of the city, I think, you slept all the way here you shit!" I said. "I wasn't asleep... I was thinking, besides, I'm not worried, you'll find a way back. You always do." He was right. This wasn't the first time we found ourselves where we weren't supposed to be, and I was pretty lucky so far at getting us back unscathed. After a few blocks the dogs settled down and stopped barking. It was starting to get light, which gave me a better sence of direction. I pulled out a joint and lit up. I slowed my pace confident now that I was east of the city and was fairly sure we could make it back to the Barrel Inn before it go too hot. It was a beautiful morning and the joint was easing the tension of the night. We walked for what seemed like hours before we made it to the city center. "I'm not feeling anything." Tagg said "those fuckers ripped me off and gave me aspirin or some shit!" We jumped on a jeepnee and rode it to the Barrel Inn. Lily was waiting. Poor thing look tired from dancing and drinking. Tagg and I sat down, opened a beer, and took our tongue lashings for staying out and leaving the city. We finished our beers and then I got up and went upstairs with Lily. I took my cloths off, lay down on the bed and lit a cigarette. I chuckled to myself...."Aspirin...acid..." Those locals didn't know what that dumb farm boy was asking for. They went all out to get some crazy white devil some aspirin... The monsoon rains started up their soft lullaby. Lily lay down beside me with the smell of flowers. She stroked my hair, and whispered in my ear... "I love you no shit, you take me dancing..." "Ok Lily, lets go dancing" I drifted off to sleep. *"Butterfly" ; A balisong, otherwise known as a butterfly knife or a Batangas knife or sometimes called Bente Nueve, is a folding pocket knife with two handles counter-rotating around the tang such that, when closed, the blade is concealed within grooves in the handles. In the hands of a trained user, the knife blade can be brought to bear quickly using one hand. `
Well written. You don't tell the reader what country you're in -- Phillippines? Thailand? There are hints about monsoons and a port.
Thank's 'dog, he'll appreciate the compliment. Yeah, he was being purposefully ambiguous about the country, there are other clues besides the monsoons and the port for those who have been...
Ding Ding Ding! Phillipines is correct! Thanks for all the responses, people! I'm trying to talk him(bro) into writing another... ZW
