by Vanya Vetto
You could also say that there's something not right about people who wink. I like to throw in a nudge too.
For the FBI to get involved, the case had to fall under a serial kill.
The build-up was profound.
The offending lady didn't even know she was in the same category as Ted Bundy and Jeffry Dahmer.
That's the beauty of being a serial killer, the ability to bury that evil cradling deep in the recesses of the brain.
But Mr. Davidson teased it out. He wasn't being clever about it.
Well he was.
He was also actually quite sympathetic. I'm sure he’s met a few unhinged people in his life, and not all of them were bad.
I'm now reading Mako by Clabe Taylor.
It's a referral from Mr. Davidson.
I really dig being referred books that reflect my outlook.
The stuff on Nicaragua and Ortega's Sandinistas is brilliant.
It reminded me of my time in Guatemala and being picked up by the President's son, hitchhiking in insurgent territory.
The President wasn't impressed that I was making international calls on his phone. And I wasn't impressed with his son for telling his father that.
The least he could do was say I was making a local call.
Did you know that Putin is cloning world leaders? Thought you didn't.
Did you know that Saddam Hussein was a double?
The real one was kidnapped and is in a little Siberian town in a lab funded by the KGB and operated by a brilliant but mad scientist.
And who funded the lab, that’s right, Putin. And who rigged the US elections, yep that’s right Putin.
It’s all in Mako.
The cloned Saddam was killed by the Americans.
I know, it sounds weird because it is.
I believe this shit. Or I want to believe it. And Mako Sloane was mates with Boris Yeltsin.
In fact they are family.
The CIA penetrated the Evil Empire though a Casanova.
The cloning theory has been around for ages, and a silly law not allowing stem cell research isn’t going to stop those with money to research it.
It seems more plausible than the one floating around that the US never landed on the moon. The jury is still out on that one. It's been over 45 years since the last manned mission out of sub orbit.
It's the Van Allen belt man, its gunna fry your brains.
The tattoo belonged to a Chinese man who ran a coffee shop around the corner.
His wife said her niece was studying and working in Australia.
I said Australia was good for foreigners. But not for old farts like myself. No one will employ me at my age and I'm not a good enough actor to get on the sickness benefit.
She looked at me, but there was no connection.
'Look at it this way,' I said, ' the Malays in Malaysia can't get work because the Chinese or Indians (sometimes) won't employ them. Also there's too many Indonesians, Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistanis who are taking most of the local jobs.'
But the Malays don't want to do the dirty work, I hear the argument.
And how convenient hay? Better to import labour and pay them peanuts. It's what they are doing in Australia with the students, who usually work for under award wages.
The coffee was great and I said I'd be back.
I really love these one way monologues.
The receptionist asked me casually if I’ve had a shower.
He said that Indonesians shower twice a day.
Fuck that, I said, the smellier the better. Besides, my shower is cold. I use a towel and wash myself that way. I have a sprayer I use after I take a shit.
I got it, he thought I smelt and needed a shower. Well as Wreck It Ralph would say, tough shit.
I have no idea what I'm doing here.
But since I'm here, I might as well explore.
I look at pictures of past travels and think, did I have the gumption to do that.
I even surprise myself sometimes.
With a little pat on the back, I put on my socks and walking shoes and started paving the pavement.
One step at a time. The neck isn't complying.
It wants more rest.
Two days of downloading porn from Pirate Bay worked, it kept me away from the Orient Hotel.
I'm ignoring messages from the Baron.
I just don't feel like shouting him and his two mates out on a night on Karaoke.
I learned my lesson last week in Bali.
Only one more tooth session.
The dentist is from Surabaya and a Christian.
She's done the root canal and will do an emergency patch up with a massive filling.
Aging, ain't it gentle and graceful?
Let me tell you about being locked in a toilet.
I banged before I even thought it through.
Actually, there wasn't much to think through.
I was locked in a dirty toilet and claustrophobia kicked it.
Reminded me of my days stuck in an elevator in Malaysia.
Breath deeply, in and out and sit down in a meditating position, if possible.
Luckily the Alpha Mart staff was waiting out the back for me to finish.
He thought I was probably going to put stock stored in the back in my bag.
It's one of those times when guilty until proven innocent that got me out of the toilet fast.
I don't know how it self-locked me in from the outside. I didn't like it, full stop.
It was the height of rudeness having a customer locked in the business's toilet.
None of this ever happens in the order that it happened, that would be just too anal for my liking.
I'm told to record sights sounds and smells.
If I had a machine that captured it, I would.
It's a writer's job to inform the reader what he wants to inform, and nothing else. Surely imagination counts for something -imagining you are there.
The soldiers were out in force tonight, guarding churches, random warungs and coffee shops.
I couldn't get to the bottom of it. I really couldn't.
