Golden Biker

by Alexander Von Eisenhart Rothe

  “Great. They hate us. And what’s next according to your ingenious scheme?” Arthur wanted to know, just about dodging a squishy melon.

  Bear shrugged his shoulders “What kind of scheme? I just wanted to perform in front of so many people!”

  Momentarily the security personnel were more then ready to evict the troublemakers. A plan, which was utterly working in Shaki’s favour.

  “We’ll take care of them!” he shouted to one of the security men, then he snapped his fingers at Number One and Two.

  “Philistines!” Number One yelled at the audience. He had thought himself of having performed rather well.

  Arthur’s gaze wandered from the crazed audience in front to the fast approaching gangsters behind him. “What now?”

  “Stage-Diving!” Bear answered curtly.

  “What?”

  Head forwards Bear dived from the stage straight into the audience who did not even have room enough to evade him.

  Arthur quickly look behind him, then took a few steps back and jumped after him. Not only was this most probably the first stage dive in history performed into an utterly disappointed audience, it was the altogether first stage dive in India and the only reason why Bear and Arthur had not fallen flat onto the concrete floor, was that it was just too tightly packed.

  “Stop them! By all means, stop them, somehow!!” Shaki shouted at his men, Number One pulled his gun and yelled: “Stop, don’t move!” and fired two shots into the air. That was a mistake. Instantly panic broke out within the crowd. Loud screams erupted and everyone trampled towards the exits. Within seconds Bear and Arthur were swallowed up and swept away by the screaming mob.

  Shaki threw an angry look at Number One. “Congratulations! You are just the same idiot as Rajnesh!”

  “Take that! And that! Yipieh!!!” With a demented look in his eyes, Rajnesh jumped up and down on the already completely wrecked remains of the motorcycles, uttering wild howls of triumph. Frightened, Ashok and his men had retreated a few steps, if only they could get out of harms way of the rotating car jack, still circling around Rajnesh’s head like a spinning top thrashing at everything that stood in its way.

  “Ehm, Ashok?” One of the gipsies pulled at his leader’s sleeves. “How about, we let this lunatic rage on by himself? We really would all like to go inside now. The concert is about to start!”

  But Ashok was deeply buried in self-accusations. He grabbed the gipsy and pulled him towards him.

  “Whatever went wrong? Why can’t I do it? Rajnesh is going berserk and it was me whoenticed him to do so. All that damage—all my fault!”

  “But Ashok” the man tried to calm him down, while in the background Rajnesh was busy throwing one wheel of the motorbike against a parked car like a discus, “Forget the guy. We are all going inside the hall, enjoy the concert and tonight we’re all going to sit around a campfire somewhere and make some music! Just like real gipsies!”

  “Roma and Sinti!” admonished him Ashok without any true conviction. Suddenly he paused.

  “Do you also feel the ground shaking?”

  A couple of hundred yards away at that moment, a veterinarian pulled his arm out of the anus of an elephant with a smacking sound and looked at the thermometer in his hand.

  “Slightly above normal, nothing to be worried about!”

  But still the mahout looked worried, the bull had acted strangely even before the Polo match.

  He was nervous, edgy, and would not obey his commands.

  “Is he going to be able to play tomorrow?” the mahout demanded to know. Mahatma, a twelve-year-old elephant bull, was the star of the team. Since he’d been playing in the team, they had not lost one single match yet. The only problem was, that he seemed to be the most paranoid elephant that the mahout had ever sat upon. Whereas other elephants are known to be afraid of very small animals (mice, hamsters, rats etc.) Mahatma had a panic attack every time he saw a very big animal. Although there were not many animals that were bigger then him, on a bad day, the mere sighting of another elephant was enough for him, to send him into a hysterical amok run. This was not helped by the fact that Mahatma was a natural leader; a born alpha male, and all other elephants followed him wherever he went. Big noisy crowds of humans, which are often to be found on the field surrounding a polo match, additionally filled him with horror. That was all in all a not so ideal prerequisite for a career as a polo elephant. The solution to this predicament was to blindfold him before every game and have him blindly following the mahout’s instructions. The effect was mind-boggling—no elephant could reach the ball faster then Mahatma, none could cut tighter curves or shove away any opponents. The team went from victory to victory (unbeknownst to the vet and the mahout was the fact that Mahatma had no idea that he was a) an elephant and b) a polo player. Inside his big skull the idea had manifested itself that he was a fiery racehorse).

