CHASING LIFE

by Steve Jovanoski

  He pulled himself from the throng of people and pulled his mobile out of his bag to call his parents to let them know he’d arrived safely. He wasn’t planning to be in regular contact but thought he’d owed them that much. His mum fussed over him on the phone, as usual. She asked if he was still taking pills, and he reassured her he wasn’t. The anti-depressants he’d temporarily been taking had made him feel like a sloth. His dad worried why he hadn’t called to let them know when he was leaving. They both sensed their son wasn’t being completely truthful, but Dave’s mind wasn’t up for extended conversations with either one. He tried to convince them all was fine and promised to keep in touch, cutting off any further questioning with a quick goodbye. Dave loved both of them dearly. His parents had been behind him his entire life, and he could never repay them enough.

  The size of the airport left him in awe. It was the engineering itself that impressed the most. He had no problem finding his way around the mammoth structure. A metro line linked the airport to Hong Kong city; he went through customs, exchanged some money, bought an Airport Express pass and boarded the train. There were a few groups of tourists, and some were on their own, like Dave. The train’s comfortable seats made for a pleasant journey, and he stretched his legs and tried to clear his head.

  He gazed through the windows outside, and saw a cloudy damp afternoon. A vast number of apartment buildings came into view as the train accelerated on its twenty-four minute journey. The apartment buildings were sprawled across the island, perched on steep hillsides and stretching high into the sky. This is the real urban jungle, he thought to himself.

  Once the train arrived at Central Station on Hong Kong Island, Dave stepped out eagerly into the unknown. Walking outside in the open air was like entering a sauna. Humid air mixed with a variety of smells hit him unexpectedly. Some smells were food-related and others not so pleasant and better left unknown. All of his senses were bombarded by the electric buzz of life in that densely populated place. He immediately realised that there was no such thing as personal space there as he was jostled on all sides. Yet despite the congestion, traffic flowed seamlessly. A horde of people went about their business uninterrupted, and the city appeared to function like an efficient appliance.

  Dave hailed a taxi and asked to be taken to Wan Chai district. Earl had told him that this was the place to be for someone single and wanting to be close to the action. No matter where he looked, the high-rise towers lined the skyline with elaborate and graceful architecture. He couldn’t help but see it as a testament to humanity’s vanity and ingenuity. After the taxi driver dropped him off at the Ragan Hotel, Dave checked in and took the elevator to his air-conditioned room, which had a double bed and a view of skyscrapers and concrete. He was desperately in need of a shower.

  Chapter 7

  Ragan Hotel was nestled between two larger buildings and was only a block away from the local fish market. Dave’s room was small and clean but stank of cigarettes and beer, prompting him to make a mental note to complain about it to reception. A fresh T-shirt, jeans and casual runners would do for a stroll through the city, he thought. At 8:00 in the evening he had no idea whether to eat and go out or just check out the city on foot. Dinner wasn’t on his mind, but maybe a massage for his stiff neck and sore joints, followed by a drink or two at a quiet bar would be a good idea. He knew he was in the right place for good and cheap massages, after all.

  The freedom of so much choice was liberating and put a smile on his face. The receptionist handed him a tourist map of Hong Kong Island and circled some well-known landmarks. The man squinted at him as if trying to judge the purpose of Dave’s visit, then pointed to Lockhart Road and Wyndham Street. ‘You will find out which you like better,’ he said, grinning. Not knowing whether the receptionist was implying anything or just being friendly, Dave thanked him for the directions.

  He stepped outside into a downpour, which added to the discomfort of the high humidity. The air was thick with foul smells emanating from the fish market and the rubbish-flooded gutters. The streets themselves had turned into small streams from the heavy rain. As Dave walked down a narrow footpath, a car zoomed by and hit a large puddle, drenching him with a wall of water. Small consolation, he thought, that it wasn’t sewage overflow. But he was still pissed off, and his hair was a mess.

