Where Men Once Walked

by Mark L Watson

  “Yes, good”

  The American opened the driver door of the white Honda estate. The car smelled of hot plastic and dirt and sweat and stale tobacco smoke.

  He swung himself into the seat.

  “Can we start this one?”

  The man nodded and went into the building through the screen door and came back out with a ring of keys and flicked through them and found the correct one and handed it to the American. He put it into the dashboard and turned it and the car spat and rattled and nothing more.

  The kid laughed.

  “What about this one?” the Dutchman asked, holding open the door to the Toyota with four wheels.

  The man handed him the key and he swung into the drivers seat and started the motor and pressed the pedal down a couple of times and a thin plume of black smoke rose from the exhaust but it cleared and the engine settled and it sat running smoothly.

  The Dutchman walked forward to them.

  “How much?”

  The man thought.

  “No driver” he said again.

  “No driver” the Dutchman nodded, “just the car”

  “Thirty lakh”

  He took the key from the motor and the engine died and he held the ring of keys in his hand.

  “Thirty?” the American asked him, his eyes squinting. He looked to the kid.

  The kid turned to him, his eyes thinned.

  “It’s about three million”

  The American nodded.

  “Ah”

  He turned to the man again.

  “We don’t have no three million of anything man”, he turned again to the kid, “what is that?”

  The kid nodded his head to one side and shrugged slightly.

  “In Dollars? Three grand”

  The American scoffed.

  “This piece of shit don’t run cleanly amigo, I ain’t even seen under the hood, I can tell ya it ain’t worth no three grand”

  He knocked his fist on the car.

  The man looked offended.

  “My car, no driver. For driver is one hundred thousand for one day. You take my car you don’t bring my car back here is thirty lakh”

  They looked to each other and the kid stepped closer to the man and spoke to him softly.

  “We can get twenty lakh but we will need to find a bank to get the money”

  “Thirty lakh. Pay with credit card”

  “We will go to the bank now and take everything we can and pay you what we have. We really need your help with this”

  The man was frowning and was not keen on that idea at all but he told them where they could find a bank in the town and they thanked him and set out again into the rain. They returned to him a short while later dripping wet and carrying all the money they were able to get from the bank and it totalled a few hundred thousand less than the quoted price and the man counted it in his hand and folded the notes and put them in his pocket and scratched the side of his head with his thumb and looked at the kid.

  He nodded.

  They thanked him and he again handed the key over and they wished him well and he only nodded and stood with his hands on his hips as they piled their packs into the car and started the motor and reversed it out of his courtyard into the pounding rain.

  They headed west through Kyatpyin under a charcoal sky. The ground, baked dry in the intense heat, could not absorb the rainwater fast enough and it pooled along the roadsides and gushed in streams downhill at every place it could. The windscreen wipers on the old Toyota were turned onto full power but they couldn’t clear the water from their view completely and they took it steady as they weaved west through the countryside as thunder cracked overhead and the sky exploded with lightning. The inside of the car was sticky with damp heat but they could not open the windows or the car would flood with rain and the Dutchman turned the tiny dial on the dashboard to activate the fan and it pushed out a thin stream of mild air, not cooling to them at all.

  They pushed onwards.

  On the outskirts of a town at some place where the shacks began to thin at the roadside, children danced in the road in their shorts and the younger ones in nothing at all and their mothers huddled in the doorways and called to them to mind the car as it passed and they jumped out of the way, barely watching.

  They crossed the river at Shwenyaungbin and passed north again.

  They saw first two men running together down the road calling out in the rain, their voices lost in the thunder and then further on they saw the pony galloping in the middle of the road wildly. They slowed behind it unable to pass and it glanced back at them from the corner of its eyes but kept running and at once kicked and veered wildly to the side of the road and crashed through a table and a chair and sent both flipping into the side of a home. The kid glanced into the rearview mirror for its chasers but they were lost, men and horse, in the blur of rain.

  They made it to Singu with the last of the fuel in the tank and drove into the town to find a garage to buy provisions. The Dutchman had been following their progress on the roadmap unfolded on his lap and he guided them into the town informing them that the crossing at the great Ayeyarwady river was but a few miles north and beyond that they would have clear passage west. They pulled into a fuelling station on the north of the town and pulled up to the petrol pump on the forecourt and refuelled and went inside. The rain had not subsided at all and even in the few yards from their car to the kiosk each man became drenched entirely. They paid for the fuel and bought bottled water and peanuts and fritters served hot from the oven at the back of the store and the Dutchman took a stack of chapattis and a ladle of hot vegetable curry and the old man at the counter put it into a paper cup with a lid. His wide smile was stained red from betel quids and his hollow eyes gave him the look of a bloodied ghoul.