  The game today had also been victorious, thanks to Mahatma. Afterwards the mahout had led him away from the rest of the team to take off his blindfold and to wash off his ornamental paintings. But the elephant bull seemed in a somewhat agitated mood. He mulishly threw the hay around himself, which his mahout had lovingly piled up for him. Did he just show the caprices of a star or was he seriously ill? To be certain he had called for the team’s veterinarian who immediately had rolled up his sleeve and as usual had immersed his forearm into the elephant’s rectum.

  “Not to worry!” the doctor said finally with an air of confidence while cleaning himself up,

  “Mahatma will be fit to play tomorrow!”

  “Just tell me doc,” the mahout asked, glancing at the arm of the veterinarian, “the way you take the temperature, is that really necessary? Isn’t there any other way?”

  “Yes, there is actually, but in my experience, this method has quite a calming effect on the animals.”

  As a matter of fact, the elephant seemed to have quietened down somehow. Languidly he reached for the hay with his trunk and started to stuff himself.

  The vet snapped his bag shut. “Until tomorrow, absolute rest. He seems a bit on the edge, so don’t make him nervous. We don’t want him to go crazy again, do we?”

  At this very moment the earth began to tremble and a loud clamour arose. The mahout, the doctor and Mahatma raised their heads in surprise. A huge panicky human mass came squeezing out from the opposite concert hall, trampling everything down that was getting into its way. Market stalls, flagpoles, billboards, as well as non-suspecting passers—by, all were swept away like a deluge onto the street and into the polo field. Those elephants that were still standing free trumpeted in alarm, when they saw the screaming bipeds running towards them. Within seconds they tore themselves away looking for their leader. Mahatma’s nervously twitching eye increased in intensity as he saw six pachyderms approaching followed by a very, very noisy horde of people.

  With a start Sherie was wide-awake—feeling absolutely fine. The overdose of Golden Biker vapours obviously had left her without any traces, on the contrary, she actually felt great. She distinctively remembered the campfire, and Hermann who had so maliciously burnt the precious marihuana and after that… only a very peaceful, warm feeling, a feeling that was still lingering on enveloping her wholesomely. It seemed to her that everything in the world was marvellously beautiful and only created to make her happy. “Hello tree!” she whispered at the leafy canopy above her head, and to her it looked like the most beautiful tree she had ever seen, almost as if this was the first tree she had consciously seen in her life. Sherie closed her eyes again. Carefully she probed the ground around her with her hand. She felt grass, freshly mowed grass, some grassy blades got stuck to her fingers and she smelled the green aroma in the air. “Hello meadow!” she murmured dreamily and opened her eyes again.

  The evening had come but in the dusk she could still recognise the monkeys frolickin
g in the branches of the trees. How many times had she cursed them, loud ferocious animals that they were, but now to her they seemed to be the most docile and the funniest of animals. “Hello monkeys!” she shouted up to them giggling. She turned to her side. “Oh, hello Gerd!” she whispered as she discovered Gerd lying on the grass next to her. He was lying on his back and seemed to be asleep. She smiled at him. Again he had rescued her, for the second time now. Why would he do that? But if he had rescued her it could only mean that he had taken on Hermann’s army, all of them—just to save her life. Little wonder that he had to rest. All these rescuing missions surely must be very tiring. She pictured herself how the rescue would have gone down, how he had knocked down Hermann’s soldiers, one after the other only to have carried her here to this place to lay her down in the grass, after that he sank down beside her, exhausted and eventually must have fallen asleep. Never before had anybody done anything like that before, it was so heroic, so valiant. She took a blade of grass and let it wander over his nose. Immediately he grimaced and without opening his eyes tried to hit at the respective insect. Giggling she rejected the blade and started anew. Then Gerd opened his eyes.