  The city was alight with neon. Some shops were closing for the night while others were just opening. People crowded around bus stops, waiting patiently while a sea of commuters rushed in and out of train stations. Taxis thronged the roads, but Dave resisted catching one. Several times he had to stop and backtrack to check the street signs. Even though they were written in both Cantonese and English, some thoroughfares had no signs at all.

  He finally reached Lockhart Road, where a sea of colourful neon lighting flickered in a dazzling night show. Double-decker buses rumbled on each side of the street, spewing diesel fumes. The smell stuck to his skin like wet paper. But he loved it and felt the excitement surging in him with each step deeper into the city. The place had so much energy. Music poured into the streets and people were going in and out of all sorts of bars and nightclubs that dotted the road.

  While a massage was still on his mind, it was the girls outside the bars that captured his attention. He passed a dive bar where dance music boomed from the patio. He could see that inside, waitresses were serving drinks in short miniskirts and extremely tight tops that revealed their cleavage. White middle-aged and overweight men sat around the bar, chatting with provocatively dressed girls a third their age. He shuddered a little at a snatch of conversation that he overheard. There’s something wrong about a teenage girl calling a sixty-year-old man ‘honey’, he thought to himself. From their darker skin and facial features Dave guessed they were either Filipino or Thai.

  This scene didn’t appeal to him and he moved on to where four girls lingered in front of another bar. They were all slim and curvaceous with glistening skin-tight dresses, their faces plastered with bright red lipstick and too much foundation, on heels so high they could hardly walk. They danced provocatively with each other like they were having an orgy, right there in the open. Two of them blocked his path as soon as he was spotted, enticing him in broken English to enter the establishment. Dave found it bizarre. He was curious, self-conscious and embarrassed at the same time.

  ‘Hey, handsome boy.’

  ‘I like you.’

  ‘Come for drink, sexy man.’

  ‘You hot. Come here. I like you.’

  ‘I want to have your baby!’ One called out from inside, just to make sure she wasn’t outdone. They all broke out in laughter and Dave could tell they were taking the piss, poking fun at their own stereotyped image.

  He smiled uneasily and said nothing, feeling extremely self-conscious, as if the attention of the whole neighbourhood had turned on him. He walked briskly on and looked straight ahead as if wearing blinkers. The whole area felt like an open-air brothel. Now he understood why the hotel receptionist had given him that look. Because he was travelling alone, the man must have thought that he had come for the sex tourism, hence the directions to the red-light district.

  Dave had heard about Hong Kong’s renowned flesh-peddling market. In his state of mind, sleazy bars and cheap prostitutes were not a good idea. Julia was still with him. He carried her presence with him as if she watched his every move. These girls are after your money, Dave, he heard her voice say. Are you really that desperate? Hearing her imagined voice, he asked himself why he was there.

  No way would he follow in the footsteps of the men he saw, being relieved of his earnings and escaping reality for a few hours by drowning in alcohol and prostitutes. No way, he thought. He wasn’t sure what was sadder: the young girls selling their bodies to pasty-skinned white men who couldn’t string a sentence together in the presence of a woman back home, let alone hold a relationship, or the men who fell for the compliments and thought of themselves as somehow special and charismatic to those girls.

/>   He was determined to find a normal bar with decent clientele. A neon sign read ‘Blue Lake’. Inside was a mix of men and women around his age. Dave hesitated but, wanting a drink, pushed past the door. Girls by far outnumbered guys, the latter mostly European and Australian. He felt eyes on him, but he still had his blinkers on and headed straight for the bar.

  ‘I’ll have a pot of beer—whatever you’ve got on tap­—a packet of cigarettes and a lighter,’ he said to the barmaid. He paid for the drink and went outside for a smoke. He placed his beer on a table and sparked up, slowly dragging in a long breath and savouring the moment. A satisfying feeling ran through his body as the nicotine did its job.