  In Shwebo they passed straight through the centre of the town and turned north to cross the railway and each man kept his head low as they were waved across a military blockade in the road. A uniformed soldier stood in the rain in an old helmet armed with an automatic rifle and beckoned them forward and let them pass without stopping. On the north end of the town as they crossed the moat surrounding that ancient place they met more military police struggling with a horde of farmfolk, their flatbed trucks at all angles in the road and one nose-first in a ditch and they tussled with the soldiers though their words were lost against the sound of the rain. One of the men was trying to get through the crowd and the soldiers held him by the arms as he kicked and two other men pulled him back and it looked as though the man might split apart and in the corner of his eye the kid was sure he had seen the flash of a rifle discharge but he couldn’t be sure and before he could look again they were gone from sight.

  They crossed that evening the bridge at Kalewa and followed the flooded road as it wound along the river bank into the township of Kaleymyo. The rain had stopped and the sky was dark and calm and along the roadside were lined buckets and barrels of rainwater as the people readied themselves for the next drought, should it come.

  There had been an earthquake to the south and there were hills of rubble and splintered wood and the remnants of lives left behind at a place where men once walked. The stonefronted façade of a monastery had disappeared entirely and in the moonlight the golden ornaments inside glistened like stars lost in the sky.

  In a small ramshackle café, hung with old cloths and lit by candles, they ate hot curry and rice noodles from stoneware bowls and drank a beer they didn’t know by name which was warm and the bottles dusty. A group of men sat at a table across from them and watched them eat.

  The American made eye contact with one of their group twice as he ate, a wiry man with a thin beard and a black shirt and a low gaze through cigarette smoke. On the third time the American looked up from his food the man was still watching them and the American held his stare. The man didn’t flinch nor gave anything away by his expression and muttered something softly to his friends. They all looked round and the American looked bet
ween the men. He lifted both hands in a slight shrug and the man laughed and turned his head.

  The Dutchman shook his head to his friend.

  “Don’t”

  The American watched them for a moment longer and returned to his food.

  They finished and settled the bill for the food and drank more of the dusty beer and as they were gathering their things the men were watching them again.

  The American was big in stature and wore only the black vest displaying his broad shoulders and he weighed up his chances again the wiry-framed man with the beard and his friends and thought his odds favourable.

  As they started to leave, one of the men on the table wearing an old cap and ripped blue shirt finished his drink and put the glass down and spat across the table at the kid so that the kid had to step sideways for it to not hit him. The American spun around and the Dutchman restrained him and pushed him backwards towards the door.

  He looked at the man and he looked at the kid and as he turned the man spat a second time.

  The American pushed through the Dutchman and in an instant his huge black leather boot thundered against the side of the man’s metal chair and man and chair skidded, both of them, sideways until both fell to the floor.

  The other three men stood from the table and the man with the beard came forward at them shouting and he came face to chest with the big American and the Dutchman again stepped between them. The man with the cap and ripped shirt pulled himself up from the floor and dusted himself down and picked up his chair. The American stood tall behind the Dutchman who pushed him back and told him they were leaving and put his hand up to the man with the beard to calm the situation. The American stood down and picked up his pack and the three of them turned for the door and the man with the cap and ripped shirt again spat from his chair and laughed.

  The Dutchman himself spun on his heel and brought his fist round firmly to connect with the man’s left temple and the man crumpled under its power and again ended up on the floor with his chair, though this time they both stayed down. The man with the beard grabbed one of the dusty beer bottles from the table and leaped forward into the air at the Dutchman wielding the weapon and landed at the Dutchman’s chest and as he brought the bottle back behind his head the kid grabbed his arm and heaved it backwards, allowing the Dutchman a chance to step back enough to swing a second punch. This time it connected loudly with the man’s nose and it spat blood across the room as his entire head twisted around on his neck in slow motion.

  The man in the cap and ripped shirt was still on the floor and his friends moved backwards towards him and non but the man with the beard wanted to continue their fight and as he righted himself his beard was red with blood and it dripped into his mouth and he looked at them through the tops of his eyes like a demon.

  The café owner had disappeared from behind the counter entirely and there was nobody else in the building.

  After the briefest moment of calm, the man with the beard moved slowly forward to them still holding the bottle. His teeth were red and his eyes wide and glowing like a mad dog and he stepped forward to the Dutchman again and he cocked his arm and brought the bottle back a second time at the Dutchman’s head and the Dutchman put his arm up and the glass shattered against his elbow and cut through the skin and in the same instant the American’s right hand rounded the Dutchman and thundered into the man’s already gushing nose. His head spun so quickly it took most of his body with it and he fell to one knee with his head dropped.

  There was another moment of stillness as the American stood breathing heavily and the Dutchman’s elbow bled into a pool on the wooden floor and the two other men held their friend where he sat on the dusty ground.

  The man with the beard was still on one knee and he snorted and spat blood onto the red floor and touched his nose with his finger for it was surely broken apart. They moved towards the exit and the man with the beard looked up at them from where he was bent on one knee and he called something though they didn’t know what and he didn’t advance at them again and they went out through the open door and back into the hot night.