  “What... what happened?” he stammered obviously disorientated.

  “Did you know, that you are the most outstanding man, I have ever met?” she crooned full of honest admiration.

  Gerd was confused. Just moments ago he was having a conversation with a friendly dwarf, who had appeared from out of nowhere, only to offer him a smoke and now he was lying in a meadow somewhere, flat on his back, and with absolutely no clue how he had gotten here. It took him a while before his stupefaction had decreased to a degree that he was able to pronounce some words. “Ehm... what have I done this time?”

  “Don`t be so modest, my hero!” she winked at him seductively. “For a start you’re in for a hero’s reward.”

  She moved closer, bending over him closing her eyes slowly thereby lowering her face on to his. Startled she jerked back—her tender kiss had been answered by something cold and hard, due to the fact that she had smooched the barrel of a gun.

  “Sorry to be a nuisance!” hissed Babu, Bombay’s most dangerous freelance killer smiling coldly down at her, retreating his weapon. “Get up! Now!”

  “Can one not have a moment of peace?” Sherie groaned irritated.

  Gerd got onto his feet, cleaned the grass from his knees and raised his arms in the air.

  “Come on, you too!” Babu gnarled at Sherie, who was reluctantly getting up.

  “And now... you’re going to kill us, or what?” she taunted him with a sneer.

  Babu put the long barrel under her nose. “As far as you’re concerned, young lady, you belong to Bábaa. He is anxiously waiting for you!”

  Sherie gave him a snappish smile. “May I introduce you then to a very painful experience?”

  She pushed Gerd in the small of his back. “Go on, let him have it!”

  Gerd looked at her in stupefaction. “Are you nuts? He’s got a gun!”

  “So what, didn’t Hermann’s soldiers have a full arsenal?”

  “Hermann’s soldiers? What have they got to do with this?”

  “My rescue, you must have managed to...”

  “SHUT UP!” Babu cut in angrily, “would you please be so kind and direct your attention towards me again for a change?”

  They both looked at him expectantly, arms up in the air.

  Babu regarded them.

  “Now, I’ve forgotten what I wanted to say...” he snarled angrily.

  Shrill shrieks from the treetops interrupted the embarrassed silence. All three looked up. The monkeys all seemed to be fleeing away from something. At that instant they heard the trampling and the cries of the panicking crowd. A stampede of wild trumpeting elephants and disorientated Indians all yelling made the earth tremble. Babu looked in bewilderment at how this tsunami of men and beasts was rolling right towards them. Sherie took advantage of the situation and forcefully kicked his shinbone. Babu cried out in pain bending over.

  “Come on, let’s go!” Sherie yelled pulling the stunned Gerd by his arm—right into the screaming mass of people.

  Panic! 30.000 Indians whose brain had been switched to autopilot were hysterically pouring out of the concert hall. Those few, who in the middle of all of this had second thoughts like:

  “Hey, what’s this all about, really?” were steamrolled without any mercy. The only reason why Arthur and Bear had not yet been trampled into the ground was, that they had been following the most important rule when being swept away in a torrent: Always go with the flow and try to get across to one side. The entrance, e.g. exit was the eye of the needle through which the hordes had to pass. Eventually, the mass of humans, behaving like headless chicken, had spat Arthur and Bear out through one of the side entrances.

  “WHERE TO?” Arthur shouted against the din.

  Bear thought for a moment and decided for the parking lot. “Follow me!” he yelled and started running. They jumped over a barrier, cut through a small patch of grass, finally reaching the muddy parking area, where a similar chaos had ensued. Nearly every owner of a movable vehicle wanted to leave the area as fast as possible and all at the same time. The sound of metal hitting metal filled the air, mixed with the dissonant concert of car horns, squealing tires, howled curses and screams of panic. Somewhere an elephant was heard trumpeting.