I say hello Bapak or Bang, to the males, and hello Ibu to the women.
I'm a friendly guy.
I try to get my pitch in before the 'Hello Mister'.
They roll the Mister (the tongue on the top of the roof of the mouth when they really roll the 'r') , think Apa Kaber, and you get the picture.
I tried to tell the young soldiers, some resting their big guns on the ground, about how one soldier defeated 50 unruly teenagers on motorbikes at a sleepy seaside town in Lombok.
They gracefully smiled. I might as well have been speaking to myself.
A lone mosquito buzzes in my room.
It wants my blood. It only takes one, then if it's dengue, this bight could kill me.
I'm going to ask the hotel staff for the mosquito spray and put on some lotion guard I bought at the Alpha Mart the other day. I can't afford to get dengue again.
In some ways, I feel I've got it.
But the deterioration of my neck was from the massage guy the other day who was stretching me in places not natural for an ageing body.
I've avoided the massage guy. It's taken almost three days to wash off the oil he applied on me.
It's really not pleasant being covered in that shit.
The benefits of the massage are outweighed by the not so beneficial 'magic' oil that blocks every pore and makes sweating in the tropics ten times worse.
I have my theories on this one.
All I can do is walk and keep it steady.
I'm no spring chicken.
The toll of hard work, free and paid, is paying me back in the form of arthritis.
I feel a bulge on my back, is that cancer?
You feel around, exploring, there's another bulge.
It's more like knotted muscles.
Then I the I feel dead weight pulling my neck down.
Is that bone marrow cancer?
>
No, it's when you hit the deck twice at an airport in Bali, after a torrential downpour.
I didn't slip once, but twice.
That's when the neck started getting worse. It was duly noted.
You were drunk, bitch.
That too.
I'm not a quitter and managed to finish the night off at a local whore house.
There's no going back.
It's time to resist the ageing process with dignity and fight back.
'No, it's cholesterol.'
Glad it wasn't cancer then.
My massage guy says I should eat more bananas.
Hay, I might try him again, but without the oil.
If you can't rant on your blog, then where can you rant.
Heading back to base, I found an Aston Hotel down a road near my hotel.
It was a self-contained universe of luxury and decadence that somehow landed down a side street, surrounded by cheap warungs and coffee shops.
Then the road dead-ended.
It was a choice of luxury or returning back to the main street. I chose the later.
'Have women,' says a man, waiting in the shadows.
Where?
In the pub, he said.
Of course the Aston has a pub. And a karaoke joint and a Bar & Grill.
Mmmm, I still have some homework to do.
I found a street stall with low slung plastic chairs.
Above me was a large billboard.
I took out my camera and snapped lights.
The coffee kicked ass.
The aunties not only served coffee but they chatted with the guests.
They had passed their Karaoke days about a decade ago and made their living selling honest and strong coffee.
I got my camera back from the computer shop.
The shutter still drops into the picture, but they didn't charge me for servicing it.
But the shutter does completely shut when I turn the little Samsung beast off.
Less dust on the lens, better pictures, right!
I also got my Samsung tablet back, a piece of shit I bought in Malaysia.
They can't change the battery without the risk of breaking the screen.
I sat on my glasses and broke an arm.
The Muslim technician repaired it for me.
How much?
It's free. I only want to help you.
What another amazing day in Borneo.
I then took a shit. It stunk.
And I farted while taking it.
But I didn't eat it.
That's sight sound and taste sorted out for you sticklers for local color which for the most part, I refuse to provide.
The young pimply faced and four eyed Chinese guy who sold deep fried bananas in a sweet batter spoke English too well.
I'll have four pieces of deep fried banana, please.
It's two thousand a piece he said.
Then I'll have four, please.
He's number crunching.
He's pissed off when I hand him a ten thousand Rupiah note.
It's three thousand a piece, he says.
I'll take three then, and if it's good I'll come back for me.
He hands me back a one thousand Rupiah coin.
They were good.
My keyboard is sticky with oil.
And I haven't even got onto the porn yet.
Dear fucking diary, the coffee is kicking in and today I meet my last session with the dentist.
She's a butcher.
She doesn't tolerate crybabies like myself.
She's a tolerant little bitch.
She wants my money and she'll take it.
I'm behind the eight ball. What can I fucking do?
My pain threshold is low.
And she's exploiting that.
I had no idea I needed two root canals.
There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
This little whore of the tooth fairy wasn't going to lower her price.
She wouldn't budge a fucking inch.
My Chinese friend who runs the computer shop said to flash his card and I'd get a discount.
But I'm not even getting one fucking percent discount.
She's ruthless and thorough.
She hates looking down the barrel of the mouth.
She'll get in and get out, if there's pain in between, then you fucking deserve it.
The coffee is slowly kicking in.
I'm sure everyone thinks I'm a retard.