  They took rest that night in a guesthouse by the church with a low green tiled roof festooned with flags and bunting of all colours. The woodpanelled room had a small bathroom and the mattresses lay on the floor but it was clean and it was comfortable and it was quiet. A white door opened out onto the backyard where the rain had given the place a shine and there showed life yet in the bushes and trees there. They wrapped the Dutchman’s arm in the single bandage the kid carried and when the blood seeped through it and dripped to the floor they wrapped it again in a pillow case from the bed and tied it tight with cord. Each man knew it needed stitches but they were in no position to go to a hospital while wanted by the law there.

  The kid and the Dutchman opened the mosquito nets and took off their boots and climbed onto their beds and the Dutchman was asleep in no time at all. The kid lay awake and could see through the open back door the American sitting on the little white wooden chair with his feet on the barrier, smoking cigarettes and drinking the end of the whiskey.

  “OK out there?”

  The American looked round to him with the cigarette between his lips and inhaled and then exhaled again through his nostrils.

  “Yahuh”

  He turned back to face the garden and rested the bottle on his knee.

  The kid drifted off to sleep and was woken again some time later and all the lights were out and there was a chill in the room.

  He lifted himself up onto his elbow and saw the door still wide open. A light breeze was blowing through the net curtains and the American was no longer on the chair and had clearly not been in his bed for it still lay untouched.

  He sat upright.

  Next to him the Dutchman still slept and the kid had to listen for a moment for his breathing as he lay in a huge pool of dark blood which had come through the stained rag around his arm and drenched the sheet and mattress and had pooled on the timber floor.

  Other than that, the only sound to be heard was the insects outside in the night.

  He almost shrugged it off and went back to sleep but instead he unclipped the mosquito net and climbed out and went outside onto the terrace.

  The American was not there.

  He stepped off the wooden decking and down onto the rough grass and rounded the building and followed the little pathway to the road at the front of the guesthouse. There was nobody out there though he could hear music playing from the town somewhere over the rooftops and the distant sound of a truck engine. He looked both ways into the darkness and listened but there was nothing else to be heard. He almost called out but didn’t for he didn’t know what attention it may attract and he sat down on the dusty wall and yawned.

  He had no idea what time it was and he didn’t know what time he had even gone to sleep but it was still dark about the horizon in every direction so he knew it was still some time until morning. He sat and contemplated which direction the American may have gone and to what purpose.

  He was there for some time until his eyes felt heavy and he almost slipped backwards from the wall and he stood and walked back to the room and climbed back into the bed and left the door ajar should the American return. He jostled the Dutchman lightly but he didn’t stir at all and lay still in the blackened blood and again he listened for the man’s breathing but he was sleeping soundly.

  He was woken again early when the sun was only just up over the slate rooftops and the sky was all shades of pink, and he heard the shouting of the Dutchman who himself had just woken to the great pool of blood he was laying in.

  The Dutchman was sitting on his mattress and his entire body was a copper red where the blood had dried over his skin and matted the blonde hair on his head and his chest. The bedsheet and the pillow and the mattress, once all white, were red and brown and black and the pillowcase around his elbow had stiffened with dried blood. He calmed and peeled himself from the fabric and climbed out
from the mosquito net and stood for a moment without moving, looking like he had been mauled by animals. Next to him the American was asleep in his bed still clothed and booted and mosquito-bitten and with dried blood too on his hand. The acrid smell of whiskey and stale cigarette smoke and the deep iron odour of blood filled the tiny room.

  The kid surveyed the room.

  “I hope nobody walks in here and sees this shit” the kid laughed, shaking his head.

  The Dutchman showered himself with the cold shower and scrubbed his clothes and hung them outside on the wooden barrier to dry in the morning heat. They unwrapped the pillow case from around his elbow and cleaned the wound with water and a towel from the bathroom and dried it. A deep cut ran across the outside of the joint with two smaller ones next to it and a speckling of scratches where the glass has shattered across his arm.

  “It needs stitching” said the kid, wrapping his own clean pillowcase around the wound.

  The Dutchman nodded.

  “I know”

  They bundled the bloodstained pillowcases and the sheet into the bathroom and left them under the running shower and dragged the mattress into the wardrobe and closed the door on it. They wiped down the floor with water and the remaining towels and put them into the shower too.

  The American still slept on the floor.

  With the room as clean as they could get it they gathered their things and the Dutchman pulled on his still wet clothes and placed his boot against the side of the American’s head and jostled it until he spun awake.

  “Get up asshole, we’re going”

  He sat up and slowly pulled himself to his feet and looked about and then picked up his pack.

  “Where’s the other bed gone?”

  “It’s in the wardrobe. Let’s go”

  The American frowned and said nothing and followed them out of the door.

  They left quietly through the front office and the Dutchman left some notes on the tray on the reception counter so that they could replace the ruined bedding.