  Dave noticed two girls and a young man at a table next to him. The man was scolding one of the girls with permed hair and, judging by his accent, Dave guessed him to be eastern European—Russian, perhaps. When he looked in their direction, the girl caught his eye, a skinny little thing in high heels. Her mouth was disproportionately large for her face and the cheap red lipstick and runny mascara did her no favours. She wore a tight singlet and an equally undersized skirt. There is no way she could bend over in that thing without flashing everyone, he thought. A loud nasal tone came out of her mouth and she grinned to show horse-like teeth.

  ‘Hello honey,’ she said, winked and blew him a kiss. Dave cringed.

  ‘What are you doing?’ her companion responded with jealousy.

  ‘It’s okay. I still like you, baby,’ she cooed, stroking his face.

  ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you looking at him?’ the young man demanded. Dave listened to them arguing. When the man was distracted by one of his friends, the girl turned to Dave again. She gave him a wide smile and whipped her tongue at him, twirling and flicking it obscenely. She placed her hands on the table, vigorously grinding her pelvis back and forth. Dave couldn’t help but laugh at this horny little Chihuahua humping the table.

  ‘What are you doing?’ her male companion said, swaying side to side in a boozed up state. ‘You want him? Go for him.’ Spittle erupted from his mouth in his anger. He wobbled sideways and neared Dave. Dave could smell the guy’s rank beer breath and could see how shit-faced he was. He turned his back, ready to say ‘She’s all yours mate, I wouldn’t touch her if you paid me.’ Which was probably what that guy had done. The beer wasn’t going down too well, and Dave wasn’t up for venturing back inside the club after that little incident. Meanwhile other drunk men staggered down the rainy street and fell for the traps set by the bar girls. Some of them wore suits, businessmen out to get wasted before going back to their wives. By the time the girls finished with them, they’d be drunk beyond the hope of an erection and picked clean of cash.

  Witnessing the scene, Dave questioned whether he had done the right thing in coming to Hong Kong with no plan. He could feel loneliness and regret threatening to grip him. There was no one he could rely on here. He took out a cigarette, fumbled with it and helplessly watched it fall to the ground. Three cockroaches came rushing out from underneath the building and raced to it. Dave watched with horrified fascination as a battle raged over his cigarette. The strongest cockroach eventually won and dragged it back underneath the building for a feast. That’s it, he thought, I’ve had enough. The cockroaches summed up his experience in the red-light district of Lockhart Road. He put his half-full beer down and hailed a taxi.

  ‘Hey, don’t come back here again,’ the drunkard with the girl called out to him.

  ‘I’ll make sure of that,’ Dave replied over his shoulder. He felt insulted and would have thumped the guy had he stayed any longer.

  ‘To Wyndham Street, please,’ he told the driver. After that experience, he’d settle for a nice massage and just go back to his hotel.

  The rain was unrelenting. It hadn’t stopped since he’d arrived, and it was starting to make him feel miserable. Dave took the map out and stared at his next location as if something interesting would reveal itself. The hotel receptionist had told him it was nice there but what did ‘nice’ mean, coming from a local recommending places to a lone male tourist? Buildings became smaller and the streets neater the closer he got to Wyndham Street. Every little bit of real estate was occupied. Hong Kong is not for someone who favours wide-open or personal space, he thought to himself. Like tiny Lego blocks, apartment buildings were stacked on top of each other in an endless sprawl.

  When the taxi pulled over, Dave paid the fare and looked in both directions, unsure of which way to go. Since he was on a hill, he decided on a side street off Wyndham that led to a downward flight of stairs. At their terminus was the central part of the city, but the streets melted into each other and he couldn’t tell them apart amid an assortment of shops, commercial billboards, flashing neon signs, all sorts of restaurants and high-rise business buildings. Dave was surprised to see McDonald’s, Subway and virtually any other commercial business he was used to seeing back in Australia.

  Finally, among the maze of advertising signs that covered virtually entire buildings, Dave spotted a massage centre and followed the entrance sign downstairs. With a smile on his face, he went straight to the counter and greeted the receptionist.

  ‘Yes?’ the woman’s expression was one of surprise.

  ‘I’d like a massage,’ he said.