How could I be a threat to national security acting the way I do?
Neat hay?
Mr. Aryff was looking sad and forlorn.
Instead of going up to the third floor for my free breakfast and coffee and cigarette session before taking the daily crap, I sat in the lobby and tried to hide my feeling of guilt.
I promised him the world and only used him once.
Surely if he doesn't cover me in oil, this could work out.
'High in cholesterol,' he says,' avoid chicken, pork and only eat bananas.'
That should fix my dodgy neck up, I think just as salesman walks past us and goes up to reception.
When he comes back to take a seat next to us, Aryff makes an observation.
'Your fly is undone.'
That was the point of conversation for the next ten minutes. I couldn't stop laughing.
I shouldn't be laughing at this shit.
The coffee hasn't even kicked in and this has become a 'hot' topic and is trending in my part of the world.
'Don't worry,' I say, to the salesman who is a Christian from Bandung who goes by the biblical name Jonathan, ’the hot chicks will get turned on by it.'
Jonathan says the gospel singer, Guy Sebastian, from Oz, is a really good singer.
I said watch out for those preachers from Australia who flog off holy water.
'They are only here to fuck your hot Christian women.'
It's true, I say, after looks of what the fuck is this guy on.
I've seen the girl's saliva glands work over-time as a well dressed Australian evangelist with blond hair and a bronze tan told the auditorium of a thousand horny Indonesian Christians that 'his' holy water was blessed by God.
They sold like hot pancakes and I'm sure it was laced by the devil.
This Christian woman I picked up the 'Meet Jesus' fest fucked for hours under a few drops of it and was talking in tongues.
Sometimes I really do like my fellow Australians.
The massage went very well. I only got briefly oiled up in the hotel foyer.
Two boisterous elderly Chinese check-in.
One is laughing his guts out.
I've got to meet him.
His friend, a slim man with dyed black hair and a great set of falsies, says he's 71.
'I was born in 1971.'
Man, his maths sucks more than mine.
'I know,' he says, 'but it was actually 1941.'
He almost tapped dance up to the second floor and on the way up, I poked my head in his room and spoke some choice Chinese phrases.
I love you, was one of them.
He and his other jolly geriatric friend laughed in chorus.
I love representing my country.
I'm under no illusion who we are, and nor were they, another fucked up Ozzie who washed up on their shores.
And I wasn't even onto my second coffee.
The guy with the tattoo of a Chinese shrine on his calf knows his coffee. I don't have the heart to ask if he's spiked it.
I'm coming back for more, I suppose that's all that matters.
My massage guy fucks off with Jonathan the Christian who sells school bags.
Perhaps he's making sure his fly doesn't come undone.
I still have to pay Ayrff.
He's a very good man.
The second day I received 13 calls from him asking if I want a massage.
I'm clued in and now leave my phone off.
The trip to the dentist was as usual very eventfu
l.
A got in ratty and tatty clothes came up to me while I was having a smoke outside the clinic and invited me to stay in his villa. He had a nice watch and a big ring. He was going to show me around town.
An hour later, the dentist did her bit to my foul mouth.
It's been patched up, the cavities are at bay, and Ibraham arrived just after my session and translated for me.
Apparently, one tooth needs more work.
That was news to me. And it would take two more sessions.
So while he was translating, I asked him what would the ballpark figure be.
From being the idiot who spoke no Indonesian, I was now empowered.
It must have shocked the dentist when I even tried to bargain down her prices.
I paid up, with half a new tooth covering what was a large gaping hole.
That tooth just cracked two months ago.
The Malaysian dentist in Taiping had patched it up, and it was a thorn in my side ever since.
It just broke after too many flosses.
This lady is a perfectionist. She might be gruff but boy her handiwork is immaculate.
The old bag man outside was now inside.
He wanted to go with me somewhere.
Talk about aggressive social behaviour.
Then he started muttering cash as I walked back to my old beat.
He wasn't going to leave my side.
I told him I had another appointment and didn't want to see his villa.
He didn't care, he wanted my hard earned cash.
He had laid the groundwork.
I was just about to destroy by backtracking after a quick U-turn.
Man, I can walk briskly when I have to.
I left him for dead and found a cafe.
Auntie, who had a stroke, walked past the coffee shop.
I called her over and gave a donation.
I was with three locals who were taking selfies with me.
I've given up saying no. I'm getting into the spirit of it.
I'm at another cafe.
And three hot girls came up to me wanting selfies.
My tooth is feeling fine and my smile is a million dollars, according to these female locals who want a picture taken with me.
I'm also taking pictures of them.
So much for being anonymous.
I'm just going to go with the flow and let these lovely locals take pictures of me.
They can post them on Fuck book, Instagram or even twitter.
One of the staff at the hotel was taking a video of me on the sly.