  “Look, my motorbike!!! These assholes...!” Bear had discovered the sad remains of his motorcycle. What Rajnesh had left of it, had only the slightest resemblance with what once had been a proud Enfield Bullet. Bear was about to throw himself at it but Arthur took him back by his sleeve.

  “Don`t! Look who’s standing there! That’s one of Shaki’s men, isn’t it?” Arthur pointed at Rajnesh, who was still holding the car jack in his hand looking at the results of his demolition rage with a manic expression in his eyes. A motley crew of dangerous looking individuals, trying to calm him down, surrounded him, without much success it seemed.

  Bear was simmering with rage and tore himself away. “He’s one of Shaki’s men alright! I’ll have a word with that squirt!”

  At this very moment Rajesh too had spotted them. Immediately he started to attack them, howling like a maniac, the car jack swinging above his head.

  “This guy’s totally insane!” Arthur cried out making a beeline, “Scram!”

  They ran back across the lawn, followed closely by an ululating Rajnesh. As soon as they had crossed the barrier again, they saw Shaki, as well as number One and Two, who were rushing out of the hall, directly coming towards them.

  “To the main street!” Bear yelled at Arthur, taking a sharp left turn. Arthur looked straight ahead at Shaki and his men, then looked back at Rajnesh and tried to follow Bear as fast as he could.

  “In here!” Bear headed towards a parked tuc-tuc, which had been parked right in front of the entrance to the hall. In front of it a black and yellow clad Indian stood sentry.

  “This is the tuc-tuc of the master, no one is allowed to touch it!”

  “I got no time for this!” Brutally, Bear shoved him aside and jumped into the small vehicle, followed by Arthur.

  “Do you know how to drive such a thing?” he asked breathlessly as Bear started the motor.

  “Do you really want to discuss this now, or rather leave?” Bear asked and let it rip.

  Babu was still closing in on the heels of Sherie and Gerd. They tried to squeeze through the masses as best as they could, but the riptide swept them along. Every time they turned around, they saw Babu, who obviously was not committed to catch up with them. It rather seemed as if he was simply chasing them in front of him, sometimes increasing the distance between them and then again catching up with them, but always in such a way that he could keep a clear view of them.

  What was he up to? Gerd t
hought to himself, his hand tight with Sherie’s, in order not to loose her in the melee. When he saw Babu, still locking eyes with them, as he talked into his mobile, he had a terrible suspicion. The other one! In Bombay they had been a twosome, dressed in their identical black suits. Where was this other guy? Was Babu just chasing them in front of him so that they were falling right into his arms?

  “We have to get out of here!” he shouted at Sherie.

  “And where to?”

  His eyes frenetically scanned the area. The current of people was pouring into the main street now following its course into the city centre. To get to the other side of the street was simply impossible without getting trampled to death.

  “The overpass!” Gerd cried out, pointing at a small bridge spanning the street in front of them in a high arch. Sherie nodded. Together they fought their way amongst the masses to where the staircase was. Babu, who seemed to have noticed this, was talking into his mobile phone.

  Gerd was the first to reach the overpass: He grabbed hold of the iron railing and pulled Sherie out of the deluge, which continued to pour straight on under the bridge.

  “Get up, quick!” he yelled at her and they ran up the stairs. Having reached the top they could see Babu down below who had just reached the first landing of the staircase, still following them unnerved like a robot. He still did not seem to be in any hurry.

  Gerd and Sherie started to run over the arched bridge. As they reached the zenith, they froze in mid step. On the opposite side, leaning on the railing there was Willie, already expecting them, in one hand he was holding his phone and in the other a little crossbow which he waved at them in a nonchalant way. Sherie turned round in terror. Behind them Babu could not suppress a malicious smile. The trap was shut, sure of their victory the killers were moving down on them like intrepid rolling tanks from both sides closing in on them in the middle of the passage way.