  ‘One moment,’ she replied before calling someone else. Another woman emerged from a room and spoke to her co-worker in Cantonese before addressing Dave.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said, her face showing utter indifference. She looked unimpressed with his presence and somewhat annoyed.

  ‘Yes. I’d like a massage. Do I need a reservation?’

  ‘One moment please. I check if free,’ she sighed and glanced at a computer monitor, then almost immediately turned back to him. ‘Not free tonight. Goodbye.’

  She couldn’t possibly have seen the screen at that angle. ‘Fine!’ Dave replied and stormed out. Obviously he wasn’t wanted there, but why the bullshit? He noticed what looked to be a sign indicating an all-female clientele on his way out. Suddenly he felt embarrassed. Maybe it was a mistake on his behalf, but it didn’t justify the treatment he got. Did they think he was just another pasty skinned white man looking for happy ending? Hong Kong managed to piss him off again, and it was doing it quite easily. He felt like going back into the massage place and giving them a lecture on manners. His hands were shaking with anger.

  ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ he mumbled to himself. Doubts entered his mind. Where was he going? Maybe Amy was right, and he should have stayed in Melbourne. Was he up for this stuff? Going off on his own in another country? He wasn’t a brave adventurer. Only with Julia did he feel he could do anything—she knew how to calm him. He realised that this culture clash was going to be hard for him to deal with on his own.

  The rain came down harder and the lack of cover meant he was constantly wet and clammy. He reached for his back pocket to check the map, but it wasn’t there—he must have dropped it. ‘Shit!’ He swore and looked around, realising how ridiculous the chances of finding it were. For a man with zero sense of direction in a strange city, it was almost impossible to find his way without a map. It was hard enough with one. His plan of taking it as it came was not going well. Now he was lost.

  Chapter 8

  No landmarks looked familiar, and Dave had no idea which way he’d come, so he walked in what felt like circles until his feet ached. In the end he was back where he started, up the stairs on Wyndham Street, wet and frustrated. Enough is enough, he decided. He searched for a place he could sit and relax. One more drink and a cigarette for the night, and back to the hotel room, he thought. A different species of human occupied this area: it was a well-dressed mixture of Europeans and locals. He stood out among the elegant women and suited men, not for being western but because of his shabby clothes.

  The venues were in modern decor and well stocked with expensive alcohol. This was clearly an upper-crust area catering to wealthy internationals. He decided to stop at a F
rench bistro. Four attractive women with American accents occupied two tables outside. It surprised him at how busy it was, since it was only a Wednesday night. He ordered a beer at the bar and wandered outside to light a cigarette. He took a menu in his hand and glanced over it. The young professionals were obviously higher income earners, going by the price-list.

  He posed nonchalantly and threw glances across the table. He tested the waters for a response, but the girls didn’t bite—they were involved enough in their own company. The casually dressed stranger who looked like he’d been sweating profusely wasn’t even noticed. He finally resigned himself to drinking on his own.

  At least he was undercover and drying up. His mind drifted to Julia. A smile formed on his face at the thought of her. She’d be with him if she were alive, right here having a laugh with him. He looked up at the sky and wondered if she were looking down. He tried to snap himself out of it. Thinking of Julia was trouble—once he’d start, the thoughts would go round in a circle, the same thing over and over. He made an effort to divert his attention to something else. A nice-looking guy was alone at a table nearby and Dave decided to give conversation another shot.

  ‘Does it ever stop raining here?’ Dave inquired.

  ‘It’s the monsoon season. Gets pretty soggy this time of the year,’ the man replied, affably enough.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to bother anyone much,’ Dave replied, relieved at not being snubbed, pointing at the crowded bars and restaurants across the street.

  ‘They’re used to it. That’s life here. When everyone’s wet, no one cares.’

  Detecting the man’s Australian accent, Dave ventured a guess. ‘Melbourne or Sydney?’ he asked.

  ‘Sydney. Yourself?’

  ‘Melbourne.’

  ‘Been here long?’

  ‘I got here a few hours ago. How about yourself?’

  ‘Ten minutes. Waiting for an order.’